Stolen from the world, kept locked away in a tiny room for two whole years, I was shown the truth. I’m just a pawn.

Two years I spend watching through the lens of a TV as the world moves on. My dad finally gets what he always wanted: the mayor’s seat while everyone assumes the worst for me… but my kidnapper never lays a hand on me. He only helps open my eyes.

And then, one day, I escape.

But the life I return to isn’t the same. Along with his new responsibilities, my dad also has a new wife. I don’t belong anymore.

When a local crime queen named Lola thinks I might be connected to a different kidnapping, she gives me a bodyguard, Mike, to keep me safe in case my kidnapper tries to take me a second time. Big as a mountain, hardly ever speaking a word; I’d be lying if I say I’m not intrigued by him.

And then there’s Kieran, the bodyguard my dad puts on me. He’s my step-uncle now, and he’s just as infuriating as I remember—only now he acts a bit too protective over me. Jealous, some might even say.

That says nothing about Fang, a mysterious enigma with sharp silver for canines he’s all too willing to use on me. He makes it clear he wants more than a bite.

My name is Laina Hawkins, and I’m not the same girl I used to be. My kidnapper showed me the truth: only the power-hungry make a name for themselves in a city like this. It’s time I come into my own and show the world I’m more than a piece of eye candy.

* Eye Candy is the first book in A Bitter Pill, a why choose/RH trilogy that follows the events in the sixth book in the A Death so Sweet series.

Slay bells ring… are you listening?

Holly

When I was ten, my love for Christmas came to a bloody end the night an assassin ruined my life by killing my parents. For thirteen years, his face and those blue eyes burned in my mind.

Now I’m ready to get my slay on. The man who took everything from me won’t live to see another Christmas.

But he’s not who I remember. He’s broken, like me, and something indescribable pulls us together with a force so strong fighting it might be impossible.

Kane

This holiday the sins of the past become too much to bear. After a life full of killing, I’m done, so I rent a cabin in the middle of nowhere to check out of life in peace. The last thing I expect is an intrusion in the form of a woman whose green eyes immediately throw me back in time.

It’s her, the kid from the closet all grown up. She found me, and she’s here for justicethe cold, hard kind. I’m insulted she believes she can take a seasoned killer like me down. If she thinks I’ll be an easy target, she’s wrong.

Turns out, I’m not the only one with a target on my back. Holly comes with hitmen in tow, and suddenly keeping her safe becomes my problem. But the hardest part, I soon find out, is trying to keep my hands off her.

A girl who doesn't want to save the world.

Rey never wanted to be a hero, but she can only refuse the call so much before it drags her into the fray, kicking and screaming. She's the only hope for Laconia, and without her, its remaining people will fall—including Frederick, the man who puts more faith in her than he should.

She's not a hero. She's just a college student in way over her head.

An indescribable evil so powerful no past empress could defeat him.

Invictis is the undefeated, the inevitable. He is not a person but a weapon whose only purpose is to destroy Laconia. Now that he is whole once again, he can finish what he began twenty years ago.

Only things are different. Rey is different, and her journey will take her back through the realms of Laconia as she searches for the truth.

A predetermined bond neither of them can break.

Invictis haunts her dreams, her memories, turning his wrathful ire upon her instead of Laconia with an almost obsessive need to see her fall. As he hunts her across the land, she discovers there's so much more to the story than she knew. This fight is as old as Laconia itself.

A down on her luck college student.

All her life, Rey has had no one to depend on but herself, a lesson she learned when her dad died years ago and left her in the system. Now a college student, she's trying to make something of herself, but her life starts to crumble around her. The very night she loses everything, she's drawn to a strange crystal, and when she picks it up everything around her changes.

A twist of fate that brings her to a new world.

Rey wakes in a land called Laconia, with a living tattoo on her hand that glows when its snarky voice speaks. He doesn't remember his name, but he tells her they're now bonded, and in order to get back home—so she can have a chance at fixing her life—they'll need to work together.

An ancient evil waiting for her in the shadows.

But Laconia is full of vast emptiness and death. Dangerous plagues ravage the land. It's no place for someone like Rey. Only by working together with Rune does she have any hope of surviving.

It's not long before Rey learns Laconia was ruled by three empresses. Worshipped as gods, the empresses that should have given their lives to protect Laconia have not been seen in years. With Rune's magic mistaken as her own, she's forced to take a stand.

As Rey wrestles with her newfound responsibility, an evil being watches her from the shadows, biding its time… an evil that will stop at nothing from destroying what's left of Laconia, including Rey.