𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚 | 𝐌𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐇𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 When Mara Santiago is laid off from work and dumped by her boyfriend, she moves in with her parents. Struggling to find another job as a ballerina, she begins go-go dancing at Penthouse---a high-end nightclub in San Francisco where her brother Lucas bartends. He warns that underneath the glitz and glam is a dangerous world she should stay away from, but Penthouse pays well, and Mara is determined to get back on her feet. One night, an older gentleman tips her handsomely. At first, it seems like a one-time thing, but his generous tips continue. Curious, she asks him why. After all, she's a go-go dancer, not a stripper. He confesses he wanted to do something kind. However, it's not the only reason. Enzo Esposito is looking for a "companion." If Mara agrees to accompany him to important work events and dinners, he'll pay her a thousand dollars each time: no strings attached or hanky panky. The offer is too tempting. So, Mara agrees. But nothing is ever that simple---especially regarding to whom she entrusts her heart. Not when a murderer is on the loose with sights possibly set on her. 𝙊𝙉𝘾 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙨 #69, #46 𝙖𝙣𝙙 #33

When Bryony -- herbalist extraordinaire -- goes missing, Bella knows one suspect stands above the rest. The village's aspiring second witch, Daphne, comes from a family that's tried to take Bryony down before, and Daphne seems determined to carry on that legacy. For someone who's always been terrified of Bryony, she's a little too keen on looking into the disappearance. There's just one problem. Bella's insufferable fellow familiar thinks the kid is innocent... and he's been right about worse things before. If Daphne herself is to be believed, clues on the disappearance lead a whole lot closer to home than Bella would like. As the evidence mounts, Bella must choose to either stand by her values and the woman who raised her, or seek what might be a truth she would rather not uncover. Prompt #81: The town's witch has gone missing and no one is looking for her but her two familiars - a crow and a black cat, plus the teen who has always been scared of her. ❖❖❖ Written for Wattpad's 2024 Open Novella Contest. Longlister. Complete. Comments and critiques are both welcome and appreciated. I write characters from many different backgrounds, with many different experiences. If you share those traits and find that I have misrepresented anything, please let me know! I am feedback-friendly and here to learn :)

When Jennisa delivers a spaceship database to a suspicious group, she covertly takes a copy of the group's files when she helps them connect it. She gets far more than she bargained for when the young spaceship AI figures out how to use her Bluetooth implant to communicate with her. To further complicate matters, the AI wants nothing to do with the suspicious group and finds her work absolutely fascinating. And the group isn't happy about that... Standalone novella. Spinoff of A Starship Called Starsong. ONC prompt #82: You wake up on a seemingly ordinary day to discover that your thoughts are not private. There is someone else in your head with you. A huge thank you to WingedAlpha for helping me with my cover background, and SayWatt74 for the cover font and alterations!

Time heals all wounds. When you have the power to rewind it, you begin to wonder whether it's too much responsibility for one person to hold. ***** Sometimes, walking away is the scariest, yet the bravest thing one can do. Iris Fox would know; after returning to the coastal town of Emelle Bay, Oregon, and finding her life in shambles, it's hard to ignore the voice in the back of her head that beckons her to stay. Days turn into weeks, which turn into months, and Iris finds herself drawn to the heartbreaking reminders of how it all went wrong. Echoes of unfinished business and painful memories wash up, awakening the dormant power to rewind time, and Iris realizes she has a choice to make--she can either use her power to try and fix what has been stolen from her, rewriting her past, present, and future, or she can tuck the past where it belongs. Either way, there's only one conclusion. All actions have consequences. ***** Open Novella Contest -- prompts 24, 33, & 54 [[OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2024 ROUND 1 AMBASSADORS' PICK, LONGLISTER & SHORTLISTER]] © 2024 caterina george // all rights reserved

[On Hold] Ever since a string of bad boyfriends left Leigh cynical and dark, she kept her heart closed off. With the help of some dark magic, she sarcastically wishes for a devil to dance with at her cousin's wedding, but her worst nightmare shows up instead. Charlie, a cheerful but reckless army playboy, had always been relegated to the friend zone by the one girl he wanted the most, and now he's attending her wedding to his best friend. He wishes on a star to find an angel to marry one day but locks eyes with a tempting dark beauty instead, the cousin of the bride. He gets her number, but after an amusing text conversation goes wrong, she blocks him. Undeterred, he sets his sights on her and pursues Leigh across boarders from the US to Canada and in the most unconventional ways, which simultaneously intrigues and irritates her. Though the chemistry between them is undeniable, and Charlie is handsome, charming, and fun, what will it take to prove that her dare devil may actually care?

UPDATES ON-HOLD UNTIL JUNE/JULY 2025 ❝𝑾𝒉𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒎𝒚 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖?❞ Asael didn't want to marry, let alone be forced into it by his parents, with a woman he didn't know. But to avoid any conflict and continue being the good son in their eyes, he gave in and set up a prayer of adoration to ask for God's blessing on his future. Only for the devil to show up unprompted, irritated, and demanding to be returned to hell. But after pressing close together to hide the supernatural from another human, neither of them could deny the spark that flickered between them under the sheets in the dark of Asael's room. Finding himself stuck with potentially ruining everything between him and his family and the temptation to side with the devil, he might just give in to the latter. After all, with him, there was truth and freedom--the freedom to carve his own future, the freedom to carve a story to be told without any underlying fantasy. Or was there? Sometimes, even with the intrusion of the supernatural, destiny finds a way to emerge as the true story. - NO LONGER FOR ONC Used prompts #88 and some more from the @OpenNovellaContest #ONC2024 Read the first part for information about this and other stuff! UNEDITED | FIRST DRAFT First part posted on Wattpad: 02 | 06 | 24 First chapter posted on Wattpad: 02 | 12 | 24 Last chapter posted on Wattpad: 00 | - | 25 Wordcount per chapter: 1700 ~ 3100 Overall word count: ~ starisredy © All rights reserved Only on W a t t p a d. beaut cover designed by @-DeeIsDead- Featured: @FreeTheLGBT - "ONC2024 #FreeTheLGBT" reading list (march 2024) Highest Rankings: #532 in Paranormal #65 in -romance #576 in dark romance #724 in gay romance #293 in devil #860 in new adult #49 in angels and demons #3 in angel of darkness

In a twisted game of truth and lies, Yuki Kobayashi schemes to win the heart of her academic rival, Rhett Tudor, and the college scholarship with it. But if he sees through her deception, it's game over. *** Yuki Kobayashi is the pretty, popular girl at school who's always one wrong move away from having her crystal castle in the sky come crashing down. If her wealthy classmates find out that her parents died bankrupt, Yuki's reputation at Zenith High will be shredded to tatters. With lies as her foundation, Yuki is determined to make it through the next three years with her past safely buried and her future secure. When Era Wang, the queen of Zenith, offers a college scholarship and the coveted presidency of her club as the prizes for winning a simple game, it's an opportunity Yuki can't refuse. But sparks fly when Rhett Tudor, her childhood friend turned enemy threatens to defeat her in the game and expose her web of lies. As the lines between truth and fiction blur and the distance closes between her and Rhett, Yuki must decide whether the end justifies the means, even if she'll lose her only true friend and his trust again--this time forever. ✧ Rivals to Lovers ✧ Academia ✧ GrumpyxSunshine ✧ For fans of K-Dramas like Doona! or highschool anime such as Kaguya-Sama: Love is War. ─────────────────────────────────── Ongoing Word Count: 25.1k

[ONC Longlist 2024 | A Medusa Retelling.] Sydney 2112. Young men are disappearing without a trace. On the other side of town, an up-and-coming sculptor's works eerily resemble the missing men. Can the Inspector solve the riddle before her son joins the collection? *** Keya Sapkota needs to create artworks for her first sculpture exhibition at the prestigious Museum of Contemporary Arts, but a recent date-gone-wrong has left her a mess. She has no memory of what happened, but a feeling that something horrible transpired that left her with broken lips and bruised body. Keya hides in her loft, chipping away at her marble columns on autopilot. The more she chisels the more lifelike her statues become, ones she can't remember carving, but does she care? She needs exhibits for her show and the strange figures may as well be her pieces. The new Stone2Stone sculpture exhibition at the MCA catches the eye of Inspector Reina, who is desperately searching for her son who disappeared from a nightclub on his twenty-first birthday. Reina can't put her finger on it, but the sculptor, Keya, seems strange. Then there's the eerie marble statues that share their likeness with young men who have recently disappeared. Inspector Reina is determined to find answers before her son's sculpture turns up in the artist's collection. --- ONC Prompts: 60. "Look what you made me do." -Tayler Swift 3. Your greatest fear is monsters in the dark. The last thing you expect is to become the Monster in the dark. 5. Horror is in the eye of the beholder. 95. "I will become as monstrous as I must." Features: - @paranormal - Investigations & Academies (Sept 2024) - @action - Thriller (Aug 2024) - @APIFantasy - API Fantasy & Science-Fiction Entries (March, 2024) Trigger warning: Slight depictions of SA. Please read at your own discretion. [Strictly no copy, translation or adapting of this story in part or whole is permitted without the author's permission.]

[ONC '24 SHORTLISTER] When a group of assassins is onto her irritating escort, a happy-go-lucky bodyguard must ensure they survive their trip before his escort's past demons catch up to them. * * * No one expected easygoing Aspen Mendoza to be accepted into Interpol as a field agent, but she couldn't be any more excited to finally land her dream job. Her first assignment? Escort Lucas Tan, a public figure with an enigmatic past and an attitude to match, to Davao City aboard a new train system connecting every major island in the Philippines. When their five-day journey is disrupted by the poisoning of one of its passengers, it's up to Aspen and Lucas to catch the culprit before anyone else gets hurt. But little does Aspen know, Lucas is keeping a secret that threatens the lives of every passenger on the train, and she must figure it out before his past demons catch up to them. * * * | 20,000 - 25,000 words. First, rough draft. | Based on ONC 2024 prompts 28 and 60. Cover by @sardonictabby.

A woman cursed with immortality navigates a post-apocalyptic world in order to hunt down the god that cursed her...and kill him. (full blurb inside) Written for ONC 2024 | Prompt 63. In a world of curses and gifts, you find yourself cursed with immortality - in the apocalypse. | First Draft