Best Modern Novels

For three years, I played the perfect, submissive housewife to billionaire Julian Harrison. But right after an intimate night together, he coldly threw a divorce agreement onto the bed. "Scarlett landed an hour ago. I need my single status restored to welcome her back." That same night, I ended up in the emergency room and discovered I was pregnant with twins. When Julian found out, he didn't show a shred of joy. Instead, he stormed into my hospital room, threw a blank check directly at my face, and ordered me to get rid of them. He accused me of using the babies as a sick game to trap his assets. Then, his ruthless lawyer kicked me out of our penthouse, confiscating the jewelry he gifted me and tossing my worn-out notebook onto the floor like garbage. Standing in the freezing rain, my heart completely died. I had swallowed my pride, managed his life, and cooked his meals to his exact standards for three years, only to be thrown away the second his first love returned. But he didn't know that the notebook his lawyer discarded contained the secret formulas of Aura Beauty, a billion-dollar empire I built in the shadows. I tore his check into pieces, blocked his number, and left in a Maybach sent by my associate. Logging into my global CEO database, I looked at his company's fragile stock chart with a predatory smile. The docile Mrs. Harrison died in the rain. It was time to crush his empire.

Elia was an orphan from the rust belt, taken in by the wealthy Chapman family in New York. To them, she was just a shameful charity case. The parents shoved her into a dusty storage closet, treating their other daughter Geri like a delicate princess, and mocked Elia as uneducated trash. When Elia secured her own admission to Manhattan Elite Prep, Geri's jealousy turned vicious. Geri orchestrated a massive smear campaign, posting anonymously on the school forum that Elia was a violent dropout who sold her body to a sugar daddy to pay tuition. In the cafeteria, the school's elite dumped dirty milk on Elia's food. They called her a whore and told her to go back to the streets, while Geri watched from afar with a victorious, innocent smile. They thought she was just a helpless stray dog who would easily break under their high-society cruelty. They had no idea she was actually "L", the dark web's most feared hacker, and "The Surgeon", a genius medical anomaly. They also didn't know she was currently tracking a dying Wall Street billionaire who had stolen her only necklace in a dark alley. What made these arrogant rich kids think they could destroy a girl who played with international firewalls for fun? Instead of crying, Elia calmly pulled out her phone. Within seconds, she breached the school's server, locking every screen in the building onto a blood-red skull. As Geri's own recorded voice plotting the fake rumors blasted through the PA system, Elia grabbed her bag, stepping back into the shadows to reclaim what was hers.

I was the top commander of a black-ops military program. After slaughtering my way through a hellish mission, I reached the extraction helicopter, trusting my second-in-command to watch my back. But the moment our hands locked, he didn't pull me up. Instead, he plunged a syringe of lethal neurotoxin directly into my neck. He aimed his gun at my chest, coldly stating that I was too dangerous to live. My lungs stopped, and I died in a pool of my own blood. But the endless blackness suddenly shattered. My consciousness violently forced its way into a new, broken shell. I woke up in a freezing alley, soaked in muddy rain. This body belonged to seventeen-year-old Eliza Wyatt. A massive wave of foreign memories crashed into my brain. Her own younger sister had just stood at the top of the stairs with a mocking smile, watching street thugs beat Eliza to death. "Take good care of the Wyatt family's eldest daughter. Tonight is the night she finally disappears." The endless humiliation, the cold stares of her family, and the brutal betrayal by her own blood flashed before my eyes. Why was this fragile girl treated like garbage and pushed to her death by the very people who should have protected her? I looked down at my pale, trembling hands. The top commander was dead, but in this bleeding shell, Eliza Wyatt was very much alive. I picked up a switchblade from the bloody puddle and stood up in the storm. It was time to hunt.

I spent the night with a stranger... Who got me pregnant... And turned out to be my boss... Whoops, sorry, did I say "boss"? I meant a MOB boss. To be fair, I didn't know he was my boss when I slept with him. I thought he was just the kind stranger offering me a place to stay. But one night in Misha Orlov's hotel room got me way more than I bargained for. It got me champagne that tasted like starlight. Satin sheets as soft as a dream. And a man with silver eyes who showed me how it felt to come undone. And then, in the morning... He was gone. That's I needed to get my life together anyway. After all, my ex-not-quite-husband (it's a long story) just emptied all our bank accounts and disappeared, taking my home and my money and my job with him. So I'm starting from a blank slate. I find myself a new apartment. A new job. And I put both Misha and my husband behind me. At least, I thought I did. Until Day 1 of orientation. When I learn that Misha Orlov is my new boss. That's bad enough. What's worse is what came next. A car crash. A doctor's appointment. And two pieces of unsettling news. Congratulations, the doctor says. You're pregnant. Congratulations, Misha says. You and I are getting married.

One wardrobe malfunction. Two people who don't belong together. Three awful "Be my wife." Everyone else is at this party to marry the host. I'm only here until I can get a ride home. When my dress rips in the world's worst-timed wardrobe malfunction, I go find somewhere quiet to fix it. So I'm standing there in nothing but my heels when, As my luck would have it, the door opens... And the man of the hour walks in. I wish I could say I played it cool. But it's been a looong time since anyone has seen me in my birthday suit... Much less the hottest man I've ever laid eyes on. All I want to do is fix my dress, click my heels three times, and be back on my couch in fuzzy slippers. But Ivan has other ideas. He's decided who he's taking to the altar... And I don't have a choice but to say "I do."

Five years ago, I faked my death in a yacht explosion just to escape my ruthless, controlling husband, Gerald Sinclair. Now, I have returned to Boston as the new Dean of Medicine at St. Jude Hospital. My only goal was to secretly check on my seven-year-old daughter, Cassidy. But what I saw shattered my heart. She was locked inside a heavily guarded VIP suite like a prisoner, so psychologically broken that she was standing on a windowsill, ready to jump. Gerald's armed security team treated the hospital like a military base, forcing her to swallow heavy psychiatric pills. When she managed to escape through the air ducts and collapsed into my arms in the courtyard, her small, feverish body trembled violently. "No! I don't want to go back to the white room!" She begged me, crying in terror. But because my identity was a secret, I could only watch helplessly as Gerald's security chief tore my own child from my embrace and locked her back in the cage. I didn't understand why Gerald would rather destroy our daughter's mind than let us go. Was his twisted obsession and need for control worth driving his own flesh and blood to the brink of death? Now, my cover is blown. Gerald just received the message that I am alive, and he is flying back in a blind rage, freezing my accounts and locking down the entire city to trap me. But he forgot one thing. I am no longer the helpless wife he backed into a corner. This time, I am taking my daughter back.