Melissa Parish

A heart-wrenching new novel from best-selling author Rebecca Yarros that examines the risks we take for love, the scars too deep to heal, and the endings we can't bring ourselves to see coming.

I'm a dangerous man. A man who has spent the last two decades removing so many souls from this earth that it's a miracle my hands aren't permanently stained red. I'm a man who belongs in the shadows. I certainly don't belong in my pretty little neighbor's bedroom when she's not home, touching her things and inhaling her scent. I shouldn't follow her. Shouldn't watch her. No number of cookies on my doorstep will change the fact that love isn't an option for me. The only option left for me is violence.

Every girl has dreams of meeting Prince Charming, or at least I know I did. A fairy-tale-like meeting of love at first sight. Real life and fairy tales are very different. I'm just a small-town Indiana girl who had a chance encounter with one of Hollywood's golden boys. You may think you know where this story goes - not even close. Life is different. Marriage is hard. It's even worse when you're strangers.

One week with one little girl—an angel, according to my staffing agency. Acting as the short-term nanny for a single dad should have been an easy way to make some extra cash. Until I show up for my first day and face off with a demon disguised as a seven-year-old girl wearing a red tutu and matching glitter slippers. Oh, and her father? My temporary boss? Maddox Holiday. The same Maddox Holiday I crushed on in high school. The same Maddox Holiday who didn’t even know I existed.

It was just a typical Monday. Until the big boss asked me to make the pitch for a prospective new client. After two years on shaky ground at work because of my screw up, an opportunity to impress the senior partners was just what I needed. Or so I thought, until I walked into the conference room and collided with the man I was supposed to pitch to. My coffee spilled, my files tumbled to the ground, and I almost lost my balance. And that was the good part of my day. Because the gorgeous man who crouched down and looked at me like he wanted to eat me alive was none other than my ex.

Taylor is looking for peace and quiet away from the memories of all she's lost. A small mountain town where no one knows her seems like the perfect escape. Walker loves his life—his town, his family, his brothers in blue. When Taylor's solitude is interrupted by the rugged cop, they find that the very thing they were avoiding might be just what they both need. As their iron wills clash and passion flares . . . a killer lurks.

Solitude. That is all Leslie wants out of life with the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs, and her dog, Flamingo. Okay, and her best friends David and Molli. Oh, and the animal shelter but everything else doesn’t matter. That is all she needed to be happy in life. She doesn’t need a sexually-empowered man that makes her body frenzied and mind cloud with lust, no matter how bad she craves it. Until Kane Bridgeshaw comes into the picture, tattooed with raw sex-appeal, money, and he isn’t afraid to use it, if it means getting everything he wants-including Leslie.

They thought she was unsuitable as a bride because she was mute. I thought that made her perfect. Silent. Invisible. I could pretend she didn’t even exist.

When I started working at Salacious Players’ Club, I never expected to end up on the auction block ready to grant a date to the highest bidder. This club is not really my scene. I’m not the kind of girl rich guys take home. I’m more a piano playing, van-living, free spirit kind of girl.

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.