I see her differently now: my friend, Michelle Douglas. It's the summer of 1994, where the love of the '80s still holds on for dear life. She's wearing a black ACDC shirt that hangs over the shoulder, and she is hanging out with a group of friends. I don't know what it is about her right now, but in this moment, everything has changed for me. Everything about her calls out to me. I think it always has. It always will. Her love isn't easy to get, but I'm determined to get it. There's one problem. She's promised to another.

Eight years.... That's how long it's been since my brother's been gone, and not a day goes by that it doesn't kill me, knowing that I'll never see Adric again. It's been a rough journey, one I've barely survived, but with the help of my childhood friend Kade Haze, I'm finally learning to piece what remains back together. Or so I thought.... Just when life is beginning to make sense again and a feeling of normalcy is on the horizon, my carefully constructed walls come crashing down.

Life's been hard for Zeke. Being a punching bag for his alcoholic father has turned him into stone. Not even the dodgy trailer park he lives in can scare him. Fighting is his release and sex, drugs, and his guitar bring him peace, but deep down Zeke isn't quite as hard as he makes himself out to be. When he meets Patience, she finds all his broken pieces and puts him back together. She's a ray of light in his shadowed life and the last thing he wants to do is bring her into his dark world.

When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear, hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defense and punches her ex to the ground.

After enduring years of manipulation and an immeasurable amount of loss, Charlotte Kelly makes one last-ditch effort to change her life and try to find happiness again. She knows she'll see him when she moves back to Wisconsin. She's planning on it; the connection she still feels to him after all these years is undeniable. But one lie tore them apart years ago, and she's afraid some mistakes can't be forgiven.

I always remember Scarlett as the one-night-stand who got away from me. I fell in love; she took off. It feels like a lifetime ago now, though. I traded in my guitar for a needle, working at St. Skin, bringing other people's stories to life through tattoos. Though I still think about her, I know I'll never see her again. But I never knew that after she left our one night, she left pregnant.

I live for the pain; it's what drives me to keep moving. I thought I was ready to finally live. Until...my brother, Alex; he throws me into the fire - right into the place I could never control myself, the one place I never want to be again. When I put my hands on people, they get hurt. Things happen that bring me back to that night. The one that will forever torment me. I'm doing fine, keeping to myself in order to ensure no one gets hurt by me. Then along comes Lyric, and all I want to do is touch her, to put my hands in places that I know will only lead to her being crushed by me.

I didn't think answering someone else's cell phone would change my life. But the stranger with the low, deep voice on the other end of the line tempted me, awakened my body, set me on fire. He was looking for someone else. Instead he found me. And I found a hot, secret world where I felt alive for the first time.

They call me Rage. My real name is like a shadow, always close behind but never quite able to catch up. I fly under the radar because no one ever suspects I'm capable of the kind of brutal violence I commit each and every day. You see, I'm a girl. I'm 19. And I'm a killer. This life is all I know. It's all I want to know. It keeps the things buried that I need kept buried. It allows me to live without thinking too much. Without dwelling on the past. Until him. It all changes when an ordinary boy becomes my next target. And my first love.

Hawken Trent. So polite. So sweet. Such an upstanding young man. A virgin, too, I hear. He never gets naughty with a girl. Probably because Jesus told him not to. And now here he is, trying to be the hero by protecting another girl from me. He calls me a bully. Irrational. Unreasonable. A criminal. He can call me anything he wants, I’ve heard worse. And he can try to stand between me and my money, but he’s never had to fight for food. That rich, clean, school boy doesn’t have what it takes

Growing up, I was the youngest member of my family. Sheltered and protected by my older brother and his friends. Always on the outside looking in. College was supposed to be my chance for a fresh start. My opportunity to figure out who I am and what I want. I thought I knew what I wanted until he charged back into my life and changed the game. Cooper Sinclair was my brother’s best friend long before he became my stepbrother. A navy SEAL who’s owned my heart since the day we met. Loving him was easy. But time was never on our side, and stolen moments only last so long.

When an illegal underground fight leaves my brother in the hospital, I make a desperate deal to save his life: I volunteer to fight in his place. In 30 days, I've got to walk into the ring, a woman in a man's world - and I've never even thrown a punch. I have one chance to survive. I need a badass who can teach me to be as tough as him. I need Aedan O'Harra, the blue-eyed, Irish beast of a man whom everyone fears. But training together means getting close. Every touch of his hands makes it harder to control my feelings.

One day you held my hand. One day you loved me. Then you were gone. At sixteen, I lost the only love I'd ever known. Thrown back into the foster system, pregnant and alone, I prayed that you'd come for me and save me from life's cruelties. Only the next time I saw you, it was too late.

Owen Harper was trouble; his heart wild, and his past was the kind that's spoken about in whispers. And somehow, his path was always intertwined with Kensington's, every interaction crushing her, ruining her hope for any future better than her now. Sometimes, though, what everyone warns is trouble, is exactly what the heart needs.

When I left for college, I put 1,000 miles between my future and my past. I'd made a choice - I was going to cross back to the other side, to live with the living. I just didn't know how. And then I met Nate Preeter. An All-American baseball player, Nate wasn't supposed to notice a ghost-of-a-girl like me. But he did. He shouldn't want to know my name. But he did. And when he learned my secret and saw the scars it left behind, he was supposed to run. But he didn't.