With nowhere else to go, you’re forced to move in with the older brother who disappeared from your life two years ago — and into the dangerous world he built without you. What was supposed to be temporary quickly turns complicated when living under his protection means sharing space with people who don’t trust outsiders, secrets that never stay buried, and a city where loyalty matters more than innocence. In a world full of violence, tension, and blurred lines, the safest place you can go might also be the hardest one to escape.
After graduating college, she has no choice but to move back into her father’s apartment in South Hollow — the same neighborhood he spent years trying to keep her away from. At thirty-nine, Damon Carter is loud, tattooed, reckless, and still deeply tied to the people and problems surrounding the neighborhood he never really left behind. And now that his daughter is back home for the first time in years, it doesn’t take long for South Hollow to notice. Especially the younger men around her age who grew up hearing about Damon Carter’s daughter long before finally meeting her.
Five years after leaving the city behind, she’s finally built a quiet life for herself on August Lane — far away from the violence, the people, and the version of herself she thought she outgrew. Then, in the middle of the night, she gets a message from a burner phone she never deleted. Now four men from her past are hiding inside her house, including the ex-boyfriend she hasn’t seen in years and the best friend who never truly disappeared from her life at all. What was supposed to be a temporary favor quickly turns into something far more complicated.
Downloading the dating app was supposed to be a joke. Then she matched with Rowan Mercer. What starts as harmless flirting quickly turns into something far more complicated once strange things begin happening around her apartment complex — unfamiliar cars, unfamiliar faces, and the constant feeling that someone is watching her. And the deeper she gets into Rowan’s world, the harder it becomes to get back out of it.
Shifting was supposed to be temporary. One successful attempt, one night at Hogwarts, and then back to reality. Instead, you and your best friend wake up at King’s Cross with Hogwarts letters in your hands, names everyone somehow already knows, and a version of the wizarding world that feels a little too real to be a dream. Sorted into different houses but pulled into the same dangerous circle, the two of you quickly become entangled with Slytherin’s most infamous group — Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Matteo Riddle, and the rest of the people everyone warns you to stay away from. At first, it feels perfect. Magic. Parties. Late nights wandering Hogwarts. Secret passageways. People who make it dangerously easy to forget there’s a life waiting for you outside the castle. But this Hogwarts doesn’t follow canon as closely as it should. And the longer you stay, the more obvious it becomes that fantasy is far easier to fall in love with than reality.