Aly Martinez books in order

Love can sometimes find you when you least expect it. That’s exactly what my husband’s mistress told me the day I discovered about their affair.

I wasn’t going to buy that, until the gorgeous celebrity chef Tanner Reese walked into the room five minutes later before telling my philandering husband to get lost.

Despite the fact that Tanner and I were like oil and water, our relationship still worked—even though it had every reason not to.

But even though love can sometimes find you when you least expect it, so can heartache.

NB: This standalone spin-off of The Darkest Sunrise Series can be read before or after The Darkest Sunrise (2017).

My heart always belonged to Ramsey Stewart.

At twelve, I became his girlfriend.

At thirteen, he gave me my first kiss.

By the time we were sixteen, we were madly in love.

We thought we had our entire future together pictured, until love failed.

At seventeen, Ramsey was sent to prison for murdering the boy who assaulted me.

And in his first letter from prison, he urged me to move on, claiming that he didn’t love me anymore. He lied.

Love was our curse, and I wasn’t going to give up on him.

Twelve years have passed and I’m still here waiting for a man I barely know to emerge from the prison gates.

She gave me endless nightmares. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could see her fall into that fire. And I still couldn’t save her every time.

I wasn’t able to reach her, and the guilt grew hotter as time went by.

Four years on, I’m the unreachable one.

Not all heroes are saints. Some are nothing more than sinners haunted by darkness.

That however changed when I met her.

But with the flames getting closer, would I really be able to save her?

Let’s just say that there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her.

My life has never been the same ever since I made that choice when I was nineteen years old.

Was I to choose what I already knew, or risk everything by choosing the young, impulsive soldier who has swept me off my feet?

In the end I picked the wrong man and lived to regret it for seventeen years.

I’m now in my house, with a man pointing a gun to my head, ordered to do so by my incarcerated ex-husband.

The only one who can save me is the impulsive soldier that I should have chosen, but am too afraid to make the call.

Although he hates me, I’ve never stopped loving him.

I lost my virginity aged thirteen.

I wasn’t raped or anything. It just happened.

I don't have any daddy issues, or some terrible shit going on that I needed to be saved from.

My only problem is that I like boys—a lot.

Whether tall, short, skinny, buff, light hair, or dark, I just like them all.

It’s something that I realized from a very early age.

Having more than two men though is an unnecessary complication.

I made my choice the night I met Hunter Coy—until he introduced me to Mason Wynn.

Want to know the biggest lie that I’ve ever heard?

It goes something like: Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me.

Words are hands down the most powerful weapon there is.

Here are some fitting examples:
“You’re pregnant.”
“It’s a boy.”
“Your son needs a heart transplant.”

Through intangible, words can indeed cause great harm.

 “He’s gone.”

Those two words were all it took for my entire world to come crashing down.

And for a decade, my life was filled with darkness.

Nevertheless, words also have the opposite effect.

And I got my sunrise when I heard the words: “Hi. I’m Porter Reese.”

Want to know the biggest lie that I’ve ever heard?

It goes something like: Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me.

Words are hands down the most powerful weapon there is.

Here are some fitting examples:
 “I’m sorry. She didn’t make it.”
“Daddy, he can’t breathe!”
“There’s nothing more we can do for your son.”

Through intangible, words can indeed cause great harm.

“He’s gone.”

Those two words were all it took for my entire world to come crashing down.

Nevertheless, words also have the opposite effect.

And I got my sunrise when I heard the words: “Hi. I’m Charlotte Mills.”

Every little girl has a fairytale dream where she is saved by a knight in shining armour and they fall in love, living happily ever after.

Caven Hunt became my hero when he rescued me from the worst possible evil when I was eight years old.

Despite being a kid, I fell in love with him—until my fairytale ended.

Left with a baby girl years later after a one-night stand, I was forced to leave her with Caven for good.

Every fairytale has a happily ever after. Although I was never going to get mine, I desperately wanted my daughter to get hers.

I may have owed Caven my life, but I owed the little girl a lot more.

I was fifteen-years-old when a single bullet changed the entire course of my life.

For the next decade, I tried running away from my past by building an empire that would protect me from whatever life would throw at me.

All that however changed when I found a newborn baby left on my doorstep.

Although I never wanted to be a father, the little angel was utterly irresistible.

As time went by, she became the best thing that has ever happened to me.

That’s why I was willing to fight till the end when her mother came back for her four years later.

Too bad I fell for her during the battle.

When I proposed on our first date, she cracked up and told me I was out of my mind.

Yet she said yes, barely a day later.

Everything was going well for us, until we wanted to start a family.

The only problem was that she wanted something that I couldn’t give her.

Despite spending the kind of money that we didn’t have on doctors and treatments, nature just wasn’t on our side.

When we finally got lucky, tragedy struck, forcing us to bury our newborn son.

This left us with broken souls beyond repair.

This book is a tale about the retrieval of my wife and our family.

I fell in love with a man who didn’t exist.

Something that began as blissful romance ended in hell.

His powerful words turned into sharp blades.

His sentimental kisses turned into fists.

His comforting embrace became my cage.

Once my refuge, his body turned into a weapon that gradually destroyed me until I broke.

And for that, I loathed him.

Now, my only priority is to protect our daughter.

I never thought that I would ever run away from the prison he had created, until the day that our hero arrived.

This is the tale about how I managed to run away from the man who thought he owned me.

TRUTH: Thousands of miles away from my wife, I watched on the screen of my phone as two men brutally murdered her.

Overcome by bitterness and fury, I spent four years trying to run away from the memories—until I met a broken woman who gave me a reason to stop.

Despite the fact that Cora’s life was nothing but a nightmare, she still found the will to live.

Her smile alone could brighten even the darkest of souls.

LIE: I was just there to begin a new chapter.
LIE: I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
LIE: I couldn’t save her either.

Sometimes, it’s hard to know which lies to believe.

TRUTH: Penn Walker came into my life like a dark, sinister, thunder filled summer storm.

Despite the fact that my heart had no room for another man, having witnessing the brutal killing of my husband, Penn still took it all.

He took all the fragments and broken pieces, not leaving even the dirty and twisted pieces that I wish never existed.

LIE: I never needed him to save me.
LIE: I knew exactly who he was.
LIE: I would have been lost without him.

Sometimes, it’s hard to know which lies to believe.

I’ve always been a fighter, having come from a troubled family.

Growing up, I never had anything that I could call my own, until I crossed paths with Eliza Reynolds.

Over the years, she was in various relationships—as was I. Nevertheless, I still heard her voice every night.

I never expected to meet the love of my life aged thirteen. Neither did I expect to gradually go deaf at twenty-one.

They still happened anyway.

Now, I’m on the ropes fighting the toughest of battles.

I’m not just fighting for my career. I’m also fighting the silence, and fighting for her.

I come from a lineage of fighters. Convinced that I would follow in that tradition, all that changed the day I saved the life of a woman I could never have.

Paralyzed and restricted to a wheelchair, my life was a complete nightmare—until I met her.

Ash Mabie’s stunning smile and beautiful laugh instantly calmed the storm inside of me.

She made me see that there are bright stars even in the darkest of night.

Despite being unable to walk, I had fallen head first for a girl who weakness was running away; one that I would spent a lifetime chasing after.

Now, I’m on the ropes, fighting for my future, and fighting for her.

Abandoned by my parents, I battled my way through life with my fists.

Unmatched in the ring, I annihilated anyone who challenged me.

I however never had the same energy when it came to my loved ones. I failed them numerously, none more so than my best friend, Liv James.

She always believed in me and never gave up.

Things however changed.

I may have lost my first love, but I’m not going to lose my soul mate.

Now, I’m on the ropes, fighting the solitude, and fighting for her.

“Although I wanted to jump, he was the one who made me fall.”

I got used to living in the public eye thanks to the celebrity life.

Living in the limelight however made me lose myself somewhere along the way—until he came to my rescue.

A handsome and tattooed stranger, Sam Rivers saved my life with just one simple conversation.

It however wasn't by chance that both of us were standing on that bridge the night we met.

Secrets of our pasts brought us together before sending us on separate paths.

Could we ever find a reason to hold on when life continuously dispirits us?

 “The thought of fly scared me, yet he made me soar.”

I finally fulfilled my dreams after years of struggling to make a name for myself in the music industry.

Nevertheless, I didn’t have everything I wanted, as I still didn’t have anyone by my side.

That however changed when Captain Evan Roth stormed into my life.

He was tall, dark, mysterious—and straight.

Both damaged in every sense of the word, we were desperately searching for something we weren’t sure even existed.

But when our shattered souls fell hard, the crash became even harder.

Sarah Kate Erickson and I met when I was twenty-one years old, with the two of us spending seven blissful years together—until a tragic accident changed everything.

I spent the next four years after the accident looking after her, even though she couldn’t stand the very sight of me.

I did my best to fight for the future that we could have had, but failed.

Then, I crossed paths with Jesse Addison, who made me realize that I had not only lost Sarah in that accident, but that I had also lost myself.

I wanted to love again. But how can you love when the past keeps haunting your present?

Manda Baker stole my heart eight years ago.

We were to have our happily ever after, until fate stole her from me.

Although everybody claims that it was just an unfortunate accident, I’m convinced that her best friend, Sarah Erickson, killed her intentionally.

Despite robbing me of my first love, fate handed me another chance in the form of Emma Jane Erickson.

Although I still spend every waking moment wanting to destroy Sarah, I have fallen in love with her sister—the one person determined to save her.

But what happens when you come to the realization that things are not always what they seem?

My name was Dr. Erica Hill. I was first a victim, then a witness, before I simply vanished.

Although I’m grateful to be alive, I no longer have my identity.

I’m now invisible, as my life depends on it.

Slate Andrews however sees me.

Incredibly rich and famous, he is the kind of guy that I was always warned to stay away from.

Just one image of him with a woman would rake in millions for any paparazzi.

Although he swears to do whatever it takes to protect me, I can’t run away as he would come after me.

I’m on the run and my new name is Riley Peterson—but not for long.

My life changed seven years ago after a tragic accident.

The reflection on the mirror is nowhere near the woman I used to be.

Lost and alone, I felt detached from the world—until I met Leo James who made me realize that crazy can also be normal.

Leo however also has his own fair share of imperfection, which could be the reason why I fell for him to begin with.

But despite the effort he makes, learning to forgive myself is easier said than done.

And when secrets from our dark pasts come back to haunt us, will our love be strong enough to triumph?