Esther Barthelemy's Followed Works
The Devil Inside
Jaesung didn't expect his end to come at the hands of the one he trusted the most.
To help his grandparents' make ends meet, Jeasung dropped out of high school and joined the mafia. Little did he know he would be signing his life away to their cold-hearted heir, Luca.
In reality, his troubles were just beginning. As a Korean-Italian in an American mafia group, Jaesung was already considered the lowest of the low. Now with the young heir having put all his attention on him, his simple life was anything but. Add in a new drug on the scene that is slowly killing their members, and life for Jaesung just got a lot harder.
A story about the dark underbelly of the city, with betrayal, murder, romance, and deceit at every corner.
Will Jaesung fall prey to the devil himself?
She Who Bears The Wolf's Mark
The deal states that on Carly's 18th birthday, the Evergreen Pack will come knocking on her door to claim what's theirs. Her. And until that day, she bears the mark of the Evergreen Pack on her back, the future Supreme Alpha's mark.
Copyright 2024 | All Rights Reserved
A Drink Before Battle (M/M) (✔)
General Sevei is of the firm opinion that Nobles are shady and Alchemists even shadier. Noble Alchemists are the absolute worst. He is not looking forward to partnering with one to guard the border.
Upon their introduction, though, it would seem they have already met... under very intimate circumstances.
Oh...,****...
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This is set in the same world as my novel "Salvage", but they are completely independent stories. You don't have to read one to read the other. (This one is back in medieval times, about 400 years prior to Salvage.)
Just like in Salvage, here you can expect some humor and some angst (and some occasional smut) and a bunch of hot messes just doing their best. Despite the seemingly salacious premise, this is a love story at its heart, as well as a story of friendship and found family.
Vers. couple: Manly cinnamon roll MC x Manly neurotic wreck ML
CW:
Homophobic society, internalized homophobia and closeting, internalized transphobia (supporting character), war veteran ptsd, slavery (supporting character - no abuse of this character is depicted).
Unbuttoned
Twenty-eight-year-old Wren has been sheltered his whole life. He was homeschooled, and only allowed to socialize with similarly repressed omegas who at the very least, had watched porn by their age. Wren, not so much. Once he finished school and went on into adulthood, you’d think that Wren would have gone crazy trying to experience all the things he’d been denied as a teenager, right? Far from it. Though Wren had moved to a new city for his job and gained new friends who had certainly dabbled in hedonism, Wren had little inclination to join them.
Wren was content with celibacy. He was content with working nine to five, eating lunch with his coworkers, and then going home at the end of the day to binge watch tv shows and try out the new recipes he found online. His life was a boat on still waters, slowly drifting to an expected destination. Steady. Unchanging.
There’s a storm, though, hanging on the fringes of Wren’s life by the name of Vincent. He’s a complete nuisance, with his ridiculous V-neck shirts that show way too much skin, his captivatingly evil grin, and his scent like a minty forest breeze. Wren doesn’t like him at all, and he’s really annoyed that Vincent is apparently the only taxi driver available in the whole city after seven p.m.
And if the fact that the scent of Vincent’s oncoming rut triggered Wren’s heat meant anything significant, like their compatibility, Wren was going to happily ignore it. And if, right before Wren’s next heat, he stole Vincent’s scarf from the backseat of the taxi, then Wren was going to blame it all on the omega heat-brain instincts.
Except, unbeknownst to Wren, there was apparently a ‘stealing an alpha’s clothes to sex’ pipeline that he wasn’t aware of.
Before long, Wren is sucked up into the whirlpool known as Vincent, desperately trying to claw his way out before he drowns. But as it turns out, the whirlpool is just as desperate to drag him down as Wren is to escape.
What's a Mate?
A pack of werewolves escapes captivity, and finds their way to a human girl's home where they take shelter. The last thing Alpha Kane expects to find when breaking into the empty mansion is that it's actually not empty, and that it is occupied by his mate.
Salvage - Vol. 1: Nuts and Bolts (Steampunk/ Gaslamp Romantasy - F/M, M/M)
A Steampunk/ Gaslamp Fantasy Romance set in the industrial revolution era of a fictional world.
Magic, mad science, multicultural ambience, and political intrigue all tightly laced up into one corset and powered by the steam of two romances - one F/M and one M/M.
Intended for mature audiences, 18+.
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All creations carry a trace of the maker's ethereal energy, whether deliberately placed in the magical Artifacts made by the Alchemists, or unwittingly left in the handiwork of ordinary people.
Kazia can feel that energy, in both machines and people. She may not be able to do any of the grand magic other Alchemists can, but give her a damaged machine and she can trace its energy to the problem, and know precisely how to repair it. She does have one other ability. One far more dangerous. One she will never acknowledge, and will never use.
Fleeing her villainous father rather than becoming his pawn, Kazia finds a peaceful life on a farm in a neighboring country, where no one knows that she is the daughter of Prince Gorvan Devratha. But with war looming between her birth country of Valesk and her new home in Caedra, how long can that peaceful life last?
She can be safe in the Caedran capital, among the Queen's Alchemists, but will anyone there trust her – especially the handsome but embittered Lord Kelvaran Meratha, who suspects Kazia's father of murdering his family?
Abrizhen is Kazia's older brother. He does his best to play the role of the Prince's good son and heir, but when tasked with retrieving his wayward sister, he must return to the city he'd called home for many of his youthful years. There he'll have to reckon with his past, and finally choose between the life of a dutiful prince, or the welfare of his sister – and the rekindling of an old flame.
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Content/ Mature warnings are on for:
Gore: Nothing terribly extreme. Some bleeding wounds and broken bits, but all limbs remain attached and all innards remain inward.
Sexual Content: It's not all smut all the time, but there is some. I aim for not vague but also not overly lewd. Smut chapters are labeled NSFW. Chapters with very brief smut or just some torrid making out or somesuch are labeled NSFW-ish. All on-screen depictions are consensual, but there are a few passing references to noncon having happened off-screen (not to any MCs).
Strong Language: One character really loves to swear, and could probably construct an entire monologue with just various inflections of the F word. So, yeah, that's on too.
Other CWs: Dark themes (abuse, trauma, ptsd, depression, unhealthy coping mechanisms). Mostly in discussions of past events, but there are a few scenes that may be troubling to some readers.
Coiled in Lies
A human begrudgingly joins forces with a mysterious shifter to protect his younger siblings from the vicious creatures that would harm them.
***
Monty the python + Tory asleep in bed = nightmare fuel. Coyote shifters breaking into their house and a rescuer wearing Tory's bathrobe and his bed sheet around his waist? Officially the worst night ever. With no choice but to work with their mysterious rescuer - anything to get back to his family's danger-free life - all the while putting up with the shifter's infuriating nature and his teenage brother's matchmaking.
Yosef vowed to protect Justin's children. Simple. Had Salvatore not been the most stubborn human he ever encountered. As if maintaining some form of professionalism hadn't been a struggle enough, Yosef fails horribly after Tory saves him. Intense emotions conflict with his vow, his own insecurities and the nagging fears that won't shut it and leave him be. Literally.
Will the pair of them be able to work together to unravel Justin's disappearance while fending off the shifters hired to stop them or will they be torn apart in the process?
~ Dual POV ~
*Rated Mature for - Mental health topics, violence, gore, and strong language*
Acceptance || MxM
After getting away from his cruel father's tyranny, Randall has to learn how to live again,
and accept the person he was meant to be - with a little help of a local bartender... ***** An empty shell is all what is left of twenty-five-year-old Randall now. After his
homophobic father found out he was gay, he had to learn to act someone else in order
to survive through the years of abuse and humiliation. Now he has forgotten the
person he once was. He refuses to remember the person he was supposed to be. Emotionally detached, and unable to create any kind of relationships, Randall's
lonely days repeat themselves in the same destructive pattern: go to work,
work out, watch TV, and drink, with no way out of that dark, miserable corner
he has built for himself. When a gay bar opens doors in his neighborhood, the fragile balance he has created
with himself is in danger of being destroyed when his true self is trying to break free. And to make things worse, there is a new guy at his gym. A kind guy who has a nice
voice and loves talking people's ears off. A guy who can see his suffering and is
willing to do whatever it takes to help him. A guy who is making Randall feel once again. (Warning, this novel contains verbal and physical abuse!)