Pleasing Rancor

“Pleasing Rancor” is a romance thriller novel about Ariel Smith, a gentle Californian bookshop owner haunted by the car crash that killed her parents and left her drowning in guilt. Her quiet life shatters when her best friend Berry disappears days before her wedding—and a magnetic stranger, Arlo Johnson, walks in and becomes her rescuer, her comfort, and the man who makes her believe she can finally heal. But Arlo is not who he seems. He is the cold, brilliant head of Obsidian Halo, the criminal empire that once owned both Berry and her fiancé Harry. Their vanishing is no accident, but the fallout of Harry’s failed coup and Berry’s secret betrayal. When Arlo forces Ariel to watch Berry’s brutal, staged death, the man who once felt like safety turns into the monster who destroys her world, twisting love into pure hatred. As Ariel struggles to survive the wreckage of that betrayal, other players step out of the shadows: Tyson Royale, a calculating fixer with his own bloody history; Chris, the one man who still sees the girl Ariel used to be; and Mara, a survivor who knows exactly how monsters are made. Each of them has their own plans for Ariel—and their own reasons to bring Arlo down. Caught between the memory of the Arlo who held her through nightmares and the ruthless kingpin who used her deepest wounds as a weapon, Ariel must decide what kind of person she will become. Will she let grief and rage turn her cruel, or find a way to claim her own power without becoming like the man who ruined her? “Pleasing Rancor” is a story of love as both sanctuary and trap—and of a woman fighting to decide who she is after the person she trusted most becomes the author of her ruin.