Please add my upcoming novel, Be Her Cat, to your collection. There's a link in the author's note.
Li Nanfeng, the capital's top gang leader and the Ning Prince's daughter who wishes for nothing more than a carefree life, grits her teeth and says she'll marry her sworn enemy, Pei Jing, for the sake of her family's interests.
She's made up her mind: keep up appearances for a few days, achieve her goal, then divorce him.
After their wedding, she plays the devoted wife in public, then secretly gives Pei Jing birth control pills in private.
At last, she receives a divorce agreement and immediately starts openly accepting suitors. But when she looks over the list of candidates, panic seizes her.
She's afraid he'll show up, and even more afraid he won't.
*
Pei Jing, the young master of the General's residence, has always hated Li Nanfeng's hooligan ways.
When he hears that Li Nanfeng wants to marry him, he suppresses a disdainful smile and says, "At least she has good taste."
Then he turns around and rushes home to arrange the proposal.
But Pei Jing soon realizes that this is one of Li Nanfeng's schemes. He seethes with anger and decides to play along.
He'll stir her heart, make her fall for him, then divorce her. Let's see who outplays whom.
After they marry, Pei Jing takes his wife kite-flying one day, then makes handicrafts for her the next. He stops talking about divorcing her altogether.
Pei Jing prepares to confess his true feelings to Li Nanfeng. He searches the whole residence but can't find her anywhere.
Then he spots the divorce agreement on the table and panics. He scrambles all the way to Li Nanfeng's home, only to see four large characters:
"Husband Wanted"
Oh no. He's the one who fell in love first.
*
Li Nanfeng meets many people over the course of her life:
Gu Yuan, the arrogant leader of the Imperial Guards, is her steadfast protector.
Li Tianzhao, the princess adored by all, is her close friend.
Su Heng, the beautiful and frail Valley Master of the Medicine King Valley, is a brooding man who loves her but can't have her.
Bai Xuan, a victim of political struggles with a tragic past, is her utterly loyal puppy.
Pei Jing may not be as well-built as Gu Yuan, as beautiful as Su Heng, as powerful as Li Tianzhao, or as loyal as Bai Xuan. But Pei Jing has one advantage none of them do: he's her husband.
That one advantage puts him ahead of the rest when Li Nanfeng seeks a husband. And after she dies, it gives him the right to mourn her for three years and stand before her tombstone to say:
"If you could come back to life, could you come scare me first?"
Note:
1. The plot comes first, with romance as a supporting element.
2. The story begins on the eve of the leads' wedding. They grow and fall in love as their relationship and the plot develop.
3. The leads change a lot over the course of the story. The early chapters are purely sweet and funny; later, the story turns to revenge and a descent into darkness.
4. Everyone in the story loves the heroine, regardless of gender.
5. The ending is happy.
Conviction: Love means helping each other become whole.
