Mariana Zapata

Mariana Zapata – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com Mon, 12 May 2025 18:29:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 http://www.ilovenovels.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Mariana Zapata – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com 32 32 The Things We Water Read Online Mariana Zapata http://www.ilovenovels.com/the-things-we-water-read-online-mariana-zapata Mon, 12 May 2025 18:29:27 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/the-things-we-water-read-online-mariana-zapata Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Authors: Mariana Zapata Advertisement

Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >254

Once upon a time, a girl found a magical puppy, and her life was never the same again.

Nina Popoca needs help.

So, so much of it.

The only place she can find that help is on a sprawling ranch in Colorado. A place hiding more than a community filled with magical creatures trying to live their lives in safety and in peace. A village that might hold the answers to questions she’s had her entire life.

And if that ranch is owned by her best friend’s hunky cousin?

…there are worse things in the world than having to live right by Henri Blackrock

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter

One

Though most of the statements regarding The Night of the Meteor vary depending on geographical location, two claims remain undisputed: it happened on a night with a full moon, and the world was never the same again.

I wasn’t surprised they didn’t know what to say. What had just come out of my mouth sounded like something I’d hallucinated—or an excerpt from a fantasy novel.

But this was no fairy tale. No legend. Not even a bestselling novel being adapted into a movie.

It was reality.

My reality.

So, I wasn’t exactly surprised either when my two best friends leaned forward, mouths slightly open, and said almost simultaneously, “Explain that again.” The only part they differed on was that Sienna called me “Nina” at the end of her sentence, and Matti didn’t.

I almost made fun of them for being that kind of married couple now. It was one thing to finish each other’s sentences, but for them to choose almost all the same words and have nearly identical expressions? It made me want to bear hug them and tease them at the same time.

But we didn’t have time for that. I could make fun of them later.

First, I needed them to understand. Needed them to help me. Help us.

The truth was, I couldn’t blame my friends for struggling to comprehend what I’d just told them. I had a hard time accepting everything that had happened over the last month, and I’d watched it go down with my own two eyes. I had lived it. None of us were strangers to unbelievable things, but this pushed the limit.

Dipping my chin like I hadn’t looked at the body sleeping in my arms at least ten thousand times in the past couple of years—a huge chunk of those peeks having taken place over the last few weeks—I focused down on Duncan for the ten-thousandth and one time. I smiled despite the uncertainty and near panic I’d been living on the verge of lately. Because he always cheered me up. Honestly, it was impossible not to be happy when the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life snored in a way that reminded me of how my dad used to nap in his recliner after dinner.

In Duncan’s case, it was a lot of work being adorable; it was a full-time job.

And maybe it was better just to show them why I was here instead of explaining with words one more time.

This whole situation was half miracle and half Teen Wolf, Lord of the Rings, and Ancient Aliens combined, after all. It depended on how you looked at it and what you believed. But that wasn’t important either. They needed to see the big picture first.

In our case, I guess you could say the puppy-sized picture.

Peeling back the blanket I had him wrapped in—to hide Duncan, not because he was cold—I angled my arms so Matti and Sienna could get a better look at the ball of black fur that had turned my life upside down—not once, but twice now. I wasn’t mad about it. Overwhelmed and more scared than I wished, but not angry.

Unlike some people I knew, I didn’t believe that Fate was working behind the scenes, smoking a cigarette and planning people’s lives out before they were even born. For one, that was too much work with eight billion people on the planet. I didn’t have a second reason because I thought the first one was enough.

But sometimes things happened that made absolutely no sense in the moment but eventually turned out to be blessings. Maybe you cried before you saw the good in them, but that was hindsight.

I figured there were plenty of things in the world that weren’t easily explained, but it didn’t make them any less real.

Like countless beings in existence at that moment.

Like every person in this room, if you wanted to be specific, and especially like the small body tucked up against me, which was why I was here.

Without the blanket covering the majority of him, Duncan’s black coat gave the initial impression that he was a short-haired black dog, and his long ears gave the idea he had some kind of hound in him, but as I tugged the blanket away inch by inch, the poofy tail that could have belonged on a fox peeked out.

And so did the star of this whole shit show.

The moment would have called for spirit fingers if our situation wasn’t so dire.

“He has a flame on the tip of his tail now,” I told them like they couldn’t see it with their own eyes.

It was one of the two things on Duncan’s body that were a dead giveaway that he was no baby basset or bloodhound or even any kind of household pet—not that he’d ever been, but it hadn’t been so noticeable before. You had to have an excellent nose or be sensitive to magic to mistake him for anything else.

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All Rhodes Lead Here Read Online Mariana Zapata http://www.ilovenovels.com/all-rhodes-lead-here-read-online-mariana-zapata-2 Tue, 27 Feb 2024 19:57:00 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/all-rhodes-lead-here-read-online-mariana-zapata-2 Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary Authors: Mariana Zapata Advertisement

Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >198

Losing people you love is hard. Aurora De La Torre knows moving back to a place that was once home isn’t going to be easy. Starting your whole life over probably isn’t supposed to be. But a small town in the mountains might be the perfect remedy for a broken heart. Checking out her landlord across the driveway just might cure it too.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter One

My eyes burned. Then again, they hadn’t stopped stinging since it had gotten dark a couple of hours ago, but I squinted anyway. Coming up ahead, on the very, very edge of my car’s headlights, there was a sign.

I took a deep, deep breath in and let it right back out.

WELCOME TO

PAGOSA SPRINGS

World’s Deepest Hot Springs

Then I read it again just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.

I was here. Finally.

It had only taken an eternity.

Okay, an eternity that fit into a two-month period. Eightish weeks of me driving slowly, stopping at just about every tourist attraction and two-star hotel or vacation rental along the way from Florida through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Spending time in Texas and then skipping to Arizona, exploring towns and cities I hadn’t had time to check out in the past when I’d come through. Even visiting an old friend and his family too. I went to Vegas while I was at it because it was somewhere else I had been to at least ten times but had never truly gotten to see. I spent almost three weeks in Utah. Last but not least, I took a week to check out New Mexico before circling back up toward the mountains. To Colorado. My final destination—I hoped.

And now I’d made it.

Or just about made it.

Letting my shoulders sink down, I pushed them back against the seat and relaxed a little. According to the navigation app, I still had another thirty minutes left to get to the place I was renting on the other side of town in the southwest part of the state most people had never heard of.

Home for the next month, or maybe longer if everything worked out the way I wanted it to. I had to settle somewhere after all.

The pictures online of the rental I’d booked were just what I’d been looking for. Nothing big. Not in town. Mostly though, I’d fallen for it because the rental reminded me of the last house Mom and I had lived in.

And considering how last minute I had reserved it, right smack at the start of summer and tourist season, there hadn’t been a whole lot left to choose from—as in, there had been next to nothing. I’d come up with the idea of going back to Pagosa Springs two weeks ago in the middle of the night while the weight of every choice I’d made in the last fourteen years rested on my soul—not for the first time either, more like the thousandth—and I’d fought not to cry. The tears weren’t because I’d been in a room in Moab all by myself with no person who gave a shit about me within a thousand miles. They had sprouted because I’d thought about my mom and how the last time I’d been in the area had been with her.

And maybe just a little because I had no clue what the hell to do with my life anymore and that scared the hell out of me.

Yet that was when the idea had struck.

Go back to Pagosa.

Because why not?

I’d been doing a lot of thinking about what I wanted, what I needed. It wasn’t like I’d had anything else to do, being by myself nearly nonstop for two months. I’d thought about making a list, but I was done with lists and schedules; I’d spent the last decade listening to other people tell me what I could and couldn’t do. I was over plans. Done with a whole lot of things and people, honestly.

And just as soon as I had thought of the place that had been home once, I knew that was what I wanted to do. The idea just felt right. I’d gotten tired of driving around, looking for something to set my life back into some semblance of order.

I’d figure it out, I had decided.

New year, new Aurora.

So what if it was June? Who said your new year had to start on January 1, am I right? Mine had officially started with a lot of tears on a Wednesday afternoon about a year ago. And it was time for a newer version of the person I’d been back then.

That’s why I was here.

Back in the town I’d grown up in, twenty years later.

Thousands of miles away from Cape Coral and everyone and everything in Nashville.

Free to do whatever I wanted to do for the first time in a long, long time.

I could be whoever I wanted to be. Better late than never, right?

I blew out a breath and shook my shoulders to wake myself up a little more, wincing at the ache that had taken them over, back when I’d gotten the rug pulled out from under me, and never left. Maybe I had no real idea of what I was going to do long-term, but I was going to figure it out. I couldn’t find it in me to regret my decision to drive here.

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When Gracie Met the Grump Read Online Mariana Zapata http://www.ilovenovels.com/when-gracie-met-the-grump-read-online-mariana-zapata Sat, 01 Oct 2022 08:38:52 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/when-gracie-met-the-grump-read-online-mariana-zapata Genre: Contemporary, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal, Romance, Virgin Authors: Mariana Zapata Advertisement

Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >218

Of all the things that could have landed in her yard… it had to be him.
For most people, finding a half-naked superbeing in their yard might be a dream come true.
Unfortunately for Gracie Castro, it’s the exact opposite.
Especially when he’s grouchy, rude, and shows no signs of leaving anytime soon.
But when a hero of mankind needs you, you do what you have to.
Even if it compromises everything you know.
And totally changes your life.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

CHAPTER

ONE

Oh boy, my stomach hurt.

Grimacing, I pressed my hand against my abdomen as I tried to stop panting… but fuck, that didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a cramp. It was a twisty kind of pain that made me push my hand harder against my abdomen like that would make it better. All day my stomach had been feeling funky, but the minute I’d walked outside, it had gone straight into kind of painful.

Running already wasn’t my favorite thing to do in the world. I wouldn’t say it was in the top ten. Really, it wasn’t even in the top twenty. If I had to rank it, I’d put it after scrubbing my bathtub. Maybe even after cleaning the baseboards, and nobody liked doing that. But I could probably count on two hands the number of times I’d taken the day off from squeezing a run in over the last fifteen years.

Just thinking I had been doing it for so long in the first place made my stomach hurt even more.

But that was beside the point.

Unfortunately, running was one of those things anybody could do anywhere, so it was hard to come up with a legitimate excuse to skip going for one that didn’t leave me feeling guilty afterward. It was too easy to picture my grandma tilting her head to the side and piercing me with one of her signature glares as she silently reminded me why I had to suck it up and go.

If I ever had to run, I was going to have to run. Not jog. Not sprint. Run like my life depended on it, because it would.

So, slacking off wasn’t really an option, even though I wished it could be. It was bullshit, but it was what it was—reality.

I winced as I tried taking a deep breath, pressing my hand tighter against the middle of my stomach. Yeah, that definitely isn’t a cramp. And that couldn’t mean anything good either. The last time it had hurt like this….

Stopping right where I was, in the middle of my long driveway, I did a slow circle, looking around. I listened, but there was nothing other than some crickets somewhere in the distance. The usual.

I’d had a grilled cheese with bacon sandwich for lunch. Maybe it was gas? The cheese had only been expired about a day, but….

I listened again.

Slowly, I turned in another full circle, taking in the trailer sitting in the middle of the five acres that made up the property I’d been renting for the last three years. Next, I stared at the greenhouse building, then focused on the small shed set off to the side. There were bushes scattered around, but most of them were right along the fence line, giving the mobile home some privacy from the road.

Then I listened some more.

There wasn’t anything out here.

Which was exactly how it should have been. I’d been careful. I was always fucking careful. Cautious might as well have been my middle name. I was just being paranoid.

Taking another deep breath in through my nose, I let go of my stomach and palmed the pepper spray I’d stuffed into my pocket after I’d turned into the driveway at the end of my run. I should probably stop doing that. I should keep it in my hand the whole time, at least until I got inside and locked the door. I didn’t love running at night, but I hated waking up early, and I sure as hell hated running in the heat. Temperatures in New Mexico were no joke.

Keeping my ears peeled, I finished catching my breath the rest of the way down the driveway, but there really wasn’t anything or anyone out there other than the crickets. Even the clouds were hiding the stars, and if there was a member of the Trinity up in the sky creeping on me, I couldn’t see them. The thought almost made me snicker as my stomach suddenly hurt a little more sharply.

It's the cheese. It has to be the fucking cheese, I thought as I unlocked the door and went inside, engaging the dead bolt and the flimsy bottom lock that was mostly for decoration. There was a gallon of rocky road ice cream in the freezer that I’d been dreaming about tearing up all day, so my stomach needed to quit its bullshit.

After toeing off my sneakers and setting my keys and pepper spray on the nightstand, I picked up the towel I’d left there and wiped myself down before slipping my hoodie from earlier back on so I wouldn’t sweat up the couch. Only then did I take a nice, deep, even breath, and almost immediately stopped in the middle of it as I eyed the coffee table. Specifically, the map I’d left on top of it before I’d gone outside, telling myself I needed to get my run over with. I wanted to watch some TV while I cooled down. Then I’d have dinner, shower, squeeze in my last lesson, maybe finish reading my book while I ate that rocky road, and finally go to bed.

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All Rhodes Lead Here Read Online Mariana Zapata http://www.ilovenovels.com/all-rhodes-lead-here-read-online-mariana-zapata Sat, 03 Apr 2021 19:56:45 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/all-rhodes-lead-here-read-online-mariana-zapata Genre: Contemporary, Romance Authors: Mariana Zapata Advertisement

Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >196

Read Online Books/Novels:	All Rhodes Lead Here
Author/Writer of Book/Novel:	Mariana Zapata
Language:	English
ISBN/ ASIN:	B091K3W8N1
Book Information:
Losing people you love is hard. Aurora De La Torre knows moving back to a place that was once home isn’t going to be easy. Starting your whole life over probably isn’t supposed to be. But a small town in the mountains might be the perfect remedy for a broken heart. Checking out her landlord across the driveway just might cure it too.
Books by Author:	Mariana Zapata

Chapter 1

My eyes burned. Then again, they hadn’t stopped stinging since it had gotten dark a couple of hours ago, but I squinted anyway. Coming up ahead, on the very, very edge of my car’s headlights, there was a sign.

I took a deep, deep breath in and let it right back out.

WELCOME TO

PAGOSA SPRINGS

World’s Deepest Hot Springs

Then I read it again just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.

I was here. Finally.

It had only taken an eternity.

Okay, an eternity that fit into a two-month period. Eightish weeks of me driving slowly, stopping at just about every tourist attraction and two-star hotel or vacation rental along the way from Florida through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Spending time in Texas and then skipping to Arizona, exploring towns and cities I hadn’t had time to check out in the past when I’d come through. Even visiting an old friend and his family too. I went to Vegas while I was at it because it was somewhere else I had been to at least ten times but had never truly gotten to see. I spent almost three weeks in Utah. Last but not least, I took a week to check out New Mexico before circling back up toward the mountains. To Colorado. My final destination—I hoped.

And now I’d made it.

Or just about made it.

Letting my shoulders sink down, I pushed them back against the seat and relaxed a little. According to the navigation app, I still had another thirty minutes left to get to the place I was renting on the other side of town in the southwest part of the state most people had never heard of.

Home for the next month, or maybe longer if everything worked out the way I wanted it to. I had to settle somewhere after all.

The pictures online of the rental I’d booked were just what I’d been looking for. Nothing big. Not in town. Mostly though, I’d fallen for it because the rental reminded me of the last house Mom and I had lived in.

And considering how last minute I had reserved it, right smack at the start of summer and tourist season, there hadn’t been a whole lot left to choose from—as in, there had been next to nothing. I’d come up with the idea of going back to Pagosa Springs two weeks ago in the middle of the night while the weight of every choice I’d made in the last fourteen years rested on my soul—not for the first time either, more like the thousandth—and I’d fought not to cry. The tears weren’t because I’d been in a room in Moab all by myself with no person who gave a shit about me within a thousand miles. They had sprouted because I’d thought about my mom and how the last time I’d been in the area had been with her.

And maybe just a little because I had no clue what the hell to do with my life anymore and that scared the hell out of me.

Yet that was when the idea had struck.

Go back to Pagosa.

Because why not?

I’d been doing a lot of thinking about what I wanted, what I needed. It wasn’t like I’d had anything else to do being by myself nearly nonstop for two months. I’d thought about making a list, but I was done with lists and schedules; I’d spent the last decade listening to other people tell me what I could and couldn’t do. I was over plans. Done with a whole lot of things and people, honestly.

And just as soon as I had thought of the place that had been home once, I knew that was what I wanted to do. The idea just felt right. I’d gotten tired of driving around, looking for something to set my life back into some semblance of order.

I’d figure it out, I had decided.

New year, new Aurora.

So what if it was June? Who said your new year had to start on January 1st, am I right? Mine had officially started with a lot of tears on a Wednesday afternoon about a year ago. And it was time for a newer version of the person I’d been back then.

That’s why I was here.

Back in the town I’d grown up in, twenty years later.

Thousands of miles away from Cape Coral and everyone and everything in Nashville.

Free to do whatever I wanted to do for the first time in a long, long time.

I could be whoever I wanted to be. Better late than never, right?

I blew out a breath and shook my shoulders to wake myself up a little more, wincing at the ache that had taken them over, back when I’d gotten the rug pulled out from under me, and never left. Maybe I had no real idea of what I was going to do long term, but I was going to figure it out. I couldn’t find it in me to regret my decision to drive here.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >196

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Hands Down Read online Mariana Zapata http://www.ilovenovels.com/hands-down-read-online-mariana-zapata Sat, 22 Feb 2020 01:57:33 +0000 http://www.test123.demo2.xyz/hands-down-read-online-mariana-zapata Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Romance, Sports Authors: Mariana Zapata Advertisement

Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >191

Read Online Books/Novels:	Hands Down
Author/Writer of Book/Novel:	Mariana Zapata
Language:	English
Book Information:
Before he was Big Texas, he was Zac the Snack Pack. Bianca Brannen knows time—mostly—heals all wounds. Including those your once loved ones might have unintentionally given you. (Those just take longer.) She thinks she’s ready when a call has her walking back into her old friend’s life. Or at least as prepared as possible to see the starting quarterback in the National Football Organization. Before the lights, the fans, and the millions, he’d been a skinny kid with a heart of gold. Waltzing out of Zac Travis’s life should be easy. Just as easy as he walked out of hers.
Books by Author:	Mariana Zapata

Chapter One

“The word is out! The Oklahoma Thunderbirds have signed quarterback Damarcus Williams to a two-year deal worth $25 million. This move comes weeks after the organization announced that Zac Travis would enter free agency following five seasons in Oklahoma City. Michael B, is it over for Travis as a starting quarterback in the NFO?”

The good-looking man in a dark gray suit on the television visibly bristled before leaning forward into the camera. “Have you seen him play these past two seasons? I don’t know why the Thunderbirds waited so long to take him off the roster! I mean, are you kidding me? This deep in his career, he’s only managed to lead a team into the playoffs twice! What—”

“Blanca, what are you doing?”

Shit balls.

Instantly tearing my gaze away from the closed captioning flashing across the bottom of the television screen I’d had my eye on from about fifteen feet away, I only just barely managed to think about what I’d been in the process of doing before the image of a familiar-looking man in a gray, white, and orange football uniform had caught my attention.

Like it—he—always had.

“Changing the channel,” I answered the man on the other side of the counter from where I was standing. I lifted the remote in my palm as proof.

Did he just call me Blanca again?

I knew without a doubt that my new boss was trying to bust me not working. He was always creeping around, popping up out of nowhere when you least expected him. Fortunately, I had probably only been watching the television for about a minute. Just long enough to recognize the man the commentators on The Sports Network were talking about and catch the beginning of their discussion.

My boss—one of my three new bosses, if I was going to be technical—stared at me blankly from where he stood across the counter, either thinking I was full of shit or trying to figure out how to turn what I’d been doing around on me so he could have an excuse to bitch.

Because that was what he did—really well, unfortunately.

So well that most of my coworkers had quit over the last month since the gym had been officially taken over by its newest owners. Asshole 1, Asshole 2, and The Decent Guy Who Was Unfortunately Never Around Who Might Also Be An Asshole If He Ever Spent More Than Five Minutes At Maio House. That was how we referred to them—at least those of us who were left.

Okay, maybe it was just me and Deepa who did, but I highly doubted it.

“One of the members asked me if I could change it,” I kept going, lying out of my freaking ass at that point, but it wasn’t like he knew that. I wasn’t going to feel bad about it either, especially not when he was still butchering my name this long into knowing each other. I’d corrected him at least ten times and spelled it out for him twice, maybe more. B-i-a-n-c-a M-a-r-i-a B-r-a-n-n-e-n. Bianca because my sister had named me, Maria for my mom’s abuela—her grandma—and Brannen because… it was my dad’s last name.

“And it’s Bianca. With an I. Not an L,” I corrected the man who was now in charge of signing my paychecks, tapping in vain at the name tag on the left side of my chest with a smile that was 200 percent forced. On that note, I needed to get him out of here and back into his office before he really did find something to complain about.

Then again, as I’d learned, he could find something wrong with… well, everything. “Did you need something?”

Besides a life and a personality change. Maybe multiple enemas too, to get whatever was lodged up his ass out of there.

My boss stared at me for a second longer as he leaned against the counter I had been hired almost three years ago to work behind. The front desk for a gym was a place I had enjoyed working at up until exactly a month ago.

I didn’t need to look at the front of the counter to know that the words MAIO HOUSE were painted across the front of it. The world-famous gym hadn’t changed names when it had been officially sold a few weeks ago. The three investors—one of whom was Gunner, the man who couldn’t remember my name to save his life—had bought the brand and the legacy behind a gym. Maio House had been in the DeMaio family for seventy-something years and had bred dozens of world-class athletes, starting with boxers when it opened, and now mixed martial arts athletes.

The atmosphere had been great before. The members were mostly all nice, and I had liked my coworkers. The DeMaios had been the best owners and managers, as well.

Then one day, out of the blue, Mr. DeMaio told us he was selling.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >191

Read Online Books/Novels:

All Rhodes Lead Here

Author/Writer of Book/Novel:

English

B091K3W8N1

Mariana Zapata

Read Online Books/Novels:

Hands Down

Author/Writer of Book/Novel:

Mariana Zapata

English

Mariana Zapata