Seven love stories you shouldn't love.

Six dark love stories from some wonderful up-and-coming writers I’ve discovered — and one from me. And these aren't seven stories about nice people meeting nice people and making sensible decisions. God, no.

There's a woman who falls in love with two brothers — and discovers that choosing between them might be the worst thing she could possibly do.

There's a lovely little queer hockey romance about two men who are supposed to hate each other in public and absolutely cannot stay away from each other in private.

There's a woman who is given three nights at a masked ball where nobody uses their real name — and on the third night, she discovers exactly who the man behind the mask is that she's been undressing for.

There's a woman whose new bodyguard has been hired to protect her from a man who wants her dead. Unfortunately, she isn't entirely sure which of them she should be afraid of.

There's a married woman who discovers that her husband has been keeping a second apartment. Not for another woman. For something much stranger.

There's a woman who returns to the tiny town she escaped fifteen years ago and finds the boy she left behind has grown into exactly the kind of man her mother warned her about.

And then there's mine. A love story about a woman who knows perfectly well that loving him will destroy her life — and decides that might be a price worth paying.

Seven stories. Seven women (and men) making decisions they probably shouldn't make.

And hopefully seven occasions where you find yourself saying:

Oh, for fuck's sake. Don't do it.

And then immediately turning the page because, obviously, you desperately want them to do it.

That's the kind of stories I'm writing most days. I call it Romance Noir.

And if you're even slightly interested in dark romance, dangerous attraction, bad decisions, forbidden love, obsession, secrets, lies, jealousy, sex, heartbreak and people falling desperately in love with exactly the wrong person... I made this book for you.

Now, I should probably confess something.

There's a reason I'm giving it to you for free.

It's a dirty little bribe.

Every day I write a ridiculously popular little daily dark-romance newsletter about love, marriage, sex, betrayal, secrets, husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends and the occasionally spectacular mess human beings make when they decide they love somebody.

Some are funny.

Some are sad.

Some are filthy.

Some will make you furious.

And every now and then I'll send you something that makes you think: Jesus, Margaret, you can't write that.

That's the idea, anyway.

So I'm bribing you with these seven dangerous love stories in the hope that you'll let me turn up in your inbox most days.

But before we do that, and before we can even think about becoming friends, there’s one thing you should probably know about me.

I don't like weak women.

There. I said it.

I don't mean women who are scared. Or heartbroken. Or trapped. Or women who've had terrible things happen to them. That’s not weak. That’s Monday for most of us.

What I mean is that I don't particularly want to spend 300 pages with a woman who sits around waiting for somebody else to decide what happens to her.

Give me the woman who does something.

Maybe it's the wrong thing (actually, it's usually way more interesting when it's the wrong thing).

She sleeps with the person she absolutely shouldn't sleep with. She marries them. Leaves them. Goes back. Lies. Saves herself. Saves somebody else. Tells someone to go fuck themselves and then lies awake until four in the morning wishing she hadn't.

Whatever.

But she does something.

That's my kind of woman.

I don't mean a woman who belongs to some man. Quite the opposite. I mean a woman who belongs to herself.

She can be twenty-five or sixty-five. Married. Divorced. Single. Widowed. Rich. Broke. A mother. A CEO. A waitress. A housewife. Or a woman standing in the middle of the wreckage wondering how the hell her perfectly normal Tuesday turned into this.

She doesn't have to be fearless.

She doesn't have to have her shit together.

She just needs to have some fight in her.

Because here's the thing people forget about strong women.

They still want love.

They get lonely.

They want sex. They get jealous.

They want romance. They want to be wanted.

They get their hearts broken.

They make spectacularly bad decisions about people they absolutely know better than to fall in love with.

And sometimes, when their whole world has gone to hell, they still want somebody to put their arms around them and say: I've got you.

Being strong doesn't make you immune to any of that.

Bad bitches need love too.

Love,