Nuno R.F.C.R

Mark pulled away. His mouth tore from Julian’s. The separation was a sound, wet, abrupt, two surfaces that have been sealed together being forced apart, and the air that rushed into the space between their lips was cold, shockingly cold, as though the kiss had generated its own climate and the world outside it was winter. Mark’s hands were on Julian’s chest, on his shoulders, pushing, but the push was uncoordinated, his fingers alternating between gripping and releasing, the motor conflict

I saw enough of it to know the show name should have been "Just Jack...and Karen" 😉

He woke before Mark, which almost never happened. Julian was the deeper sleeper, always had been, the one who sank into unconsciousness, completely and without resistance, and who surfaced only when the world became too bright or too loud to ignore. Mark was the opposite. Mark slept with some inner mechanism ticking even in the dark, so that he was usually up before Julian, already showered or reading or standing on whatever balcony was available, as though sleep were a country he visited b

The glimpses into what lies ahead, the emotional fractures, the quiet unraveling beneath the surface, are there by design. The narrator is not confined to Julian’s present awareness. He purposely operates with a broader, more omniscient lens, one that allows the reader to perceive what he cannot. Yet. This choice shifts the experience of the story. Rather than building tension purely through surprise, it leans into a sense of inevitability. The reader is invited to sit inside that contradiction: to witness joy while knowing it carries the seed of its own undoing. It’s less about 'what happens' and more about 'how it feels to watch it happen'. That quiet awareness is, by my own creative choice, central to the emotional architecture of this particular narrative. Thank you for taking the time to read the first chapter @peter rietbergen

Julian Aldrich has never had reason to doubt the world built for him. At twenty-one, heir to a gilded American dynasty, he sees his life as most people see a painting: beautiful, composed, complete. His father Victor is the architect of that world. His mother Catherine is its atmosphere. And Mark, his best friend, is the person Julian loves most. During a family trip, the careful geometry of these relationships begins to warp. What Julian slowly uncovers will collapse every structure he has built his identity upon: family, loyalty, desire, and the dangerous assumption that the people we love are who we believe them to be.

The argument had been going on since somewhere over Virginia, and Julian was losing. “You’re out of your mind,” he said, knee pressed to Mark’s thigh. They faced each other, Mark composed but tense, turning his glass of sparkling water. "You are genuinely, certifiably..." “Name a single scene,” Mark said. “...deranged, actually. The word is deranged.” “One scene. One. Where the writing actually earns the emotion instead of just pointing a camera at a beautiful face and lettin

To everyone who walked beside me through Wrenhaven, thank you. This story was definetely something I carried gently, something I built piece by piece with an open heart. And knowing that so many of you stepped into this world, cared for these characters, and stayed until the very end...means more than I can properly put into words. There’s always a quiet kind of grief that comes with closing the door on characters you’ve nurtured, protected, and loved. Letting them go is bittersweet, but also deeply beautiful. I do have a new project in development (duh, of course I do), something I’m incredibly excited to eventually share with you. But after writing "Finding Liam" and "Wrenhaven" practically back to back, I feel I owe myself a moment to breathe, rest and refill. I’ll be back. Until then, stay safe my beautiful "page worms". Nuno R.F.C.R.

The dock was working. The dock was always working. The dock had been working for forty-five years, since the father laid the first berth, and the son inherited the operation, and the operation became the institution, and the institution became, in the daily, seasonal, tidal rhythm of a working harbor, the heartbeat of Wrenhaven. Tuesday afternoon. October. The low-activity window, the morning's departures completed, the evening's returns not yet begun, the dock in the exhale between th

I feel like you're on a "me" marathon! 😉

Wrenhaven knew itself. The knowing was not metaphorical. It was literal, daily, conducted-through-proximity knowledge that a town of twelve hundred produces when the twelve hundred share the same harbor and the same main street and the same post office and the same bars and the same grocery store and the same weather and the same gossip, the gossip being the weather's social equivalent, the atmospheric condition that pervaded everything, that was discussed in every encounter, that shifted a

True. The fact she isn't the 'whole system' doesn't excuse her from a villain role. She represents it, so she's inherently part of the problem.

Enjoy the ride @dboggs9700 !

Rowan climbed in. The door closed. Elias started the engine. The headlights came on. The truck pulled out of the lot at Cutter's Point, and the granite and the railing and the cliff fell away behind them, and the coastal road opened ahead, south, toward Wrenhaven, toward the cottage where Camille was driving, toward the world that was waking up. They drove. In silence. The silence of two people who are in a truck together after a night that has exceeded every available metric for n

True. It's implied that David resorted to coercive tactics to lure Camille back at some point. Full disclosure: I actually wrote an entire chapter exploring Camille's backstory, addressing some of those issues, but ultimately, I decided to set it aside. It simply didn't mesh with the narrative I'm crafting. Because the story isn't about the "why" behind their actions. They're all flawed, that much is established. This chapter serves a deeper purpose. It highlights that Rowan and Camille's bond will never evolve into a traditional mother-son dynamic. Instead, it solidifies their mutual acknowledgment of this reality and showcases their determination to persevere together, regardless of what form their relationship takes going forward.

Camille was in the kitchen. She had been in the kitchen since she came back. To the cottage. To the chair at the table where she sat now, in the dark, without light, without tea, without the prop of activity or the alibi of purpose. Where she had fed her son and watched her son and hoped for her son and where she had, hours ago, served fennel stew to the man who was sleeping with her son while her son sat across the table and the three of them performed a dinner that was a lie, and th