Stories

When artist and illustrator Louis leaves London and moves to his late uncle’s house in Northamptonshire, his intention is to simplify his life. He didn’t expect a cute painter and his toxic aunt, a burned-out ex who comes to visit but stays, and a grumpy gay policeman, not to mention men from his uncle’s dodgy past who seem to have criminal intentions and an obsession with an ancient artefact.

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.

A grumpy hedge knight desperate for a squire buys a blind stable boy for three years' wages. He expected useless. He got a boy who can hear lies in a man's voice, calm any horse with a touch, and navigate by sounds others miss. Now they're marching to crusade, surrounded by enemies who'd destroy them—if the magic rising in the East doesn't kill them first.

In a salt-worn coastal town, Elias Voss has built a life of routine and uncomplicated arrangements. His closest bond is with Camille Leclair, whom he once dated and now calls his best friend.

But when Camille's estranged son, Rowan, is forced to move to Wrenhaven after his father's death, what arrives is not a young man but a lit fuse: beautiful, furious, and sharp. What begins as mutual hostility between the two men slowly turns into something neither of them can avoid: a consuming, intense, secret love affair.

Wrenhaven is a story about desire, lust, and a town too small to keep secrets and too proud to forgive them.

Two boys, six years of silence, and one morning with toast that changes everything. Marshall-Lee has spent forever pretending not to see Aiden across the street. But Aiden's been watching—collecting leaves, drawing portraits, waiting. When he finally crosses the road with breakfast and no agenda, Marshall-Lee's carefully constructed walls start crumbling. This is a story about being seen. About the patience it takes to love someone who isn't ready yet. About first kisses on cheeks and hands that finally touch. Sweet, slow, and achingly tender—for anyone who remembers what it felt like to fall.

They stole his country. Now he’s stealing their Presidency.

Three years after the US annexed Canada, the "Northern Territory" is a resource colony under martial law. Governor Will Carter knows the military war is lost, so he opens a new front. Leveraging a loophole in the annexation treaty, Will launches a hostile takeover of the White House.

Facing the tyrant who erased his homeland, Will must master the American political machine to dismantle it from the inside. But to save his people, he risks becoming the very thing he hates. Can he liberate Canada without becoming the Emperor of America?

Jemya Hanlon was born on Benteen, a planet settled 500 years earlier from Old Earth. But the lines of communication with the mother world were broken after only 200 years, and the colonists have been on their own ever since. Jem was raised in the cold northern lands of New Australia, the only continent where the settlers have a foothold. The nearby town of Nocksic Bay is a seaport, where the ships sail forth to hunt the great orx, a staple seafood of the settlers. Jem has longed dreamed of going to sea, and now he has his chance. And he is just in time to encounter a new mystery, one that may change the settler’s lives forever!

A response to Prompt #68:

Imagine where your character leads a pretty decent single life. Then there is a phone call and that life is turned upside down as they find out, they have just become a parent—to a teenager. Is this a cousin that has been left with no other family members? A god child? A niece or nephew? What is this first meeting between them going to be like?

The circumstances whereby Manny obtains guardianship are a little strange, to say the least. Not to mention what happens afterward.

Four friends find themselves, each other, and seek their fortune in the Eighties. However, things aren't as simple as they seem.

Andy and Donnie have been friends since the beginning, growing up in the same neighborhood, sharing the same friends, and now playing football on the same team in middle school. They’ve been inseparable throughout it all; but now a new line has been inserted in the equation that is their lives, one they have to learn to deal with, or face having their friendship perish:

Love.