Category: Author’s Alley
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The Voicemail
She’d kept it for six years. One voicemail, thirty-one seconds long, saved on three different phones across three different upgrades because she refused to lose it. It wasn’t romantic, technically. He’d called to say he was running late, that the train was delayed, that he’d grab dinner on the way. Ordinary words. But at the…
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Have You Ever Read the Last Page First? Let’s Talk About It.
I’m about to ask a very personal question. Please answer honestly. Have you ever… peeked at the last page of a book before you finished it? No judgement. This is a safe space. Because if you’ve just quietly whispered, “Maybe…” I’d like you to know you’re in excellent company. Readers seem to fall into two…
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The Spare Key
She’d given him a spare key three weeks into dating, mostly as a joke. “In case of emergency,” she’d said, dropping it into his palm with the kind of bravado that meant she was terrified of what it implied. He hadn’t used it for a year. Not once, not even when she’d told him to…
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How to Tell You’re About to Read a Five-Star Romance (Before You Even Finish Chapter One)
Every romance reader knows this feeling. You open a new book with absolutely no expectations. Maybe it was recommended by a friend. Maybe you found it by accident. Maybe you bought it six months ago and only just remembered it existed while looking for something completely different. You read a few pages… and something clicks.…
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The Last One
She asked him once, late at night, what he would tell his younger self. It was the kind of question that arrived at midnight after wine and an old film that made you feel tender about time. He was quiet for a while, which was how she knew he was actually thinking and not just…
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The Unwritten Rules Every Romance Reader Somehow Knows
Nobody teaches you how to be a romance reader. There isn’t a handbook. Nobody sits you down and says, “Welcome. Here are the rules.” And yet… after reading enough romance novels, we all start behaving in exactly the same way. It’s almost like joining a very cosy secret society where the membership fee is one…
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Starting Over
She’d been afraid to call it love the second time. The first time had been loud and fast and had ended in the particular wreckage of two people who were right for each other at the wrong time, years ago. She’d rebuilt herself after. Done the work, genuinely done it. She wasn’t afraid of being…
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The Ordinary Evening
Nothing happened. That was the whole point. She got home from work at half six and he was already there, which was unusual. He’d had an early finish, he said. She changed out of her work clothes — the daily shedding she’d come to love — and came back to find him making pasta with…
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How Do You Know When It’s Time to DNF a Book?
Let’s talk about the guilt. You know the one. You’ve read 18%. Maybe 27%. You’ve picked the book up four separate times, and every single time you somehow end up checking the weather, reorganising your bookshelf, or wondering whether now might be the perfect moment to clean the kitchen. The book isn’t terrible. It just…
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Thursday Mornings
He brought her the crossword. Every Thursday — she didn’t know if he sought it out or if it was just the paper, but somehow there was always a printed crossword on the kitchen table on Thursday mornings, and they did it together over breakfast, badly. They were both poor at crosswords. This was irrelevant.…
Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 