Category: Author’s Alley
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The Weather Check
Every morning he looked at the weather app and texted her the result. Not just the temperature — the whole picture. *11 degrees, rain by noon, wear the coat not the jacket. Also fog so give yourself extra time if you’re driving.* He’d started doing this when they’d been long-distance for eight months, an adjustment…
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A Neurodivergent Witch’s Guide to Autumn: When You Love the Season but Hate the Change
You ordered crunchy leaves and candles. Your nervous system received schedule changes, different daylight and seventeen new sensory experiences. Can we admit that loving autumn and actually transitioning into autumn are two completely different experiences? Because my witchy brain is delighted. Give me candles, cooler evenings, Mabon, ridiculous quantities of cinnamon and the first excuse…
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The Night Terror
He woke from bad dreams loudly. Had for as long as he could remember — a childhood thing that had never fully resolved, his nervous system apparently unwilling to believe the dark was safe without periodic confirmation. Mira had been startled the first time. Alarmed. She’d reached for him in the dark and found him…
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Elain, Azriel, Lucien & Gwyn: Can We Talk About This Mess Before the Next ACOTAR?
Four people, one mating bond, several loaded glances, and a fandom that has absolutely known no peace. Okay, coffee down. Phone away. We need to discuss the romantic crime scene Sarah J. Maas has left sitting in the middle of Prythian. Because Elain is Lucien’s mate. Yet, Elain wants approximately nothing to do with that…
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The Grocery List
He sent her a photo of the grocery list every time he went, just to check if she needed anything added. He’d been doing this for four years. It had started as practicality and become, somehow, a ritual she looked forward to with a fondness entirely disproportionate to the act. Sometimes she added things. Sometimes…
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The September Reading Slump Is Real, Bestie. Here’s How We’re Getting Our Books Back
Because scrolling for 47 minutes and then claiming we had no time to read is getting suspicious. Can we have a tiny intervention? September arrives, everybody gets back into routines, and somehow reading is the first thing quietly sacrificed to the scheduling gods. School starts. Work gets serious again. Activities restart. The calendar suddenly looks…
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Chapter iv. Blood Recognizing Blood
You voted. Nesta and Cassian are telling Rhys and Feyre everything. This should go beautifully, provided nobody objects to concealed blood-oaths, ancient magical archives, or possible death before breakfast.… Cassian had walked into burning cities with less dread than he felt walking into this study. Nesta went first, as if she’d decided somewhere between the…
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The Light He Left On
He always left the porch light on when she worked late. Not because she’d asked. Not because the building was unsafe or the street was dark. Just because, he’d said once when she’d asked him about it, he liked the idea of her turning the corner and seeing it — that warm yellow square in…
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Forty Years In
They’d been married for forty-one years, and the question people always asked — usually young people, usually at weddings, usually slightly desperate for reassurance — was some version of: how do you make it last? Margit had stopped giving the easy answers years ago. The easy answers were true but insufficient: communication, compromise, shared values.…
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6 Low-Key Sexy Books to Read During the School Pickup Line
Hot enough to improve car line. Innocent enough that you won’t have to explain the cover to another mum. September means back to school, which means something very exciting happens to parents everywhere: we spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of our lives waiting in the car. Ten minutes until pickup. Twenty minutes outside ballet. Somehow…
