The story is set in 1888 in Iowa during a punishing, deep winter. Elias Thorne, a weary but resilient farmer, and his wife, Clara, are enduring a relentless deep freeze when the weather takes a sudden, terrifying turn. On a frigid morning, the temperature plummets to freezing. However, a break in the clouds unveils an intense, summer-like sun. Within hours, the temperature soars to an incomprehensible rise in the middle of January. This sudden, unnatural heat turns the massive snowpack into a catastrophic torrent of meltwater.

A shelter dog named Ziggy is signed out for what he thinks is a simple “first date” outing with a volunteer—but for her, the day quietly marks the anniversary of the moment she first promised herself she’d come back for him. Through a long year of visits, walks, and patience, their bond is already formed long before Ziggy understands the significance of leaving the shelter gates behind. When the outing becomes an adoption, Ziggy navigates new experiences—a car ride, sunlit pumpkin patches, curious resident cats—and wakes the next morning to discover the thing he’s been waiting for all along: someone who stays. Tender, funny, and rooted in shelter reality, the story explores how love often begins before either side realizes it, and how sometimes what feels like a first date is really the celebration of a promise already kept.

𝐉𝐣𝐤 𝐌𝐞𝐧 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

A recluse from the world receives a call she truly thought she could ignore. Turns out none of us are safe.

After losing her fiancé to mysterious and untimely death, a grief-stricken woman refuses to accept a world without him. She performs a forbidden wedding ritual, binding herself halfway between life and death, and summons a psychopomp to serve as her guide. In exchange for a chance to see her beloved again in Arcadia, a serene, pastoral afterlife, she must escort wandering souls to their final rest.

Ever since Sarah was eight years old, she has seen the eyes in pictures blinking at her. As she gets older, the frequency of these sightings increases. She spends years trying to understand why.

A group of workers want to quit their morally terrifying job and escape their scary boss to avoid possibly ruining the few remnants of their normal lives. 

When Nadia agreed (was coerced) into this speed dating thing, she had thought that it would just be another wasted afternoon away from her laptop, a brief distraction from her deadlines.

A private investigator is forced to investigate the murder of someone he helped get to drug rehab and make something of himself. His investigation leads him to two candidates for mayor, an oil company, a computer tech company, and veterans of the Gulf War.

Two police detectives investigate a murder at a pawn shop.