The Drifting Orchards
By @john1208
Brisca Tolvay’s brain finally short-circuited. Crushed by severe depression and a commercial architecture firm that bled her dry, she grabbed her eight-year-old brother, Pello, and boarded a random late-night ferry to escape the city. She wakes up somewhere impossible: a lush, sun-drenched countryside farm full of grazing sheep and blooming apple trees, entirely situated on a massive, slow-moving river barge. Here, she meets Odis Corval, a wandering traveler with a vintage camera. He is quickly captivated by Brisca’s relentless, airheaded cheerfulness - and the sharply intelligent way she secretly orchestrates the farm's chores to keep her brother smiling. Together, they form a profound platonic bond, healing each other's hidden wounds through quiet mornings and shared meals. But nobody mentioned the farm's strict time limit: in exactly fourteen days, the barge will cross the international border, forcing a chaotic return to reality. When the river runs out, they part ways, assuming they'll never meet again. So how does her rugged barge companion end up as the hired photographer at her mutual friend's city wedding months later?
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The Glass Summer
By @john1208
Inessa Vargo is severely depressed. How depressed? Instead of crying at her overworked colleague’s funeral, she delivers a shamelessly inappropriate eulogy, walks straight to the airport in her black mourning dress, and boards the first flight to the sleepy, sun-drenched island of Pellaris. She wants nothing more than to rot in a hammock away from the corporate grind. She finds refuge at a crumbling seaside inn run by Merrick Tahl, a quiet, brooding man harboring a dangerous past. Told in alternating perspectives, their relationship is a slow-burn dance of Inessa’s cheeky provocations and Merrick’s guarded walls. Pellaris offers the perfect, eerily atmospheric escape - the streets are bizarrely quiet, the sun never seems to move, and the shadows stretch a bit too long. But there is a reason the island is so empty. No one mentioned the impending 'Glass Summer' - a dangerous atmospheric lockdown that isolates the island for months. With the last ferry departing in three days, Inessa is forced back to her miserable reality in the rain-soaked city of Morvalis. But what happens when the reclusive innkeeper abandons his entire hidden life to follow her into the concrete jungle?
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