"We shouldn't dig here." "Why...not?" "Because what's buried here is not what you think it is." • • • • • • • • • • • • [ inspired by prompt #54 and #4 of the Open Novella Contest 2020 | ONC2020 LONGLIST ] Taylor Sloan has spent the last decade digging up priceless treasures, uncovering lost empires, and discovering ancient civilizations, all due to her uncanny ability to know what's buried beneath her feet. Taylor's fiancé Riyad Banks went missing two year ago, lost at sea among the many remote Alaskan islands. Now Taylor and her charge, Riyad's teenage son, are headed for an island to join in an excavation headed by Taylor's archeologist cousin. But some secrets are better left buried, and Taylor wonders if facing the truth is worth having their hearts broken all over again. • • • • • • • • • • • • • Completed Novella [ about 25,000 words ] on March 13, 2020 • Copyright absterak 2020 • Cover Photo from Unsplash

Sarah Langley had to grow up fast. Now she's ready to take it slow. 07.04.2017 - 04.07.2017 CL #81

In which a girl realizes family isn't by blood but by bond.

Bronwyn Larson has spent her whole life not depending on her mother, a constantly recovering addict, until the moment her life was literally torn apart when an EF4 tornado ripped through their trailer park and her mom is found dead, miles away after the storm. Suddenly, her estranged father is a part of her life, a prominent state senator who's been absent since Bronwyn was born, a product of her parents' secretive affair. After living alone with her mother in a trailer for seventeen years, Bronwyn now has a stepmother and four new siblings, including an older brother and sister who seem skeptical, if not actually disproving, of Bronwyn living with them. While staying with them in their vacation lake house an hour away from what she called home, Bronwyn is hit with the bombshell that her mother's death is being treated as suspicious, with injuries inconsistent of being killed during the tornado. Estranged from everyone she knows, except her estranged new family, Bronwyn doesn't know who trust or who to believe about her mother's death. Torn between her life as the daughter of a single drug addict and the middle child of a well-respected senator, all while learning more about the mother she thought she knew, Bronwyn is forced to navigate through this new unfamiliar life alone, with this gut feeling she has. That her mother's killer isn't unfamiliar. 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃 𝐌𝐀𝐘 18th 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐏𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒 Cover designed by Ashley Bandy