Down-on-his-luck journalist Jack Sutherland has one last shot to resurrect his career: an exclusive profile on the magnetic, larger-than-life culinary empire builder, Serendipity Brown. Arriving at her magnificent estate beyond Johannesburg’s city borders, Jack is drawn into a sensory world of vibrant flavours, sharp wit, and deep secrets. Officially, he’s there to capture the real woman behind the famous recipes. Unofficially, he’s hunting for the truth behind her husband Richard — a dodgy attorney who vanished without a trace three years ago, leaving her legally bound but penniless. As Serendipity prepares her upcoming cooking demonstrations, a riotous circle of eccentric guests descends upon the house: from a preening food blogger and a diamond-touting society host to a brilliant, non-binary tech genius. Everyone is playing a game of observation. Jack is tracking Serendipity like a hawk, but Serendipity is an expert at pulling the strings. Beneath the flow of chilled Sauvignon Blanc, the fragrance of garlic and blistering cherry tomatoes, a quiet game of deception is simmering. Who is hiding the truth, and what really happened to Richard Brown?

I am frantically making yet another editorial pass at my manuscript to get it ready to submit to the Copyright Office. I cannot believe the writing oversights, but here we are at edit #99, and I am still finding glaring errors. Take, for instance, this scene: ----- Over the coming days, Leslie began arrangements for Arlinda to fly to Cleveland to continue treatment at the Cleveland Clinic. With other family members around, there would be more opportunities to share the duties of supporting Arlinda through her treatment. The commitment it would take to help her prompted more people to be by her side and might provide the encouragement she needed to overcome this most recent turn in her health. They were going to arrange the flight for Friday, the 18th. When Leslie gave Rob the news, his face went still, that familiar shutdown spreading from his temples down through his jaw. His shoulders dropped almost imperceptibly. His mind retreated to calculations to contain what he was trying to process. /Cleveland. 2,300 miles. Five-hour flight. Three hours’ difference./ The facts assembled themselves like a protective barrier against the tightness spreading across his chest. Maybe that is what emotions feel like, when the throat suddenly goes dry. He looked past his own selfish desires to determine the benefits the move could provide Arlinda. He tried to prioritize her needs over the prospect of his loneliness. ----- The scene starts, focused on Leslie. But Leslie does not have a POV in the manuscript. This scene is in Rob's point of view. I like to train my readers whose POV it is by mentioning that character's name first. Bonus points for having them speak first; it gives them more agency in the scene. In the edit, I moved sentences around, and set it squarely in Rob's POV: ----- Rob heard Leslie tell him the family was looking into flying Arlinda back to Cleveland so she could get the most advanced cancer care through Cleveland Clinic. They were arranging the flight for Friday, the 18th.

This is chapter 1 of the novel I’m writing. I’d love feedback. Chapter 1 – The Hollow Mark Callahan pulled into his driveway at exactly 5:32 p.m. Not around 5:32. Not close to it. Exactly 5:32. Every Monday through Friday, depending on the lights three blocks back, he pulled in somewhere between 5:30 and 5:32. Today, it was 5:32. Perfect. The house sat quiet in the hills of the San Fernando Valley, a picture of everything he had ever imagined for himself. Three bedrooms. Three baths. Clean lines. Soft lighting. The kind of place that looked like it had never known chaos. Vision to reality. There was a time that phrase meant something else. Back when he was twenty-two. Back when The Hollow still existed. They’d caught their break at the Whisky a Go Go, filling in for a band that fell apart hours before showtime. One night. One chance. A room filled with just enough of the right people. Mark had stepped onto that stage with a guitar slung low and a voice that sounded like it had been dragged across gravel and set on fire. By the end of the set, they weren’t unknown anymore. By the end of the week, Sony Music had them under contract. Four albums. Seven years. Hit after hit. Until the night everything stopped. Shaggy died in a car wreck that should have killed all of them. Teddy never touched a guitar again. Ryan disappeared into silence. And Mark? He survived. He always did. He stepped out of the car, grabbed his bag, and walked to the front door. Right on cue, like every day before it. 5:33 p.m. “Hi, honey,” he called as he stepped inside. “What’s for dinner? I’m starving.” Sarah met him at the door, wrapping her arms around him like she had a thousand times before. She breathed him in. Cigarettes, worn leather, and the metallic scent of guitar strings still clung to him like a memory that refused to go away. “Surprise,” she said, smiling up at him. “Salmon. Your favorite.” He kissed her, easy and automatic. Perfect. Upstairs, a voice broke the moment. “Hi, Daddy! I can’t wait to hear your song!”

Hello everyone, Hope we are all having a great and productive day? I noticed someone mentioned me twice here in the community and only for me to check and noticed it has been deleted. Please can i know what the mentioning was for? Thank You...

Hello, lovelies! After nearly 3 years in the making, The Quiet Escape is finally completed. It was a bittersweet feeling as I hit the last key. It’s been quite the journey crafting this manuscript into memoir‑adjacent hybrid novel— and I’m FINALLY at a place where I feel comfortable and confident sharing it. The Quiet Escape blends poetry, narrative fiction, fragmented third‑person reflections, and diary entries. The prologue and epilogue mirror each other in structure and theme, creating a full‑circle emotional arc. If anyone is interested in beta reading this, let me know! I’d be really grateful. Here are the specs: Length: 24 chapters + prologue + epilogue Word count: ≈80,000 (If you’re interested, let me know how many chapters/pages you’d like to read— even a small section helps.) Title: The Quiet Escape Genre: Contemporary Fiction Sub-Genre: Romantic Psychological Drama Armature: When you stop abandoning yourself, you stop choosing people who abandon you. Logline: A neglected young mother escapes her abusive marriage through an intoxicating affair, only to discover her new lover is just as unstable—forcing her to confront her deepest patterns and choose between repeating the cycle or finally saving herself. If you’d like to read the synopsis, I’d be happy to share it with you. Though, honestly, I’m just happy that I finished my manuscript and wanted to share the good news!