2026 Leighyeann A. Mies All rights reserved An entry for the Open Novella Contest 2026 (based on prompts #23, #30, #39 and #58) A group of teenagers find themselves tangled in a series of intrigues, secrets and blunders that can define their journey through what's left of high school for the better or for the worse. From the mysterious transfer student to the cheerful aspiring footballer coming back from an injury, passing through a disgraced social media personality and so much more. Watch their destinies take paths they themselves have a hard time imagining...

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield meets The Haunting of the Hill House (the Netflix series) in this tale of paleoanthropological terror that plays with the famous theory of the uncanny valley by Masahiro Mori. *** PhD student Giselle Brown is at her hometown to complete her dissertation in peace, hardly expecting anything surprising to happen. Her life is muddled as it is; she doesn't need more trouble to spice it up. But when the bones of a human cadaver are discovered by the local anglers, which turn out to be the remains of her long-lost mother, Giselle's life is thrown into a tumult. Twenty years ago, Giselle's mother, Julia Brown, had disappeared from their house, leaving behind a trail of heartbreak and despair. The police never found her mother, which drove her father to suicide, her older sister to turn mute and to be admitted in a mental institution, leaving the full onus of raising Giselle on her grandmother. Her mother was more a legend in their house than a person who haunted their every action and Giselle's most haunting thoughts. Somewhere deep down Giselle had always sought answers to what happened to her mother and the disturbing facets of the last week she was with their family. Now, with the corpse recovered and identified, the investigation that had once gone cold resumes upon Giselle's insistence. Yet things get stranger as the police uncover the most bizarre facts about the cadaver and details about the last days of Julia's life. Giselle is plagued by reflections that are not quite hers, shadows that stretch too long, figures appearing at the edge of the woods close to her home and a lingering sense of being watched. Giselle doesn't know what to do. Can she really trust her mind? Or is nothing as it seems? For Julia Brown had unearthed a secret that humanity must not know, and now her family must pay its dues... *** An ONC 2026 entry

A counterfeit claim against a legendary wine ignites a high-stakes investigation in which a neurodivergent restaurateur and a forensic wine analyst must navigate forgery, deception, and their own unexpected connection to save a century-old legacy. Luc, owner of London's prestigious Le Rêve restaurant, faces a devastating crisis when a valued patron declares a prized vintage a fake. To protect his family's century-old reputation, he enlists Izzy, a brilliant but socially unconventional forensic wine analyst, eager to prove her mettle. Their shared autism initially creates an unexpected but undeniable spark of attraction, challenging their focus. But as they delve deeper into the complex world of wine fraud, they suspect a widespread conspiracy that threatens to destroy Le Rêve. Together, they must harness their unique abilities to expose the truth, safeguard the restaurant's legacy, and navigate their intensifying relationship, even as they battle their own internal worlds.