Booksandtea Stories

Charlie Porter arrives in Providence with a packed truck, a cat named Milo, and the hope that distance might finally quiet the ache she's been carrying. Grad school is supposed to be a fresh start-but healing isn't linear, and starting over doesn't mean you stop looking back. Between crowded subways, café shifts, and writing assignments that cut too close to the bone, Charlie tries to piece together a new version of herself-one that isn't built on guilt or giving too much away. She builds routines, soft friendships, and a sense of stillness she hasn't known in years. Then a blog post is shared with her in attempt to show her a new path. A question. A challenge. A dare to feel something again. What starts as a quiet reading of typed confessions from a stranger becomes something deeper, more intimate in her mind... but Charlie still doesn't know who's on the other end. Ink, Love, and Everything Else is a story about learning to belong to yourself first. About the spaces we create for truth, the words we leave behind, and the kind of love that finds us when we stop trying to earn it.

Just some thoughts and ideas ~

Shanghai, 1936. A city caught between tradition and revolution. A love that drifts like tea steam in the morning air. Meilin, a quiet bookseller tucked away on Avenue Joffre, has lived her life between pages and plane trees-safe, unseen, and content. But everything changes when Zemin, a revolutionary with ink-stained fingers and a secret past, walks into her shop asking for a banned poem. As Shanghai pulses with danger and dreams, the two are drawn together by words, longing, and the silence between letters. But war brews on the horizon, and love-no matter how tender-has its cost. In a city where nothing stands still, can two hearts find a place to belong? A story of love written in shadows, folded in cranes, and whispered beneath the trees.

Julian moves to a quiet town hoping to start over. He finds a gentle bookstore owner, a loud found family, and a kind of love he never thought he deserved. Micah has built a calm life surrounded by stories and soft things. But when Julian walks into his shop, everything changes. This is a queer love story about healing, safety, dragon stickers, and the way love feels when it's truly safe.