A Life in Drafts

Mara MacRae knows the difference between right and wrong, she just can't afford to care.

She works in a bookshop cafe in Glasgow's bustling West End, lives with an ex she can't afford to leave, and spends her nights writing essays for students who get to live the life she lost. Every assignment pays for her brother's care and every lie buys him a little more independence, but every draft pushes Mara further from the person she once wanted to become.

Callan Reid has spent his life believing in words - honest ones, earned ones, the kind that reveal who a person really is. When his students' essays begin to feel too polished, too familiar, too filled with someone else's voice, he becomes determined to find out why.

He should be dangerous to Mara. Instead, he becomes the first person in years to make her feel like there's more than the life she's had to survive.

But Mara's world is built on choices she can't explain, and Callan's is built on truths he refuses to ignore.

Some stories refuse to stay in draft.

And some secrets don't just ruin futures.

They rewrite them.