A successful lawyer meets a carpenter through an AI (artificial intelligence) software, hoping to find love. But what they find is more than what they bargained for.
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Ursula has all the book smarts and not an ounce of social skills. After a year of loneliness, she decided to take matters into her own hands and completes the creation of Adelaide--a brilliant AI meant to help people like her make real life connections.
Looking for potential clients to test her theory out, the librarian hoped that Adelaide would function properly. But as the AI came to life, this matchmaking scheme of Ursula's might not end up as well as she once believed.
The Clients:
Erica Cresswell, a single mother who works hard to make a living for herself and her son, happens to be a successful lawyer. Most would say that Erica was doing well, but all that was missing in her life was a man, as her fiancé passed away a few years ago. Yet, her best friend, Claudia, played matchmaker to keep her friend happy. Although, all of Claudia's attempts failed, the women meet Ursula, an uncanny librarian, who might have the answer to Erica's problems.
Halfway around the world, Esteban Novicio wasn't having much luck in life either. After being dumped by his girlfriend and losing a client over a rival, he didn't know what else to do. That is, until his best friend, Commodore, introduced him to an AI dating site, which led him to meet Erica's avatar.
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Written for the 2025 ONC & using the following prompts:
Prompt 40: You were once a character in a deleted story, now lost and memoryless in the library. All you recall is your former importance. To rewrite your backstory, you must first outwit the ghost librarian, who won't stop offering unsolicited advice.
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Prompt 131: "This girl is on fire!"
Sandrine is reluctant to take the job as a ghost hunter, despite her ancestral gift. And when she meets her boss and future partners, every fibre of her being tells her to quit-but she needs the money. How hard can it be to dispel the ghost of a bird?
Soon, she finds herself fighting the advances of a medieval playboy, targeted by a flock of ectoplasmic ravens, and trying to solve the puzzle of the cottage in the lake. With disaster waiting around the corner, she truly has no time for a budding romance, right?
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My entry for the open novella contest 2021.
Prompts:
No 5: There is a terrible drought ravaging the land, but when the waters recede from the local lake/reservoir, they reveal something no one expected to find.
No 64. What should have been a simple task for a trio of ghost hunters quickly becomes something for which the term 'Worst Case Scenario' is the mother of all understatement.
No 61. I would've lived longer if it weren't for Lorraine. There's only one issue... who's Lorraine?
Words according to Wattpad:
Chapter 1 - 1495
Chapter 2 - 1455 - milestone 1 reached
Chapter 3 - 1469
Chapter 4 - 1552
Chapter 5 - 1563
Chapter 6 - 1620 - milestone 2 reached
Chapter 7 - 1564
Chapter 8 - 1700
Chapter 9 - 1637
Chapter 10 - 1797
Chapter 11 - 1605
Chapter 12 - 1561
Chapter 13 - 1690 - milestone 3 reached
Chapter 14 - 1842
Chapter 15 - 1762
Epilogue - 233
Total words published: 24545