It started like normal. Making eyes across the crowded beach hut bar at the guy in the half-unbuttoned white cotton shirt that fits like he owns the brand. Approach. Smalltalk. Banter. Innocent brushes. A drink on his dime. Shots on mine. He's wearing tinted designer shades, because Bali. I don't discover his eye colour until we're doing the vertical mambo against the back of my rented apartment door, tearing at clothes a...

The blood drains into my skull and dizziness swirls, heels high above me resting against the wall of my editor’s office. “Can I stand yet?” “No! Not until you appreciate the world from a fresh perspective.” From my headstand, Gary appears slightly crazed, fingers laced on the desk above his head, eyeballs where his chin should be. “If I stay like this much longer, you’ll be finding yourself a new bestselling romance autho...

Have you ever sat inside an anechoic chamber? Just staring at the jagged peaks, troughs and asymmetrical recesses carved into foot-thick, off-white foam on all six surfaces? The irregular shapes scatter sound in all directions except yours, absorbing everything. And I mean everything. Not even my quickening breaths bounce back. The result is… eerie. Isolating. Downright oppressive. The claustrophobic nothingness swamps ev...