Vinca Marel: Stories

Four thousand three hundred and twelve deepfake videos of Alana de Vargas exist online. She never made one of them. At forty, with four Vogue covers and an Academy Award behind her, she answers the only way left: for real. Ten days at the Château de Valéran, ten scenarios, all live-streamed. No recordings, no archives, no second takes. Day One is a library, a professor of architectural heritage, and a photometer.

David sold his company for more money than either of them will ever spend. What it cost was eleven years of his wife's life, spent in rooms he wasn't in. The villa on Cap Ferrat is meant to be the repair. Analisa has other ideas about how repair works. The protocol is simple in outline: a hundred and twenty days, a titanium lock, a release schedule only she knows, and Arianne - the villa's system - keeping the record. Both of them go in with their eyes open.

Cara Whitlock inherits a vast Northumberland estate—but only if she and her fiancé complete a ninety-day residential programme of absolute compliance. Daily orders, impossible clothing, public exposure, and a ledger that never stops adding days. What begins as a test of will becomes something far more permanent.