False Friends
Some encounters change more than you realise.
Bianca’s world begins to shift long before she sets foot in Málaga. A brief meeting with Ramón in South Africa — a man whose calm precision masks something far more complicated — stays with her at a moment when grief has already hollowed her life. When he later encourages her to spend a short stay at Instituto Guerrera, it feels like exactly the escape she needs.
But Málaga is not the sanctuary she imagined.
The school is polished, respected… and quietly unsettling.
Odd changes in behaviour, whispers of unusual teaching methods, and a subtle pressure beneath everyday interactions make Bianca question what she has stepped into. And Ramón — attentive, controlled, always present — becomes increasingly difficult to read.
Just as she begins to find her footing, a figure from her past re-emerges — unexpected, disruptive, and impossible to ignore. The life she thought she had left behind follows her across continents, pulling old truths and buried fears to the surface.
As Bianca becomes more deeply entangled with the school, she realises she isn’t simply learning a language — she is
being shaped by forces she doesn’t yet understand.
Subjunctive Mood is the first book in the False Friends series — a psychological thriller about obsession, manipulation,
and the perilous space between what is said and what is meant.
Some instructions are not meant to be questioned.
Moritz enrols at Instituto Guerrera as a way to steady himself, hoping routine might quiet what his own mind won't — even as certain experiences begin to feel uncomfortably real. He perceives the world too vividly: sounds bleed into colour, sensations arrive layered and overwhelming, and structure feels like the only way to keep those perceptions in check. The school functions exactly as expected — smooth, contained, quietly effective — its routines already proven, its confidence unquestioned.
Lola is already part of that rhythm — open, funny, and disarmingly at ease. She knows how to keep a room moving, how to make boundaries feel generous rather than restrictive, how to let things warm without letting them burn.
But beneath that calm continuity, something begins to slip. Details don't align. Incidents are reframed. Experiences Moritz is certain of — seen, felt, embodied — are questioned, softened, then quietly denied. Fires flare in his perception, sharp and convincing, only to be later treated as if they never existed at all. The more he insists on what his senses tell him, the more unstable he appears.
As concern replaces urgency and explanations replace evidence, responsibility starts to shift. The institution remains intact. The rules hold. And the danger is quietly reassigned to the person who can't adapt.
Imperative Ember is the second novel in the False Friends series — a psychological thriller about obedience, perception, and the carefully managed heat of systems that decide what is real. Inspired by real people and a real school, it explores how easily reassurance becomes compliance — and how difficult it is to tell the difference, especially when the cost of being believed keeps rising.