Why Grief Became Part of False Friends

As mentioned before, when I first began writing what would later become Subjunctive Mood, I was not thinking about a series. I was trying to process a period of my life that felt strangely unreal.

During the Covid pandemic in South Africa, everyday reality often felt uncertain. Administrative processes were slower, information was sometimes unclear, and many people experienced situations that felt difficult to fully comprehend at the time. In that atmosphere, the mind looks for ways to cope.

Part of the story began with the simple idea of imagining a slightly different outcome, a reality in which events had unfolded differently. That emotional starting point later became part of Bianca’s situation at the beginning of the novel.

At that time, I had already been thinking about moving to Spain for quite a while. I wanted a change of environment, but I also had my dog, Shumba, a Rhodesian Ridgeback who had been with me for many years. Anyone who has had an older dog will understand how difficult it can be to plan a move when an animal depends entirely on you. Flying, unfamiliar surroundings, stairs, uncertainty, all of this has to be considered differently.

So Spain remained an idea rather than a decision.

After Shumba passed away, the feeling of needing a change became stronger. I had supportive friends around me, which made a significant difference, but I also felt that I needed a different environment.

In January, mainly because I prefer warmth to cold, I searched online for a language school in the south of Spain and booked a course for three weeks. I was not planning to stay in Málaga. The location and the school itself were simply among the first results that appeared in my search.

At that stage, the core elements of Bianca’s story already existed. Her desire to leave, her emotional vulnerability, and the complicated dynamic that develops between her and Ramón had been written earlier. Originally, the story was set in Valencia, a city I knew from having worked there for a period some years ago.

Ramón therefore existed on paper before I ever arrived in Málaga.

His character developed partly because psychological thrillers often explore situations where emotional boundaries become blurred. I am interested in characters who are not entirely defined by being good or bad, but whose behaviour grows out of emotional conflict, loneliness, or an inability to process certain experiences in a healthy way.

Ramón became a stalker because I wanted to explore how attachment can become distorted, how strong emotions can lead to poor decisions, and how unhealthy coping mechanisms can develop when someone does not know how to manage what they feel.

That does not excuse his behaviour, but it creates a framework for understanding how such dynamics can emerge.

When I arrived in Málaga, I found myself in an environment where everything was unfamiliar. For the first time in my life, I was living somewhere without being able to communicate comfortably. Grammar suddenly became part of daily life, and the Spanish subjunctive quickly turned into a particular challenge.

At the language school, I began noticing details more closely. Small personal anecdotes, expressions used in class, tattoos, mannerisms, fragments of personality. These elements gradually became part of fictional characters.

The idea of a language school conducting experiments on its students grew out of that feeling of disorientation, of trying to understand structures that were new, while still processing personal change at the same time.

Although Subjunctive Mood functions as a complete novel, it is also part of a larger narrative. Throughout the False Friends series, events may initially appear confusing or unsettling, but there is an underlying structure that becomes clearer over time.

Some questions are not intended to be answered immediately. The deeper explanation behind what happens in the series develops gradually, with the central antagonist only fully revealed in Book 5.

Many elements that seem unusual at first are part of that larger design.

The events in the novels are fictional, but the emotional starting point was grounded in a real period of transition.

Sometimes a story does not begin with a plot, but with the need to move forward.