Shared Memory 

We like to believe that shared experience means shared memory. That if we lived through something together, we must carry the same version of it. But that’s not true.
Earlier this year, I spoke with my father about something painful we had lived through many moons ago. I thought we might find a connection in remembering, by simply opening myself up with honesty. But what I found was silence, not the absence of words, nor of caring, but the absence of overlap. His version of the experience and mine didn’t align. Not in the details, not in the meaning. There was no epiphany. No reconciliation. Just two truths, side by side, unable to see each other. Life has no grand narrator that can come down and fill everyone in on what happened. 
That moment stayed with me. It hurt. And it made me wonder: what happens when memory fractures? When the people we love can’t, or won’t, see what we saw? Indeed, does that shared experience become something that, in itself, assists in people drifting away from each other?  
This book and the series more generally was born from that question. Not to answer it, but to witness it. To ritualize the ache of being unseen. To honor the masks we wear, and the truths we carry alone, and sometimes in life, there is only fizzy apple soda left and that's just the world we live in.

Riley Harper-Reed, Oct 2025

Live To The World 

Today is a truly special day for me. My debut novel has officially gone live, yes, the one I’ve been pouring myself into for far too long. Why haven’t you bought ten copies yet? I’m only half joking… but only half.
With the release, I want to take a moment to talk about the format of the book, because it’s not exactly conventional. I chose to write it in a fractured epistolary style letters, fragments, voices colliding and overlapping. It’s not a common method of storytelling, and I know it might raise eyebrows. Is it proof that I’m completely nuts? Perhaps. But that’s not really for me to decide.
I’ll admit, there were moments writing it that I thought of a story I once heard from Yale Business School. A professor supposedly began a lecture by saying: “If you want to own a successful business, drive around until you find a junction with only a McDonald’s on one corner, then build a Burger King on the other.” In other words, dare to be different, even if it feels like a gamble, but be mindful that there is a potential for cost!
I totally get that and I'm not breaking ground in the next Burger King. However, I can't take the credit for bravery, because I think the story itself demanded this fractured form. To force it into a more traditional narrative would have been like trying to cage something wild, it simply wouldn’t breathe the same way. The format isn’t a gimmick; it’s the only way the story could truly live.
And so, here we are. The book is out in the world, no longer mine alone but yours to read, question, and hopefully enjoy. To borrow the words of the Duke of Wellington: “Publish and be damned.”

Riley Harper-Reed, Nov 2025

Seasonal Reflections and Best Wishes

As the year winds down, I find myself, as many of us dolooking back. It’s natural to weigh the successes, the near misses, and those moments that didn’t unfold quite as we had hoped. For me, this has been a year unlike any other. Just as I began writing The Unmasking of Grace, I received devastating health news while already feeling unwell. Yet, in a twist that still feels surreal, it turned out to be an error. Relief followed, but oddly enough, I carried a lingering heaviness for months. A friend suggested it was a kind of survivor’s guilt, for a sickness I never truly had.

That experience reminded me how deeply our minds shape our well-being, and how those shadows can find their way into the stories we tell. One of the earliest scenes I envisioned for The Unmasking of Grace was “Christmas with the Langdons.” On the surface, it’s a family gathering, a meal, a tradition. But beneath it lies something more — a reckoning, a duel of sorts. In my mind, Faith became the enforcer of judgement, not unlike a western gunslinger. Each gunslinger was the fastest until they weren’t, and in many ways, that was Faith’s fate on her Christmas Day.

As I look ahead, I want to thank you sincerely for being part of this journey. Your presence, your curiosity, and your willingness to step into these stories mean more than I can say. I wish you and yours a season filled with warmth, rest, and renewal.

For my part, I’ll be spending the holidays immersed in book two of the series and preparing for a couple of lengthy trips at the start of the new year. It promises to be a season of both reflection and momentum — and I’m eager to carry these stories forward.

And perhaps it’s fitting to close with the words of Sister Catherine, who will soon step into the heart of the tale:

“May the Child born in Bethlehem cradle your hopes as I cradle the prayers of strangers and saints alike. May His peace rest in the hush between heartbeats, and His love guide your steps into the year ahead.”

Riley Harper-Reed (& Sister Catherine), Dec 2025