StrentWriter
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The score is higher now anyway from 11 votes. It has gone up as votes have been removed.
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Peta / Sam (novel), Peta & Sam (short story), Peta (sequel novel) feedback thread
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StrentWriter
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I present to you: Peta & Sam, a short story following on from my novel Peta/Sam and taking part in the Valentine’s Day Contest 2026.
Peta & Sam is a short companion story that follows directly on from the novel Peta/Sam, capturing the moment when two people who have spent years almost finding each other finally choose to stay.
Reunited in London, Peta and Sam move quickly from physical reconnection to an unambiguous decision: to marry, to blend their families, and to stop running from what they’ve always known. Alongside humour, explicit intimacy, and cultural friction, the story explores grief, responsibility, and the quiet work of becoming a family.
Set around an intimate wedding in Holland Park and its aftermath, Peta & Sam closes one chapter of their relationship while opening another — a love story no longer defined by longing, but by choice and consequence.
Peta & Sam is a short companion story that follows directly on from the novel Peta/Sam, capturing the moment when two people who have spent years almost finding each other finally choose to stay.
Reunited in London, Peta and Sam move quickly from physical reconnection to an unambiguous decision: to marry, to blend their families, and to stop running from what they’ve always known. Alongside humour, explicit intimacy, and cultural friction, the story explores grief, responsibility, and the quiet work of becoming a family.
Set around an intimate wedding in Holland Park and its aftermath, Peta & Sam closes one chapter of their relationship while opening another — a love story no longer defined by longing, but by choice and consequence.
StrentWriter
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Comparing the stories and their publications, the Valentine’s Day short story is lower rated but higher views - to be fair I think that probably makes sense comparing the word counts of 91K and approx 6.5K.
I’m pretty happy with how the short story is going, it’s not going to set the world alight but it has given me a steer towards the start of the sequels writing.
I’m pretty happy with how the short story is going, it’s not going to set the world alight but it has given me a steer towards the start of the sequels writing.
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StrentWriter
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I’m only a few votes away from qualifying for the Valentine’s Day contest. If you’ve got twenty minutes or so to read my short story, I’d appreciate the read and a rating greatly.
Obviously I would like to score higher - but I figure you learn more from failure than success! So by all means be honest in your scoring.
https://www.literotica.com/s/peta-and-sam
Obviously I would like to score higher - but I figure you learn more from failure than success! So by all means be honest in your scoring.
https://www.literotica.com/s/peta-and-sam
StrentWriter
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This quote has made my year!!!!!
Thank you so much!!!!!
I’m so delighted. No one since Peta/Sam was published has picked up on the fleetwood mac references - I’m so pleased someone FINALLY joined the dots on it.
Thank you!!! You know who you are - thanks for reading my novel. Appreciate you.
StrentWriter
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I’m going to be that guy - I’m still advertising for the Valentine’s Day contest (closes tomorrow)
Here’s mine again if anyone fancies having a read and giving it a vote (of whatever score!)
https://www.literotica.com/s/peta-and-sam
I’m trying to work my way through the list still. Some cracking stories throughout!
Well done to everyone who took part.
Here’s mine again if anyone fancies having a read and giving it a vote (of whatever score!)
https://www.literotica.com/s/peta-and-sam
I’m trying to work my way through the list still. Some cracking stories throughout!
Well done to everyone who took part.
StrentWriter
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Morning all. My latest story has been published - finally! Start of a new novel I’ve been working on.
https://www.literotica.com/s/peta-married-with-children
https://www.literotica.com/s/peta-married-with-children
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StrentWriter
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Made an update to the first page with the below as a record of my ongoing work, and to make it a bit more fun, some “book covers” just to give it a series feel.
Peta/Sam
First Novel, published November 2025 (Romance Category)
Synopsis:
Peta Fernsands and Sam Maillard meet at sixteen, when a holiday boat trip off Corfu capsizes and Sam drags an unconscious Peta from the wreckage, saving her life. In that phosphorescent chaos, a bond forms that neither of them can ever quite escape.
Over the next fifteen years, their lives weave together through missed timing, distance, and unresolved desire. They fall for each other in fragments—university years in Vienna and London, stolen weekends, long silences where each pretends to move on. Adulthood intervenes. Peta marries for stability. Sam marries for peace. Careers bloom, families form, children are born.
Yet every reunion crackles with the same inevitability. Their story becomes one of almosts: a kiss too late, a confession too early, a life built just slightly wrong.
When tragedy forces them back together, long-buried truths surface and the question they’ve avoided since adolescence can no longer be ignored: Was the life they built without each other ever truly theirs—and is it too late to claim the one they were always meant for?
Peta & Sam
Valentine’s Day Contest Submission 2026
Synopsis: Peta & Sam is a short companion story that follows directly on from the novel Peta/Sam, capturing the moment when two people who have spent years almost finding each other finally choose to stay.
Reunited in London, Peta and Sam move quickly from physical reconnection to an unambiguous decision: to marry, to blend their families, and to stop running from what they’ve always known. Alongside humour, explicit intimacy, and cultural friction, the story explores grief, responsibility, and the quiet work of becoming a family.
Set around an intimate wedding in Holland Park and its aftermath, Peta & Sam closes one chapter of their relationship while opening another — a love story no longer defined by longing, but by choice and consequence.
Peta
Sequel Novel, in progress, (Romance Category)
Synopsis:
Peta follows Peta Maillard in the fragile calm before everything breaks, and the long, bruising stretch of not knowing what comes after. Four months from her wedding, Peta is balancing family life between London and Vienna when her husband Sam leaves to support a humanitarian mission abroad. What begins as a temporary absence stretches into silence, fear, and a waiting that corrodes certainty.
Left alone with two grieving children and a flat that feels too large, Peta endures loss without closure. Desire, anger, loyalty, and loneliness collide as she struggles to remain anchored to a man who is increasingly absent in every way that matters. Public sympathy fades, political interest sharpens, and private compromises begin to feel dangerously human.
Set against moral conviction, bureaucratic indifference, and the ache of physical and emotional deprivation, Peta is a novel about love under pressure — about what fidelity means when hope becomes unbearable, and how far a person can bend before something finally gives.
Act 1
Chapter 1: “Married With Children”
Peta/Sam
First Novel, published November 2025 (Romance Category)
Synopsis:
Peta Fernsands and Sam Maillard meet at sixteen, when a holiday boat trip off Corfu capsizes and Sam drags an unconscious Peta from the wreckage, saving her life. In that phosphorescent chaos, a bond forms that neither of them can ever quite escape.
Over the next fifteen years, their lives weave together through missed timing, distance, and unresolved desire. They fall for each other in fragments—university years in Vienna and London, stolen weekends, long silences where each pretends to move on. Adulthood intervenes. Peta marries for stability. Sam marries for peace. Careers bloom, families form, children are born.
Yet every reunion crackles with the same inevitability. Their story becomes one of almosts: a kiss too late, a confession too early, a life built just slightly wrong.
When tragedy forces them back together, long-buried truths surface and the question they’ve avoided since adolescence can no longer be ignored: Was the life they built without each other ever truly theirs—and is it too late to claim the one they were always meant for?
Peta & Sam
Valentine’s Day Contest Submission 2026
Synopsis: Peta & Sam is a short companion story that follows directly on from the novel Peta/Sam, capturing the moment when two people who have spent years almost finding each other finally choose to stay.
Reunited in London, Peta and Sam move quickly from physical reconnection to an unambiguous decision: to marry, to blend their families, and to stop running from what they’ve always known. Alongside humour, explicit intimacy, and cultural friction, the story explores grief, responsibility, and the quiet work of becoming a family.
Set around an intimate wedding in Holland Park and its aftermath, Peta & Sam closes one chapter of their relationship while opening another — a love story no longer defined by longing, but by choice and consequence.
Peta
Sequel Novel, in progress, (Romance Category)
Synopsis:
Peta follows Peta Maillard in the fragile calm before everything breaks, and the long, bruising stretch of not knowing what comes after. Four months from her wedding, Peta is balancing family life between London and Vienna when her husband Sam leaves to support a humanitarian mission abroad. What begins as a temporary absence stretches into silence, fear, and a waiting that corrodes certainty.
Left alone with two grieving children and a flat that feels too large, Peta endures loss without closure. Desire, anger, loyalty, and loneliness collide as she struggles to remain anchored to a man who is increasingly absent in every way that matters. Public sympathy fades, political interest sharpens, and private compromises begin to feel dangerously human.
Set against moral conviction, bureaucratic indifference, and the ache of physical and emotional deprivation, Peta is a novel about love under pressure — about what fidelity means when hope becomes unbearable, and how far a person can bend before something finally gives.
Act 1
Chapter 1: “Married With Children”
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