Title: The Break of Dawn

Author: Eule Grey

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 04/01/2025

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 28400

Genre: Contemporary, British, Yorkshire, YSP, Art, Sculpture, Easter, Spring, second chances, new beginnings, first love, baby animals

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Description

Cora ‘I am all that I need’ Richards has a prison reputation for being an ice queen. She exists via a strict code of survival: people equal pain—the end. Surprises lead to disappointment; therefore, Cora won’t tolerate the unexpected. Friends? No. Lovers? Never. A hollow nighttime ache in her chest is bothersome, true, but the issue certainly isn’t caused by loneliness. Cora knows who she is and what she isn’t. She gladly accepts a placement at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, not to meet the elusive artist, Sky Sunday, but to finish her prison sentence early. It’s work, nothing more.

But the breathtaking landscape, woolly lambs, fluffy ducklings, and friendly artists challenge a woman trying not to feel. Life at the Sculpture Park is vibrant, messy, and warm. Still, it would take someone extraordinary to melt an ice queen such as Cora—the end.

Sky Sunday wears dungarees and muddy yellow boots, talks in riddles, listens to Cora’s suggestions, and never belittles her. From the first awkward meeting, attraction sizzles between them. But Sky is rubbish at talking. So is Cora. How can two impenetrable women ever get close?

From dawn to dusk, the workers toil on a mysterious, humming sculpture, and nobody knows what it’s supposed to be. If they trust their instincts, Sky insists that something unique will happen on Easter Sunday. Cora abandons the last of her ice armour as dawn breaks, but is it too late to be vulnerable and take a second chance?

What happens when an ice queen and a fluffy chick kiss? Can Cora and Sky forget their past and begin a new life together? This story is not the end.

The Break of Dawn
Eule Grey © 2025
All Rights Reserved

I crushed on Sky from a distance, waking up first in the old college, rushing to my window to discern the colours, hoping to catch sight of her too. I forgot about my method of predicting the day’s troubles and instead noted layers of darkness and light without gifting them a symbol, trying to catch the precise moment when the night was over.

Occasionally I caught a glimpse of Sky’s assistant in the distance, directing workers or chatting with Jez and Chris. She appeared to be watching me at times, but I was probably wrong and dismissed the urge to get to know her, figuring I was safer dreaming about the tunic-wearing Sky than an attractive woman with mud on her dimpled cheeks.

In such a unique place, it wasn’t difficult to see why an artist would dedicate their work to the finely balanced relationship between the natural and artificial worlds. The park reflected this symbiosis from tiny flowers growing out of stone structures to the daylight shining across the lake, steered by the shape of the buildings. It was easy to forget the world beyond the boundaries, and I was more than happy to do so. Nothing waited for me outside but housing queues and stress.

A few weeks after my arrival, I wandered down to the bridge after dinner as darkness and daylight merged. Chris and Jez’s comments about Sky’s fascination with light often returned to me in those early weeks, as did reminiscences about my life. Maybe because of the setting, I began viewing my mistakes differently, as a tiny part of a vast world rather than looming milestones I could never leave behind. Away from the noise and stress of prison, perhaps I forgave myself for some, if not all, of my failures, not all at once, and never completely.

I leaned over the bridge, watching ducks chattering below, when someone approached from behind. I could not have said how I guessed it was Sky’s assistant, but I knew it was her. She was there to talk about my probation officer, due the next day, perhaps, or some other technical matter.

I became irritated that she’d disturbed my moment of peace and irrationally excited.

Maybe I wanted to show off? I started talking arty rubbish and could not stop.

“Do you see the shaft of light reaching down like a hand? It’s almost—kind of—spiritual. I’m not. Religious, I mean. But it makes you think.”

Christ. If Jenny had heard, she’d have hooted with laughter. Cora Richards was known for directness, not arty nonsense, and certainly not for messing up her words in a vain desire to impress a woman.

At my side, Sky’s assistant shifted slightly, thereby interfering with the cool, calm air, which had, a moment before, offered a peaceful, spring scent and quietness. A strange energy rose from her, the same as on the day of my arrival. Against it, I felt insubstantial and solid. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I mysteriously slipped from the bridge and melted into the lake.

As before, her aura collided with mine. This had often happened in prison or hostels with other women. An art teacher once told me that people who had undergone much stress carried their experiences to the point where their damage became visible, etched into their faces and bodies as well as in the space around them. They did not have to speak to broadcast their feelings; they created a disturbance in the natural order simply by existing until their torment could be heard. I had understood the teacher completely: Some people lifted me, like Jez and Chris; others dragged me down. The effect Sky’s assistant had on me was much more chaotic—as if her aura shook me, rattled me, until the fibres holding me together flew apart.

But why?

Until then, I hadn’t understood what the new itchiness and restlessness were all about. I awoke as if on the cusp of screaming and fell asleep the same. An unseen force pulled at me constantly, like a nagging impossible to ignore.

The realisation hit me hard, and yet I shouldn’t have been surprised. Jez and Chris had been necking like horny ducks, and everywhere, spring was blossoming. It had been a long time since my last relationship.

I fancied Sky’s assistant.

 

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Eule Grey has settled, for now, in the north UK. She’s worked in education, justice, youth work, and even tried her hand at butter-spreading in a sandwich factory. Sadly, she wasn’t much good at any of them!

She writes novels, novellas, poetry, and a messy combination of all three. Nothing about Eule is tidy but she rocks a boogie on a Saturday night!

For now, Eule is she/her or they/them. Eule has not yet arrived at a pronoun that feels right.

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