Everything We Lost Is Still There

Everything We Lost Is Still There

A New Standalone Science Fiction Thriller by Ryan Mercer

Some things are gone forever.

At least, they are supposed to be.

Nora Vale spends her days restoring damaged objects at Chicago’s Halcyon Museum. She can clean soot from a photograph, stabilize a cracked painting, and preserve what remains after fire, neglect, or time has done its worst.

What she cannot restore is Theo, her husband, who died fourteen months earlier in a suspicious car crash.

While testing an experimental quantum-imaging system, Nora opens a doorway into an empty version of Chicago. The streets, buildings, museums, and homes are almost exactly the same, but no people or other sentient beings exist there.

The empty city contains something even more impossible.

Everything Nora’s world has lost, stolen, burned, deleted, or destroyed still exists there.

When Nora travels to the site of Theo’s crash, she finds his destroyed blue source phone preserved inside the wreckage. The phone may contain the evidence he died trying to protect, including information that could expose one of the country's most powerful men.

Bringing it home comes with a cost.

Every object recovered from the empty world erases the human memories connected to it. A lost wedding ring can be returned, but the proposal it represents may disappear. A destroyed work of art can be restored, but the people who loved it may forget why it mattered.

As Nora searches Theo’s phone, she begins losing pieces of him. His laugh. His face. Their private jokes. Their arguments. The complicated life they shared.

To uncover the truth about Theo’s death, Nora may have to forget the man she is trying to avenge.

About the Book

Everything We Lost Is Still There is a standalone contemporary science fiction thriller about grief, memory, parallel worlds, corporate power, and the dangerous belief that recovering something lost can make a person whole again.

The story combines an eerie alternate Chicago, a mystery surrounding a journalist’s death, and an impossible moral choice. It is written for readers who enjoy accessible speculative fiction with emotional stakes, psychological suspense, and a complete ending.

The novel is currently in development. We'll post additional details and release information here as they become available.

Beyond the Open Key: The Iron Finch Voyages Continue

Beyond the Open Key: The Iron Finch Voyages Continue

The gate was supposed to be dead. Pilgrim Seven was supposed to be lost. Both assumptions were wrong.

Beyond the Open Key, Book Two of The Iron Finch Voyages, continues the story that began in The Wreck of the Valiant.

After exposing the truth behind the Lysander massacre, Captain Elara Voss has no intention of returning to the Union Fleet. She has reclaimed her name, secured an independent recovery charter, and set a new course for the Iron Finch. Her mission is to locate the remaining Pilgrim transports and bring home the people Gatewright tried to erase.

The first trail leads to the dormant Ophiuchus gate.

When an old token left behind by Elara’s brother activates something hidden inside the supposedly dead structure, the Iron Finch crosses an aperture no human vessel was meant to find. On the other side waits a starless system, a missing refugee transport, and an alien construction vast enough to make humanity’s greatest ships look insignificant.

Pilgrim Seven is still there.

Its 631 survivors are alive, but only fourteen months have passed for them. Their damaged ship has been repaired with an unknown black-silver material, and many of the passengers have been altered by the same technology. They are protected by the Waykeeper, an ancient intelligence that believes preserving human life is more important than allowing humans to choose what happens to it.

Elara soon discovers that Gatewright knew about this place long before the Meridian War. A surviving Gatewright director has followed the Finch through the hidden gate, determined to seize the alien structure and restore centralized control over interstellar travel.

Caught between a human authority that wants to own the gates and an alien custodian that wants to protect humanity from itself, Elara must find a third path.

Beside her is Cassian Rook, no longer a disgraced commander or a man waiting for a chance to sacrifice himself. He is Elara’s tactical partner, romantic partner, and equal in the life they are trying to build. Their greatest challenge is not discovering whether they love each other. It is learning how to share danger, responsibility, and an uncertain future without either one taking away the other’s choices.

What to Expect

• An enormous alien megastructure hidden beyond the known gate network

• A missing transport filled with survivors who have built their own community

• Cosmic mystery, first contact, and practical salvage engineering

• A morally complicated alien intelligence rather than a simple invading enemy

• Found family aboard the Iron Finch

• An established, family-friendly, closed-door romance

• Questions about authority, consent, survival, and who has the right to control the road between stars

Beyond the Open Key expands the universe of The Wreck of the Valiant while continuing the stories of Elara, Cassian, Mara, Niko, Tavi, Keon, Suri, and Iona.

The first book was about uncovering the truth buried in the wreckage of the past.

This voyage is about deciding who gets to shape the future.

Read the Series

Book One: The Wreck of the Valiant
Book Two: Beyond the Open Key

Introducing No Standard Build: The Unassigned, My New LitRPG Novel

Introducing No Standard Build: The Unassigned, My New LitRPG Novel

I am excited to finally share No Standard Build: The Unassigned, my new portal fantasy LitRPG and the first book in a planned series.

I have enjoyed LitRPG for years, but I wanted to approach the genre from a different direction. Instead of writing about a young warrior who becomes stronger by defeating everything in his path, I wanted a mature protagonist whose greatest abilities are observing, teaching, problem-solving, and helping other people become more capable.

That idea became Caleb Ward.

A Teacher in a World Built Around Classes

Caleb is a 41-year-old special education teacher who has spent years advocating for students whose knowledge is not always recognized by standardized assessments.

When Caleb is summoned to the Empire of Twelve Paths, he discovers a world where a single test determines almost everything about a person’s future.

Every citizen is expected to qualify for one of twelve approved magical classes. Those who fail the Concordance Assessment are labeled Unassigned. They cannot join guilds, receive enchanted equipment, serve in public positions, or even count as legal defenders of their own communities.

Caleb does not arrive as a warrior, wizard, or chosen hero. Instead, the System gives him a forbidden legacy class:

[Pathmaker]

A Pathmaker cannot gain combat attributes or become personally powerful. Caleb can only progress by helping other people turn skills they already possess into new, individualized Paths.

There is another important limitation. Caleb receives no credit when someone succeeds only because he is standing beside them and giving instructions. His class grows when the people he teaches can demonstrate real mastery without depending on him.

Meet the Unassigned

Caleb can maintain only four active Paths, and the people selected for them have spent years being told they are incapable.

Branik Tor is an injured quarry foreman who cannot perform the symmetrical stance required by the approved Bulwark class. The assessment ignores his decades of knowledge about weight, leverage, structural support, and force.

Eira Noll is an apothecary who cannot perceive the magical colors used by Imperial alchemists. She has learned to identify reactions through scent, temperature, texture, and sound, but the approved tests do not recognize her methods.

Senn Kest is an exceptional scout with a nearly perfect memory for terrain. Crowded environments and shouted battle commands overwhelm him, making it impossible to pass the standard Ranger examination.

Jory Pell cannot reproduce magical runes on parchment. When those same runes are carved into stone as three-dimensional structures, he understands them in ways trained Scribes do not.

Caleb cannot simply give them new powers. Every Path must begin with an ability they have already developed. It must carry real costs and limitations. It must work outside controlled training conditions, and it must eventually function without Caleb.

The Question Behind the Story

As a special education teacher, I spend a lot of time thinking about the difference between what a person can do and what a standardized system is able to measure.

That question became the foundation of No Standard Build.

Are we testing the skill that actually matters, or are we testing whether someone can use the one method an institution prefers?

The story is not arguing that standards are unnecessary. Reliable training, evidence, safety procedures, and honest assessments all matter. Caleb makes serious mistakes when his desire to help causes him to overprotect people or accept success too quickly.

The real conflict is about whether a standard measures genuine competence or simple conformity.

That conflict is represented by Talia Vey, an Imperial examiner who questions every claim Caleb makes. Talia is not cruel, corrupt, or opposed to the Unassigned. She has seen untested abilities fail with deadly consequences, and she refuses to certify someone simply because Caleb believes in them.

Caleb knows how to search for another path. Talia knows how to determine whether that path actually works.

They need each other, even when neither is ready to admit it.

Thirty Days to Save Rookstone

Caleb and his new party have only thirty days to prove themselves.

The failing mining settlement of Rookstone is about to lose its protective charter because the Empire refuses to count Unassigned residents among its defenders. At the same time, the Red Run is approaching.

The creatures leading the migration do more than attack. They observe standard classes, learn their formations, and adapt to repeated strategies.

To save Rookstone, Caleb’s party must become reliable without becoming predictable.

Along the way, they uncover evidence that individualized Paths were not a flaw in the magical System. They may have been what the System was originally designed to create.

What Readers Can Expect

No Standard Build: The Unassigned includes medium-crunch LitRPG mechanics, a noncombat protagonist, an adult cast, party progression, settlement defense, tactical battles, dry humor, a slow-building relationship, and characters whose abilities develop through practice rather than effortless power.

At its heart, it is a story about people who have been underestimated, mismeasured, and told that they do not fit any available path.

Sometimes the problem is not the person.

Sometimes the available paths are simply too narrow.

[BUTTON: Read No Standard Build on Amazon]

How I Fixed the EverDrive 64 X7 Black Screen on the ModRetro M64

When I first tried using my EverDrive 64 X7 with the ModRetro M64, I could not get the EverDrive menu to appear. The M64 turned on, but all I received was a black screen.

The cartridge needed an updated EverDrive OS and bootloader before it would start correctly on the M64.

After installing the newer bootloader with an original Nintendo 64, I moved the EverDrive 64 X7 back to the M64. It then booted normally instead of giving me a black screen.

Here is the complete process I followed.

Important: You Need an Original Nintendo 64

You cannot complete this update entirely on the ModRetro M64 if your EverDrive already produces a black screen there.

The bootloader installer must be launched from the EverDrive menu, which means the cartridge first needs to start on an original Nintendo 64.

You will need:

• An EverDrive 64 X-series cartridge, such as the EverDrive 64 X7

• The microSD card used inside the EverDrive

• A computer with a microSD card reader

• An original Nintendo 64

• A controller

• The official EverDrive OS and bootloader files

You are updating the microSD card inside the EverDrive cartridge. You do not need to modify the microSD card installed inside the ModRetro M64.

Download the Official EverDrive Files

All downloads below point directly to the official Krikzz website. I am not hosting, mirroring, or redistributing any of the files.

At the time of writing in August 2026, I used the following versions:

EverDrive 64 OS V3.11

Download OS-V3.11.zip from Krikzz

You can also check the official directory for a newer version:

Official EverDrive 64 X-Series OS directory

Krikzz states that OS V3.09 or newer is required because V3.09 added the bootloader installation function. I used V3.11 because it was the current version when I performed the update.

EverDrive 64 Bootloader V5.04

Download bootrom-v5.04.b64 from Krikzz

You can check the official bootloader directory here:

Official EverDrive 64 X-Series bootloader directory

The bootloader file is a .b64 file. Do not rename it, convert it, or try to extract it.

Step 1: Back Up the EverDrive MicroSD Card

Turn everything off and remove the microSD card from the EverDrive 64 X7.

Insert the card into your computer and make a backup of its contents before changing anything. I recommend copying the entire microSD card to a folder on your computer.

At minimum, make sure you have a backup of the existing ED64 folder because it can contain system settings, save files, cheats, and other EverDrive data.

Do not skip the backup.

Step 2: Install the New EverDrive OS

Extract the downloaded OS-V3.11.zip file on your computer.

Inside the extracted download, you should find an ED64 folder.

Copy that ED64 folder to the root of the EverDrive microSD card. The root is the main level of the card, not one of your game folders.

When your computer asks what to do with files and folders that already exist, choose the option to merge the folders and replace the older system files.

Do not delete your entire existing ED64 folder before copying the update. Merging the new folder with the existing folder helps preserve files that are not included in the update. This is also why making a complete backup first is important.

Your ROM folders can remain where they are.

Step 3: Copy the Bootloader File to the Card

Copy bootrom-v5.04.b64 to the microSD card.

The official instructions say that it can be placed anywhere on the card. I placed it in the root directory so it would be easy to find in the EverDrive menu.

The card should now contain:

• The updated ED64 system folder

• Your existing game and ROM folders

• The bootrom-v5.04.b64 bootloader installer

Safely eject the microSD card from your computer and place it back inside the EverDrive 64 X7.

Step 4: Install the Bootloader Using an Original Nintendo 64

Insert the EverDrive 64 X7 into an original Nintendo 64.

Do not try to perform this part on the ModRetro M64 if the EverDrive only gives you a black screen there.

Turn on the original Nintendo 64 and wait for the EverDrive menu to load.

Navigate to the location where you copied bootrom-v5.04.b64.

Highlight the file and press the A button.

The updated EverDrive OS should recognize the .b64 file as a bootloader installer and begin the installation process. Follow the instructions displayed on the screen.

Once the update begins, do not:

• Turn off the Nintendo 64

• Press the reset button

• Remove the EverDrive

• Remove the microSD card

• Disconnect power from the console

Leave everything powered on until the EverDrive reports that the installation has finished.

After the update is complete, turn off the original Nintendo 64 normally.

Step 5: Test the EverDrive on the ModRetro M64

Remove the updated EverDrive 64 X7 from the original Nintendo 64 and insert it into the ModRetro M64.

Turn on the M64.

In my case, the EverDrive menu now appeared normally. The black screen was gone, and I could browse the card and launch games from the EverDrive.

After confirming that everything works, you can remove bootrom-v5.04.b64 from the microSD card. Leaving it on the card should not normally cause a problem, but removing it prevents the installer from being launched accidentally later.

What to Do if You Only See “File Info”

If you select bootrom-v5.04.b64 and the EverDrive only offers options such as “File Info” or “Hex Info,” the updated operating system probably was not installed correctly.

The bootloader installer function was introduced with EverDrive 64 OS V3.09. Older versions can see the .b64 file but cannot launch it as an installer.

Try the following:

1. Turn off the original Nintendo 64.

2. Remove the EverDrive microSD card.

3. Confirm that you downloaded OS V3.09 or newer.

4. Copy the updated ED64 folder to the root of the card again.

5. Allow the new system files to replace the older versions.

6. Return the card to the EverDrive and restart it on the original Nintendo 64.

Once the newer OS is actually running, selecting the bootloader file should start the installation process.

What if the EverDrive Also Has a Black Screen on the Original N64?

This procedure depends on the EverDrive being able to start on an original Nintendo 64.

If it also shows a black screen there, try cleaning the EverDrive’s cartridge contacts with high-concentration isopropyl alcohol and allowing them to dry completely. Also inspect the microSD card, reseat it, and confirm that the updated ED64 folder is located at the root of the card.

You may also want to test a standard Nintendo 64 cartridge to confirm that the original console itself is working.

A black screen on both systems may indicate a different cartridge, microSD card, power, or connection problem.

What if I Do Not Own an Original Nintendo 64?

The easiest option is to borrow an original Nintendo 64 long enough to perform the update. The installation itself only needs to be completed once.

There are hardware modification discussions online involving changes to the EverDrive cartridge, but I did not need to modify my cartridge. Using an original Nintendo 64 and the official Krikzz software was the simpler and safer option for me.

Why Does This Fix Work?

Krikzz originally documented this bootloader update as a compatibility fix for the Analogue 3D. The official notes do not specifically identify the ModRetro M64.

However, my EverDrive 64 X7 had the same basic symptom on the M64: it produced a black screen before the update and worked normally afterward.

The newer EverDrive OS includes the bootloader installer, and the updated bootloader allows the cartridge to initialize correctly on newer hardware in situations where the older bootloader does not.

I cannot say that every M64 and EverDrive problem has the same cause, but this procedure fixed my particular EverDrive 64 X7 black screen.

Final Result

The complete process was:

1. Back up the EverDrive microSD card.

2. Install EverDrive 64 OS V3.09 or newer.

3. Copy the official .b64 bootloader file to the card.

4. Start the EverDrive on an original Nintendo 64.

5. Select the bootloader file and complete the installation.

6. Move the EverDrive back to the ModRetro M64.

After doing this, my EverDrive 64 X7 started normally on the ModRetro M64 and the black screen was gone.

Official Links and Sources

ModRetro M64 official product page

Official Krikzz EverDrive 64 X-Series OS directory

Official Krikzz EverDrive 64 X-Series bootloader directory

Official Krikzz bootloader instructions

Original Reddit discussion

Disclaimer

This post describes the process that worked with my own EverDrive 64 X7 and ModRetro M64. Back up your microSD card before changing system files. Do not interrupt power while the bootloader is being installed. ModRetro and Krikzz are separate companies, and this should not be interpreted as an official statement of ModRetro flash-cartridge compatibility.

New Release: The Fifth Chair

What happens when love becomes something you can count, divide, rotate, and record?

The Fifth Chair is a Cedar Mesa Polygamy Romance about Elias Ward, a man who has mistaken fairness for tenderness. On his isolated high-desert homestead, Elias manages his plural marriage with rigid precision. Every chore, every meal, every duty, and every private obligation is written into a scuffed leather ledger so no one can accuse him of favoritism.

To Elias, the system is fair.

To the women living inside it, the system is slowly turning the house cold.

The Fifth Chair by Ryan Mercer.

A story about fairness, silence, and the weight of being managed

Hannah, Elias’s first wife, has become the pillar of the household. She is steady, efficient, stoic, and exhausted. She knows the rhythms of the kitchen, the cellar, the winter stores, and the family ledger so well that no one seems to notice how much of herself has been buried beneath the work.

Leah, the second wife, moves through the Ward home like a shadow, carrying the scent of wool, lanolin, and long nights of labor. She has learned how to be quiet, how to take up less space, and how to survive inside a marriage where even intimacy has a place in the rotation.

And Elias believes he is doing the right thing.

He provides. He protects. He records. He balances.

But a ledger can only measure what is owed. It cannot measure loneliness. It cannot measure hunger for kindness. It cannot measure the grief of a woman who has been treated fairly and still feels unseen.

Fairness without love is just another cage.

The chair that changes the room

As winter tightens around the Ward homestead, the family begins to face a truth Elias can no longer calculate away: a home built on perfect distribution is not the same thing as a home built on love.

The fifth chair begins as a symbol of order, another attempt to solve the household by structure, balance, and design. But the more the family struggles, the more that chair becomes something else.

Not a seat for another obligation.

Not a monument to control.

A place for the voice that has been missing.

A remote homestead. A rigid ledger. A chair built for the voice no one has heard.

For readers who like emotional, character-driven romance

The Fifth Chair is for readers who enjoy:

Plural marriage romance with deep emotional stakes

Cedar Mesa family drama and high-desert atmosphere

Slow-burn healing inside a complicated household

A stern, wounded husband learning the difference between management and love

Strong women who have been quiet too long

Themes of covenant, agency, forgiveness, stewardship, and rebuilding trust

A romance where the central question is not simply who gets loved, but whether love can become generous enough to stop keeping score

Full hardcover wrap for The Fifth Chair.

Why this story matters

I am drawn to stories where the real conflict is not outside the house, but inside the everyday patterns people have learned to call normal.

The Fifth Chair lives in that space.

It is a story about a man who thinks precision can protect everyone from pain. It is a story about women who have been asked to endure quietly because the numbers say the arrangement is fair. It is a story about what happens when a family finally admits that order without tenderness is not peace.

Most of all, it is a story about making room.

Room for rest.

Room for honesty.

Room for a voice that was never meant to stay hidden in the corner.

Read The Fifth Chair

If you enjoy Cedar Mesa romance, complex plural households, emotional domestic tension, and stories about love becoming braver than control, I would be honored for you to read The Fifth Chair.

New Release: The Fourth Chair

A Cedar Mesa polygamy romance about Clara Jensen, a master artisan who returns to the red rocks to protect her name, her craft, and the chair that may finally give her a place to belong.

What does it cost a woman to keep her name?

The Fourth Chair is a Cedar Mesa Polygamy Romance about Clara Jensen, a master of the finish whose hands can make old oak glow like amber and mahogany feel like silk. Five years ago, Clara fled the red rocks of Cedar Mesa and the expectations that tried to turn women into footnotes in someone else’s ledger. In the city, she built a life of fierce independence, cold workshops, and a signature she refused to surrender.

Then Cedar Mesa calls her back.

A schoolhouse commission offers Clara the money, visibility, and professional recognition she has been chasing. It also forces her back into the community she escaped, into a household with three chairs already set at the table, and into the orbit of Daniel Calder, a man whose quiet strength unsettles every defense she has built.

A story about craft, covenant, and the fear of disappearing

Clara does not come to Cedar Mesa looking for love.

She comes with her tool chest, her maker’s mark, and a plan to finish the work, sign every piece, and leave with her name intact.

But the Calder household is not what she expected.

Ruth offers warmth without ownership. Naomi offers professional kinship instead of competition. Daniel offers restraint, respect, and a kind of advocacy Clara does not know how to trust.

And waiting in the corner is the fourth chair.

Not just a seat.

Not just an invitation.

A question.

Can Clara belong without being erased?

About the book

The Fourth Chair blends intimate romance, family drama, woodworking imagery, and the emotional tension of a woman deciding whether love can be an expanding well instead of a cage.

Readers who enjoy character-driven romance, artisan heroines, slow-burn emotional stakes, plural household dynamics, and stories about women claiming their names will find Clara’s journey both tender and sharp-edged.

At its heart, this book asks a question that matters far beyond Cedar Mesa:

What if independence is not the absence of love, but the right to be fully seen inside it?

This book is for readers who like:

A strong, guarded heroine with a craft of her own

A romance built on respect, restraint, and emotional honesty

Warm domestic settings with high personal stakes

Woodworking, maker’s marks, schoolhouse commissions, and hidden signatures

Plural marriage romance centered on choice, covenant, and belonging

Stories where a family must learn to make room without swallowing the person they invite in.

Read The Fourth Chair

If Clara Jensen’s story speaks to you, I would be honored for you to read it, share it, and leave a review when you finish.

Reviews help the book reach the readers who are looking for emotional romance, complex family dynamics, and a heroine who refuses to let her name be sanded away.

Introducing The Third Chair: A Cedar Mesa Polygamy Romance

A warm, emotional romance about plural marriage, sister-wife trust, childlessness, consent, and the courage it takes to make room at the table without asking anyone to disappear.

Introducing The Third Chair

Some love stories begin with a kiss.

Some begin with a look across a crowded room.

This one begins with a chair.

The Third Chair: A Cedar Mesa Polygamy Romance is the first book in my Cedar Mesa series, a warm contemporary romance set in a high-desert community where faith, family, privacy, and plural marriage shape the rhythms of everyday life.

At the heart of the story are Daniel and Ruth Calder, a devoted couple who have spent eight loving years together in a quiet, childless home. Their marriage is steady. Their bond is real. But they both believe their family may still be called to grow.

Then Naomi Hale steps into their lives.

Naomi is a gifted woodworker with steady hands, a sharp mind, and a heart that has spent too long being valued for what it can do rather than for who she truly is. When Daniel and Ruth begin courting her as a potential second wife, Naomi sees a chance at love, belonging, and a life of her own.

But nothing about making room for another wife is simple.

Ruth wants to welcome Naomi with grace, but she quietly fears being diminished in the home she helped build. Naomi is drawn to the Calders, but she refuses to be treated as the answer to their childlessness. Daniel wants to lead well, but he must learn that love cannot be protected by making decisions for the women he loves. It has to be built with them.

This is a romance about the emotional work of making space.

A place at the table.

A voice in the family.

A love chosen freely, carefully, and honestly.

What kind of romance is The Third Chair?

This is a warm, character-driven romance with a family saga feel. It is not dark romance. It is not erotica. It is not a sensationalized look at plural marriage.

It is a tender, domestic story about three consenting adults trying to build a family without letting fear, jealousy, fertility expectations, or community pressure decide the shape of their future.

Expect:

Slow-burn courtship
Sister-wife tension and trust
A tender existing marriage
Faith-shaped domestic life
Red-rock mesas, cedar sawdust, harvest light, and kitchen-table conversations
Infertility handled with dignity
Warm romantic tension
Meaningful touch and tender kisses
Adult family councils where every voice matters
A hopeful ending rooted in consent, belonging, and shared stewardship

Why Cedar Mesa?

Cedar Mesa is a quiet red-rock community in the rural Utah-Arizona borderlands, close to the land and mostly outside public attention. It is a place of orchards, workshops, gardens, schoolrooms, Sunday gatherings, family kitchens, and worn wooden tables where the most important conversations happen after the dishes are cleared.

I wanted Cedar Mesa to feel intimate and lived-in, not like a caricature or a scandal headline.

The people here are sincere. Imperfect. Sometimes too private. Sometimes too traditional. Often tender in ways they do not always know how to express. They are trying to live their beliefs while learning that faith does not have to mean silence, and leadership does not have to mean control.

The question at the heart of the book

Can love expand without making anyone smaller?

That question follows Ruth, Naomi, and Daniel from the first careful courtship conversation to the moment the third chair appears in the Calder kitchen.

For Ruth, the question is: Can another wife enter the family without erasing the marriage she and Daniel already share?

For Naomi, the question is: Can she be chosen for her heart, her mind, and her spirit, not for the children others hope she might someday have?

For Daniel, the question is: Can he become the kind of husband who listens before deciding, even when listening means admitting he was wrong?

The answer does not come all at once.

It comes through harvest work, quiet walks, hard conversations, awkward silences, honest apologies, and the courage to sit down at the table together.

Who should read this book?

You may enjoy The Third Chair if you like:

Contemporary romance with emotional depth
Small-town or close-community family sagas
Plural marriage and sister-wife dynamics
Stories about faith, consent, and chosen family
Gentle but high-stakes domestic drama
Romance that is sensual without being explicit
Characters who grow through conversation, tenderness, and hard-earned trust

If you are fascinated by plural-family stories but want something warmer, more romantic, and more character-centered, this book was written for you.

Read The Third Chair

The Third Chair: A Cedar Mesa Polygamy Romance is available now.

One table. Three chairs. A love chosen one voice at a time.

Buy The Third Chair on Amazon

On January 8, 1986, Loyd Blankenship published "The Conscience of a Hacker" (also known as "The Hacker Manifesto"). I first read that in 1994, and it became part of me, still very much with me, and something I think about often in 2026. I even had it memorized at one point and still can do 50-60% of it from memory.

I present to you “The Conscience of a Fundamentalist Mormon”:

---

Another one got caught today. It’s all over the papers.

“Polygamist Arrested in Secret Marriage Case.”
“Fundamentalist Mormon Family Under Investigation.”
“Man Charged After Plural Wives Discovered.”

Damn zealots. They’re all alike.

But did you, in your courthouse morality and television-documentary brain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the polygamist? Did you ever wonder what made him believe, what books shaped him, what prayers may have molded him?

I am a Mormon fundamentalist. Enter my world.

Mine is a world that begins with church. I heard the stories before I could read them. Prophets, pioneers, deserts, temples, covenants, sacrifice. Men and women who crossed the plains because God’s word mattered more than comfort, reputation, or law.

Damn fundamentalist. They’re all alike.

I’m in Sunday School, or seminary, or sitting in the back pew. I’ve listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how brave the early Saints were. I understand it.

“No, Brother Jensen, I’m not attacking the Church. I’m asking why the thing they suffered for is now treated like a disease.”

Damn kid. Probably reading forbidden books. They’re all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found the old sermons.

Wait a second, this is real.

Not rumor. Not anti-Mormon lies. Not enemies making things up. The words are right there. The names are right there. The doctrine is right there. Men we still sing about, quote, praise, and frame on chapel walls lived something we are now told only monsters would defend.

And the books don’t flinch.

They don’t tell me to stop asking.

They don’t smile politely and change the subject.

They don’t call history sacred on Pioneer Day and embarrassing the rest of the year.

They just sit there, ink on paper, waiting for someone to read them honestly.

Damn kid. All he does is dig up old doctrine. They’re all alike.

And then it happened. A door opened to a world.

Not the world you show on the news. Not locked gates, child brides, stolen welfare, and men ruling by fear. Not prairie dresses and prophet-kings. Not abuse dressed up as revelation.

A different world.

A kitchen table after work. A prayer circle. A house full of children and noise and unpaid bills. Adults who chose each other. Women who can speak for themselves. Men who believe priesthood means responsibility, not ownership. Families trying to live a principle they believe heaven never repealed.

“This is it. This is where I belong.”

I know everyone here, even if I’ve never met them, never prayed with them, may never see them again. I know the man reading yellowed books at midnight. I know the woman tired of being pitied by people who never asked what she believes. I know the family smiling in public and measuring every word.

Damn polygamists. Hiding again. They’re all alike.

You bet we’re all alike.

We’ve been spoon-fed a faith with the bones taken out of it when we hungered for the whole feast. The pieces of history you did let slip through were softened, footnoted, explained away, made safe for visitors and Sunday lessons. We’ve been managed by the embarrassed, corrected by the comfortable, and warned by men who praise sacrifice so long as nobody actually sacrifices anything.

The few who had something honest to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now.

The world of covenant and consequence.

The world of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joseph, Brigham, and all the uncomfortable names you still honor while condemning those who remember too clearly.

We build families, and you call us criminals.

We read history, and you call us deceived.

We seek after eternal law, and you call us dangerous.

We refuse your caricature, and you call us secretive.

We live as consenting adults by a religious conviction older than your statutes, and you call us immoral.

You sell lust, divorce, betrayal, and loneliness in every form the market can package. You laugh at fidelity, profit from broken homes, and bless every arrangement except the one that demands duty, patience, sacrifice, and permanence. You praise freedom until someone uses it to obey God instead of appetite.

Yes, I am a criminal.

My crime is covenant.

My crime is believing the old words still mean what they said.

My crime is judging a family by its fruits, not by whether it fits inside your paperwork.

My crime is loving in a way you cannot regulate without first pretending you understand it.

My crime is remembering what you worked so hard to forget.

I am a Mormon fundamentalist, and this is my manifesto.

You may stop this individual. You may shame this family. You may print another headline and call it justice.

But you can’t stop us all.

After all, we’re all alike.