4342.305 · November 1, 2022 AD
Still Not Safe
Gladys Cramer wasn’t looking for trouble—just a quiet glass of red and maybe a cat that actually came when called. But when a Portal opens, a body turns up, and a man with too many secrets begs her trust, Gladys is pulled into something vast, strange, and far too dangerous. She doesn’t know the rules. She doesn’t want the job. Dryly funny, quietly furious, and not at all qualified—Gladys is about to learn that staying out of it doesn’t mean staying safe.
She didn’t ask for the apocalypse. She just wanted a glass of wine and the cat to come home.
Still Not Safe is a darkly funny, quietly devastating novel about secrets, survival, and the emotional mess of simply being involved when you really, truly didn’t mean to be. Told in the sardonic, sharply observant voice of Gladys Cramer—a woman whose life is unravelling one half-drunk bottle at a time—it’s a story about looking the other way… and what happens when the consequences catch up anyway.
Gladys isn’t trying to solve a mystery or save the world. She’s just trying to get through the week. But when a body appears, a strange Key goes missing, and someone starts paying far too much attention to her quiet corner of the city, Gladys is forced to choose between walking away and doing the one thing she’s spent years avoiding: getting involved. There’s a Portal. There’s surveillance. There’s a cat, sometimes. But mostly, there’s Gladys—watching the wreckage pile up and wondering how much longer she can play it off like none of it matters.
At once a speculative mystery, a character study, and a meditation on avoidance, Still Not Safe explores how people cope when the quiet life they’ve built starts collapsing under the weight of silence, grief, and unwanted responsibility. It's not about doing the right thing. It’s about doing something—preferably before the wine runs out.
