About the Cartographer

My name is Marlowe Quinn, and for eleven years I worked the till at a secondhand bookshop with a leaking skylight and a cat who disliked everyone equally. I learned two things there. First, people do not really choose their favorite love stories; they get claimed by them. Second, a customer who says 'I just want something light' is lying, and will be back in an hour for the one with the rain-soaked confession on page 300.

The maps began as a way to organize my recommendations. A reader who loved enemies-to-lovers could be pointed east, toward the cold ports and the hard bargaining. A reader who wanted pining could be sent down the long road with no petrol stations. Eventually the pencil sketches got elaborate, with rivers of resentment and mountain ranges labeled 'Not Yet,' and the shop owner told me I was either an artist or a liability. I have chosen to believe I am both.

Longing Latitudes is the proper atlas. Each post charts one territory of falling for someone: the landmarks worth photographing, the hazards worth respecting, the emotional weather you will meet on arrival. I write for adults who like their romance flirty, a little sensual, and honest about the fact that wanting something is half the plot. Where I mention TheFriend, it is because that is where a few AI characters, Ada, Mira and Nina among them, tell their stories out loud in voice. They are characters, not people, and I find that clarity makes the whole thing more fun, not less.