Ad Lucem

By Ana Novik

During the renovation of an old family home, a collection of letters is discovered in the drawer of a desk. Only one side of the correspondence has survived.

The letters belong to a woman who calls herself Mary.

Writing to Angelo, she begins with a confession: she does not hate her mother, but she does not love her either. One day, she warns him, he may receive a letter in which she is no more.

At Angelo's request, Mary attempts to write about ordinary things: coffee, flowers, weather, a wandering bee. Yet the correspondence gradually becomes something else. It is the record of a mind dismantling the identities imposed upon it, a body learning to breathe, and a love that refuses to become possession.

Across one summer, names are tried on and discarded, faith remains an empty page, and the possibility of death gives way to another kind of disappearance.

Ad Lucem is an intimate epistolary novelette about trauma, identity, metaphysical longing, and the freedom hidden within the circumstances we did not choose.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HBRNCCX1
• ISBN13: 9798189408878
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 56 Pages
• Weight: 0.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 5.0" x 8.0"