Bound in Dreams
A complete collection of my published works
Teenage Secrets: Notes on a String
Forbidden Love.
Teenage Secrets: Notes on a String
By Nico Jaxen
In the summer heat of 1980s Astoria, Queens, two teenagers living across from each other begin exchanging handwritten notes on a white string stretched between their apartment windows. What starts as curiosity turns into something deeper, more dangerous, and impossible to ignore. The music, basement parties, and neon city nights, secrets begin to surface among their tight-knit group of friends. Loyalties crack. Rumors spread. Families interfere. And the basement clubhouse that once felt like freedom is suddenly at risk of being taken away forever. As tensions rise and emotions blur the line between innocence and obsession, one question lingers between every note: How far would you go for someone who truly sees you? A nostalgic coming-of-age story filled with first love, friendship, mystery, and the electric feeling of growing up when every moment felt permanent.
The Ghost Within The Fence Line
In the dead hours before dawn, someone slips through the shadows of Fort Phillips and leaves a captain bleeding across the barracks floor.
No alarms.
No witnesses.
No clear suspect.
By morning, the entire base is locked in fear.
Private Claude Kincaid never wanted the Army. At eighteen, he enlisted to escape a collapsing life back home, trading courtrooms and street corners for razor wire, drill sergeants, and the rigid order of military life. But when rumors of an insider threat begin spreading through the ranks, Claude finds himself pulled into an investigation that grows darker with every passing night.
CID agents dig for answers. Soldiers turn suspicious of one another. Hallways feel smaller. Sleep becomes dangerous. Somewhere inside the fence line, someone is watching, waiting, and staying one step ahead of everyone.
As paranoia tightens its grip on the base, Claude begins uncovering disturbing connections between the attack, buried secrets inside Fort Phillips, and the ghosts he thought he left behind long ago.
Because the most dangerous enemy may not be outside the wire.
It may already be inside.
The Small Detective
The Key Beneath The Steps
Some keys open doors. This one opens a family.
On moving day, eight-year-old Josie Rook discovers a large brass key hidden beneath a loose porch step of her family's old country house. Nobody left it there by accident. Somebody left it on purpose. And Grandpa Walter, quiet and unhurried as always, knows exactly why. Together with her new friends Benji and Sophia, and her puppy Crumb Bum, who found the key first and is very pleased about this, Josie follows the mystery to a locked crate in the attic. What she finds inside will change everything she knows about her family, her house, and what it really means to come home.
Because someone named Emma loved this house so much, she spent her whole life leaving gifts for whoever came next. One of them was for Josie.