That’s not a data breach. That’s an intimacy breach.
This month I have been deep in edits on the new book, the kind where I fix one scene, break another, and end up staring at the ceiling at three in the morning because a character refuses to behave. Thank you for being here while the book is still in that wild, secretive stage. You get the thoughts that never make it onto the back-cover copy.
The part I cannot shake is the research.
I spent months learning how cyberattacks actually happen, and I came away looking at my own life differently. My inbox. My phone. The café Wi-Fi I join without thinking. The lazy comfort of an old password that feels harmless because it is familiar.
What unsettled me most was this: the weak point is not always code. Sometimes it is history. Some breaches are not only data breaches. They are intimacy breaches. The person who knows your birthday, your first pet’s name, the street you grew up on, and the password you have never changed, is not always the one who builds the strongest lock. Sometimes they are the one who slips right through it.
Last week I changed the passcode on my phone. Nothing dramatic happened. No suspicious alert. No breach. I was standing in line for coffee, typing the same numbers I have used for years, and I had the unnerving thought that someone who knew me well enough could probably guess them. Not a stranger. Someone who had watched me unlock my phone. Someone who knew which dates mattered to me, and why. I changed it anyway, then kept thinking about it for days.
Because passwords are not only practical. They are revealing. Sometimes they are tiny confessions: a birthday, a name, a date we never fully got over, a fragment of ourselves tucked behind a lock screen and called security.
That is the part of this book that has its hands around my throat in the best possible way. My heroine walks straight into that kind of danger. She enters a world where trust is currency and half the bills are counterfeit. The man closest to her could be her safest ally, or the threat she did not see coming. And the digital trail she thinks she has buried? It is still warm.
Now I want your honest answer.
Would you rather have a partner who knows all your passwords and never looks, or one who has no access at all but checks your lock screen every time you leave the room?
And tell me this too. Is there someone in your life, past or present, who could probably still guess your password? You do not have to name them. Reply with yes or no, or tell me which question made you squirm. I read every reply, and hearing from you is my favourite part of sending these letters.
That’s it from me.
Angela
P.S. I changed my password to something no one would ever guess. It’s the name of a fictional character who keeps me up at night. I’ll never tell you which one. But she’s trouble.
Until next time . . . . let there be . . .
