What is the plot of my "yandere novel?" (Sensitive content below, no minors!)
Into the Storm is a long physiological series based on Sally, who is obsessively grieving her best friend that unfriended her and her last remaining friend (her deceased dog) leaving her alone in the world.
Naive and hopeless, she takes a flight to Finland, hoping to patch things up with her best friend, only for a storm to stop her journey.
Simo, a cold, cruel hunter, immediately takes an interest in her, beginning with simple attraction, telling her to make her way on foot, waiting for her to fail before shooting her with a dart, rendering her unconscious.
She wakes up in his cabin where he takes care of her, convincing her help is on the way and to wait.
She obeys his command, getting to know him, messing around on her phone, thinking about Jessica, and before she knows it, she's been there weeks (drugged)
She fights back, fleeing into the forest, only for him to physically hunt her like an animal, tying her up, assaulting her while saying he won't have sex with her yet he will wait for her to be willing.
Eventually, she escapes again, and this time manages to get away, ending up at a local hospital where she finally sees Jessica (her best friend)
They reconcile before the hospital is forced into lockdown due to a gunned assailant on the perimeter (we know who it's going to be 😏)
Simo kidnaps her back, furious as he now has to find a new location and hide his identity. He moves them far up north, taking Sally in the process, impregnating her. In a moment of blind regret, Simo opens up about his tragic past in the Finnish military, and Sally realizes he will stop killing and hurting people if she simply submits and lets him have her.
They become a "couple" and Sally plays the helpless female to his delusional fantasy, before again trying to flee, this time breaking her leg.
Simo is furious again, but glad she is wounded, and begins taking her out to places in a wheelchair, showing her more of Finland, taking her on a snowmobile etc
Trapped alone in this cabin with Simo, Sally begins losing her mind. She rambles on and on about Jessica, she talks about her dead dog, her past, (all in first person)
(I've been told the rambling is a lot, but the thing is skipping it means the later books make zero sense)
Eventually, now she is pregnant, Sally is forced to meet Simo's parents who will help deliver the baby.
The book ends on a cliffhanger leading into book 2, where the pacing picks up dramatically due to all the characters and lore being introduced in Sally's internal monologuing.
Does she love him?
Yes so basically, without spoiling too much, throughout the entirety of book 1, she is completely hallucinating. She sees weird whimsical things (she's a writer, so even when she's forced into a deluded marriage with him, she's seeing mystical wolves and forest entities telling her to turn back and run away but she puts this down to guilt about breaking hearts and running away from men in her youth)
She falls in love with Simo genuinely about 70% of the book in, where she sees him trying desperately to set up dates for the both of them (in the cabin obviously,) or he takes her to a real location in Finland called the Santa Claus village (despite absolutely HATING being in public and society as a whole- he's an extremely problematic and bigoted character with worldviews FINALLY making sense for a MMC whose been in isolation for years)
We see this because when he begins breaking apart due to his severe paranoia (an example is he tries setting up security cameras in his parents home when they stay there due to not even wanting THEM to speak to Sally) she is the one that soothed him like "hey, listen, I see you, I trust you to keep me safe from this world you're slowly revealing the truth of, and I love you for it, Simo.)
By book 2, she is completely docile. She spends her time baking pies and cakes, wearing beautiful handmaid dresses And raising their child together. She is 100% head over heels for him now— she finds his explosive rage adorable, she calls him her "grumpy Finn" when he's speaking about literally murdering campers in HIS forest.
Book 2 is very lighthearted, with funny moments between the two of them, and then slowly towards the end, you'll be like:
"Wait a minute…Simo, are you ruining this again?"
Spoiler: He is.
And by the end, Sally is on her knees weeping in the cabin, the illusion of domesticity between them shattered, forcing her into a HORRIFIC situation featuring her ex best friend in book 3!
