The protagonist
At fifty-two, Loren Bogaert has survived cancer. Now she must face a harder question: what to do with the life she managed to hold on to when the one awaiting her no longer feels like her own.
A novel by Portia St. Patrick
Cuando el hielo aprende a arder
A heartrending, sensual novel about maturity, redemption and daring to love when the world expects you to settle.
Brief introduction
Returning to life does not always mean living again.
Loren Bogaert has survived cancer, but returns to an existence she no longer recognises as her own. At fifty-two, trapped in an icy marriage and surrounded by scars she has learned to hide, she meets Magnus Borg Bielke: a brilliant, arrogant architect, as accustomed as she is to living behind walls of his own.
What begins as a seemingly innocent arrangement will ultimately force them to face everything they have spent years avoiding.
Synopsis
Loren Bogaert has survived her hardest battle: cancer. Yet at fifty-two, she discovers that defeating death is not enough when the life you return to no longer belongs to you.
Her marriage to Gustavo has become a cold place, built on control, appearances and an intimacy that vanished far too long ago. Loren has learned to carry on. To function. To hide her scars. She has also forgotten what it feels like to want something simply because it still makes you feel alive.
Magnus Borg Bielke is fifty, runs a prestigious architecture practice and has spent much of his life building structures that can withstand anything. He has done exactly the same with his emotions. Behind an arrogant, controlled façade, he carries wounds he rarely allows anyone to see.
A chance encounter in Göteborg brings them face to face.
She will give him Spanish lessons. He will offer something Loren has gone years without: attention, respect and a gaze that does not turn away from what she tries to hide.
The arrangement begins to crack.
Amid the plans for Proyecto Raíces, the light of Málaga, old loyalties and a husband ready to defend what he considers his, Loren must decide how much she is willing to lose to reclaim a life that belongs to her again.
Magnus will have to choose too. Because admiring someone’s scars is easy from a distance. Staying when those scars begin to open doors you have kept shut for decades demands much more.
Cuando el hielo aprende a arder explores desire after fifty, bodies that have survived, changing identities and the possibility of loving when you already know the price all too well.
About the story
The exact point where surviving is no longer enough.
A story about desire, scars, maturity and the courage to rebuild yourself when carrying on unchanged is no longer an option.
The bond
Magnus Borg Bielke enters her life through a simple arrangement: she will teach him Spanish. He will end up giving Loren back something she has gone without for far too long: respect, desire and the chance to feel seen.
The winter
Gustavo represents everything Loren has learned to endure: control, appearances and a life built around what is expected of her. Leaving that winter behind will mean risking far more than a marriage.
Excerpt from Cuando el hielo aprende a arder.
They say the body has a memory, but forget to mention that memory is sometimes a cruel intruder that does not ask permission to enter.
Inside the book
Images, music and words that carry the story onward.
Visual universe
Characters, settings, symbols and scenes that have gradually shaped the novel’s world.
Explore →
Original soundtrack
Songs created to accompany moments, characters and emotions in Cuando el hielo aprende a arder.
In development
Loren Bogaert’s diary
Loren’s private journal and thoughts.
In development
Behind the work
Discover more about Portia
Cuando el hielo aprende a arder is part of a wider creative universe, but also part of the work of an author who writes about adult relationships, second chances, identity, money and the decisions that ultimately change our lives.
Meet Portia