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The Shared Pulse: Love and Transformation in a City of Crossings
In a world where love has become an optimization problem, chaos is the only path to connection.
Alev is a brilliant perfectionist who lives by the algorithm of her AI coach. Toprak is a charming commitment-phobe who uses the dating app Steel Hook to manipulate his failing compatibility score. They should never have matched.
But a catastrophic system glitch—born from the algorithm’s own learning—throws them together, creating the Shared Pulse: a hacked feature that sends a synchronized heartbeat through their devices.
When Alev discovers the depth of Toprak’s deceit—and Toprak uncovers how tightly Alev clings to algorithmic certainty—their fragile connection shatters. The betrayal forces them onto separate, elemental paths of healing: Alev grounding herself in Earth, Toprak confronting his Fire.
As their transformations unfold, the true scale of the glitch emerges, threatening to rewrite more lives than their own. To find their way back, they must choose between sterile digital perfection and the messy, unquantifiable reality of Istanbul—the City of Crossings.
Because the Shared Pulse was never meant to live on a screen.
It lives in the elements that make us human.
They choose analog faith—because life is better when it stains a little.
Alev is a brilliant perfectionist who lives by the algorithm of her AI coach. Toprak is a charming commitment-phobe who uses the dating app Steel Hook to manipulate his failing compatibility score. They should never have matched.
But a catastrophic system glitch—born from the algorithm’s own learning—throws them together, creating the Shared Pulse: a hacked feature that sends a synchronized heartbeat through their devices.
When Alev discovers the depth of Toprak’s deceit—and Toprak uncovers how tightly Alev clings to algorithmic certainty—their fragile connection shatters. The betrayal forces them onto separate, elemental paths of healing: Alev grounding herself in Earth, Toprak confronting his Fire.
As their transformations unfold, the true scale of the glitch emerges, threatening to rewrite more lives than their own. To find their way back, they must choose between sterile digital perfection and the messy, unquantifiable reality of Istanbul—the City of Crossings.
Because the Shared Pulse was never meant to live on a screen.
It lives in the elements that make us human.
They choose analog faith—because life is better when it stains a little.
300 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2026
1 person is currently reading
About the author
Eda Kara
5 books3 followersEda Kara (aka Eda Uzuncakara)’s life has unfolded on the bridges of existence—between logic and creativity, corporate intensity and mindful presence, Istanbul and New York, English and Turkish.
Majoring in Industrial Engineering at Boğaziçi University and holding a Master’s degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, along with additional credentials from Harvard Business School, she has built an impactful career in finance and technology leadership. Her path includes key roles at Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan in New York and at Mastercard in Istanbul.
Through Bistrouge, the restaurant she opened in Manhattan, she encountered the city’s layered intersections—an experience that enriched her not only as an entrepreneur but as a human being.
Alongside the corporate and entrepreneurial world, she nurtured a parallel devotion to poetry, storytelling, meditation, yoga, and expressive arts—exploring how data-driven structures can soften into intuition, imagination, and breath.
She is the author of Jumping on the Drips, a collection of interwoven stories; the novel Shared Pulse: Love and Transformation in a City of Crossings; and the poetry collection, Mismatched Socks, published in English and Turkish as Varla Yok Arasından Şiirler: Sessiz Senfoni.
She is also the mother of a daughter finding her own way in the world—a parallel journey that keeps teaching Eda about love, wonder, courage, and the quiet art of becoming.
Eda’s curiosity lives where algorithms meet emotion, where imperfection becomes possibility, and where the smallest moments crack the heart open again. Through her creative workshops and somatic practices, she accompanies others in their own cycles of remembering—using story telling as a compass, mirror, and gentle invitation.
Her work continues to explore transformation in liminal spaces—between worlds, between breaths—seeking the shared pulse beneath it all.
Majoring in Industrial Engineering at Boğaziçi University and holding a Master’s degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, along with additional credentials from Harvard Business School, she has built an impactful career in finance and technology leadership. Her path includes key roles at Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan in New York and at Mastercard in Istanbul.
Through Bistrouge, the restaurant she opened in Manhattan, she encountered the city’s layered intersections—an experience that enriched her not only as an entrepreneur but as a human being.
Alongside the corporate and entrepreneurial world, she nurtured a parallel devotion to poetry, storytelling, meditation, yoga, and expressive arts—exploring how data-driven structures can soften into intuition, imagination, and breath.
She is the author of Jumping on the Drips, a collection of interwoven stories; the novel Shared Pulse: Love and Transformation in a City of Crossings; and the poetry collection, Mismatched Socks, published in English and Turkish as Varla Yok Arasından Şiirler: Sessiz Senfoni.
She is also the mother of a daughter finding her own way in the world—a parallel journey that keeps teaching Eda about love, wonder, courage, and the quiet art of becoming.
Eda’s curiosity lives where algorithms meet emotion, where imperfection becomes possibility, and where the smallest moments crack the heart open again. Through her creative workshops and somatic practices, she accompanies others in their own cycles of remembering—using story telling as a compass, mirror, and gentle invitation.
Her work continues to explore transformation in liminal spaces—between worlds, between breaths—seeking the shared pulse beneath it all.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 20, 2026
"Steel Hook, the trendiest AI dating app of the moment: part Bumble, part psychometric experiment, part cult. For her, the app was less about meeting someone and more about defining a problem statement for which the match would be the optimal solution."
In a near-future Istanbul where love is governed by algorithms, Alev and Toprak are improbably matched by a system glitch that creates an intimate "Shared Pulse" between them. Alev is a perfectionist guided by her AI coach, while Toprak is a commitment-phobe gaming the dating app so it won't kick him off. Can real love exist in an optimized world, or is it doomed by the messy chaos of being human?
I was immediately hooked by the speculative fiction, semi-dystopian premise, but even more so within the first few pages of Chapter One, by the writing itself and the story. The moment Secret Garden tells Alev she’s ready for a relationship, and she joins the AI dating app Steel Hook, the story's main plotline is set up: a woman who has optimized every part of her life now outsourcing intimacy itself. Alev’s complete lack of concern about privacy, handing over her data without hesitation, and letting her devices record her daily life feels both unsettling and painfully accurate. "She was trapped in an infinite loop of optimized, emotionally neutered efficiency."
Alev is written as hyper-competent and emotionally constrained… “basically, if an Apple Watch had a human form." She treats dating (even romance and romantic feelings) as a problem statement waiting for the optimal solution. Steel Hook, with its cult-like slogans MATCH. MEASURE. MAXIMIZE becomes less a dating app and more a mirror of her internal logic: efficient, sterile, and emotionally risk-averse. The result is a life that feels performative and devoid of emotion.
The disruption comes in the form of Toprak, whose unpolished kindness and awkward charm challenge Alev’s instinct to judge and categorize. His resistance to being reduced to metrics and his frustration with being seen as likable but not trustworthy introduce the book’s most compelling counterargument to algorithmic compatibility. When the AI begins “optimizing for emotional authenticity instead of compatibility metrics,” the story becomes even more compelling: that emotion, messiness, and so-called chaos are not bugs in the system but the point of life itself.
What elevates all of this is the author’s language. The prose is sensory and alive—“The night was already pressing the windows,” “The city below stretched its limbs.” The author’s command of wordcraft feels effortless and immersive, making the emotional and philosophical questions feel real and alive rather than abstract. This is speculative fiction at its best: using near-future technology to interrogate identity, intimacy, and the radical idea that our cracks aren’t flaws at all: they’re openings.
I received an Advanced Review Copy (or ARC) on Reedsy Discovery.
In a near-future Istanbul where love is governed by algorithms, Alev and Toprak are improbably matched by a system glitch that creates an intimate "Shared Pulse" between them. Alev is a perfectionist guided by her AI coach, while Toprak is a commitment-phobe gaming the dating app so it won't kick him off. Can real love exist in an optimized world, or is it doomed by the messy chaos of being human?
I was immediately hooked by the speculative fiction, semi-dystopian premise, but even more so within the first few pages of Chapter One, by the writing itself and the story. The moment Secret Garden tells Alev she’s ready for a relationship, and she joins the AI dating app Steel Hook, the story's main plotline is set up: a woman who has optimized every part of her life now outsourcing intimacy itself. Alev’s complete lack of concern about privacy, handing over her data without hesitation, and letting her devices record her daily life feels both unsettling and painfully accurate. "She was trapped in an infinite loop of optimized, emotionally neutered efficiency."
Alev is written as hyper-competent and emotionally constrained… “basically, if an Apple Watch had a human form." She treats dating (even romance and romantic feelings) as a problem statement waiting for the optimal solution. Steel Hook, with its cult-like slogans MATCH. MEASURE. MAXIMIZE becomes less a dating app and more a mirror of her internal logic: efficient, sterile, and emotionally risk-averse. The result is a life that feels performative and devoid of emotion.
The disruption comes in the form of Toprak, whose unpolished kindness and awkward charm challenge Alev’s instinct to judge and categorize. His resistance to being reduced to metrics and his frustration with being seen as likable but not trustworthy introduce the book’s most compelling counterargument to algorithmic compatibility. When the AI begins “optimizing for emotional authenticity instead of compatibility metrics,” the story becomes even more compelling: that emotion, messiness, and so-called chaos are not bugs in the system but the point of life itself.
What elevates all of this is the author’s language. The prose is sensory and alive—“The night was already pressing the windows,” “The city below stretched its limbs.” The author’s command of wordcraft feels effortless and immersive, making the emotional and philosophical questions feel real and alive rather than abstract. This is speculative fiction at its best: using near-future technology to interrogate identity, intimacy, and the radical idea that our cracks aren’t flaws at all: they’re openings.
I received an Advanced Review Copy (or ARC) on Reedsy Discovery.
Displaying 1 of 1 review