Stories

One summer at their house in the South of France is much like all those previous summers. Except this year is different. Milo turns sixteen, and when his father employs Estevo, to fix things up, attractions and revelations mix with family problems, and a long held secret.

Milo will no longer be able to retreat and hide in the imagined worlds of literature. He will be tested and played with by his cousins and this new arrival. Exactly what is going on between these two families risks erupting into a thunderous climax and a deluge of emotions as heavy as any summer storm!

Brandon works for a company that sells point of sale equipment in the IT department. His life has been on hold since his husband and their daughter died, but now there is Hal in Sales and Isaac from across the hall. How, exactly, do you make a family?

17-year-old Amy Bauer moves into a different house with her mother, to a different state, and the worst of all -- a different school. Amy is overweight & her self-esteem gets lower & lower with each passing day. Then on her first day of school, she sees HIM -- the guy she knows she'll hate for the rest of her life, Luke Russell, "The Leader of the Hyena Pack."

An episode in Jack Deveraux's life, a story of, loss, disappointment, acceptance, self discovery and circumstance. He starts going into a depression, luckily for him there are some good people around. This is how Jack deals with it, could he have done better? I don't know, do you?

25th May 2023. This story has undergone editing and revision to improve the reader experience. It has not altered in any other way.

Landon pushed his luck too far this time, and nothing's the same anymore.

Events on a small New England college campus, following an exceptional one. Gil Andrus and his husband, Pete Sordan, follow through the usual faculty politics and the unexpected mystery. And Don Burris, the detective from The Pendleton Omens, reappears.

Note: this book shares roots and occasionally overlaps with my other book, Quabbin, which is also set in Waldron, Massachusetts, though in a national clothing company. But they're different books with different sensibilities.

Jimbo is serving his final year as a counselor at Camp Falls. He has just graduated from high school and will enter University in the fall. Everything is going smoothly until a troop arrives without a Scout Master. Jimbo is assigned to the role and meets Mason, a scout having his first experience at Camp Falls. The frisson between the two leads to a them entering a partnership. The challenges of Scout Camp, their parents and larger forces shape who they are as a couple.

Sean is a troubled young man. Some of the things he does might be considered to be not all that well thought out. At times all his family and friends, particularly his older friend, Johnny (the narrator of these fragments of Sean's life), can do is to be there for him, and help him to pick up the pieces when things go wrong. Even when, sometimes, Sean himself doesn't even seem to want to pick up the pieces.

Sometimes the brain fails and the heart is left to pick up the pieces. Tyson, the son of a heartless politician and an abusive control freak, has survived four suicide attempts, and has now been committed to a psychiatric ward. With severe anger issues, unhealthy behaviours and a tendency to self-harm, Tyson's terrific treatment team fights a difficult battle. Another boy in the ward, Vladimir, suffers from schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress. Tyson thinks he's perfect.

On the day of his husband's memorial service, one man recalls episodes from their life together.