Stories

Teacher Christopher Edwards believed his life began in the seaside town of Penmere. When memories return beneath the ancient Tor, he discovers another truth: he has lived before.

Across two thousand years, he and one other soul have found each other again and again, only to be torn apart. At the heart of the mystery lies one act of unbearable grief, when a priest's desperate refusal to accept death transformed love into an endless cycle of remembrance.

Christopher must decide whether the life he is living belongs to memory or to choice. For the first time in centuries, love may offer not a beginning, but an ending.

Life is filled with surprises. We are constantly reminded that we are at the mercy of the universe; from the people we meet, to the events that shape us, to the places we find ourselves in. If we are among the lucky ones we will find our place in the world, and someone to share it with, and life will be sweet. But even then, everything is subject to change, and we either roll with the flow, or find ourselves fighting against the tide, because you just never know what might come at you from out of the blue.

Betrayed and exiled, Aethan Valorian, heir to the throne of the Cathesan Empire finds himself exiled on Kharon-IV, an inhospitable planet that holds many secrets beneath its shifting sands. Incarcerated in an industrial prison and forced to fight in arena matches, Aethan meets the volatile Bhal-Ghor, a gladiator who has been imprisoned for over two centuries. As secrets about the planet's past are unearthed, Aethan and Ghor must learn to set aside their differences and learn to trust one another in order to survive...assuming they don't kill each other first.

The Montana sky is wide, coffee strong, and wounded souls are never turned away from Two Spirits Horse Ranch. When Jake finds a young stranger left for dead at the north gate, his promise to protect him draws the whole ranch into a fight against fear, memory, and the men who might return to finish what they started. Warm, funny, tender, and suspenseful, In the Barb is a Western romance about found family, survival, and the kind of love that begins as rescue but grows into home.

Oliver's marriage ends and his job disappears on the same Tuesday. So he flies to France, straps on a pack, and starts walking. Somewhere in the French Alps he meets Julien, a man carrying his own weight, and the two of them figure out—slowly, carefully—whether they've got room for each other.

Two grown men, a lot of hills, and the slow business of letting someone in.

Begin Again starts with one coffee. That had been the whole plan.

Evan wasn't looking for complicated. He had enough of it—a life he'd never settled into, a house in Wicklow he didn't know what to do with, and a habit of leaving before anyone could ask him to stay.

Then he meets Cian, an Irish arborist who is steady, direct, and clear about what he wants.

One night becomes another morning, a spare shirt, and a man who won't pretend this is less than it is. The sex is easy. Letting Cian see him afterward isn't.

Evan knows how to leave before anyone matters. Cian knows how much of that he'll tolerate.

When Matteo Romano, a straight Italian guy, convinces his best friend Adrian to pretend to be his boyfriend to keep his ex away, things get complicated fast. What starts as a harmless favor turns into late nights, lingering touches, and the kind of tension neither of them can keep pretending about.

Cwtch is a Welsh word, translated into English it means a hug, but the meaning is deeper and more profound than a simple hug. When you give someone a cwtch you also give them a safe place and this is what twenty something Londoner Harry gives Welsh farmboy Aled. The story tells how two souls find each other, and recognise one another immediately. It is attraction, but also love at first sight, although true love is never easy.

This story is also published under the title Eighteen Years by E K Stokes.

You never forget your first love.

Nor do you forget the traditions you shared.

Maybe that's all you need to bring you back together?

Or is it?