Stories

Alex and Jeremy meet at a summer camp at the age of thirteen. After a week, the camp is over and the boys go their separate ways. Ten years later, Alex is a prodigal son who let his family down. He returns to his hometown where he meets a young bakery owner named Jeremy, who seems to have his life figured out.

I'm Ian Wright I lost heart ten years ago, when my James died from illness. We were only 25 years old. I was devastated, sinking into a crushing depression for many years. I'm now 34, I took a job as a science teacher at a high school and moved from Florida to Kentucky for a fresh start, never dreaming my life would improve or that I'd ever be happy again.

Adam was a detective in Florida, his life was turned upside down when his pregnant wife up and deserted him without a trace. Unable to locate her after time, he was offered a position with the FBI on a task force. With nothing left to lose, he took the job and moved to Kentucky.

Ember McCain is a mechanic in his late thirties, he's closed off and bitter about his teenage years. His biggest problem is not being able to let go of the anger he feels from the bullying he received in high school. Despite his own short comings he's managed grow a successful mechanic business, most of his employees are strong confident gay men. He's finally in a place in his life where he feels happy, confident, and content being himself. That is until Brady Douglass, his high school bully moves back to town and is everywhere, including his own workplace turning his world upside down.

When fourteen-year-old Daniel and his mother are kicked out by his stepfather, they have to move to a housing estate in a different part of town, and Daniel has to change schools. He has a hard time making friends, and it only gets worse when one of his classmates takes a rather unhealthy interest in him. His only comfort, to his great surprise, turns out to be the last person he could have expected; the popular and gorgeous Michael Storm.

Ben and Colin are comfortably in each other's lives, but the path of true love is never an easy one, and a mistake throws Ben's loyalties to the wind. Not only that, but the mystery behind the deaths of Denny and the rent boys remains unsolved. Carter only had a list of hits. Were Colin a different person he might leave things well alone. But the thing about sleeping dogs is that some people can never let them lie.

The sleepy village of Crumbington is about to get a wake-up call.

When the new chairperson of the Summer Fête Committee pushes to create a naked calendar of the Crumbington football team, mouths drop open. Her further pronouncement at having snagged a celebrity host for the fête—rising television and movie star Clifton O’Keefe, and ex-resident of Crumbington—is met with indifference.

Not by Nathan Fresher, though, local baker and captain of the football team. He had been Clifton’s boyfriend in high school, until Clifton and his family disappeared into the night over ten years ago.

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.

Can a man ever truly go home again? Can he become who he's meant to be, in a place he never expected to find acceptance? These are questions for Wren as he struggles with life, love, and the legacy of his family.

Does anything last forever?

This question is on the minds of all of our characters in this tale. This isn't a story of eternal happiness. Instead, it is one of using the time we have the best way that we can.

A life well-lived means that we go on long after our last breath - a fleeting life, rippling out forever.

Fresh out of college, city guy Charlie is happy to get his first job as a teacher in a small nearby town. As he tries to adapt to his new life in the countryside, he meets a young farmer Tom, who is more than happy to help him.