Stories

Caleb attends an old-time revival, which leads to a religious experience of a different kind.

After losing his wife to illness, a decorated war hero is determined to keep his family together, but his parenting skills are tested during the summer break by financial restraints, an increasing reliance on alcohol, and the discovery that his eldest son is gay.

An itinerant photographer stops by the one town he’s avoided for the last twenty years. What is it he hopes to encounter there? What is this ‘one last thing’ he feels he has to do?

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.

A third-grade valentine develops a life and meaning of its own as its recipient struggles through his teenage years.

Gabriel Redbrick mourns the loss of his companion, Dr Albert Callico, who died in a minibus accident on his way to a medical conference.

Following a meeting with Albert's solicitor, Gabriel discovers he has inherited a derelict property in rural Italy. He also stumbles upon a secret message left to him by Albert.

The message leads Gabriel to the Italian site where he meets a groundsman, Lorenzo Morelli. The unravelling also suggests that Gabriel’s is in danger while offering a clue to unlocking his past.