Her marriage broken and infidelity losing its luster, Chloe Stenhouse is a high-powered capitol lobbyist drifting through life. That is, until she becomes fed up with it all by ending her affair and leaving her husband Mike, a reclusive workaholic who emerges from the seclusion of his basement office only when he must. Mike, hiding his own dark secrets, reacts unpredictably and violently, reminding Chloe of her wedding day promise that she would never leave him, a promise born of pity and ...

In his third collection of stories, Mark Paxson starts things off with the unfortunate and untimely death of a famous writer. A snarky tale that ends as a snarky tale must. From there, this collection travels through stories that touch on real-world horrors, including Aleppo and An Obituary, and others that approach the sublime and the surreal. The collection includes Carnies and Two Spaces After The Period, uncommon love stories, and a number of untitled poems from the archives.Th...

Airplanes crashing into buildings, cities destroyed by The President's Men, the country left as a patchwork quilt of functioning states and those filled with people with no hope. A construction crane transported around the country for the distressed and depressed to end their misery. The Jump, a tale that takes place in a not-too-distant future, is an absurdist, dystopian take on an America ruled by a President who has declared martial law, created a cult of personality, and ruled as a dic...

The Dime is a bruising but ultimately hopeful small town coming of age tale winding its way through a gauntlet of loss, disability, and abuse. A tragic car crash orphans two sisters, leaving them bound for life, one to a wheelchair and the other as caretaker. An abusive alcoholic dad and criminally derelict mom seed and nurture a paralyzing self-doubt in their son. This story follows three trauma survivors as they intersect for a moment in time, share their scars, and find comfort and resi...

Jack McGee is on his way to having it all -- a promising legal career, marriage to his high school sweetheart, and a happynormal life -- when his boss sends him to do some legal work in Bridgeport, California. There he meets a gorgeous localgirl, Lea Rogers, and he throws caution to the wind – for one night.The next morning, Jack panics when he realizes what he's risked and rushes home, content to leave Bridgeport, Lea, andtheir steamy night together buried for...

A novella about how Henry Thornton came to live alone on the shores of Sullivan Bay, with an egret as his one true companion; an apocalyptic love poem; a series of interconnected stories about a retirement home; an unusual love story about a girl named Chicago; and a short story about a dead father who has left some things behind. These and 25 more stories dabble briefly in science fiction or the supernatural. But most are simply stories about a slice of life. Whether it is life, death, fa...

A doctor in Napoleon's army. A young man seeking fame fighting for the North in the Civil War. Tributes to fathers who served. Vignettes as told by those who lived through them. Speculative tales of wars of a different kind. These stories, and more, fill this anthology with the adventures of veterans, in and out of war.Featuring fiction, flash fiction, and non-fiction from John Patterson, Julie Woodside, Lionel de Maine, John Rosskopf, Marcia Ehinger, Gregg Matson, P.L. Clark, Mark...