The "Blues" stories are stand alone stories, not in the same town, and not with the same characters. They share a kind of angst that the characters feel as they find themselves in situations they feel are abnormal and maybe even frustrating. But they forge ahead with life, trying to make the best of difficult situations ... trying to find a way to escape the blues in their lives.
Julie can't believe she lost a bet and now has to get the biggest nerd in the school to shoot in his shorts for her. The tables get turned, though, because this nerd has some talents she doesn't know about. The only cum-soaked thing in this story is - HER!
Mark, a math geek, is assigned by his teacher to tutor little miss rich girl in Algebra. It's a formula for experimentation that adds up to something neither of them planned on. They find out one plus one might make three! Who says math is useless in everyday life? / (Reviews)
Bob hires Megan to help him paint his house. She's been his cute little tomboy neighbor for years. But Megan has grown up some, and what she wants for payment isn't what he had in mind. At first, anyway.
Lillie Thompson is starting her very first day as a teacher - a kindergarten teacher. Buddy is starting his very first day of court-ordered community service - as a teacher's aide. What can they both learn as they try to stay afloat in the education pool? And when did they start teaching sex ed in kindergarten?
Jodie just wanted to be with the big kids, in the hot tub. So what if they were naked? So what if her brother was in there too? So what if she had to sit on his lap?
What would happen if the Government gave you a whole new identity, except that your daughter had to play the part of your wife? They wouldn't do that to a guy would they? And if they played a trick on you in the process, who could you complain to? A satirical look at a government program that thousands of people are caught in ... and it's YOUR tax dollars that are supporting them.
Phillip and Amy are thrown together by their parents on a blind date so they can chaperone their older siblings. Oil and water just don't mix, but as their dates go on, he's a little less like oil and she's a little less like water until they're ALL mixed up. Half slow, half fast, this story is about changing relationships. / (Reviews)
Claire's life is on an even keel. She's got a good job and two great children. There's no man in her life... but then she doesn't think she needs one. Everything is going along just fine... until she agrees to chaperone the football team on a trip out of town. She learns things about her children and herself, that will change everything. / (Reviews)
A troubled orphan boy is punished by being sent to the Dante's Inferno of orphanages, but a glitch in the paperwork lands him in a place full of love and concern for his welfare. It changes his life completely, and that of the women who run the small orphanage in Mid America during WW II.
Julie was one of a dying breed of women. A woman who swore she would give her virginity only to her husband. She caught a lot of flack for that, growing up, but her virginity was intact when she arrived in the Bahamas for her honeymoon. That's when things started going terribly wrong. Despite an wacky series of fantastic events, Julie somehow manages, even though she doesn't know it, to do exactly what she swore she would do.
Brenda was offered one last wish, before the tumor in her head killed her - the chance to do something fun, and to forget her disease, if only for a few days. She made her choice, and it seemed reasonable. But wishes have a way of changing, and, when hers changed, it also changed what was left of her life forever.
What would happen if a bunch of ordinary, every-day sexual education teachers ended up at the wrong seminar, where, instead of learning tips on how to teach sex ed, they were taught how to have a more meaningful sexual relationship? What if all of them were between relationships, or in failing ones? How would they react? They might react just like the teenagers they're supposed to be teaching.
Jennifer's life was already tough enough, based on her speech impediment alone. Then her parents were involved in a terrible accident. She needed help, and the only person she could turn to was her "Uncle" Bob. He came to get her and take her to her parents. But he had to bring the wrong motorcycle for the trip. His hard tail affected her soft tail, which caused him to have some hard times of his own.
Cecelia wasn't sure how to feel about being assigned as a student teacher to the high school she'd graduated from four years ago. Then she found out that Bob Hawkins would be her supervising teacher, and the crush she'd had on him way back then flamed up again. What she didn't know was that he'd had a crush on her too. Both of them tried to fight the attraction. And both of them were fighting a losing battle.
My niece, Penny, was abandoned by her parents because she made the mistake of getting pregnant. She was in a pretty bad way when I found her, so I offered her a job, and a place to live. That's all it started out to be. I swear.
After Megan's husband died, she invented something to support herself and her daughter with. The invention works perfectly. A Japanese industrialist is interested in manufacturing it. He's even coming to America to negotiate the deal. But he thinks she's a man, and her interpreter knows him to be the kind of traditional man who won't do business with a woman. So suddenly, she needs a man to front for her. Sort of a Rent-a-man kind of thing. But who can she trust to do something like that? / (Reviews)
Mandy's love life seemed to be cursed. She found happiness only to have it ripped from her. She tried again, and then again, but nothing seemed to work for her. Finally, in desperation she accepted an offer to get away from it all on a ranch. But Mandy was a city girl. Rural life, miles from even the smallest town, was strange and uncomfortable, even painful at times. Still, she did get a break from men. The owner of the ranch was mystifying, frustrating, not her type at all. Or was he?
Bobby Washington got hit by a car when he was fifteen, leaving him in a coma that lasted three years. When he did wake up he had epilepsy and needed to get a GED so an in-home physical therapist/caregiver was needed. Mai Li MacIntosh was born in Vietnam but raised in the U.S. Her very first job as a physical therapist was to rehab Bobby Washington's wasted body. It was supposed to be a three to six month job. She wasn't supposed to fall in love with her patient. But she did.
