Two girls endure middle school and high school. Their peers give them grief over their looks: they are two red heads in an ocean of black hair. One has no mother, the other's mother is a punitive monster. Sometimes, your hopes for the future depend on that one friend who can understand you and be your rock in the face of cruelty, even violence. This is a short story, a quick read.
After six months with no sex, Jackie is at the breaking point with her husband, Chris. He's keeping a secret from her - but is it what she thinks it is?
The wife of D.A. Mark Jensen is kidnapped and held hostage to force him to get a mob boss off a murder charge. Her experience changes her life along with others in ways she never imagined.
A half-drowned stranger suffering from exposure and speaking a foreign tongue is brought to shore in an isolated fishing city at the height of the Cold War and mistaken for a Russian spy. Meanwhile, his girl mourns for him.
Our hero has to take a rare business trip to a distant part of the country. At the insistence of some old school friends who live in the town he's visiting, he stays with them. Whilst staying with them he gets an unexpected surprise and his life starts to unravel.