I feel like I haven't talked much about my second book of short stories, "Happenstance and other stories". This post will be about all things Happenstance... - eight stories of love, loss and the workings of fate. The genres are mixed - contemporary and period fiction, mystery, suspense, and romance.
The title story is a slightly autobiographical girl meets boy story with a twist. The girl doesn't get the boy, an artist who turns out to have a girlfriend who then becomes his fiancee. The girl runs into him periodically over several years, the feelings she had for him a secret. She thought he was the one, and she thinks fate is playing games with her. As the girl is telling the story to someone over lunch we wonder, is this a confession? Is fate really to blame?
"Homework" - Dealing with a timely issue, this story is about the aftermath of a shooting at a high school that leaves three students dead and one wounded. Colin is just hours away from asking out Abby, the girl of his dreams. Now she is gone, along with Colin's best friend Gabriel and the new girl, Madison. Another classmate, Tyler, was shot in the shoulder. The story follows Colin, Abby's best friend Brittany, and two teachers, Justin Henderson and Danielle Novak as they deal with their grief. Danielle is talking about quitting. Justin is trying to hold his emotions back after watching Gabriel, his favorite student, die in his arms. And Brittany and Colin just want their best friends back.
"The Hollows" - I wanted to write a modern day vampire story. I thought of a reluctant vampire from the past, of Italian descent, with a certain loneliness about him. Vincent, a 350-year-old vampire, has put his mansion on the market and is facing a showdown with his vampire enemy, Marco. The problems began when Vincent's first love Isabella chose him over Marco, who then turned Vincent into a vampire against his will. Fearing for Isabella, Vincent ran away with her to America. After her death, Marco found Vincent, and for three centuries, they have been plotting against each other, still at odds over her. Vincent reminisces about the other great loves of his life, Marjorie and Eva, while still wanting to be with Isabella. But first he must deal with Marco.
"Harbinger" - I like the whole past lives/reincarnation thing; I find it fascinating. This story centers around Dane, a man getting over the deaths of his parents. He was taking care of his ill mother, who later died of cancer, after he had to temporarily move back home due to a fire in his apartment building. He buys an old building he's always liked and has it renovated into apartments with a restaurant on the first floor. Before even moving into his new apartment in the building, he hears a woman's voice there. Then he begins to have dreams about a fire that happened in the first floor restaurant area more than eighty years earlier. He soon discovers he has a past life connection to the building.
"Clotilde" - The subject of my "What's in a Name?" post a while back, Clotilde was a name I wanted to use for a character. I developed a whole story around that name, asking myself, Who is she? Where does she live? What era is it? Well, it's the Deep South around 1950, and Clotilde Dupree, the title character in this mystery/romance, is a sales clerk in a department store. She helps jazz musician Ray Hollis find a suit and tie for a gig. He invites her to the show, and soon the two are having an affair. Clotilde is divorced with a little boy, and Ray has a wife and four kids. The affair goes on for the better part of a decade, then Ray learns some secrets after Clotilde is murdered.
"Mrs. Summers' Daughters" - I originally wrote this story years ago, but never published it. I revised it a bit for this book, but kept it mostly the same. It's a period romance about two young men from London who travel to America in 1910. Charles Summers' uncle, Edward, lives in a town in Connecticut now and has invited him to spend the summer. Charles asks his friend Nigel, who is saddened by the recent death of his father, to come with him. In America they meet Edward's new wife and her daughters. Nigel and Charles both find themselves smitten. The summer is full of romance and young love, along with some disappointment and heartbreak, and it ultimately sees Nigel's and Charles's lives transformed.
"The Last of the Royal Line" - A family mystery hangs over Helen's life. Now that her parents and sister are gone, her own children are grown, and her marriage has ended, she turns her attention to the past and her father's tales of their royal ancestors. The first part of the story just popped into my head, and the rest unfolded as I was writing it. Helen's father told her he was a descendant of royalty, presumably dating back a few centuries. He fought and died in World War I. The story starts with Helen as a little girl and follows her through decades of the twentieth century until she is in her eighties. She is still enthralled with the idea that she is a princess, but is she?
"The House on West 100th Street" - This story was inspired in part by my memories of a house on the street where I lived as a kid. I just always imagined some little kids living there with an older couple. I don't know why, and I never knew who really lived there. The main character in the story is Cole, a seventeen-year-old boy who was left on his parents' doorstep as a baby. He learns his three siblings were all foundlings too. The family is close-knit and his adoptive parents are loving, but Cole still wonders about his mysterious birth mother.
The photo on the book's cover is one that I took. The typewriter in the picture was my mother's, and she typed some of my stories on it for me when I was a little girl. The idea behind the photo is running into something unexpected in the forest - a sort of "Fancy meeting you here" moment. Like Happenstance.
"Happenstance and other stories" is available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
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