In the shadow of Mt. Fuji, two young people seek genuine beauty and purity in their love, in spite of certain unpromising circumstances.

Excerpt:

“I am cat,” Keiko whispers as she slowly runs her fingers along my chest beneath my frayed, light-cotton shirt. We’re lying together at twilight on reed mats beside a rice paddy near Mt. Fuji. Of course I desperately want to kiss her, to make love to her, but I’m on high alert. I’ve known Keiko for less than 48 hours, and post-war Japan is a mystery to me. The last thing I want to do is break any cultural taboos and find myself skewered on a razor-sharp sword.

Illustration by Eliza Frye

In a struggle for domestic domination between an idealistic wife and a husband haunted by memories of war, each one wins ... and loses.

Excerpt:

A soft click. The ratchet tightened. Then ping—click. Steel on steel. Again click, ping—click. More steel. Silence. Then again, click, ping—click. Click, ping—click. Silence.

Tassie Bruner lay naked on her stomach, spread-eagled across the sheets, wrists and ankles securely cuffed to the heavy steel bedstead. Her husband, Hank, knelt above her. Slowly, he began to stroke himself as he quietly surveyed her pale, defenseless body.

Sweat. The air was heavy, steamy, dense with the smell of sweat mingled with a faint burning odor from the red-hot heat lamp placed on a wooden box and trained on Hank’s precious pot plants. And fear. Hank knew the smell of fear.

                                                                             Illustration by Eliza Frye

High school sweethearts, missed connections, jealousy, and a love triangle create a dangerous mix.

Excerpt:

Professor Philip Winters knocked gently on the ancient oak door of an apartment in Barcelona’s Barri Gòtic. No answer. He gave a push, and the door creaked open. The room was dark. He glanced again at the apartment number: 406. This was the number Toni had given him.

The dim bulb hanging from the corridor’s water-splotched ceiling cast a faint glow for only a few feet into the room. Philip heard the flutter of wings and the squawk of a bird—a parrot? Toni always liked animals. “Toni?” Suddenly, a small, furry creature shot past Philip’s legs and scrabbled across the hardwood floor. A cat? A rat? “Toni, are you alright?”

“Close the door,” she said. Philip obeyed.

Illustration by Eliza Frye

A married couple on vacation in Tahiti encounters a beautiful and very determined Tahitian woman who has her eye on the husband. A liberating holiday in paradise?

Excerpt:

They say in vino veritas. Well, it’s sure true that a bottle of wine and a few Mai Tais will kinda make you feel like, you know, just go for it! Or was it the seven-year itch? My wife Jennie and I had been married about seven years. All I know is that Freedée walked up to me in the downtown Papeete gallery, put her hand on my shoulder, stretched up to my ear, and whispered, “My name is Freedée. That means freedom.” Then she licked my ear—only a little flick. I just stood there. In shock, I guess. She grabbed my arm and started to show me around the paintings.

Well. Freedée. There she was. Five foot three inches of bronze-skinned, black-haired, dark-eyed Tahitian … energy.

Illustration by Eliza Frye

A young woman trying to hide from her traumatic past meets a young man who still broods over a failed marriage. Will the sensuous Mediterranean breezes free them from their history?

Excerpt:

Erik woke up to the sudden pain of five daggers stabbing into his left shoulder. Sheila had plunged her razor-sharp fingernails into his naked, defenseless body. He twisted away from her and leaped from the bed. All the room lights were on. Beads of blood welled up and began to slowly trickle down his arm. “What the hell …” he gasped.

Sheila glared at him. “Two things I hate most,” she hissed. “Men and dogs!”

Illustration by Eliza Frye

Two young lovers in Paris share an idyllic life ... until the woman is forced to confront her demons in a final showdown.

Excerpt:

“Excuse me,” Ryan said.

Sukie again glanced up from her paper. Since her arrival in Paris, she’d shortened her name—Susanna Katherine—to Sukie, and let her hair grow long. In her black outfit, she was the picture of the Saint Germain femme fatale. “Yes? What can I do for you?” she said.

Her cool tone of voice and air of mild irritation almost derailed him. But Ryan had resolved to get to know her. “I don’t mean to bother you,” he said shyly. Actually, Ryan wasn’t shy at all. But he’d discovered that a touch of feigned diffidence increased his charm.

“And?” she said.

“And?”

“What else don’t you mean?”

Illustration by Eliza Frye