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    Just In Case: Twenty-one Bite-sized Stories
    Just In Case: Twenty-one Bite-sized Stories
    Just In Case: Twenty-one Bite-sized Stories
    Ebook55 pages30 minutes

    Just In Case: Twenty-one Bite-sized Stories

    By Laura McHale Holland

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    About this ebook

    Elegant, haunting, beautiful prose in short, short stories to savor and share. Imagine a world where shadows of enchantment instantly render ordinary experiences eerie, terrifying or sublime, and where the unexpected becomes the norm. The twenty-one micro stories in Laura McHale Holland's Just in Case comprise such a place: a universe where a wife betrayed relishes her revenge; a couple chugging toward retirement takes a surprising U-turn; a much maligned character finally has his say; a cozy family scene chills the blood; a curious relative cannot leave a half-human baby alone. The short stories in this collection contain layers of meaning hidden in metaphor, revealed in raw emotion and arresting in their sudden intimacy. Magical, yet grounded this is flash fiction at its best by an author who know how to pack a gratifying punch and leave the reader hankering for more.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWORDforest
    Release dateAug 20, 2019
    ISBN9781733668316
    Just In Case: Twenty-one Bite-sized Stories

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      Book preview

      Just In Case - Laura McHale Holland

      Just In Case

      Just In Case

      Twenty-one Bite-sized Stories

      Laura McHale Holland

      WORDforest

      Contents

      What People Are Saying

      Introduction

      Red

      Just In Case

      Hare Speaks

      Suspended Wonder

      Cold Case

      Nephew

      Open Range

      No Need

      Down To The Beach

      Invasion

      Murky Water

      Drag Me Home

      Drifting

      Talisman

      Before

      I’ll Have To Tell Him

      Believe Me

      Keeping To Yourself

      No One To See

      Butterflies

      When She Wakes Up

      Acknowledgments

      A Note To Readers

      About the Author

      The Kiminee Dream — Preview Excerpt

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Keep in Touch

      What people are saying about Laura’s fiction

      Magical yet grounded, Laura McHale Holland’s flash fiction packs a gratifying punch. Bigfoot as rescuer, a girl abandoning a newborn at a firehouse, a woman in competition with raccoons for her mother’s notice—these and other stories leave the reader satisfied yet hankering for more of Laura’s deft prose. Such clever morsels stay with you long after the few minutes it takes to read them.

      – Olivia Boler, author of The Flower Bowl Spell

      I’m one of Laura McHale Holland’s big fans. Her stories are edgy, chilling, laugh-out-loud, make you cry and always emotionally charged. I’ve had the pleasure of reading her entire collection, and ... all I can say is keep ‘em coming.

      – Ana Manwaring, author of Set Up: Secrets and Lies in Zihuatanejo

      Holland’s superbly imaginative prose probes a deeper understanding of the human condition and touches tender, guarded places in our hearts. Her memorable characters explore hidden layers of existence, some beyond the grave or across parallel planes.

      – Nancy Pogue LaTurner, author of Voluntary Nomads

      Modern fables with ... layers of meaning hidden in metaphor, revealed in raw emotion and haunting in their sudden intimacy.

      – Kate Farrell, editor of the Wisdom Has a Voice anthology

      I know there is not such a thing as surrealistic realism, although Laura McHale Holland’s book of flash fiction did elicit that term from me as I devoured her characters, unsettling but yet inspiring … with lots of just plain folks in images of love, hate and wonderment, and it goes on, until the last story when a soft whisper of wow escaped my lips.

      – Linda Loveland Reid, author of Touch of Magenta and Something in Stone

      Here are ordinary men and women as well as those who are insane, children, animals and ghosts–all taking part in this diurnal and nocturnal theater of the wonderful, dark and absurd. Diverse in subject, form and nature, these condensed stories are worth reading and rereading, so that one might savor the many layers of meaning, mystery and relatable humanity.

      – Yu-Han Chao, author of We Grow Old

      Laura McHale Holland’s stories are elegant, eerily haunting and often beautiful.

      – Sunny Lockwood, author of Shades of Love

      From the first story in Just in Case to the last, Laura

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