Echoes: An Anthology of Short Fiction

Book excerpt: In this mesmerizing compilation, fourteen authors weave clever tales of imagination and discovery, loss and redemption. Though each story is vastly different than the last, they all have one thing in common: a necklace. There’s the Saint Christopher pendant a brilliant city engineer wears that will test his faith, a cryptic ring on a chain that holds a mother’s dark secret, a sapphire necklace that bears magical power, a rose crystal medallion a young man gives away on New Year’s Eve before he vanishes without a trace. The grimness of prison life, a kidnapping gone wrong, a haunting of two sisters, a poisoning that saves a child, and more come to vivid life. From California to New York City, London and Paris, to an elusive planet called Eleusis Well somewhere in the Milky Way, this gripping volume is crammed with unforgettable stories. Each tale is as deftly rendered as it is skillfully told, the necklaces that connect them echoes of the humanity they share and the wider world they explore.