Arm’s length

Published by Fairlight Books, click here to read.

Ex-pro swimmer, Leah, helps a young girl overcome her fear of water and learn to swim. In doing so, Leah moves away from swimming in her own grief at being recently widowed.

Hammered

Published by Fairlight Books, click here to read.

Chloe is addicted to buying shoes, whilst inadvertently making colleagues redundant. Jon, now redundant, is increasingly escaping into alcoholism. Their stories start to overlap as they tackle their lockdown demons.

Sweet daisies

A short story told through the eyes of seven-year-old Leila as her family emigrates from England to Iran in search of a fresh start in the late 1970s. We see Leila struggling to understand her mixed race identity, experiencing hints of racism and coping with being uprooted to live in a different culture at a time of great political unrest.

Good for you

Liam is a perfectionist propelled outside of his comfort zone by life changing events happening simultaneously at work and home. This short story explores what ‘good for you’ means, as Liam and his wife – embarking on parenthood – both confront imposter syndrome and test conventional norms to work out what’s really good for them.

Catch

Holly has been grieving Jane’s friendship, abruptly lost after her wedding day. Several years later, she’s still angry about the lack of explanation, but when she finally gets the chance to confront Jane it’s not at all what she was expecting. A story about life events that test friendships, even the best ones.

Love grows here

Gemma is navigating motherhood in a digital world; as fast as her love for her boy, Jayden, grows so too do her fears for him finding a love of his own when he spends so much time online. This is a story of how love somehow does still grow, despite phone addictions and the pervasion of technology in our lives.

Not at home

Freya struggles to feel at home with people old or new since she developed social anxiety. During this story in three parts, she finds a new way home and it’s not to the place she thought it was.

French kiss

Lucille has moved from Paris to London to study, have fun and find romance. It’s not quite working out as she’d imagined and so she looks for signs to reassure herself. It’s when she’s not looking that good fortune starts to turn more her way.

A bit green

Hayley is holidaying in Morocco with her boyfriend and friends. Away from it all but not from her restless self. Some unexpected bad news is the catalyst to her accepting change in life and finally growing up.

Always late

A time poor daughter. A father who can’t keep to time. But it’s the mother who is really short on time as they approach the end of her life story.