This story has no sex in it.

“So, you don’t think he’s got a problem with it all? Girly you, cray-cray me, us, kinda strangely put together lesbians?”

Gabe laughed. “No, I actually think he’s going to be okay with all that weirdness.”

A slender figure walked out onto the wide bridge. The sun descending in the western sky cast a wide shadow from the west side of the canyon and bathed the east side in a reddish glow.

"Mum I can't possibly do this. " Alex she told her quietly, horror evident in his voice. His mother standing next to him in their little combined kitchen and dinning room, snorted in rye amusement.

Gabe searched her father’s face anxiously. Desperately wanting to say something, but unsure of what. “You came.”

Charlotte and Michael continue with their lives and now, two years on it is Christmas time once more and change is in the air!

A Crumb Free Christmas - Two years on

Naomi snuffed out her cigarette. She rarely took more than a few drags from one. She just liked holding it. And it allowed her to take breaks outside. She still had a few minutes on her break and she wasn’t going to waste a second of it even if it was a hot, sticky summer night.

She leaned back in her seat and her eyes narrowed. Oh, don’t you dare, young man!

Just ‘cuz she’s got perfect blonde hair and cornflower eyes and big freakin’ bazoombas. AND long legs, the bitch.

The lynching tree is the oldest living thing on our farm. It was here when the first white men
came and it’s still here and growing. I guess the black folks around here have always called it that. Back when I was in elementary school Reverend Amos James began calling for the tree to be destroyed as “a symbol of white oppression.” That’s when everyone started calling it the lynching tree. Before that we just called it the big oak.

This one's not for the faint of heart. Over the course of the story there will be death, suicide attempts, a fair amount of physical and mental abuse, some egregious torture and a hefty dollop of foul language, but hopefully a happy ending. Actually, the last bit's a given since it's me doing the writing, but between here and the end is a rocky road, so please if any of the above is likely to be triggering for you, please, please think twice about reading.

Laura recalls some of her experiences in this chapter, and quite graphically. I’ve marked them in red in case you prefer to skip.

Caelan grew up as an orphan in the shadow of Avaloria’s palace, scraping by on the streets and bound by the ruthless thieves’ guild that demanded his loyalty. He never felt right in his own skin, never found his purpose, only his friends kept him from despair: Eira, the beautiful thief he secretly loved and longed to be like; Thorne, the mercenary who pulled him out of crime; and Alric, a healer who gave hope to the hopeless.

When Caelan is wrongly accused of a crime and the palace guards begin hunting him and his friends, his world falls apart. With nowhere to turn, a mysterious stranger offers a way out; a dangerous mission to find the lost princess of Avaloria. With everything to gain and nothing left to lose, Caelan and his friends set off on a journey that will change them, and their kingdom, forever.

Author’s Note: This is a full-length novel of nearly 100,000 words. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I had writing it.