Until Next Year

Amara and Patrick meet every year on the same day, no matter what. They walk across the beach toward one another and embrace, then retreat to a shoddy rental nearby to connect in a deeper way. Their original meeting was fraught with danger, but their subsequent meetings have felt bright and hopeful. And sexy. God, the sex. But something feels different this year... Annabel Joseph delivers a profound emotional punch in this short story about second chances and the saving power of love. This 6K word novellette was originally published as part of AUSTRALIA: A Romance Anthology.

This book presents some very raw facts about the negative aspects of racism and the devastating effects it has on individuals, municipalities, States, the Nation and indeed the world. It covers a ten year period in the authors life, presented autobiographically, from 1940 to 1950. The story is based primarily on historical events as reported in the ex Black weekly newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier. The news articles are presented as parts of fictionalized dialogue between the author, his young peers and older adult advisors. Most of the fictionalized accounts have some bases in truth but some did not occur in the sequence or to individuals as presented. Names of individuals reported in news media have not been changed, nor have the names of family members and teachers. Names of townspeople have been changed although a real person existed for that character. The primary goal of the book is to present true facts about the history of the disease based on a false premise of race that has caused so much suffering, ignorance and despair over centuries in the hope that we will stop perpetuating it and let it die the ignoble death it deserves.