Jude Calohan has been keeping his head down for years. In the quiet town of Bower Bliss, Texas, he has tried to be a good man, a good father, tried not to think too much about his relationship with his own father ... and yet despite this, in the gentle autumn of an uneventful year, Jude Calohan soon finds his relationship with both his eldest child and his own identity as a father called into question.<br><br>Amidst the sleepy apple groves of small town America, will Jude Calohan be able to keep his family together while his eldest child Charlie discovers the confidence to make one of the biggest choices of their young life?

Love Among Strangers

He braced himself for a further argument, but instead Rowan shrugged with indifference.


“Guess I’ll go inside and play a game then.”


Before his father could protest, the fourteen-year-old turned and headed back towards the kitchen, leaving Jude alone in the yard with the rifle in his hand and the tin cans in the distance.


Gently, she knocked against the closed door, the sound of music resounding from the other side, and, when there was no reply, turned the doorknob and stepped inside, hesitantly entering the room of her eldest child. She took in the posters that decorated the wall, the computer screen that glowed faintly in the morning light as it poured through the open window, and the shape of Charlie, sitting on the bed, resting against the wall, a book open in their lap.


“Hi, Charlie,” she said softly as she entered, “aren’t you going to see your father?”


Chapter 12