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

“You precious baby, you’re too pure for this world.”


The door was suddenly thrown wide open in a flurry of noise and motion as Phoenix Delgado whooped loudly, silencing any reply that Charlie might have hoped to have made.


“Charlie Calohan!” the girl in the doorway shouted approvingly, thrusting a bottle forward into Charlie’s chest. “Looking fine, girlfriend!”


Stumbling, Charlie managed to take hold of the bottle before it slipped from Phoenix’s hand as she whirled around, apparently forgetting why she was at the door, and disappeared into the crowd. Veronica Wong and Sheila Torrance were sitting on the stairs; Alaina Cavazos was leaning against a wall, talking to a boy—Travis Morris, from the year below; Emily Chen was dancing in the distant living room at the end of the hallway, dressed in an oversized Big Fun T-shirt; and Briony Michelle and Ana were sitting together in an armchair, laughing wildly at some joke neither Charlie nor Rosemary were privy to.


Chapter 34