{"product_id":"9780473222178","title":"Short Stories","description":"A collection of my best short stories ? some previously published, others published for the first time. \u003cbr\u003eEverything from a story about pig hunting to a fun romance! \u003cbr\u003eLiterary stories, commercial fiction, and some shorter vignettes. \u003cbr\u003eIncluded in the selection is my first published short story, a fishing yarn, Sam?s Kingie, read the story on my website www.judylawn.com and for the very first time a new fishing yarn starring Sam, The Living Legend. \u003cbr\u003eThe stories were inspired by my love of the sea and nature, memories of school days and childhood adventures, the people I?ve met and the ?yarns? I?ve heard throughout my life. \u003cbr\u003eThemes include friendship, respect, trust, patience, courage, disappointment, and love. Solitude is often at the heart of the story; those folk who live alone ? whether by choice or circumstance ? and how they deal with this aspect of their lives, how they ?come of age?. Characters ?battle on alone?, find solace in nature, and take heart from the support of friends. \u003cbr\u003eThe Eagle sees a woman wait a life-time for the ?right? person before she can relinquish the reigns at last. \u003cbr\u003eIn The Eel the ?right? person has been gone a life-time, but peace might at last be salvaged from this loss.\u003cbr\u003eIn both Mary?s Treasures and The Little Bird older women fight for their independence in two very different stories.\u003cbr\u003eKirsty is a teenage girl who ?dares?, but what exactly has she won?\u003cbr\u003eIn The Return a teenage girl has suffered both loss and joy. \u003cbr\u003eSpring begins with the promise of romance, which comes to nothing, but there is still optimism. \u003cbr\u003eThe Back Block ? my story about pig hunting ? is the quintessential ?coming of age? story (Contains gruesome incident).\u003cbr\u003eIs Saturday Morning in Suburbia the story about the disappointment of a life lived to ?suburban rules\/expectations? only to discover, too late, that that life might have been lived differently? Or is it the story about a man who will redeem himself in the last few weeks of his life? \u003cp\u003eExcerpts:\u003cbr\u003eKirsty\u003cbr\u003eThe morning was hot. It was ?in your face heat?, scooped up by the wind, heavy with the smells of the rush hour traffic, coming straight at us; hot. The road was already starting to melt and the cars whizzing past, sprayed out stinky black tar. Yesterday had been hot, too. But today it was going to boil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Back Block\u003cbr\u003eBut it was Charlie?s eyes that held people. As brown and dark and slippery as the river, they caught at a man when he wasn?t expecting it. Made you listen. Made you believe the stories even though you knew they were mostly wild exaggeration.\u003cbr\u003eI was no exception. That was why I went with him that day. Wild pigs. He?d seen them, out there beyond the back block. Huge they were, ?with great ugly tusks that?d rip a man in half if he didn?t watch it and I?d better have my wits about me and be prepared to make a run for it and could I climb a tree in my boots and did I have a decent knife??\u003cbr\u003eI assured Charlie that I was pretty fit, (at seventeen, nearly eighteen and hadn?t I just done six hay paddocks?) and that there wasn?t a tree standing I couldn?t climb. And I had the best knife out. My uncle had sent it from England.\u003cbr\u003eSo we went. Tramping out through all those miles of dusty dry bush, with the brown bracken crunching underfoot and the musty, peppery smell of the bush thick about us and the fantails diving about our heads, all the way out to where the giant pigs roamed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Return\u003cbr\u003eThe concrete was grey and unfriendly beneath my feet, an impassive spectator of my return. People brushed by me, but I didn?t look at them. I wasn?t yet ready to exchange smiles and nods of recognition, or talk to old friends.\u003cbr\u003e?You can?t go back,? Mum had said. ?Nothing stays the same. People change. You make new friends.? \u003cbr\u003ePerhaps she was right, but I had to find out for myself.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jupiter Publishing NZ Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47028201488624,"sku":"9780473222178","price":7.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780473222178_p0.jpg?v=1763707943","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780473222178","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}