A group of coastal Californians battle wildfires, racism, and their own demons in five distinct narratives set

in late 2019 and 2020. The book is populated by a cast of LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies who

struggle to find love, comfort, and fulfillment. As the novel progresses, characters interact across the

separate narratives and are brought together for a birthday and a disastrous Black Lives Matter

demonstration. A man returning to the horrors that made him leave Mississippi, a blind gay man flirting

with love, an FTM transgender starting hormone therapy, a woman struggling to protect her sons from her

ex-husband’s surge to right-wing politics, and a teenager with two gay dads searching for his Black

surrogate mom paint a disturbing tableau of modern-day America.

Author Bio

Vincent Traughber Meis is a fiction writer, a world traveler, and a former ESL community college teacher.

He has published six novels: Eddie’s Desert Rose, Tio Jorge, Down in Cuba, Deluge, Four Calling

Burds and The Mayor of Oak Street. Tio Jorge, Down in Cuba, and Deluge have all won Rainbow Awards

and The Mayor of Oak Street a Reader Views Reviewer’s Choice Award. His short stories have been

appeared in several collections both in print and online. A collection of short stories, Far from Home, was

published in October 2021. He lives in San Leandro, California.