Karen Heuler Boeken

​If you got a mysterious box that said, Do Not Open, would you open it? If your fingers revolted and wanted a different job, would you agree? If you came from a race of giants, or thought about becoming Death's lover, or couldn't get rid of a lover no matter how hard you tried, what would you do? These stories contain unusual problems, like finding your world growing dark after eating a piece of cake-and maybe wanting more cake. It's not hard to find yourself one step outside the normal, as these characters do. The trick is to make it work.

Exploring the complex experience of dementia, this collection of literary short stories delves into the perspectives of those affected, both caregivers and patients. It examines the struggles of coping, understanding, and connecting amidst the challenges of an unreasoning condition. Through poignant narratives, the stories reflect on love, adjustment, and the human desire to communicate and make sense of an often incomprehensible reality.

In a thought-provoking narrative, the story explores the complexities of relationships and the nature of reality through the experiences of its characters. As they navigate personal struggles and societal expectations, themes of intimacy, isolation, and the search for identity emerge. The setting serves as a backdrop for emotional revelations, ultimately challenging perceptions of comfort and safety. Heuler's writing invites readers to reflect on the soft spaces we create in our lives and the truths we confront within them.

In the state of Liberty, water is rationed at alarming prices, free speech is hardly without a cost, and Texas has just declared itself its own country. In this society, paranoia is well-suited because eyes and ears are all around, and they are judging. Always judging. This terrifying (and yet somehow vaguely familiar) terrain is explored via Eleanor - a young woman eagerly learning about the gifts of her magic through the support of her coven.But being a white witch is not as easy as they portray it in the books, and she's already been placed under 'house arrest' with a letch named Stan, a co-worker who wronged her in the past and now exists in the form of a cat. A talking cat who loves craft beers, picket lines, and duping and 'shooting' people.Eleanor has no time for Stan and his shenanigans, because she finds herself helping another coven locate a missing witch which she thinks is mysteriously linked to the shortage of water in Liberty.