First published 1997
A woman catches an unexpected glance across a crowded room. A man dreams of someone he barely knows. Another person encounters a stranger on an ordinary afternoon. These moments seem small, but they crack open entire lives. Twelve different narrators share the precise instant when desire entered their world and changed everything that followed. Some act on what they feel. Others keep their longing locked away. The sexual encounters matter less than what happens inside each person when want takes hold. A thought becomes an obsession. A brief touch echoes for years. A single word rewrites the future. Each story captures that exact moment when ordinary life splits open and reveals what lies beneath. The narrators speak directly about their experiences, showing how desire works in ways both obvious and strange. These are not love stories but something rawer and more immediate. They explore what happens when people confront the parts of themselves they never expected to find.
Genres: short-stories, romance, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-driven, slice-of-life
193 pages · Hardcover · Henry Holt & Co