It is 1945 in Long Beach, New York, when three-year-old Brian Farley receives the scare of a lifetime. As little Brian bounces on his father's stomach in a second-floor bedroom of their summer house, his father suddenly loses his grip, sending Brian out through the screen window and onto the sand below. As the summer house, normally a place of peace and respite, disrupts into chaos, little Brian has no idea that this particular event is just one of the many escapades he will experience growing up as an Irish Catholic boy in Brooklyn and Long Beach. Brian embarks on a memorable coming-of-age journey as the Farleys spend their winters in a borough that's undergoing many changes-the influx of Puerto Ricans, neighborhood deterioration, and the desertion of the Brooklyn Dodgers-and their summers in paradise at their grandparents' summer home. As Brian matures and falls in love with a beautiful, Puerto Rican classmate, only time will tell if their relationship will survive his mother's judgment and the shifting demographics of Brooklyn. But it is only after the family matriarch suddenly dies that everything Brian has ever known suddenly changes. In this compelling story, as a Brooklyn boy matures into adulthood amid a warm, loving, and sometimes conflicted New York family, he soon discovers he is responsible for his own happiness.

It is 1945 in Long Beach, New York, when three-year-old Brian Farley receives the scare of a lifetime. As little Brian bounces on his father's stomach in a second-floor bedroom of their summer house, his father suddenly loses his grip, sending Brian out through the screen window and onto the sand below. As the summer house, normally a place of peace and respite, disrupts into chaos, little Brian has no idea that this particular event is just one of the many escapades he will experience growing up as an Irish Catholic boy in Brooklyn and Long Beach. Brian embarks on a memorable coming-of-age journey as the Farleys spend their winters in a borough that's undergoing many changes-the influx of Puerto Ricans, neighborhood deterioration, and the desertion of the Brooklyn Dodgers-and their summers in paradise at their grandparents' summer home. As Brian matures and falls in love with a beautiful, Puerto Rican classmate, only time will tell if their relationship will survive his mother's judgment and the shifting demographics of Brooklyn. But it is only after the family matriarch suddenly dies that everything Brian has ever known suddenly changes. In this compelling story, as a Brooklyn boy matures into adulthood amid a warm, loving, and sometimes conflicted New York family, he soon discovers he is responsible for his own happiness.

Phil discovers that Kate, the voice in his Garmin GPS, is a lot more than a disembodied voice. She's in trouble, and she needs his help When a couple arrives from cold Rhode Island to their rented condo in Florida, all they can think about is warm temperatures and sunshine. But then the husband walks into a moral dilemma that almost ruins his week in the sun.Betsy decides to memorialize her deceased parents....in a most unusual way.Young, innocent Cheryl shocks her mother by opening the conversation at the family's Sunday dinner with "I almost got involved in a bar fight yesterday."Larry Hawkins is a widower, MIT physics professor, and believer in time travel who is anxious to test his inventions and fulfill every old man's fantasy.Roberto Villarreal has no idea a life-changing adventure is about to begin when he picks up a stranger and his granddaughter at a rest stop in Mexico.Mark Tuttle and Sandy Roberts wonder if you can love all your children equally and yet love one more than the others. In the process they discover that Love is infinite.Kiss Me, Kate and Other Stories is a collection of short tales set in a variety of locations and illustrating the depth of the human spirit, the importance of laughter, and the miracle of love.