Arresting and original, The Ice Cream Vendor's Song introduces a new side of Laura McHale Holland, whose memoir, Reversible Skirt, won a silver medal in the 2011 Readers Favorite book awards. In this richly nuanced collection of very short fiction, the author tilts the everyday and spins characters in unexpected directions. From an online purchase that takes over a woman's life to a plain box that brings a tired clerk a magical gift, from a spurned woman hiding in her ex-husband's closet to a doting wife coaxing her ailing husband to eat, The Ice Cream Vendor's Song reveals worlds familiar yet strange, haunting yet tender, all rendered with emotional clarity and exquisite prose. The Ice Cream Vendor s Song, Laura McHale Holland s most recent collection of mystical flash fiction, seduces with a voice more compelling than the mythical siren s call. But this is an enticement that you don t want to resist. Holland s superbly imaginative prose probes a deeper understanding of the human condition and touches tender, guarded places in our hearts. Nancy Pogue LaTurner, author of Voluntary Nomads Laura McHale Holland s stories are elegant, eeriely haunting and often beautiful. Sunny Lockwood, author of Shades of Love This is a book for writers who want to see the craft at its best and for readers who want to be titillated and thoroughly amazed. I know I was. Linda Loveland Reid, author of Touch of Magenta

When the mother of three little girls commits suicide, their father wants more than anything to keep his family together. He remarries in haste and tells his daughters his new wife is their mother. The youngest, Laura, believes her mother must have gone through a kind of magical transformation. Reversible Skirt is written from Laura's perspective as a child sifting through remnants of her mother's existence and struggling to fit into a community where her family's strict rules are not the norm. When Laura's father dies, her stepmother grows increasingly abusive, which propels Laura and her sisters into a lasting alliance. Their father's wish that they stay together comes true, although not in the way he'd imagined.