Showing results by author "Laura Koerber" in All Categories

A backwoods bar run by a shape-shifter. A road that changes length, direction, and destination. A young man, lost in the forest and dying, hears the cry of a raven. Set in a dystopic near future, Raven Woman’s Tavern is the story of a collection of survivalists who are squatting in the remains of a dead timber town in the Northwest.

Ben O’Rourke, his best friend Clint, and their classmate Claire were supposed to grow up to be wealthy, prominent people like their parents. They were private school kids, raised in the belief that they were obliged to turn expensive educations into prestigious positions in society. Actually, more than that. They were entitled to prestigious positions — at the top. Clint had done that by winning his dad’s seat in Congress. Benny didn’t know anything about Claire, except she’d never married and she still lived in Camden. Right there in Clint’s district.

I pushed the oil rags and cigarette butts off the seat of my friend Arne’s old pickup truck and climbed in. He threw the truck into gear, gunned the engine, and smirked. “What’s the point of being a fairy if you can’t wave a magic wand and get shit done?” Yeah, I’m a fairy. No, not that kind. I let a half mile of clear-cut rumble past the window while I thought about my crappy mood, contemplating the butchered landscape. Back when I was a kid, I used to enjoy the ride to town because the road wound through a mosaic of wetlands and forest and lakes.

Andy thought of flying. She imagined the air under her arms, her hair lifting and floating. She felt her heartbeat separate from the faraway beat and form its own rhythm: light, quick, a dancing thrum. When she opened her eyes, her yard was dusky and her mood had lightened. She let her gaze drift across the darkening landscape. Andy’s heart filled with exultation. She raised her arms, fanned out her fingers, and arched her feet until she was on her toes. She was assaulted by memories. Her mother was dying, and Danny had been dead for years.

The author’s limbo is a ghost town that includes animals that had been killed by humans: a dog, some cats, cows, chickens, and wild creatures, too. The animals are content with their lot in the afterlife, but the humans have an infinity of time on their hands and not enough to do. They think about the big issues, of course, but no one can spend all their time thinking higher thoughts, so mostly they do what they did in life: they gossip, they get on each other’s nerves, and they play poker.

On the far side of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, halfway between the mountains and the ocean, stands the little town of Forks. In that town, in a quiet neighborhood of modest homes and shabby businesses, there remains a dilapidated pink warehouse. Packed inside that warehouse, living in deplorable conditions, were once over 120 dogs. In one of the crates was a black dog named Daisy. This is her story....

Anna didn't even know she had an aunt. Aunt Moira had appeared the day after Anna's parents died in a car crash: a tall grey figure through the screen door, silhouetted against the bright sun. The neighbors welcomed her - they were relieved to get Anna off their hands and into the custody of a relative. But Anna hadn't warmed to her aunt or her pug, whose eyes eerily tracked Anna's every move.