Ashes & Alms

by A.M. Leibowitz

In her teens, Jo spent a summer as a missionary in Chicago. After forty years, two divorces, and a daughter who won’t speak to her, a postcard arrives in the mail. Now Jo must decide if she wants to attend a reunion. Going means seeing the woman she once loved and finding out if all they had was one summer or if there’s a chance to start over. It also means facing the other women on her team. Maybe it’s time for Jo to reconcile all her broken relationships.

(Part of Never Too Late - a collection of nine stories featuring LGBTQIA characters over the age of fifty)

45 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 7, 2017

About the author

Author. Editor. Spouse, parent, queer, feminist, reader, and writer falling somewhere on the Geek-Nerd Spectrum. Agnostic Christian offering commentary on faith, culture, and writing. Read more: http://amleibowitz.com/about-me/

Reviews

[Alexis Woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if? I'm always in awe of those stories people say of their high school sweetheart... years later, reconnecting and reawakening those amazing feelings of young love. Accepting who we are and what we want (what once we denied ourselves) and then reaching out with both hands, snagging it and hugging it close. All of that captured within these few pages.

Part of Beaten Track Publishing's Never Too Late anthology.

[Debbie McGowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Editor's Review

I'm on a bit of a 'been there, done that' theme with my recent reviews. I used to be 'churchified', but for various reasons, I was pushed out of the church. A year or so ago, there was a reunion of sorts, which I didn't attend because...it's complicated. Short, simple version: many church people are judgemental hypocrites, and while I'm no saint, I don't need their judgy fingers wagging at me.

But then there are the friendships I lost, and I miss being a part of something. I miss going to church (except on damp, miserable Sunday mornings), but like Jo in Ashes & Alms, I'm torn between facing the friends that became adversaries and knowing I'm just fine - maybe better - leaving all of that far behind me.

There were a lot of parallels between my life and Jo's, and I sense other readers with very different life experiences will also find this - not just with Ashes & Alms, but with any of A.M. Leibowitz's stories. The characters are very real and face the same challenges - the little niggles and the epic traumas - we all face.

What I especially enjoyed were the tense moments later in the story, all the show and facade and the waiting. It could've gone either way, and I read tight-lipped with a tense, slightly hysterical giggle in the back of my throat. And...that's all I'm saying or I'll spoil the story.

[Laura Susan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very romantic, beautifully written piece about the lonely period in life between youth and old age, when some of us feel accomplished while others feel like colossal failures. Ashes & Alms is about re-examining one's self, challenging what the "moral majority" believes is right and true, and about how the flaws in us all bring us closer together. It's also about healing rifts and wounds a mile wide.

[Amy Spector · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was many firsts for me, though being an ff romance was not one of them. It was my first read from this author, though, and despite treading on some themes I wouldn't normally search out, I found myself drawn into this story.

I am not a fan of organized religion, and I think this story touches on many of the reasons why. You too often see it used as a framework for discrimination and exclusion, something in direct contradiction to the teachings many of these same organizations claim to follow.

But I digress.

A well written, gentle story of courage and second chances.