Disaster upon catastrophe forces an unlucky engineer to become someone more adventuresome. A tech-savvy private investigator stalks organ traffickers across a toxic cityscape. International hostilities on an alien planet turn a human architect into a dogged emissary for peace. Enslaved by a monstrous lord, a sage seeks answers in the stars and finds more… desirable problems. Older women take center stage in these four novellas. They may be wives, mothers, wise women or healers, but those archetypes are not their defining characteristics. Their motivations are their own, and they’re not interested in living in the background of someone else’s epic yarn.