TAMPA, Fla. - s4story -- Down & Out Books is pleased to announce that HOUSES BURNING AND OTHER RUINS by William R. Soldan has been published by its imprint Shotgun Honey on May 7, 2021 in trade paperback and ebook formats.

About HOUSES BURNING AND OTHER RUINS …

Desperation. Violence. Broken homes and broken hearts. Fathers, junkies, and thieves.

In this gritty new collection, one bad choice begets another, and redemption is a twisted mirage. An ex-addict takes a detour with his young son and comes face-to-face with an old drug dealer and an unsettled debt. A down-on-his-luck gambler visits his estranged sister while figuring out his next play. An Iraq War vet fights a personal battle to reconcile life as a civilian. Three boyhood friends stumble upon a dark secret in a rural dump.

These and the other troubled characters that inhabit the streets and alleys of these stories continually find themselves at the mercy of a cold, indifferent world as they hurtle downward and grapple for hard-won second chances in a life that seldom grants them.

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Advance praise for HOUSES BURNING AND OTHER RUINS …

"Rendered in unflinching prose, these are haunting stories in which we witness the scandalous undoings of unusually deep, conflicted people. Soldan is the kind of writer we need right now." —Robert Vaughan, author of Funhouse, Editor-in-Chief, Bending Genres

"This is the dark side of the American Dream. Read it: you won't forget it." —A.B. Patterson, author of the PI Harry Kenmare novels and short stories.

Meet the author …

William R. Soldan grew up in and around the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, Ohio, where he currently resides with his wife and two children. A high school dropout and college graduate, he holds a BA in English Literature from Youngstown State University and an MFA from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts program. Over the years, he has worked as a factory machinist, maintenance man, house painter, record store clerk, line-cook, bartender, bouncer, writing instructor, and a host of other things.

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Established in 2011, Shotgun Honey (ShotgunHoney.com), an imprint of Down & Out Books, came onto the scene to provide readers with a regular diet of flash crime fiction. Living by the simple tenet of keeping it lean and mean, over 800 stories from more than 400 authors from around the world have been published to date.

In its ninth year as an independent publisher of award-winning literary and crime fiction, Down & Out Books (https://downandoutbooks.com) is based in Tampa, Florida. For more information about the book, to request a review copy of the book, or to inquire about an interview with the author, contact info@downandoutbooks.com.