Blood ties. The family we've been given, the friends we make, the loves we keep, and those we lost. The twenty-six stories in Family and Other Ailments teeter on the brink, hover at the periphery or even the possibility of crime. Under a soft light and at an angle, they're all love stories.

The collection opens with "Spy Head," a tale of friendship after a crushing trauma. In "Texas Two-Step," brotherhood leads to a wicked double-cross. "Razorbills" shows a young woman seeking freedom from the prison-like caring of her sibling. "Black and Tan" slips into domestic horror, as does "Mutti," with a hint of the fantastic. "Hour of the Bat" and "Bag Limit" are deep woods Texas noir, while "A Head for Numbers" and "No Recoil" go west, to the stark unforgiving beauty of the desert.

M.E. Proctor draws characters with a tender touch. She catches them at an inflexion point in their lives, a moment of choice. We feel what they feel, see what they see, and their voices linger for a long time in our memory.