WHEN YOUR SPIRITS CLIMB by CHARLES E.J. MOULTON (good beach reads .TXT) 📕

This is a labour of love, a gathering of initiative, an age of short stories. The earliest ideas date back to 1972, the latest tales are from 2010. Accordingly, this becomes a volume spanning four decades of short stories: original ideas or reworked ones inspired by his parents’ tales.

All in all, there are eleven genres in this anthology: drama, science fiction, relationship assessment, erotic, romantic, adventure, horror, historical reality, historical fantasy, detective and children’s fiction.

We meet Charmian and Robert, whose fate is especially cruel after a painful break-up. We encounter the two trolls Uggel-Guggel and Klampe-Lampe as they search for their maidens, endeavouring to save their race. A futuristic cook from a lunar hotel falls in love with an alien, a bitter author turns into a werewolf, a rich widow remembers her youth in Paris and a renaissance maid gets integrated into a royal court.

There are art directors and astronauts, actors and scientists, murderers and kings. They are dissimilar people with one thing in common: their love, or sometimes their lack of love, paves the way for their challenge.

Charles E. J. Moulton displays his creative ability in 24 tales. He gives readers food for thought in his significant realization of philosophical awareness. At the end of this volume, he delivers an account of his professional life and presents his colourful, aristocratic family’s history spanning five countries and dating back to William the Conqueror.