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A collection of stories by Billy McCoy

Secretly in love with a successful currency-trader, Leah is an intelligent and attractive dental student, and the only child of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Unable to escape her overbearing mother, Leah defies traditional norm and falls passionately in love with Chris, an elegant and gifted African-American man with a troubled past. When Chris luck takes a turn, Leah rashly offers to let him spend a bitterly cold night in her parents garage; he surprises Leahs mom and is mistaken for a burglar; Chris is ignominiously hauled off to jail. And Leah is forced to make a stark decision! Will she explain the misunderstanding and save her lover, bringing on certain ostracism by exposing their secret affair, or will she protect her reputation and let innocent Chris languish in jail. Mocha Confidential is written with a dash of redemptive humor and offers profound insight into the character and thought of two people bound by forbidden love, strife and a mutual desire for acceptance.

Billy McCoy set out to create an epic character and in the form of Janis Bailey in Letters from Winnie, he succeeds. Janis is a Midwestern girl, the daughter of a preacher in Cincinnati, who tastes a little sophistication and then set out seeking pleasure and success. She has her moments, facing down a pimp and a demanding job until a doomed marriage ensnares her. Then she is told of her Grandmother Winnie's life, Janis is inspired with the strength to turn her life around. McCoy spins these scenes with the eye of a master in control of his pen.

Strange Fruit is an eclectic collection of novellas. In story after story McCoy pinpoints the moment a person’s life is forever changed by love, a decision made or not made, or a simple twist of fate. His characters are flawed and fully human: In one story --All People Lives Matter--a richly detailed vignette, that rubs away at the luster of social activism, explores how life can call back those who are furthest adrift. The female narrator on the cusp of young adulthood is Holly, a biology student at the university, and her parents are successful executives. It only seems logical, at first that she should volunteer at an organization that promises hope and social change, contributing her time to an altruistic venture. But her idealism is about to change, and is portended by others who pinpoint her future successes and failures in a nut shell: "You're young, a rabid idealist, impressionable, stupid and going to change the world with your over-powering hope and youthful enthusiasm.The movement is better off with your naiveté, it's a fifth wheel to a truck.You'll jump in with both feet and boldly change the world. Pity you!" The process of a young idealist's disillusionment with her world is a painful one, convincingly and creatively explored...." Illumined by McCoy’s unflinching insight, these lives and others draw us in with their quiet depth and surprise us with their unexpected turn of events. Revised edition: This edition of Strange Fruit includes editorial revisions.

A transcendent story that follows a gritty, intelligent young suburban woman's determination to live life on her own terms. Holly sacrifices everything to live up to her family's legacy of helping the downtrodden. Tragedy however lurks in the shadows when she finds her way into--and ultimately collides--with a controversial protest movement. Holly's hygienic ideas are shattered when she exposes the hypocrisies of an unscrupulous but powerful protest organizer.

In this "urgently relevant novel," award winning author Billy McCoy returns with an unforgettable, heartbreaking story about a young idealist, caught in the convulsive sweep of social upheaval, The Awakening transport readers through the narrator's personal odyssey into the fundamental question of how to live. Holly's relationship with her dad leads to a powerful self-reckoning, betrayal, and the possibility of redemption after a controversial urban protest."Ambitious and topical" KIRKUS"Multifaceted and Compelling" MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

This collection of stories by Billy McCoy illuminates moments that shape a life, from simple twists of fate that turn a person out of his or her accustomed path and into another way of being. These stories paint a portrait of how strange, dangerous, and extraordinary the ordinary life can be. Also, too, they captures the lives of women of all ages and circumstances, as they deal with the limits and lies of passion, unfulfilled dreams, motherhood, betrayal, and the bonds of love.

In three stories, The Love of a Loyal Woman, Billy McCoy extends his giant themes--the vagaries of love, the misplaced passion and loyalty that leads down unexpected paths, the disasters hovering beneath the surface of things, and the strange, often twisted motives and desires of the heart. At times chaos is skirted: a young woman fortunately confronts life's difficulties while serving a brief stint in jail. Still other times, a loving and selfless mother wants the best for her over indulged son, yet as it turns out, the son's true nature is revealed. In another story: a young woman finds in the span of twenty years that the cousin she adores, and who she hopes to encourage, cannot sustain himself, and she must learn to let go. The rich texture that gives Billy McCoy's work so vivid reflection of life is apparent in the title--loyal women are the essences of each of the stories--from the young woman with a cleft lip who finds peace in jail, to the spoiled young man who brings down his loving mother, to racial flagrant racial profiling-- these are stories that run the gauntlet of human drama.

Hilarity and absurdity---along with mordant wit---abound in Online Dating: a Memoir , Billy McCoy's controversial novel, which tells the story of delusional Peyton Cresap's devouring and doomed passion for online dating. Online Dating: a Memoir is also the story of a quintessentially alienated man colliding with a cheerful world which he cannot accept. A seductive meditation on Online Dating.

Delilah Samson tells of a doomed love affair between beautiful and sensuous Monet and her distant cousin Devon, a successful financial advisor. Tragedy unfolds when ambitious Devon flees the scene of a terrible accident. But Devon's scheme for evading the law slowly falls apart when heartbroken Monet rejects her marriage and looks to him for distraction. Soon Monet's suspicious husband takes drastic measures with unexpected consequences for Devon.