'Hard Place Rock' is Zoe Marie Bel's debut short story collection.

Five short stories and two novellas are brought together in this sweeping collection, whose stories are of love and survival.

In nineteenth century Illinois, a traveling salesman and his wife stumble upon an abandoned town, whose terrible secret will test their love in the worst way.

In contemporary Los Angeles, two struggling young adults are brought together by a protest outside an abortion clinic, where they experience a brief but pivotal connection.

In the first of the collection's two novellas, an aspiring writer meets his first great love when she's perched on the lowest rung of Hollywood and he's sleeping in his car. After addiction and creative inertia doom their romance, he must find a way forward alone.

That's just three of the stories you'll find in 'Hard Place Rock'. (To read something from the collection now, check out 'Torata', published in April 2024 by The Los Angeles Review.) While the collection is mainly set in the United States (and most often Los Angeles), Latin America and France each get a story too.

A website for the collection will launch soon, with background information and multi-media related to the stories.

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