In Short Measures ─ In Short Measures / Strong Conspirators / Sally Forth

Fans of Michael Ruhlman’s nonfiction and new readers alike will marvel, as I did, at his fictional debut. Ruhlman writes with intelligence and grace about the things that matter: love and loss and redemption. This is a literary achievement of the first order.” Ann Hood, award-winning and bestselling author of The Knitting Circle

In his three novellas, In Small Measures,” Strong Conspirators,” and Sally Forth,” Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual loveand the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades.

Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelitywhat are one’s obligations towards one’s spouse, one’s family, and one’s heart? In the first novella, In Small Measures,” these questions are bound up in a writer’s work and a long-ago love. In the second, Strong Conspirators,” an unforeseen, cataclysmic event calls for responses from a husband and wife that have never been rehearsedbecause they have never been required nor even imagined. In Sally Forth,” a pair of old friends is forced to explore lost youth and lost love, relative to maturity, marriage, and the passage of time.

Profoundly thought-provoking and satisfying, these novellas are beautifully written with plot twists from beginning to end that will captivate the reader.

Michael Ruhlman is the bestselling author of more than twenty books that have sold more than two million combined copies. These includeThe Making of a Chef, The Soul of a Chef, Ratio, Egg, and the James Beard Award winningRuhlman’s Twenty. Having made a name for himself as a food and cookbook writer, as well as a television personality, Ruhlman has always wanted to write fiction. This is his debut. He resides in Cleveland, Ohio.