Threads of Fate and Other Stories
J. T. Plumptre | RichPete Publishing
 
Some stories stay with you. These twelve will.
 
Threads of Fate and Other Stories is a rich, globe-spanning short fiction collection that proves one thing above all else: the most dramatic moments in a life are rarely the ones you see coming. Set across Lagos and London, Valencia and Oakland, a Scottish loch and a Victorian conservatory in the Highlands, these twelve stories follow people at the precise moment when the world asks something of them — and the answer they give changes everything.
 
From a journalist kidnapped on a Lagos street corner while chasing a wildlife trafficking ring, to four estranged siblings racing against a deadline hidden inside their father's will; from a chef forced to flee his own kitchen to a coder who discovers something she was never meant to find — every story in this collection moves with the grip of a thriller, the warmth of literary fiction, and the emotional precision of a writer who understands that courage is rarely loud.
 
J. T. Plumptre writes characters who feel completely, unmistakably real: flawed and principled, broken and resilient, often both at once. Across twelve stories and a dazzling range of settings, genres, and voices, one quiet conviction runs through every page — that who you are under pressure is who you actually are, and that the most important journeys are always inward.
 
Whether you're drawn to international intrigue, family drama, slow-burn romance, or stories that sit at the intersection of history and grief, Threads of Fate has something that will find you.
 
The Stories
1. The Rebel's Compass When veteran investigative journalist Alex Osei arrives in Lagos to meet a source on a wildlife trafficking story, she walks straight into a trap — and wakes up on a ship in the Gulf of Guinea. A taut, globe-crossing story of unlikely alliances, moral ambiguity, and a woman who refuses to stop asking the right questions no matter the cost. (Adapted from The Sea Wolf by Jack London.)
 
2. The Battle for Artesana When their father dies and leaves four estranged siblings an impossible condition buried in his will — save the failing family textile company or lose everything — the Garcia children must finally reckon with each other. A story about grief, legacy, and what it means to discover that the person who shaped your life may have understood you better than you ever knew.
 
3. The Last Knife Portland head chef Allan Garvey witnesses something in his restaurant kitchen he was never supposed to see — and his carefully constructed life comes apart overnight. Hiding under a new name in an Oakland kitchen, he discovers that the thing you run from has a way of knowing your address. A story about testimony, marriage, and the courage it takes to start over.
 
4. Two Women in Worcester Lily has spent nine uncomfortable years in the small, conservative town of Millfield when a new neighbour arrives and quietly, irreversibly, changes the shape of her world. A story about friendship forged in unlikely circumstances, the cost of visibility in places that prefer you invisible, and the slow, stubborn work of building something real.
 
5. Carla's Code Bank fraud analyst Carla Reeves finds a pattern in the data — elegant, inhuman, impossible to unsee. What she does with it, and what it costs her, is a story about intellectual courage, institutional resistance, and one woman's refusal to let the right thing go unnoticed just because no one asked her to notice it.
 
6. The Portrait and the Devil When twenty-six-year-old Alex Harding sits for a portrait by a celebrated London painter, the canvas begins to reveal something he isn't ready to see. A masterfully reimagined retelling that transforms its source into a contemporary study of image, identity, and the price of refusing to look honestly at yourself. (Adapted from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.)
 
7. The Gideon II Revolution Edikan Roberts, daughter of Nigerian immigrants in Edmonton, Alberta, builds something from scratch that the world wasn't ready for — and then must decide what to do when the world comes looking. A story about ambition, identity, and what it means to be a woman of vision in a world still catching up.
 
8. Shadows Over Sherwood In the rain-soaked contradictions of modern Nottingham, an unconventional investigator follows a thread that leads somewhere no one expected. A clever, propulsive story that plays with the echoes of an old legend while remaining entirely its own — sharp, atmospheric, and surprisingly moving.
 
9. The Weight of Salt A Scottish fisherman pulls something unexpected from his creel on a grey morning at Loch Ewe, and what he finds sets in motion a search that crosses generations and shorelines. A quiet, beautifully rendered story about the things the sea holds onto — and what it means when they finally come back.
 
10. The Glass Garden Dr. Nora Calder has built, with extraordinary precision, the conditions she needs to do the work that matters most to her — until a November visitor arrives and unsettles everything she thought was settled. A story about solitude, connection, and what it costs to let something grow that you didn't plan for.
 
11. The House on Awolowo Road A single house in Lagos, witnessed across three generations — 1962, 1985, 2009 — holds the whole arc of a family and a nation inside its walls. A story about inheritance in every sense of the word: what is passed down, what is buried, and what a daughter finds when she finally goes looking.
 
12. The Long Coast Two people meet at a marine biology conference in Porto, both old enough to know better and young enough to try anyway. A tender, clear-eyed story about second chances, open eyes, and the particular terror — and rightness — of choosing to love someone when you fully understand what it means.
 
"Within every heart lies an uncharted map, leading not to hidden treasures of gold, but to those of character and courage." — J. T. Plumptre