In his three novellas, zIn Short Measures,y zStrong Conspirators,y and zSally Forth,y 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 ones obligations toward ones spouse, ones family, and ones heart? In the first novella, zIn Short Measures,y these questions are bound up in a writers work and a long-ago love. In the second, zStrong Conspirators,y an unforeseen, cataclysmic event calls for responses from a husband and wife that have never been rehearsed because they have never been required nor even imagined. In zSally Forth,y a pair of old friends is forced to explore lost youth and lost love relative to maturity, marriage, and the passage of time.