A collection of three award-winning literary short stories exploring the impact of love. "A Stranger in the Village," nominated for the 2007 Pushcart Prize, describes how the arrival of a young woman into a Mexican mountain village changed sixteen-year-old Hector forever. "Sacrifice" offers an Aztec tale of political intrigue and love. In "Curandera" Dona Rosa assists the lovelorn through the heartache of passion and infidelity.

Step back to London, 1895.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories are full of references to everyday activities and events from Victorian times that make the twenty-first century reader run to the reference shelf. Few, for example, are intimately acquainted with the responsibilities of a country squire, the importance of gentlemen's clubs, or the intricacies of the Victorian monetary system.

These twenty-four short essays explore various aspects of life mentioned in the original tales of Sherlock Holmes, providing modern-day insight into the nineteenth century world....