We find 'passion' in each story-not only the passion of love, but also lust, infatuation, fury, and self-determination. In the first story, JULIANNA, we find the roots of "The Slum Trilogy" which launched the author into becoming a prize-winning novelist. In CARESSE, we learn how an artist is overtaken by lust who tragically ends up with more than what she wanted. In HOLDING HANDS we find that 'puppy love' or infatuation can be an experience as powerful as full-blown love. Here a Moslem-influenced teenager arrives in New York from Abekestan and is exposed to a one-on-one encounter with a boy for the first time in her life. In PURGE we meet Emily, a sixty-five-year-old woman who has lived a life of fury, but who ends up realizing that only the experience of love can bring happiness. Finally, in CHRISTMAS TEARS, we follow a six-year-old girl, Millie, who emerges from a life of parental abuse to the realization that she can develop her own personal inner strength.