A Novella
The Year Before the Rain
Two boys go into the past. Only one comes home.
No machine. No explanation. Only a gap in a fence, a lamp that will not go out, and a debt that has to be paid in kind — Indian folklore, sixty years deep.
Free to read on Kindle Unlimited · $2.99 to buy · an evening or two, start to finish
Buy from your Amazon store: India · US · UK · Canada · Australia · Germany
A Kindle book can only be bought from the store matching your Amazon account’s country — if one says “not available”, pick yours above.
The story
Two fourteen-year-olds, bored and unwatched, spend an afternoon being cruel to something that can't fight back. An old woman at a roadside shrine tells them they'll know what that feels like before they're grown.
Hours later they slip through a gap in a construction fence behind their school and come out the other side sixty years in the past — into a version of their town where the school hasn't been built yet, where their own grandfathers are children, and where nobody is coming to look for them.
There is a way home. It isn't free. They took something from a creature that couldn't fight back, and now each of them, separately, will be asked to give something back to someone who can't fight back either. Nothing says the two debts will cost the same — or that both boys will be able to pay theirs in time.
"Cruelty is shared easily. Paying for it isn't."
Read a free sample
The first three chapters — a stray dog, a roadside shrine, an old woman's warning, and the afternoon two boys stopped being able to go home. It stops inside the crossing itself.
About the author
An MBA, a digital transformation professional, a lifelong student and writer inspired by folklore, fiction and human nature.
By day, he designs systems and automates workflows — years with IBM and Amazon, now in insurtech. By night, he writes about the things no system explains: questions that refuse easy answers, and a debt that comes due sixty years late.
The Year Before the Rain is his first book. He writes about the small choices that become part of us — the debts we inherit, the kindnesses we overlook, the moment cruelty stops being a game. Folklore supplies the atmosphere; ordinary people supply the stakes.
Hear about the next one
One email when there's a new book. Nothing else, ever.
No spam, and one click unsubscribes you. Your address is used only to tell you about new books.