"Love Will Make You Drink and Gamble, Stay Out Late at Night" brings a number of Shelly Lowenkopf's previously published short stories together in a single volume. All the stories revolve around life in Santa Barbara, the oceanside city north of Los Angeles, where people go after they've burned out in San Francisco or L.A. Yet there's no safe haven anywhere. Interwoven into Santa Barbara's picturesque setting, the people in these twelve stories reveal what their hearts and souls encounter in relationships. Their misreadings, mistakes, and misadventures bare what happens to people who love another. "Shelly Lowenkopf is a master of the art of stealth in fiction," says author David Gillham (City of Women). "His writing draws you in and then, ka-pow! Here comes the sucker punch that flattens you."