Secrets & Lies

Stalking your pet's former owners. Faking your death to get out of paying back your student loans. Stealing your co-worker's cat to teach her a lesson about hygiene. These are secrets and these are lies. Sometimes they're both. They're also just a few of the stories in Secrets and Lies, author Josh Gross's debut collection examining things people prefer to hush up and gloss over.

In this book, you'll get inside the head of a cynical competitive debater forced to logically justify the existence of love, see an alternate history in which Congress banned heartbreak after the tragic events of February 14th and even experience abortion from a male perspective.

With Gross's wicked wit and wordplay focused through a lens equal parts existentialist and absurd, you'll be riveted from cover to cover.

In fiction, everything is a lie. Unless it's a secret.

“Josh has a talent for creating an instant connection with a character and his or her story that, unfortunately seems to be rare in the world of writing today.” -The Idaho Statesman

“The originality in his approach and his grip of humor writing knock the wind out of me.”-Boulder Weekly

“[His] are the kind of soul-molesting stories that are difficult to forget, and would be a shame to miss out on.”-LauraReviewsBooks.com

It's hard to pin a label on Josh Gross. Not because his work is unclassifiable, but because it stretches across such a breadth of mediums. After gaining notoriety as a founding member of seminal Southern Oregon punk rock band, The VAM Commanders, Gross turned his abilities in songwriting towards storytelling as a whole, and began penning scripts for stage and screen, while paying the bills as a journalist and continuing to perform as a musician and standup comedian. One film Gross wrote, The Lost Van Gogh, recently premiered at The White Sands International Film Festival and won the Audience Choice Award at the Tulsa International Film Festival. He is also a frequent contributor to the Boise State Public Radio live storytelling series, Story Story Night.