Wow, you got some sun over the holiday weekend, lobstergirl.

It’s time to get into something a little darker, like Big Cats: Stories, Holiday Reinhorn’s just-published, wry, sad, and wicked-smart story collection.

Set in the small towns and suburbs of the West Coast, these are stories of breakdowns and breakthroughs, pivotal moments and missed chances:

Two teenage girls working at the zoo become ex-best friends faster than you can say “meow.” A woman recounts the night her parents first had sex (and how she almost wasn’t conceived). A young man transporting $300,000 worth of horse semen across state lines struggles with commitment.

Most of these tales are realer than real, but Reinhorn has a taste for the supernatural, too. Like the one about a newly sober bank employee who gets a visit from the ghost of his dead wife.

Grim? Yes. Depressing? No way.

Think of it as literary SPF.

Available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.