The ninth volume of Shadow Lane is something of a time machine, with its opening story set in The Summer of Love, when a tough marine recruiter falls hard for the adorable hippie girl he has just spanked even harder. (Long time fans will appreciate the fact that the Sergeant is Michael Flagg's dad.) The history of Hugo Sands begins in the 1980's, with a series of spanking romances between the esoteric magazine publisher and the playfully submissive young women who cross his path seeking adventure and fortuitously fall into his well-tailored lap.

Cut to Random Point at the Millennium, where handsome former-detective Michael Flagg acquires a tavern and inches ever closer to the conquest of his elusive Marguerite, pausing only to civilize his tomboy of a barmaid along the way. Elsewhere in the village the contrary Pamela is taken up by the master she deserves, the irreverent Susan Ross receives a long awaited comeuppance from an unexpected quarter, and the amiable Sloan Taylor finds the love of his life in the aisles of his enchanted bookshop. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, bold Brooke Neuman finances her freshman year at film school working at a Hollywood dungeon, where her insolence arouses the interest of a cynical screenwriter whom she infuriates, bewitches and neatly slays on the alter of love. B&D fireworks of every description illuminate the battle of the sexes in Random Point on New Year's Eve.