A Southern Noir

Hunter Landon, a private investigator in Birmingham, Alabama, lives a life defined by faith, family, and unwavering values. This seemingly idyllic Southern city is his home, a picturesque backdrop to a devout existence alongside his wife and children. But when a new case lands on his desk, Hunter’s world is brutally shattered, which challenges everything he professes to believe.

He plunges into a maze of love, betrayal, and cold-blooded murder, swiftly uncovering the decay beneath Birmingham’s polished façade. The polite society he knows is a thin veneer, barely concealing a sinister darkness. Confronted with these unsettling truths, Hunter faces an impossible choice: remain true to the man he is, or become the very monster he hunts to solve the case.

In a world where no one is who they claim to be, can a good man survive in the shadows he uncovers?

Far From Me

Based on a true story, Far From Me is a tale of friendship, romance and tragedy set against the backdrop of a country in the grip of an epic fight for survival.

On the 3rd of September, 1939, the lives of two young Australians are changed forever when Neville Chamberlain declares that Britain is at war with Germany.

On his farm in the outback of Victoria, fifteen-year-old Keith is wide-eyed at the news and bursting to hear what his schoolmates make of it. The announcement lands differently on the west coast, where the plans of Johnny and his young bride are put on hold when life in their hometown of Perth is disrupted by a huge influx of US troops and military hardware. Johnny’s loyalties are torn between devotion to his new wife and duty to his country. 

Three years into the conflict, the paths of Keith and Johnny converge when they meet up in Canada during training for the Australian Air Force. Both are carrying scars from unexpected loss.

Their friendship survives the excesses of Montreal nightlife, a treacherous Atlantic crossing and a sobering encounter with the makeshift drabness of wartime England. During bitter fighting at the turn of 1945, they join a rookie crew under the benevolent leadership of a veteran captain and find unexpected comfort in a sleepy market town in Southern England.

The crew graduate to operational missions flying Lancaster bombers. Through countless nerve-shredding moments, they discover the fine margins between survival and disaster before getting to savor the wild, euphoric release of VE Day.

But fate is not finished with them yet.

Till We Meet Among the Clouds

“Till We Meet Among the Clouds” is the journey of lost loved ones searching and finding themselves. A timeless tale of love, war, and destiny that transcends generations. Two strangers, Madison Lowry, a nurse with a quiet past, and Jason Blake, a young man haunted by images of a different era, encounter each other, and their lives begin to unravel a mysterious connection to a love story from long ago.

As they step through the golden doors of time, they find themselves woven into the fates of Nelly and Jake Simpson, lovers separated by World War Two. From the stormy beaches of Normandy to a peaceful modern-day town, echoes of the past resurface to heal old wounds, uncover buried secrets, and offer a chance to find love.

Life Threads – A Memoir

The core of this illuminating memoir consists of threads of consistency and learning that have emerged through Carol’s life experiences. We learn, as she and her sister Linda did, of the constructive optimism of their parents and how that mindset underlies successfully facing life’s struggles. Mistakes can be overcome. The burdens lift. Life is meant for living.With well-balanced sensitivity and striking honesty, she frankly reveals the false starts in her career and her love life and how things worked out in the end. We gain perspective, as she did, through spirited tales of her life experiences.Heart-wrenching events mix with moments of light, hope, and relief. Even the death of loved ones, people, and dogs doesn’t have to be a downward pull, as Carol learned from her dad.Carol has found that angels have an impact on our experiences, too. Although she has never seen an angel, her dogs saw several one evening.Her experiences in finally finding and settling into her career, her love life, and several events that didn’t seem significant, and some that did, all seem to fit together to form those surfacing life threads.

Suitcase of Memories

I was destined to be a peacemaker. Doesn’t every family have one?

My family, with its traditional values, loving grandparents, and family heirlooms, has always provided a comfortable base and a home. My expectations were that my home and family would be safe, cozy, and unwavering.

What of words translated by a peacemaker, certain it was for me too? No protests, make a loving family, keep the peace. I was convinced it would be mine.

What of words from love, prideful of my values, celebrating my accomplishments, joyful for my happiness, and hopeful for my future?

Seasons change, years pass. I remember joyous moments of splendid solace with so much hopeful anticipation. I’ve learned one can search for serendipity, but it cannot be contrived. I remain hopeful beyond possibility.

What of words of hurtful intention—stinging, humiliating, torturous, and demeaning, as intended?

I am the peacemaker.

I must not be defeated.

Curtain Call

Frederica Jones divorced her husband of 27 years and moved from Manhattan to Melbourne Beach, Florida, for a new and exhilarating lease on life. Then she learned that her lifelong friend, Lea Gagnon, was newly widowed in Quebec, Canada, where she had spent her married life and had recently been diagnosed with dementia.Throughout the novel she battles the question of how much she is willing to sacrifice of her own remaining life for the comfort and solace of her beloved friend. What do we owe those we love who are felled by this most horrible disease?Frederica steps into Lea’s life as Lea’s sister forfeits that responsibility, and she is left with untangling a legal mystery centering on Oliver Gagnon, Lea’s stepson, who appears to have full legal control of Lea’s life.Frederica will have to go to Quebec, Canada, to confront Oliver Gagnon. That is where the novel truly begins.

The House Built On A Hill

This is a humorous story about a moose who decides to move in and take over a boy’s house that the boy built where the moose was living.

The moose and other animals decided they had had enough with humans polluting and taking over their lands, squeezing them out of their natural habitat.

The humans, realizing what they had done, try to make it right by cleaning up the land and learning to share the territory and all nature with the animals.

The Little Town That Saw It All

It’s a very small town with a population of just under 100, named Crossroads, set in the most northeasterly county in Kansas. It is the late 1940s, and the area’s most successful farmer is hit with a heartrending, life-changing personal tragedy. He turns to God, his preacher, and ultimately a fortune teller for answers. She turns out to be more than a fortune teller.

What follows are unexpected romances, ties to terrorists in Peru, the complexity of small-town politics, the murder of one of the town’s most unpopular citizens, and a series of mysteries, as a town with a utopian view of itself gradually sees that myth explode. It is a gripping, suspenseful, and powerful tale with a completely unexpected ending.

The strange series of events that unfolds in this little burg over a period of about two years calls into question the notion that rural Americans are less likely to commit crimes and are more patriotic, more neighborly, and more likely to adhere to and abide by Christian morals and values, than folks in the cities.

Though its farmers and small-town residents might deny it, Crossroads becomes the little town that saw it all.

Look Back Detective

Twenty-five years after Hatchel Breeze’s most infamous homicide case, another one is thrust upon him, and this one involves his family. As he investigates, he comes to believe it has the marks of the first case and revenge all over it. But things are not always as they seem. Detective Hatchel Breeze, a hometown boy and lifelong cop and detective and now assistant chief about to retire, is called to investigate his last case. What he finds is a family he does not know and enemies all around. One misstep and his most cherished family members’ lives could end. Yet as always, he persists to find the killer before his final retirement date, revisiting his mistakes and lost loves along the way.This is the second of three Hatchel Breeze detective novels.

The Best Way to Make Money: 2nd Ed.

Sultan, a former government official, embarks on a high-stakes journey into the cutthroat world of private business. Under the mentorship of the enigmatic and powerful Abu Hamoud, he is tasked with saving a company from the brink of collapse. With a promise of a partnership hanging in the balance, Sultan confronts a web of corruption, sabotage, and personal betrayals.

But as he transforms the company into an unprecedented success, he learns a difficult lesson: that some victories are more valuable than wealth, and some promises are meant to be broken.

Will Sultan’s integrity survive in a world where everyone has a price? Or will he become just another player in a game where the only rule is that the best way to make money is to share it with others?

My Name Is My Soul

To have a name is to have a soul (Ɔkra), and to have a soul is to exist as a conscious living being. Meaning, every soul has a day of ascendency (Krada) as an extrinsic agency with a unique name (Kradzin) and characteristic attributes leading to a spiritual life during adulthood.

As an extrinsic phenomenon, the soul survives death not as a human being, but rather as a spiritual personality called Ɔsaman. It is this posthumous abstract personality (Ɔsaman) that is recalled by name and remembered periodically by the Akan and kindred African peoples.

Far from being ancestor worship, the ancestors are rather remembered (Nkai) in all matters of state. That is, the Akan recall and remember their resurrected dead (Nsamanfo) and the Ancestors (Nananom Nsamanfo) as though they were still living members of the community.

Indeed, Africans worship souls, but it is the eternal souls of God, the Abosom (Gods and Goddesses), that Africans and Black diasporic Africans worship directly as custodians of the world at the behest of God.

All My Wishes For You

“I have found that a majority of our wishes do come true, but we have forgotten them because we have found other wishes that are more recent.”

All My Wishes For You, is the story that gently brings to the mind of any mother or child the wishes they make as well as the magic of a dream’s eventual fruition.

As a mother and child read through this story together, it can start a conversation about their current wishes and thus create a deeper bond by sharing all they are thinking and dreaming about. No characters in the book are named, allowing a mother and child to personalize the story as they read along with each other.