Pale Horse 3: A Novel of Cold War Turned Hot

1982 – Copilot Dillon Lawless finds himself in command of a USAF B-52G bomber on a nuclear-strike mission. The pilot, Captain Spaulding McQuagg, is dead of a gunshot Lawless had been forced to fire himself. A coup d’état in Moscow has left a junta of generals and KGB officers struggling for control of the Soviet government and has launched a largescale attack into West Germany. Pale Horse 3 – the lone, airborne B-52 – is tasked with destroying seven Soviet targets in East Germany with nuclear-tipped missiles. Spurlin AFB, Maine, is home to Pale Horse 3 and has been targeted for destruction by a Soviet Naval Spetsnaz team with a man-portable nuclear weapon. The chances of Pale Horse 3 returning home safely are low. Will Pale Horse 3 return to an intact Air Force installation or a radioactive wasteland, or will the NEST teams and Army Rangers eliminate the infiltrators before they can detonate a nuclear weapon on U.S. soil? “Rus Greer uses his experiences as a USAF B-52 pilot to take us on a gut-wrenching romp into the unthinkable war scenario he was trained to fight. Riveting and immersive!” – Dan Hampton, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF (Ret) NYT and international bestselling author of Chasing the Demon.

Moral Inventory

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth thought she had been doing a decent job of navigating through the obstacles life had put in her path, when the day finally arrived that it all came to a screeching halt. With the simple words 'we are going to see a family counselor' announced by her mother, Elizabeth felt she had nothing to fear. Her confidence in her manipulation skills had her convinced that she would be back in the arms of her druggie boyfriend by noon. Underestimating her mother’s determination, Elizabeth would soon realize that escape would not come so easily. Forced to expose her mother’s alcoholism, her own drug abuse, and her sense of feeling abandoned since her father’s death, Elizabeth was faced with a reality that she had fought so hard to avoid.

Goodbye Chomsky, and Other Essays on Language

The idea of this book is that language is too interesting to be enjoyed exclusively by linguists. This is undoubtedly unfair to linguists—not people who speak several languages but academic linguists (for whom linguistics is the scientific study of language). Though this book is informed by linguistics, it is not a linguistics book, rather a language-not-linguistics book. It is a book about topics involving language that interest me and that I hope will be interesting to the intellectually curious reader. Its topics include J.R.R. Tolkien’s languages of Middle-earth, invented and artificial languages, language and gender, dialects, American versus British (Noah Webster), the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis, African-American vernacular English, the history of English, English as the world’s language, language death, the rebirth of Hebrew in Israel, the Yiddish language, language in India, language and nationalism, DNA and the origins of language, the dilemma of the postcolonial writer, and more.

Family Illness

Family Illness is a realistic fictional piece of work written to give mature readers a sense of what it is like for someone to grow up afflicted with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Steve, the main character, suffers as a child in the 1980s, growing up in a secular Jewish household. He has lots of physical and verbal tics while in school but lives in fear that his secret living with a mental illness in a hostile world will be revealed. As Steve grows up into a young adult, his illness plays tricks on him, making him question every moral aspect of his life. His fears intensify at the same time as he learns that a family member has OCD as well. This encourages Steve to fight back, but he wonders if he has lost too much of his life to the disease.

All Told

Imagine being an “other woman”, and then finding out that you’re not the only one. There have been many other women, before you and even standing alongside you right now. Jack learned early that one is never enough. Each chapter tells the experience of someone affected by Jack’s trysts. Some of the women are married, some single, some divorced. The ages vary as Jack grows older. Then the reach goes further, to the ripple effect of hurt caused by infidelity. There is an adult son Jack never knew he fathered. There’s also a bartender on the cusp of meeting the woman of his dreams, only to have Jack whisk her away by saying just the right thing. And there is a doctor who is shocked by Jack’s abandonment of her patient, one of the ‘other women’ with breast cancer. There are the first two wives, who run into each other thirty years after the first was replaced by the second. And there is the third wife, who is still married to Jack. Jack’s mother also speaks, at the beginning and the end. All Told tells more than the story of infidelity. It goes beyond the typical triangle of husband, wife, and lover. As the stories grow and involvements become more interconnected and convoluted, the question of who is cheating on who and why becomes more difficult to answer. Each chapter reveals another secret. But every secret has two sides, and in some cases, even more than that.

Yellow Brick Road

Eight-year-old Nika candidly tells the story of her life growing up in a Caribbean ghetto in the eighties. Nika is unintentionally funny, unbelievably clever, and kicks butt when she needs to. Nika’s dilemma is simple. She wants to exist without torture but life in the ghetto makes this an unrealistic desire.

Being the twelfth child of fifteen, Nika finds a way to get the attention she needs. Her cute, little black face sheds light on the woes of a Caribbean ghetto. Despite abject poverty, violence, and physical abuse, Nika maintains a hopeful demeanor that is far too mature for her age. She stands up to bullies, outsmarts sexual predators, and puts an end to her desire to cheat and steal.

After her most horrific experience, Nika finds a diary of a visitor to her Caribbean island that tells the story of Meredith. Meredith is a successful criminal defense lawyer with many burdens, struggles, and secrets. Will Meredith’s heart-rending story help Nika uncover the “happily-ever-after” in the ghetto? Or will the ghetto destroy Nika’s resilient spirit? 

Yearning

At thirty, Robert Markel can manage, at best, an ironic relationship with himself. He is a successful drama critic who had once hoped to create powerful original work for the theater. As the novel opens, he stares at himself in the mirror and suppresses an impulse to strike the sneering face that confronts him. His frustrations lead him to commit a serious breach of professional ethics. The narrative ranges from an early childhood accident through his mother’s terminal cancer when the boy is twelve, and on to his idealistic, awkwardly fervent teenage years.

The first phase of the book culminates in his decision to carve out a new identity for himself, to depart radically from what his father had always expected of him. A chance encounter with his future wife is followed by a sad reconciliation with his father, who has begun to suffer from a wasting neuromuscular disease. After his father’s death, Robert’s professional and emotional life begins to unravel.

Yearning for fulfillment through art and love, consumed by the drive to create something where nothing had existed before, Robert tries repeatedly to fill the void left by an emotionally absent mother and a father who failed to provide unconditional love beyond his earliest years.

Windwhistle Bone

Richard Trainor's Windwhistle Bone is a novel of time and place as we follow the protagonist, Ram Le Doir, on a journey tracing his rise as a celebrated poet and reporter, which comes to a tragic conclusion as he is unlocking a series of dangerous stories that nearly costs him his life, and destroys his marriage and career. Ram's fall and eventual redemption concern the double murder of his wife, actress Vera Dubeck, and her lover. Trainor's prose was cited by the late Luther Nichols, Doubleday's former West Coast Bureau Chief, as "reminiscent of Faulkner (the Snopes-like nature of the Le Doirs), Thomas Wolfe, J. P. Dunleavy (the scapegrace of Ram), Dylan Thomas, and Bukowski. There's a great California feel to your novel which is one of the finest first novels I have ever read." Nichols gave testimony for Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books during the obscenity trial held over Allen Ginsburg's poem, Howl, in 1960.

White's Novel

White’s tale is about most of us: we come and go from the world without really, at any stage, trying to affect or change it, despite dreaming of what we would do if we had the chance. White has that chance. White’s Novel is about what happens as a result of him taking that chance. And, in the end, is he really so very different than the rest of us? He thinks he is!

When The Sunlight Goes Dark

Bobby Clantinani’s most fervent dream was to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, but he only weighed one-hundred and fifty-four pounds. His father, Oran, expected big things from Bobby and he ruled his family like a tyrant. Oran’s biggest hope was his oldest son, Ted, who was a heavyweight contender heading for a championship bout.

While Ted is being lined up for a shot at one of the heavyweight crowns, Bobby is fighting on the second circuit, consisting of high school gymnasiums, rundown hotels, roller rink arenas, and junior college parking lots. Feeling alienated and alone, Bobby finds solace in the arms of Ted’s fiancé, Judith Tesch, a strikingly beautiful boxing groupie who Bobby adores and loves. He also finds a father figure in the form of Benny Bear, a seventy-four year old African American cut man who once fought as a welterweight.

Then tragedy hits when Ted is badly injured in the ring, and Oran disappears. Bobby finds himself caught up in the intractable darkness of professional boxing where a man can lose his soul, yet seek absolution in the power of the almighty dollar.

When the Stars Aligned

On a fate-laced evening at 7:30 pm, the three cornerstone figures in Malita’s life found her crossing their minds, yet none were present to shield her from Bruce’s malevolent grasp. Amidst grappling with the void left by her father’s absence, Malita’s world plunges into a deeper abyss when a supposed guardian from her family cruelly betrays her trust. This grave violation leaves her wrestling with shame, betrayal, and a tenuous relationship with her mother, all while battling against the engulfing tides of self-pity.

But Malita, with a spirit unyielding, musters the bravery to face the harsh truth of her fractured family and rejects the dark labels it threatens to affix on her. Embarking on a piecemeal journey, she strives to restore the shards of her destiny. In her quest for healing, the realms of forgiveness and purpose unfold before her, offering a glimpse of hope amidst despair. Malita chooses not merely to exist in the shadows of her past, but to seize the full essence of life’s offerings, demonstrating a resilient pursuit of healing and reclaiming her rightful place in the world. When the Stars Aligned isn’t just a narrative of survival, but a profound testament to the indomitable spirit of recovery and self-redemption.

Welcome to Welby Island: The Reunion

In the first book of the Welcome to Welby Island sequel, Leanne, Devon, Amber, Rosalie, and Leonard arrived on Welby Island as five strangers struggling with the tangled vines that had wrapped around them and landed them on the island. They knew they needed to find a way to break free from whatever it was holding them back from the one thing none of them could seem to find…happiness. What they didn’t know was that spending time on a deserted island, holed up in a shack, would not only find a way to detangle the vines through helping one another, but they would also leave the island not just as friends, but as family.

Welcome to Welby Island: The Reunion continues the journey with Leanne, Devon, Amber, Rosalie and Leonard. There will be bumps in the road, this time in a rented camper, an unexpected surprise, and a heart wrenching moment of loss.

The bond between these five is one of love and friendship, a bond so strong that nothing can break it, not even their past.