The Wedding Toaster

Twenty-eight-year-old Maggie McDonald is a self-proclaimed singleton. She came close to tying the knot once but bailed out on her own wedding when she realized that she didn’t want to do anyone else’s laundry or account for where the money in the checkbook goes. Maggie witnessed first-hand the heartache that both her mom and Uncle Hor (which is short for Horatio and not indicative of a certain character trait) endured and has no desire to suffer the same fate. But a serendipitous turn of events just may alter Maggie’s fate after all.

After obtaining a few “toasting gigs” through coincidence and highly questionable circumstances, Maggie soon catapults to semi-celebrity status. With a profile in People magazine and a shout-out on Perez Hilton’s website, Maggie becomes the quintessential “it” girl: the highly sought after (and expensive) wedding accessory for the rich and (somewhat) famous. When Samantha Chase, the stuck-up daughter of a well-known vineyard owner in Napa Valley, hires Maggie to toast her wedding, Maggie thinks she has been hired for another typical wedding by one of her typical clients, except this time the experience is anything but typical. Samantha Chase’s fiancé is none other than her own ex-fiancé, Jack. Now it seems as if it is Maggie who will be stiffed at the altar, although, quite to her surprise, Maggie finds that her feelings about love, marriage, and especially Jack, have changed.  

The Unusual Cure and Untold Story of Dr. John Langone, Dr. of Psychiatry

This work of fiction, entitled The Unusual Cure and Untold Story of Dr. John Langone, Dr. of Psychiatry, tells the story of a depressed psychiatrist who contemplates suicide. He falls in love with the heroine of the story, and his life changes from that moment on. It is a true tragedy with an extensive cast of characters involved.  

The Stable Boy

The Stable Boy is historical fiction. It is a love story, a rags-to-riches story, an anti-racist story and a triumph over injustice story. Taking place in the antebellum South, it tells the tale of how a lowly slave... a hidden genius... defies all odds and becomes one of the richest men in America. In Pygmalion* style, the young slave is taught proper elocution and English grammar, a gift that takes him from picking cotton to dealing with some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in America. It’s also a touching, tender... if unlikely... love story between two young men... one a slave, the other his owner. It takes the reader from the rural South to New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and London. It makes the incredible, credible.

*Pygmalion is the George Bernard Shaw play on which the movie "MY Fair Lady" was based. It shows how the gift of language can change a guttersnipe into a princess.

The Road to You

In a tumultuous marriage of eight years, Lisa Curtis finds solace and passion in the embrace of a new lover. As she grapples with the torment inflicted by the man she once promised to cherish, Lisa is faced with a perilous choice: remain bound by her vows or pursue a chance at true happiness. But is her new lover genuinely offering the love and respect she craves, or is their bond merely a fiery physical attraction? As their affair escalates, boundaries are tested, loyalties are questioned, and the fate of her husband hangs in the balance. Dive into this tantalizing erotic thriller that promises twists at every turn.

The Phantom Funeral

Lilly Bienvenue inherits her grandparents’ house in an old historical town of 300 years. Suddenly through a letter left to her from her grandfather and some intense dreams she finds her ancestors of several generations’ past are connected to the curse of the town’s ghost…The Phantom Funeral. The Phantom has haunted the town for centuries whenever the moon was bright on the anniversary of the night a commander of the neighboring historical fort was murdered in the 1700s. It is believed he is looking for his bride who never made it to the burial at the town’s cemetery.

Lilly is shocked when she digs into her family’s history and reads about several of her aunts, decades apart, losing their love on that same anniversary. She even begins to dream of these past events and it appears she is the curse’s next victim. Of course, her rotten luck, Tripp, a young boy from her past has reappeared looking all grown up and handsome. Lilly is beginning to believe he is her modern-day commander.

To make it even more surreal the next anniversary is coming up and the moon phase appears to be very bright and everything is lining up to make her believe Tripp will be the next victim of the curse.

Deciding Tripp’s life is more important than the two of them being together, Lilly pushes him away. Yet Tripp has a different plan and decides to show Lilly they can beat the curse together. Yet can it be done? And by who’s expense? 

The Faces of Womankind

The novel recounts a tale of passion, treachery, grief and redeeming love set against the background of the glamorous but deadly world of the Florentine aristocracy. It traces the path of Lord James Markham from the discovery of his wife’s depraved infidelities to his tragic affair with a young student while dealing with fraud at the bank and his brother-in-law Paolo’s suicide in compromising circumstances. Urged on by his uncle, Cardinal Palmieri, he leaves for Buenos Aires is search of a former mistress, Carolina.

The second half of the novel centers on Carolina, a peronista hotel receptionist whom James had bedded many years earlier. Still in love with him, despite the Malvinas, she agrees to marry him and reluctantly enters into the world of the nobility with all its licentiousness, greed and murder. She struggles to reconcile her roots with her new aristocratic lifestyle. Blessed with a lively intelligence and sturdy common sense, she proves Paolo’s suicide to be murder. Arising from obscurity, she emerges as the heroine of this intensely erotic and literary novel.

The Evil Within

What woman could seek revenge on the creators, on God himself? What could’ve been done to spur such vengeance?

Her name is Lilith.

Having suffered the creator’s wrath and resulting curse, a plan for revenge has now been set in motion. The results of which could upset the balance of power between good and evil forever.

From the earthly realm, Lilith seeks a dominant leader. Detective Dave Logan, she believes, will be the one. But it will require overcoming many obstacles to make it so.

Along the way, Lilith creates a path of carnage and death as she manipulates everything and everyone to achieve her goal.

The thrilling climax will leave you wanting more.

The Beaten Heart

Melanie Dickson has been through her share of heartache. With college graduation in a few days and a marriage proposal in the near future, she feels confident and happy. When tragedy strikes and everything she thought she wanted goes away, she finds solace in a comfortable, practical, new relationship, and a new life, thousands of miles from home.

But just as she is starting to live her life again, not overcome with guilt and no longer paralyzed by fear, an old flame steps back into her life. In one weekend, everything she thought she knew changes. The one person she has spent her life trying to forget, to hide her feelings for, is thrust back into her life. She has to decide, should she pick the practical, safe choice or follow her heart and the one person she has always loved?

Texas Rain

When the rodeo comes to the small town of Hollister, Texas, Kyllie Wayne was hoping for a little fun. She had no idea that bull rider Wade Cline was going to turn her world upside down - in more ways than one. Will Kyllie be able to overcome her secretive past to trust him enough to find love? Or will Wade’s own past come back to haunt him? When the Mayor’s son is murdered, all the past secrets come crashing together in the Texas Rain.

Tawsi Melek Meets the Dragon Prince

Michael Winchester had no idea moving to Texas would mean he’d be possessed by the Devil and knocked up by an angel… the King of Angels, Tawsi Melek!

After he is owned backward and forward by the Supreme General of Heaven, Mikey finds out what it means to take command of himself by himself and unlocks the secret of the Dragon Prince, the enemy of humanity who is so jealous of him, he can’t wait to show his stuff during the Halftime Show from Hell, accompanied by the most heinous drum and bugle corps of them all… the Guns ’n’ Roses!

What is the secret Tawsi Melek harbors about his arch-enemy, the Adversary God, and its acolyte, the Dragon Prince, and how can an ordinary church-going boy figure it out in time to save his soul and humanity in time?

Synchronicity

Fractured Identities offers an unflinching look into the complexities of desire, identity, and survival within a Hungarian Jewish family during the crucible of the Second World War. Brace yourself for a harrowing psychosexual journey that confronts the limits of the human psyche and morality.

At the story’s center is an uncle – a Jungian psychiatrist – whose career is stifled under the oppressive Nazi regime. Bereft of his practice, he grapples with the dissolution of his professional identity. Opposite him is his wife, a once-successful actress and singer. Constrained by her Jewish heritage, she challenges both her own and her husband’s sexual boundaries as a form of escape from the confinements of religious and societal norms.

Their niece, prodigiously gifted and strikingly beautiful, is raised by her aristocratic, war-hero grandfather. Throughout the war, she faces a relentless assault on her body and mind. Her identity oscillates violently, from a vulnerable Jewish girl to a fierce supporter of Nazi ideology, even as her capacity for scientific innovation and acts of heroism grow. Yet she, too, cannot evade the war’s corrosive ethical compromises.

SweetSpot: Now and Then

Spring 1999, California.

Call it middle-age madness or a midlife crisis, but SweetSpot: Now and Then chronicles one pivotal year in the life of Darlene Robinson, a woman grappling with hot flashes and the weight of being raised as a God-fearing good girl. She followed the rules… until she couldn’t anymore.

Just days before leaving for her first writers’ conference, Darlene makes a bold declaration to the man she married as a teenager: she wants out. Concerned for her mental health, she can no longer pretend to be the dutiful wife of a man who seems indifferent to her presence. Little did she know that the conference, her mother’s sudden illness, and meeting Clive Charles would all play a part in reshaping her life.

Back then, Darlene chronicled her transformative year shortly after living through it. Now, with time and experience, her "other self" offers a new perspective, adding depth to the story as only time can.

Call it what you will, but shifting one’s life in midlife is a journey many face, and Darlene believes SweetSpot: Now and Then will resonate deeply with readers.