Faithfully Failed

A well-raised women is one who models the vision of family life taught by her parents. She can only play the role of one character in the script. The other role players in her story must possess integrity for her contentment.

Imbria gets a taste of the good life. An inspiring clothing designer who wants the fairy tale ending, like most women want. Marriage is an important part of life’s completion. She is elated when her dreams come true. The twist and turns, lies and deception, can change the tremble of the heart. A spur of the moment decision can turn holy matrimony into rupture.

Dreaming of Storms

Death in art does not mimic death in life. Anna, a retired ballerina, often dreams of destructive storms. She is trying to outrun these dreams, but it is her husband who surprises her with his own need to find art in death.

Double Star

This story is set in Germany at the start of the First World War and follows Klaus, a quiet astronomer of Jewish background, who spends his time with a telescope in an observatory on the edge of town. There he meets an independent young woman from a well-to-do background whose desire for a career of her own leads her to work on the laboratory’s microscope.

Their different backgrounds clash even as the world is changing around them. Ulla is forced to keep her work secret from her socially ambitious mother to whom status and the old ways are prized above all. Her father encourages Ulla to help him in his quest to find a cure for a deadly disease. However, he has a secret of his own which also threatens the stability of their family.

As their relationship grows and Ulla and Klaus share their scientific discoveries, unforeseen events force them to make choices which will have far-reaching consequences for both them and their families.

Darby, the Horse from Hope

Darby, the Horse from Hope is a story of how animals can sense and react to the needs of humans. That is why horses have been found to be so successful in providing therapy for people with many different needs. There are horse therapy programs all over the United States. While this story is fiction, what the horses can accomplish is remarkable. Here, Darby deals with the depression experienced by PTSD patients. The story tells how animals can teach patients to feel a sense of worth again and learn more about coping and overcoming the deep sadness with which being in a war has left them. The book also teaches the readers more about the animals and how they can be loving and devoted friends.

Cottonmouth Droppings

Cottonmouth Droppings illuminates the power of female support across generations. It reveals how friendships confront and correct the stale patriarchal status quo in high school and college athletics. This riveting story explores the corrupt behavior of abuse and assault through the power-hungry relationships in a small southern town where most of the long-time residents seem to care more about their local high school and college sports than facing the horrible truth about one of their own. JB Taylor, Head Coach Doc Winters and with the help of a nefarious cop, Whit Cain, develop a formidable, yet disturbing relationship while they guide JB’s son Carter through the pipeline of high school and college sports. The story leads the reader from high stakes betrayals and the safety net provided by officious people in the town.

All Men

All Men takes readers on a thrilling journey through the challenges faced by Mr. Alex Tremont, a Congregational minister who has recently transferred from the Midwest to a small New England community. In this new community, Alex soon discovers that perceiving the enemy is no longer a simple task. He is faced with a litany of problems, including investigating the sighting of a mysterious ‘monster’ that he cannot comprehend, and his church being designated a ‘sanctuary’ status.

As he navigates through these problems, Alex finds himself increasingly drawn to a young lady who is the driving force behind the sanctuary movement. However, opposing her could lead to dire consequences. And as if that wasn’t enough, the ‘monster’ that Alex has been investigating becomes the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of his predecessor, a murder that resembles a terrorist attack common in the Middle East.

Despite being only 28 years old, Alex is expected to earn his stripes and overcome these challenges. But as he faces the trials and tribulations of his new community, he realizes that not all men are equipped to handle the weight of the world on their shoulders.

All Men is a gripping tale of mystery, love, and self-discovery that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very end.

After the Before-Times

The story takes place at a picturesque inn on Orchard Lake in southeast Michigan. It features the couple who own the inn and seven very different, interesting, flawed and sometimes funny characters who all come together to help and support each other through the pandemic. Several minor characters also round out the story and provide depth and perspective to the novel. Actual pandemic developments interwoven with the fictional story add a high degree of realism.

This first novel for Leland is a carefully researched book which magnificently weaves together the events of the 2020 pandemic with gripping fictional events, dynamic believable characters, engrossing dialogue, and vividly beautiful descriptions. The novel provides a realistic but surprising answer to how life proceeds in the “After-Times.”

Academic Overtures

For twenty-five years, Lola has endured a tumultuous marriage marred by her husband Jack’s infidelities and abuse. Despite his betrayals, she clung to the hope that things would change when Jack landed his dream job as university president.

However, Jack’s new position thrusts them into a sordid scandal involving the sexual exploitation of student athletes by the athletic director. Haunted by his own history of misconduct, Jack resorts to his usual tactics: bribery and cover-ups. But when one of his past victims surfaces as a faculty member, the web of deceit threatens to entangle them both.

As the stakes escalate, Lola finds herself at a crossroads. Will she continue to enable Jack’s misdeeds, sacrificing her dignity? Or will she summon the courage to break free from the cycle of abuse and help others find their voice?

A Trail to Love

When West Point graduate John Richards marries socialite Felicity Wynngate against her father’s express wishes, they set off a chain of catastrophic events neither could have anticipated. Pursued by a determined adversary intent on returning Felicity to her dubious father, the couple flees Philadelphia, racing towards John’s parents’ home. However, fate has other plans as the British, fresh from their victory over Napoleon, turn their sights on the United States.

As the British burn Washington and aim to control the Mississippi, Colonel Andrew Jackson rallies American forces. Amidst the chaos, John is mistakenly listed as a casualty of the Battle of New Orleans. Before he can correct the error, a heartbreaking letter informs his parents of his supposed sacrifice. Believing her husband dead, a grief-stricken Felicity ventures west, only to meet with an accident that further complicates their separation. Each believing the other has perished, John and Felicity embark on separate journeys filled with peril and hope. Will their paths cross again on the trail to love, or are they destined to remain apart forever?

A Soldier Dies to Live

Have you ever found yourself confronting life and its many important decisions and find yourself living life due to your past decisions? Do you earnestly seek and need a change in your life’s direction? As you come from your vicissitude of despair, suddenly enlightenment dawns upon you. Your pathway becomes clearer and you begin the process of change. As you continue, the change you seek does not appear; but then, you come to your final crossing point, that is, either to descend into darkness or embrace the light or face death. As you face your end, a miraculous savior appears and you realize, “Yes, I want to live.”

In A Soldier Dies to Live, Collins Herrington was such a man who “gave himself the bullet that he didn’t get in the war and found himself lying horizontally across a vertical stream” – his final crossing point. You shall discover whether Collins dies in order to live.