Shouts

It is 1915. A great war is coming to America. You are in The Bronx, a borough of New York City, a bastion of ethnic German enterprise and culture, and struggling Irish laborers. German spies and saboteurs roam the city. Firebrand Irish soapbox orators inflame crowds with anti-war speeches. Paranoia, hatred, and politics rage in the streets. The social and economic fabric of the city begins to unravel.

Enraged by the sinking of the Lusitania, pro-war thugs severely injure a German junk dealer and his grandson, young Tommy Muldoon. The boy’s Irish nationalist father collaborates with German terrorists with disastrous consequences for himself and his family. Under this tumultuous backdrop, young Muldoon takes over the junk business and sets out to save his family, by day in the junkyard, by night taking boxing instruction from a Catholic priest.

A sumptuous tapestry, interwoven with meticulously researched details, SHOUTS tells of the last days of the pre-World War I golden age. The richly detailed narrative orchestrates the profuse voices of its characters--priests and bartenders, boxers and violinists, politicians and brew masters. The book resounds with the symphony of those tempestuous days full tone and tint. And at the end, Tommy Muldoon stands alone in the ring facing his destiny. And the reader, by knowing better those particular times past, now better understands the times today.

Shells on the Sand

Shells on the Sand chronicles a family’s escape from Kuwait during the First Gulf War. Based on a true story that is fictionalized for dramatic effect, the novel takes its readers on a journey through a perilous region that maintains deep roots to our civilization. Readers will learn about the history of the Muslim Caliphate, Saladin and Richard the Lionheart, the Ottomans, Mongols, and Ancient Baghdad as the family journeys through the region in search for solace and refuge. Tales and events that significantly shaped our history and reverberate to this day will be told about a region many Westerners regard as tumultuous, but that maintains unparalleled diversity in history, science, and culture. Similar published works include True Kuwait Stories by AMA Smith, and Minarets in the Mountains by Tharik Hussain.

Searching for Home: An Immigrant's Journey from Ukraine to the USA

It’s 1913 in the village of Mlyniv, Ukraine. 19-year-old Effrosinia has escaped her abusive husband and returns to her family’s dacha.

Discovery of her escape by the village elders would lead to public punishment, since at that time a wife was considered to be her husband’s property.

What can her family do to protect her?  

Rouse of Widowhood

“Women like myself!” I saluted to a rousing reception.

"We are here!" the women chorused. I stood in the middle of the women. They gathered around me on all sides at the square entrance of Eke-oha market.

“Women like myself!!”

“We are here!!”

“Women like myself!!!”

“We are here!!!” They responded a third time.

"Today, the wind has blown, and we can now see the behind of the fowl. We now know that these white rulers do not like us, and our men do not like us too."

“Who bears nine months of labor pains?”

“We do, we do.”

“Who bears all the labor of housework and raising the children?”

“We do, we do.”

“Who tends the men and nourishes all their desires?”

“We do, we do.”

“Women like myself!”

“We are here!”

“We shall not be counted. We will not pay tax. We will not pay tax because we bear the children and we bear the fire of kitchen coals on our palms.”

“It is the truth, it is the truth.”

"Where the rat eats is where it falls. The men must tell us why the hen must always be spread-eagled for the randy cockerel.”

"Today, we will burn down the courthouse, and we will have their red caps."

The women needed no more prodding. My last statement had aroused their anger. 

Roots & the Remittance Man

In Roots & the Remittance Man, a captivating historical fiction, we follow a diverse family tree as its branches converge in the Carrot River Valley of the Northwest Territories in 1902. From Sweden, Muskoka, and Iowa, these intrepid settlers make their way to homestead near Melfort, Saskatchewan.

A Scottish family, burdened by loss from an epidemic, travels by wagon train, finding salvation in a Cree chief. In Sweden, tragedy strikes, and a widowed wife and her daughters board a cattle ship for Halifax. They arrive in Winnipeg, accept a cook position at a Melfort hotel, and embark on a grueling journey through forest and muskeg.

A young Norwegian man walks 700 miles to the United States-Canadian border, immerses himself in Indigenous history, and follows a freight swing to his homestead. Settlers and Indigenous peoples unite against prairie fires, forging bonds that transcend their differences.

Through decades, the family experiences joys and sorrows, weathering the storms of two World Wars, prohibition, swamp fever, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Great Depression. As technology advances, women gain the right to vote and become legally recognized as persons.

At the outset of World War II, a remittance man from Scotland enters the picture, his life becoming significantly entwined with the descendants of these resilient pioneers. Roots & the Remittance Man is a sweeping tale of perseverance, unity, and the indomitable human spirit that shaped the Canadian frontier.

Puzzles and Paradoxes

Embark on an intellectual adventure with Puzzles and Paradoxes, a captivating book that presents 33 thought-provoking questions spanning history, the physical world, biology, philosophy, specific events, and miscellaneous topics, enticing readers to unravel mysteries and seek profound understanding.

From the fall of Rome to the Golden Age of Greece, from the enigmas of the mind-body problem to the origins of life on Earth, from free will to the problem of evil, and from the invention of spectacles to the Monty Hall Problem and the Voynich Manuscript, this compelling collection explores diverse realms of knowledge, offering possible answers that inspire contemplation and ignite the joy of intellectual discovery.

Promises for Tomorrow

Rekha is a 12-year-old girl growing up as the eldest daughter of Indian immigrants in South Africa during the 1940s and 1950s. Despite her strong and determined nature, she is innocent in many ways and struggles with her life as the cook, cleaner, and caregiver for her family, all while enduring emotional and physical abuse from her mother. As an Indian female, she is controlled, abused, and marginalized, and is expected to fulfill the patriarchal role of a ‘suitable wife.’

When she discovers she is promised to a boy from a ‘good family,’ Rekha dreams of a life filled with love, financial stability, and freedom, in an effort to escape her current life of hardship. Through Rekha’s story, we gain insight into the unique South African Indian experience, including customs and traditions surrounding marriage, childbirth, and death, as well as the struggles of newly arrived merchant immigrants trying to survive and succeed in a colonial, racist, and apartheid society.

P is for Pickelhaube

Broken trust. Broken promises. Shame, confusion, and guilt. Unimaginable violence. Then the War came, and the cycle started anew. This is the story of Kurt, a Bavarian infantryman serving somewhere on the Western Front during the First World War. He is like many of his comrades and not a few of his enemies: he fights a war within a war, a singular combat against what he knows of love, hate, sex, addiction, and abuse. A combat against monsters both real and otherwise. Combat in the First World War was a dehumanizing experience.

Gone was glory and individual heroics. Gone too were the fluttering flags and colorful uniforms. Gone was color altogether.

In this alien world death came from afar, the enemy hidden from view. New and terrifying technologies elevated killing to previously unheard-of industrial levels and rendered battlefields into lifeless moonscapes.

Yet while surrounded by this maelstrom Kurt faces an enemy that is still very much human - himself. Which combat will prove more deadly? In war, when men are wounded, they are called casualties. But what are men called when they are wounded before their fight begins?

Opelika Opiate

“Opiate” – to induce sleep; to stupefy; to hijack the brain and change its normal function.

Opelika, Alabama – where cars, men, and race collide to unhinge the life of a young woman. Piecing it back together will require figuring out the role she played, and who she really is – or wants to be.  

On the Ropes

“Your book—colossal power, sharp, spot-on writing. Issues of rape and fratricide are explored with the dialectical seriousness that echoes Old Testament and Dostoyevsky. You break through the ‘cool’ that infects our modern world and show the human soul in deepest wrestling with itself.”

— William Packard, late poet, editor, professor, playwright, and writer

October Moon

Trumpet player Jeffrey Lewis Dean visits Israel on tour with his jazz band during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. His tour guide is the beautiful of Aviva Darr, who is there to guide and, unbeknownst to them, protect, the band.

As they tour Israel, the known terrorist Jialdi is terrorizing the country through bombings while evading the military no matter how hard they try to stop him.

As tensions rise, Jeffrey gets entangled in a situation beyond his control, while falling in love with the woman who could save him in more ways than one.

Oblivion at Tranquil Manor

October 1886

That uncanny feeling invades me again, raising the hairs on my arms, as i take the scene before me. My brain is unable to function—the fuzzy, foggy feeling in my head is eerie and unreal.
***
July 1885

After the death of her mother, nineteen-year-old Abigail Mills and her father leave their elegant home in Southern England for a visit at Tranquil Manor, the home of longtime friend Robert Hansome.

Because of persuasive circumstances, Abigail stays and lives with Robert and his son and daughter, Simon and Anna.

Traumatic and puzzling observations trigger Abigail’s affliction—the inability to decipher reality from unreality. Were situations amiss or was she just out of touch with reality?

Simon and his father are obsessive with the project of restoring their beloved home, and Abigail looks forward to her substantial dowry assisting the project after their marriage.
Before long, Simon and Abigail fall in love and become engaged. Shortly after their engagement, a tragedy creates a major complication for Abigail; she hides this from Simon because she fears he will break the engagement. When Heidi—Anna’s schoolmistress and unwilling spiritual medium—timidly discloses a message which is both unnerving and comforting, Abigail finds herself struggling with her mind once again.

The occasional obscure actions of Heidi baffle Abigail. Is Heidi a friend or foe?

Come along with Abigail through the months ahead and discover the outcome of her challenging life of mystery.