The Rock in Our Story

Just when ten-year-old Maria Della Notte becomes comfortable with her surrogate mother and their surroundings she discovers an unsettling truth about her origin. Who is she? How did she get here? Why does she have a surrogate mother? Who left her in the care of a surrogate mother and why? Where did she come from? Why is she forced to leave? Can she learn to live in a new country without family or friends where language, customs and traditions are unfamiliar and intimidating? Whom can she trust? Will she ever love and be loved? Will she find answers to her endless questions?

Coming from a poverty-stricken, war-torn country, Maria quickly learns the benefits and advantages of wealth, education and her new life in a place filled with opportunity. While she is pleased with her newly acquired affluence and experiences, Maria has never been truly happy since she left her homeland. The friendship she offers at school, and the kindness she extends to some of her classmates is met with ridicule and rejection.

At every turn, Maria feels unloved, so she withdraws and buries herself in studies and extracurricular activities. She strives to be the best at every challenge put before her. Her goals stretch far beyond seeking not only to win, but to win by a landslide.

Maria is a young lady dreaming of reconnecting with her mentor, while carrying a big chip on her shoulder waiting for the right someone to gently remove it.

The Salt Shack Dweller

Once the institutions of his world proved untrustworthy, a young veteran leaves college and seeks refuge in a shack beneath a condemned train bridge along the depleted and abused Salt River. Here, he encounters those society deems invisible: Natives, migrants, and discarded souls. A makeshift clan forms as curious individuals are drawn to this enigmatic figure and his humble dwelling. Among them are a compassionate female doctor, a questioning priest, a lonely flour mill guard, a seventeen-year-old girl yearning for freedom, and a disheartened judge. Even scorpions, black widows, and countless butterflies find their place. To the Salt Shack Dweller, this motley group becomes a true family.

The Sisters Graves

In the gripping pages of The Sisters Graves, a shocking murder rocks the tranquil property of Coo Blackstone. The victim, a beautiful woman, is discovered in a grotesque state, sending shockwaves through the community. All eyes turn to Angus, her lover and Coo’s own brother, as a prime suspect in this heinous crime.

However, as the layers of the victim’s life are peeled back, it becomes evident that she was not innocent. In fact, she led a covert existence, manipulating and blackmailing the townspeople. The list of disgruntled individuals with motives to see her silenced grows longer, each unaware of the others’ entanglements with the captivating but treacherous country girl. Money, sex, and revenge emerge as the compelling motives that entwine the dead woman and the town’s residents, leaving a web of secrets and a trail of potential killers.

Determined to defend her brother’s honor, Coo takes it upon herself to unravel the perplexing clues that emerge during her investigation. Yet, the more she digs, the more bewildering and uncertain the truth becomes. Clues begin to implicate not just Angus, but several other individuals, leaving Coo at a loss, torn between her loyalty to her family and her relentless pursuit of justice.

As the local Sheriff, Clyde Buck, steps into the investigation, tensions rise. With the victim found on Coo’s property, suspicion falls upon her, straining their relationship. Clyde is committed to solving the crime, but his growing feelings for Coo make it increasingly challenging to separate personal desires from the demands of upholding the law. Even if the unthinkable truth implicates Angus or even Coo herself, Clyde must navigate the treacherous waters of love and justice to bring the murderer to light.

The Sky Pilot’s Wife

The Sky Pilot's Wife is a historical romance and 'slice of life' novel set in the late Victorian period (1899-1902) in a quaint village on the Yorkshire Moors of England.

An intriguing romance arises between two of the most unlikely characters and it is heightened by the 'secret language of flowers.' The green-eyed monster, jealousy, causes an inevitable conflict and the rising tension creates a catastrophe which triggers a totally unexpected train of events.

Later, during a storm, the vicar's wife, Louisa flees the vicarage to seek shelter within the confines of the church. But providence intervenes and gossip in the village becomes rife, much to Louisa's consternation.

A fire later breaks out in the belltower of the church and the local constabulary is brought in to help solve the unfolding mystery. But who is it that wants Louisa dead? What is the purpose of this heinous crime? And who should pay?

The Starflower

Step into a vast universe teeming with life, romance, heroism, and treachery as experienced and seen through the eyes of Gayle Zimmon. ‘Zim’ a young woman successful in war but naive to the machinations of the greater universe, returns from combat to confront genetically engineered humans and discover that she was sent to war not to win but to die.

While fighting the Aldrakin, Zim learns of a prophecy foretelling that the “Starflower,” her military call sign, will bloom “in the dark of the darkest night” but never know peace. Not one to accept ancient prophecy, after securing victory, she hopes to rekindle her romance with Mac and return to the peaceful life they left on the frontier.

But she is a major player in a galaxy-spanning intrigue she barely understands. Forces alien and cybernetic hold the stakes and align on both sides. Between dodging assassins, hostile planets, deadly robots, mystical aliens, and ancient relics, she must decide whether to continue running from her prophesied destiny—or try to live up to it.

The Sword of Lucent

Lily grew up in an impoverished and tormented condition. She knew she was different but did not know why. One day, she ran away, setting out to make it on her own. Lily then met Noah, falling in love and getting married to her soulmate. Then one day as she waited for his return to the farm, he was running late, and Lily set out to see why. She saw the men and a horrid looking hooded figure take Noah. The hooded figure giving her a warning that if the debt was not settled, she would never see Noah again.

Lily’s love for Noah was so great that she vowed to find him and get him back no matter what happened. But Lily had no idea that this would take her on a journey that would be filled with danger, mystery, and secrets that had been kept for many years. This takes her on a quest that leads her to The Sword of Lucent.

The Timeless Love of Billy B for Scheherazade

Balthazar dreams of the perfect woman, one he can summon or dismiss at will on his computer screen. But as time passes, he becomes ensnared in his own creation, consumed by an obsession with this non-existent figure. As Balthazar spirals downward, losing everything from his identity to the use of his body, reduced to just his mind and the fingers tapping at the keyboard, she, in contrast, rises. She transforms into a modern-day Scheherazade, learning to command her prince.

Baltha B was unaware,
No more sits he upon the chair.
The relics of his body’s ruin,
Are the one last bastion
Of his undoing.
Death beckons when the hands they clap,
To say, ‘Enough! Your time is up’

Those Amazing Mafia Wives

It was in the 1950s that mafia boss, Don Amato Rizoso, determined it was time to enter the lucrative human trafficking business. Five dedicated Rizoso mafia wives stepped up to work tirelessly for one desperate purpose: to rescue innocent girls their cutthroat husbands were trafficking in for modern day sale.

While, operating in a netherworld teeming with greed and corruption, the wives officially opened business after their daring rescue of multiple sex slaves from a mafia-owned opium den. As they adjusted to their life of vigilante justice, they faced near rescue misses, they helped set-up a daring underground railroad, and they took down the notorious Cocaine Queen. Amidst betrayal, mass slaughter, forbidden love, and a son whose secret threatened his life, they learned that fighting for what they believed in was anything but easy. Nevertheless, those amazing mafia wives worked doggedly to take down a family empire built on the bodies of children – even if it meant their own lives.

Thought Prints

“Birthed in a month, on a day, somewhere in time. Somewhere in history.

Somewhere in my past, I didn’t exist… But I was to be.”

“When I look back in time, exploring my mind, I realize I didn’t glance…

But I was to see…”

– from “A Letter to Myself.”

With intensity and emotion, Thought Prints reels the reader in instantly! Anyone who has the pleasure of reading this compilation of poems will surely find magic. A collection of poetry with a story to tell!

Tomorrow, Again

If you took a blank calendar and looked at it month by month, would each month hold a special, life-changing anniversary?

Could you fill the calendar with events which have shaped you and stood out, or would it be filled with blanks?

Do you seek a life where you create more meaningful moments which can become important anniversaries as you look back?

Are you spending your life in pursuit of something worthy, or are you drifting around from day to day as time passes by?

These philosophical questions are the guiding principle behind a series of events framed over 11 days in a searing Midwestern summer fixated on devotion to the dying, accumulation of others’ possessions, searching for purpose, and hoping for escape. On nights racked by storms accompanied by the strumming hymns of insects, through days burned by the sun and wind, and on a day the color of whales, events unfold to confront each character with the truth of their life and the path their calendar has set them on, with the last day ending in moments of crucial realizations and hope.

Torn in Two: Valor of a U.S. Marine

An emotional ride through the eyes, heart and soul of one Afghan-American Marine’s journey in Afghanistan. Vengeance enticed by the world’s most infamous religious war fighters, the Taliban; one man turns to his extreme thoughts to conquer his own demons. During some of the most gruesome war times, he finds love deep within the shadows of war, only to come home and feel the true effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. An unimaginable roller coaster of a fast and risky life, he later yearns for the spy game. As we live in a time of terror, the unexpected is always around the corner.

Tracks from Nowhere

Tracks from Nowhere takes the reader into the remote and impoverished coal-mining community of New River Gorge, West Virginia. The year is 1936. Hank O’Neill, a ruggedly handsome coal miner, bears the burden of a promise that threatens not only his life, but his marriage to the lovely, Louise as well. She is discontented living in poverty and is desperate to escape; but in the isolated Appalachian Mountains of post-depression America, a way out is difficult to come by.

Gambling everything, Louise blindsides Hank in a risky plight to fulfill the destiny that haunts her dreams. Hank severs his promise and hops aboard a south-bound freight train to pursue the amazing woman he loves. His journey is a perilous one; but fate offers an unexpected opportunity. Melding history into the lives of absorbing characters, this engaging tale is full of heartbreak and survival sprinkled with hope and optimism.

Tangled in poignant emotions, Tracks from Nowhere weaves a beautiful tapestry of love, forgiveness, and the reward for having the courage to live one's dream.