Innocence

I based my book Innocence on the Partition of India in 1947. Innocence follows Shukumar, the male protagonist. He grew up in a repressed society like India, in which open sexuality is taboo and kept hidden. However, in Western culture, it is accepted and embraced as a natural human characteristic. So, when he settled in Europe, coming into contact with open sexual expression had a dramatic impact. This gave the illusion of sexual freedom and gratification that led to social decadence and ‘Hell’. Shukumar plunges himself into the inferno to taste Hell and encounters death but survives. Kakoli-the female protagonist who was gang raped by the Moslem goondas during riots and dumped into a ditch escaped death. The author talks about the human animalistic passion for killing and thirst for blood that has stained the psyche of humanity.

Shukumar and Kakoli struggled to survive and beat all the odds stacked against them. They turned their misfortune into a powerful guiding spirit that created a new beginning filled with hope. This new beginning was filled with a belief that humanity can overcome all the tragedies and sufferings that came into their lives. Their story is a tale of innocence!

Into the Attic Darkly

Tom and Eddie are two young brothers, sons of Dan and Ellen Biggs – a high-powered attorney and his socialite wife – who head a dysfunctional family cobbled together by deceit and a thirst for success. Dulcie is their nanny, a young woman hired to take charge of the two boys, especially Eddie whose behavior is unpredictable at best.

After Eddie is sent away following an exceptionally violent outburst, Ellen falls desperately ill, prompting Dulcie to move into the house at Dan’s request. The two begin a torrid affair, but when Dan turns up dead, Tom is arrested for the murder after he is seen hiding evidence.

Refusing to finger who he believes is the real killer, Tom is brought to trial. But as the drama unfolds, the identity of the murderer becomes increasingly unclear, even to Tom who is left to fear for his own life. It is in the attic where all scores are settled, and so is the killer’s identity… once and for all.

Into the Wild Blue

What do you do in a world that no longer has a place for you? Where do you go? A lone man standing on the precipice of his own end wrestles with this on his long journey home through a world moving on from the shackles of human existence. His fears are made material and his regrets made apparent through his journey through the remnants of a world he was now excluded from; and the internal turmoil he has no choice but to reconcile. His world is over, and he is now observer to the heirs of the mutilated beauty of an Earth after people. He faces the consequences of the folly of man along with the void left by their virtues. Join our friend, the Traveler, as he faces the three perils that existence has to offer: Life, Death, and the Unknown.

Irrevocable Acts

After spending a day at the Oregon zoo with 5-year old Gracie, Anna Sanders reaches a decision: she will risk anything and everything to give her daughter and her granddaughter the chance of a livable future.

But first she has to come to terms with her past. She reaches out to two childhood friends who she was in college with: Mac, a hard-drinking, pot-smoking professor of physics and climatology in Wisconsin, and Danny, an introverted college dropout working as a landscaper in Arizona. She asks to set up a meeting with them, and while both men fear such a reunion will wake the sleeping dragons of their collective history, old loyalties, and old fears, propel them forward.

In a desert house in Four Corners, New Mexico, the three come together for the first time in nineteen years. There, they reconnect, open old wounds and reveal deep secrets that shaped their pasts and will transform their futures in ways none of them could have imagined.

It Comes In Tides

It Comes in Tides by Joseph Roccasalvo showcases a striking talent for the formal style in poetry. The collection is masterful for employing rhyme, meter, and the wordplay of puns and paradox.

In the celebration of the highs and lows of romance and abiding friendship, the poems are subtle and emotional, complex but always comprehensible. They are so rhythmic that the image of tides hitting a shoreline best describes them. They share the gift for point and counterpoint in their musical precision. The playful wit, conspicuous in the love poems, captivates the astute reader.

It Comes in Tides will inspire both poets and lovers who have a zest for romance in rhyme and meter.

It Is in You

This captivating collection of short stories features both real and fictitious characters who, like all of us, grapple with life’s challenges. Within these pages, you’ll discover the potential to become better, happier, more balanced, content, humble, and successful individuals. Through her distinctive and compelling prose, Darlene Hawes illustrates how some characters surrender to the giving and receiving of love, while others choose self-destruction. Her transfixing and detailed storytelling highlights the importance of self-awareness and mindfulness in shaping our lives. Interwoven musical reflections remind us that our vibrations resonate with truth: energy does not lie. By knowing ourselves and striving for self-mastery, we can achieve victory. These stories reveal the extraordinary within the ordinary.

Jason and Catalina

Once a successful fiction writer, Jason Morrison finds himself in a creative rut, disillusioned with his fast-paced life in Los Angeles. Seeking inspiration, he retreats to a solitary existence amongst the ponderosa pines of northern Arizona. But his quiet new life in Flagstaff soon takes an unexpected turn.

Jason’s breathtaking mountain home affords spectacular views, yet he finds himself drawn to the beautiful neighbor next door, a young woman named Catalina. As romance blossoms between Jason and Catalina, she introduces him to a new spiritual path that gives his life a sense of mission.

Just as Jason is rediscovering his creative passion, his newfound faith faces a grave threat. An ominous danger encroaches on Jason and Catalina, intent on preventing their message from reaching the wider world.

In this tense battle between good and evil, Jason must fight to protect his new community, his rediscovered creativity, and his burgeoning love. Will he and Catalina prevail? Or will sinister forces extinguish their light? As their commitment is put to the test, they discover the transformative power of love and faith.

Jesse James in Hell - Book Two

Continuing the epic of the hectored outlaw in the absurd landscape of the afterlife, Jesse James in Hell follows him through the American West searching for a lost treasure in the company of a bitter automaton, a mysterious violinist, the dead founder of a fraternal lodge who has been turned into a cat, and his sarcastic brother Frank. Other characters include Amelia and her baby, the buffoon Joey Turner, and a tribe of insane volunteer firemen. The massacre finale, based on a true story, will keep any reader at the edge of his or her seat consulting the dictionary.

John Henry's Wonderful Marvelous Magical Marshmallows

Penelope Sweetwater Prissily, a beehive-wearing, tantrum-throwing brat, is on a mission to become the ‘Meanest Girl in The World.’ Also known as Petroleum due to her excessive use of hair gel, Penelope, along with her panicky, moth ball-scented mother, Hattie Prissily, is determined to achieve fame and fortune by crafting an illusion of success.

However, their plans are disrupted when a mischievous, street-performing, broom-selling ghost moves into the neighborhood, captivating audiences with unbelievable magical tricks using a mysterious satchel of marshmallows. The ghost’s presence threatens to expose Penelope and Hattie as ordinary and unremarkable, a fate they dread even more than a shortage of hair gel. Determined to uncover the secrets of the ghost’s magical powers, Penelope and her friends, the Cinders, embark on a daring mission to steal the ghost’s bag of marshmallows and follow him into an abandoned train station.

What ensues is a hilarious and thrilling adventure, as the forces of good and evil engage in a climactic battle over the grandeur of dreams and the enchanting power of marshmallows.

Kabaslot

Life for Allison Johnson, a young girl growing up in the heart of a thriving independent capital city, was good. Part of a well-to-do Krio family, she and her siblings had enjoyed the best of everything, and Allison was quick to share her life with their new adoptive sister, an orphan from the provinces.

Just as she starts to discover love with an unlikely suitor, tragedy strikes. The Republic is in crisis. As events spiral out of control, Allison’s life as she knows it is turned upside down. On the other side of a vicious civil war, she must give up everything she has known as home, to seek safety in the United States.

Navigating the turn of events and her new life as an immigrant, she finds strength and resilience she had only heard about in the stories of her ancestors.

She immerses herself in a quest for spiritual restoration until a sudden shift puts her at the center of a plot to bring the decayed Republic back from the brink. She’s intrigued by the opportunity but must contend with ghosts from a dark past.

Kat's Dilemma

Kat’s Dilemma is a work of fiction. Created out of bits and pieces of research into the social and cultural challenges encountered by women and men in America at the turn of last century. Only two of the characters are based on real life people in the history of my family. Katherine Gehm was my great grandmother. Some of the known family incidents and resulting emotions are reflected in the character Kat.

Johann Wuenderlich was a young German Lutheran who immigrated to the US, converted to Methodism, and returned to Germany to introduce and spread that Christian sect. A memoir of his experience came into my possession, was translated by my daughters, and provides the basis of some of that character’s words and actions.

The US Constitution and Bill of Rights were meant as a foundation of government for all American citizens. But, the men and women of that era (and ours), influenced by societal norms or religious dictates, have never fully understood its real meaning. Therein lies the promise and the struggle between principle and prejudice in Kat’s Dilemma.

Labyrinth

When everyday people find themselves trapped in unthinkable circumstances, they discover reserves of courage that transform them in profound ways. This gripping tale pulls back the curtain on a hidden world, one where the influential and privileged prey upon the defenceless. As the characters navigate this treacherous maze, they are forced to confront the darkest corners of humanity and summon the heroism within themselves. Labyrinth is a heart-pounding exploration into the complexity of morality and the depths of depravity that will leave readers questioning where the monsters end and the humans begin.