Wolves with Furniture

Is the true nature of the human creature more akin to that of wolves or closer to bees or ants? What parts of the human soul are sacrificed by choosing a modern life in a crowded city-hive, an existence severed from the balance of Nature? Do wild wolves have a better sense of humanity than humans themselves?

These are only a few of the questions pondered in L.M. Reid’s poetry collection Wolves With Furniture, in which every intense poem is woven into the stories of Lupa the Wolf Queen and a vibrant girl born unlucky, who grows into a woman carrying within her the towering fury of a flame-haired Lilith.

Will she shatter herself against her own bitter rage, or choose to live a harmonious life guided by the just laws of the wolf? By turns poignant, thought-provoking and redemptive, Wolves With Furniture explores new depths of what it means to be human.

Worlds Clash

Lilith, the Princess of Darkness, gives a tour of some spine-chilling episodes in human experience that gives us the opportunity to consider how rational beings can embark on self-destructive campaigns. The Princess is also a provocateur who uses ingenious recitation of old facts. This work presents challenges with stark insights and bold interpretations. Examining events through multiple prisms reveals hidden connections and intricate designs that produce exquisite models of evil, forming a delicate tapestry of cruelty deserving to be hung in the Louvre of desolation.

The chain of dismal episodes forms a litany of horror that embraces mankind in Lilith’s kiss of death. Each event can be strung on a golden cord, forming a necklace of black pearls. The Sisyphean struggle to create a better world involves events that are heartbreaking because the tragedies they embody could easily be avoided with only a small application of rational thought. Such temptation is seductive, however, because reason seldom prevails unless accompanied by a sprinkling of humor.

Writers, Like Hats

Writers, Like Hats begins with an ode and ends with a philosophical message from one of my students; in between is a variety of genres for enjoyment and meditation. Three sections explore the natural world, the world outside, and the world inside. In the appendix, readers find instructions for writing riddles, sonnets, and celebrations of self, as well as samples from students. I invite you to enjoy the music and magic of poetry that lifts us to new heights in Writers, Like Hats.

“Trish Frech’s untrammeled poetic style opens to the reader her deep attachments to Nature, her concerns for the world and its people, and her insights into her own Life. But it is more than that: many readers will savor the vivid images, carefully turned phrases, and playfulness of her poetry. Teachers of poetry, moreover, will find not only rich material to share with students but in the Appendix four ready to use methods (with student samples) for creating poetry itself. Frech’s insights into her on life’s arc and into momentous questions of our times are offset and [made pleasurable] by her simplicity of phrase, colorful wording, and frequent evocation of Nature.”

Review of the final manuscript from Gordon B. Donaldson, Jr., Professor Emeritus at the University of Maine.

Yearning

At thirty, Robert Markel can manage, at best, an ironic relationship with himself. He is a successful drama critic who had once hoped to create powerful original work for the theater. As the novel opens, he stares at himself in the mirror and suppresses an impulse to strike the sneering face that confronts him. His frustrations lead him to commit a serious breach of professional ethics. The narrative ranges from an early childhood accident through his mother’s terminal cancer when the boy is twelve, and on to his idealistic, awkwardly fervent teenage years.

The first phase of the book culminates in his decision to carve out a new identity for himself, to depart radically from what his father had always expected of him. A chance encounter with his future wife is followed by a sad reconciliation with his father, who has begun to suffer from a wasting neuromuscular disease. After his father’s death, Robert’s professional and emotional life begins to unravel.

Yearning for fulfillment through art and love, consumed by the drive to create something where nothing had existed before, Robert tries repeatedly to fill the void left by an emotionally absent mother and a father who failed to provide unconditional love beyond his earliest years.

Ali and Abe

Ali Mason is a small-town teacher living a perfectly boring life. That is until she takes a trip to Nashville and meets Abe Parker. Not a fan of country music, she is clueless that Abe is a rising country music star. Country music’s newest uprising star, Abe Parker, learns that scruffy is in. So, when he needs a few months off, he cleans up his look, making it impossible to be recognized. Meeting Ali, he’s excited he can be an ordinary guy. After spending a day together, the couple discovers an intense attraction that leads to an unforgettable night. Yet it’s all over in an instant when they become separated from each other. Abe searches for months with no luck. Ali goes home feeling hurt and used. A month later, she’s shocked to learn she’s going to have Abe’s baby. Nine months later, while holding her newborn baby, she sees Abe’s face on the television. Hurt, insecure, and vulnerable, Ali decides to not contact him. Four years later, Ali discovers someone knows her secret and wants revenge, leaving her no choice but to find Abe and explain he’s a father. Anger flairs when Abe learns that the woman he searched for deceived him and demands the chance to get to know his daughter. Can Abe and Ali bury the hatchet long enough to protect their daughter? What happens when strong feelings start to resurface? Do second chances happen when someone wants you dead?

All Told

Imagine being an “other woman”, and then finding out that you’re not the only one. There have been many other women, before you and even standing alongside you right now. Jack learned early that one is never enough. Each chapter tells the experience of someone affected by Jack’s trysts. Some of the women are married, some single, some divorced. The ages vary as Jack grows older. Then the reach goes further, to the ripple effect of hurt caused by infidelity. There is an adult son Jack never knew he fathered. There’s also a bartender on the cusp of meeting the woman of his dreams, only to have Jack whisk her away by saying just the right thing. And there is a doctor who is shocked by Jack’s abandonment of her patient, one of the ‘other women’ with breast cancer. There are the first two wives, who run into each other thirty years after the first was replaced by the second. And there is the third wife, who is still married to Jack. Jack’s mother also speaks, at the beginning and the end. All Told tells more than the story of infidelity. It goes beyond the typical triangle of husband, wife, and lover. As the stories grow and involvements become more interconnected and convoluted, the question of who is cheating on who and why becomes more difficult to answer. Each chapter reveals another secret. But every secret has two sides, and in some cases, even more than that.

Behold a Pale Horse

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him” (Revelations 6:8, KJV). One man would blaze such a path of death and destruction across the western frontier that he would be forever associated with this passage. Disowned by his family, betrayed by his commanding officer, and framed for atrocities he did not commit, he was branded a murderer and a traitor. Living life on the run and forced to kill those who would take his freedom and his life, he nevertheless fought to defend, and sometimes avenge, those who could not do so themselves. Labelled a monster by most, he was considered a hero by some. In time his name would be lost to history, but he would live on in legend, known only as the Pale Rider. This is how his story begins.

Coal Valley Silk

Coal Valley Silk is based on true events characterizing a young boy growing up in the productive coal-mining town of Coal Valley, Alabama. He bares for a lifetime the undue reproach for his family’s biased and schismatic genealogy, and also imparts the means by which the brilliant youngster works out his own salvation through agonizing years following life’s poisonous inflections. Historical facts confirm the mining town Coal Valley’s bye-gone era that now is oblivious to present day generations.

Corridors of Time

44-year-old Harmonie Blake visits her mother only to discover her dead. Distraught at the loss of her only remaining family member, she begins the arduous task of sorting out her mother’s affairs and coping with her grief. The more she digs into her mother’s tumultuous past, the more she realizes how little her mother shared. She follows one clue and traces her mother’s life when she served in the British Army in the London Theatre of War. Through Harmonie’s narrative, the story turns to the war-torn streets of London. There, Helen’s relationships change her life. Would her sense of independence and courage be enough for her to survive failed romances, danger, and death—and Helen’s attempts to shed her Cockney roots and family secrets for a better life? Can Harmonie connect to the real spirit of her mother—and will she find peace in finally letting go of a woman she has only just begun to understand?

Digital

Two hackers are involved in cyberattacks in two different geographical locations. Shaun Wilson, an FBI agent, has his work cut out for him. He has been recently assigned to the Cyber Crime Unit, only to find out that he is a victim with no privacy at home; especially when he shares his intimate moments with his lovely wife, Carol. Enrique Hernandez, who lives in New York City and hacks for monetary gain, finds himself in the home of Shaun Wilson, among other things. Mark Sandler, who lives in Miami, slows down, intercepts, manipulates, interrupts, or shuts down PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones, just to cause mayhem. Meanwhile, Xeron’s location is unknown. Although he runs an underground operation, he sells everything unimaginable from firearms to drugs laced with fentanyl, bringing in well over $2 million a month. Agent Shaun Wilson must follow departmental guidelines and protocol without violating anyone’s constitutional rights. Time isn’t on his side and, before it’s over, the law may not be on his side either. Simply put, he must work fast. His job will never be over until he brings the evildoers to justice. The cat and mouse games seem to never end. Agent Shaun Wilson discovers that he is not in a battle, but at war: in Cyberspace.

Eximius

Kidnapped OR Rescued Opportunity OR Trap Lies OR Truth Love OR Lust Stay OR Go Victoria’s captives refused to talk face to face and only communicated with a grey notebook passed through the wall. She was treated better than she had been her entire life, and Victoria needed that more than anyone could know. Would she be able to trust enough to take this opportunity and continue this lavish life or chose to leave it all behind, keeping her sanity and self-worth intact? Fighting melancholy, Sabastian needed something new and becoming a part-owner of the lucrative company that is Eximius, was his way out of his stupor. However, the ethereal creature that was Victoria, completely stumped him as she continues to break his unwavering self-control. If he cannot get through this simple task, he would lose everything, but that may be a sacrifice he is willing to make, to be able to keep Victoria for himself. Sabastian finds himself falling in love, in a place where love is forbidden. Will she be the key to a better life or would she be the cause of Sabastian’s downfall? Or will the decision be taken away from him indefinitely?

Finding the Bones

Finding the Bones is a dark romance set against the youth rebellion and revolutionary violence of the 1910s—an era not unlike 1960s’ America—where idealistic young men and women seek to create a more just society but often fall victim to retribution or disillusionment. Charlie Everett, a journalist on the make, and Olivia St. James, an ardent feminist and journalist in her own right, find themselves caught in a deadly embrace from which neither can escape. “A fine, sophisticated historical novel from author Avery Russell in which she draws from her family history, especially the life of her journalist father who is Charlie Everett in the novel; her father’s first wife portrayed as Olivia St. James; and their mutual friend Maurice Hadley, in real life the early abstract painter Marsden Hartley. Russell’s omniscient narrator moves deftly among her substantial cast of characters, showing us the lives of bohemians and expatriates of pre-World War I and beyond. If there is any symbol of the partially thwarted lives that the central characters endure, it is in Hartley’s poem ‘Finding the Bones,’ which provides the title for the book, where the bones of a dead bird are found with its wings still on and its feathers attached, the last vestiges of a life and an ardor Charlie himself experienced among the bones he hid from everyone. ‘Fixed were the wings,’ Hartley wrote; now they are stiffened, and life has moved on to a ‘fresh history of stifled things.’” — Townsend Ludington, author of Marsden Hartley: The Biography of an American Artist (1992) and Seeking the Spiritual: The Paintings of Marsden Hartley (1998); Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill