No Life Like It: Book One

Jack Leywood joins the Canadian Navy and quickly makes a name for himself as a crack student being the first in his class. His luck changes when he discovers the joys of racing sail with one of his ship’s officers. His temper flares when he and his pal discover a young girl dead of an overdose and the germ of an idea forms: he would take on the drug lords of the Union Corse sending heroin ashore in New Brunswick. Then using his racing ketch as a base, his friends join him to begin taking down the yachts dropping off the white death and finally attracts the attention of Charles DeGaulle who decorates him for bravery and the dragons are born.

No Life Like It: Book Two

John Tripp returns with another vibrant narrative steeped in the fabric of naval life in No Life Like It: Book Two. We rejoin Jack and the sailors from the HMCS Gatineau as they carry on dealing with various ‘brushfires’ after returning from the festive wedding of Catharine and Dave Atkinson in Ireland. The navy decides to provide the crew with an MTB to assist on their adventures at sea.

With the new vessel and some downtime over Christmas, the sailors get up to all manner of lighthearted mischief and camaraderie. The tale captures the essence of friendship and humor that sees these men through unpredictable trials and twists of fate. Yet when adventure calls, the crew must come together to face each challenge.

This story offers readers a window into the shaping experiences of military life, from the competitive revelry during holidays to the unbreakable bonds forged in the heat of action. Along the way, the narrative travels from the snowy landscapes of Ireland to the bustling Canadian docks of Halifax, and out onto the high seas.

No Lost Tears

This collection offers an intimate glimpse into a life weathered by adversity yet renewed by purpose. The candid verses inside reflect the mind and heart of a writer who has suffered yet chooses to share the lessons and hope gleaned along the way.

With grit-edged honesty and tenderness, the poems mine the profound human experiences that forge us: love and loss, joy and grief. They chronicle the search for meaning amidst the hellish trials of life, while celebrating the saving graces of beauty, redemption, healing.

Not My Bachelor

Rina Spencer, a 27-year-old freelance writer, lives in Manhattan, New York, with her live-in boyfriend, Brandon. Upon hearing that her mother, Rose, has been diagnosed with incurable lung cancer, Rina flies to Southern California to spend time with her dying mother, who lives with Rina’s older sister, Susannah. During this visit, Rina meets Marcus Granger, also 27, a former law student and one of the bachelors on the romance reality show ‘Love at First Sight’.

As the reality show is being taped next door to Susannah’s house, Rina and Marcus develop a strong friendship, supporting each other as they navigate their respective journeys to find love and accept death. However, Rina finds herself struggling with emerging romantic feelings for Marcus, constantly reminding herself that he is not her bachelor.

To complicate matters further, Rose drops a bombshell that disrupts the entire family’s happiness. Stunned by Rose’s revelation, Rina and her three siblings make a pact to search for answers. When the truth is finally revealed, they realize that their entire lives have been built on deceit and lies.

Not My Life's Story

Not My Life’s Story is a poignant anthology of poetry, capturing the essence of transition from the brink of childhood through the turbulence of teenage years to the thresholds of young adulthood. Crafted over several years, this collection is an emotive journey, not bound by chronology, but rather woven through the myriad experiences and milestones that define growing up.

Within these pages, the poems traverse a diverse landscape of themes. They delve into the profound and often challenging process of coming out, the bewildering onset of puberty, and the complex feelings surrounding body image and dysmorphia. Relationships, in their many forms, are explored with raw honesty, alongside the poignant experience of leaving home and stepping into the unknown.

Nove

These nine stories, scenes from a now-faraway youth, necessarily would have been misremembered, truncated, and therefore come into the present morphed into an entity quite distinct and separate from what they once were; however, they still bear the better telling. Thus, memory often shall bend the tale into something new, and apart from mere fact. Still, their telling is well-warranted, since all nine tales, snatched away from Mercury, do knit and meld themselves together to form a better, more fanciful whole to create a most pleasing portrait of the distant past.

Novembers

It’s November and a savage murder has been committed in an affluent Toronto neighborhood. The brutality of the murder and the severe lack of evidence appears to indicate the perfect crime. This is something Sergeant Detective Aristotle Boyle will never accept, driving him to obsession, calling on all his hardened experience to lead his team in investigating this intricately planned homicide. The few clues embroil Boyle in a mystery involving BDSM and alternate sexualities, forcing him to look to his own life for answers: his love of Greek philosophy, Ouzo, and fine Cuban cigars.

An intelligent, riveting novel any lover of crime mysteries will not be able to put down.

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.

Of the Sun Fire

Moonlight glints and winks with a soft hum as girls in soft satin dresses dance around the fire. I can taste notes of empty forests and flowers smeared with blood on my tongue. Different reasons of their betrayal plague my mind. I opt to scream inward and swallow the lump in my throat. I see the candles lighting the wooden staircases of the haunted castle as I step in. The sight reminds me of when I was a child and held bears made of cotton tightly out of fear when I was left alone. I look down at my feet to see pictures of old loved ones crushed under them like worthless blossoms. Do I feel happy? Sad? Gloomy? Maybe all of them at once. I guess that’s the life of a dandelion girl.

The poems and pictures in this book represent the struggles I felt as an outcast and how I learned to find an exit for myself in the wonders of the world. I tried to capture the feeling of being rejected and later accepted into a new world in the poems and pictures I gathered. I hope people with similar experiences can read my book and feel a little less alone than they did before. I hope they realize things will get better. Your wings of fire will emerge.

Ogmond

When the problems with the Earth’s inhabitants’ civilities, humanity and care for the planet reached it limit…

When pollution, greed, selfishness, and lawlessness created a universal problem…

One man had answers and took necessary actions, applying his special skills, discoveries, and knowledge to save and restore the civilizations and the planet.

This man’s name was Ogmond.

On Call At the John

On a humid southern night in a busy inner-city hospital, an inexperienced white male intern and a strong black nurse with years of experience are faced with the daunting task of changing a little girl's life. Estelle's laceration is just the tip of the iceberg, leading to the discovery of the worst wounds she's ever endured. As they delve deeper, the intern, May, quickly learns that abuse of all kinds is a daily occurrence in the inner city, perpetrated by both ordinary people and community leaders. Poverty, addiction, racism, and lost hope have created a breeding ground for unimaginable suffering.

Little did May know that this journey would lead him to confront history and look into the eyes of the killer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As he grapples with this revelation, May realizes that his own transformation is just as crucial as Estelle's recovery.

On the Road to Exile and Other Short Stories

This book contains seven of the most unusual short stories ever written.

In On the Road to Exile, a woman travels a thousand miles on her donkey, returning to the family she left a year earlier to find the only thing that has changed is her.

In The Accidental Transvestite, a man wants only to get in his ex-girlfriend’s pants but once he has them on, he soon realizes he would do anything to get them off.

In How Much Further to Insanity?, a woman boards a train that takes her to the edge of madness, confronted by the strangest circumstances that begin with the insults of an Amish passenger and ends with the deprivations of a simeopath.

In She Fell to Sleep, a man ruminates over the question of whether his girlfriend fell asleep or faked it.

In Six Kittens, Six Victims, a man and his two children stand outside a grocery store, trying to find homes for their kittens.

In This is Your Life, a man’s perfect life turns complicated when his girlfriend finds him sharing a joint with two fatties, who were at his house due to unexplainable reasons.

In Ode to a Shitonion, a man wakes from a coma and recalls the circumstances that led to him being charged with “...exhibiting a flagrant disregard for the sanctity of life while satisfying unnatural sexual impulses...” and the brief courtroom drama that follows.