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.

Laughing Out of Context

Mia, mother of her six-year-old son, Cody, strives to balance care and volunteering at Cody’s school the only way she knows how: by recuperating nightly in what she calls her escape room. Meditation and a little bit of solitude at night can fix some hectic mothering days, but sometimes a glass of wine is just what is needed for those extra challenging kids-tell-all no-filter moments.

With the family Dalmatian, Caesar, right by Cody’s side in mischief, Mia works overtime to dodge embarrassing public incidents, hoping her imaginary hats will finally work in making her invisible at just the right time. By getting weekly advice from her mom’s group, Mia realizes she’s not alone in this crazy, funny, and loving motherhood journey.

The struggle is real, and finding a better motherhood routine is right at the top of her list of things to do, before she tips over to the other side of the sanity line.

Law Dogs

In the aftermath of Missouri’s brutal Civil War, shattered bonds and loyalties hung heavy in the hearts of its people. Karl, hailing from a staunchly pro-Union German family orphaned by the conflict, faced harrowing decisions. His dearest friend, a Wilson, hailed from a pro-slavery family fiercely loyal to the Confederacy. It was a friendship tested by the fires of war, and Karl’s journey was only beginning.

Armed with a six-gun and driven by circumstance, Karl first rode with Quantrill’s Raiders before joining the ranks of the Texas Rangers. But life had more twists in store. As a bounty hunter, he relentlessly pursued the ruthless Ivory Thompson gang, tracking their bloody trail to a lawless mining town, Silverton, just north of Durango, Colorado. There, a shadowy outlaw named Red was gathering a crew of the most hardened criminals for a grand heist.

To collect the bounties and secure his retirement, Karl knew he had to be faster, smarter, and more ruthless than Ivory Thompson and his two henchmen. A new identity was his ticket to the big rewards, but fate intervened when he stumbled upon the lifeless body of Thorn T. Hagerman, a former Pinkerton Agent who had been chasing the same outlaws. Thorn’s name was now his to wield.

As the newly christened Thorn T. Hagerman, our protagonist found camaraderie with a group of young lawmen and a charming waitress in a local hotel. But just when the rewards seemed within grasp, chaos erupted in Durango, threatening to unravel everything Thorn had fought for.

Learning How to Let It Go in the Shadow of the Belvedere

Sometimes it becomes difficult for us to recognize the beauty of the forest in its full splendour and diverse grandeur, even though it has always been right in front of us. Our view becomes obscured by the thick, opaque tangle of branches. To overcome this universal challenge for us all, we need to be able to adopt a new perspective. This can come from meeting new people and considering their point of view, or even by putting oneself in an entirely different time and place. In doing so, even the most stubborn and set-in-their ways can be jostled out of their slumber and comforting complacency.

The elements necessary for this process of self-transformation are already in our souls for those who allow them to surface, while for others who are more resistant, a more literal journey can be exactly what is required to shake us loose from our preconceived notions.