The Honeybee Rivals the Spring

The Honeybee Rivals the Spring is a poignant collection of poetry that invites you, the reader, on a transformative journey alongside the author. As you traverse the pages, you’ll find your perspective broadening, compelling you to delve into the depths of your own thoughts and emotions. This compilation serves as a supportive companion, empowering you to connect deeply with the vivid portrayals of self-discovery and personal insight. Through its verses, you’re encouraged to embrace a journey of understanding, reflecting on your innermost sentiments and experiences.

The Incorrigible Rogue

Rochdale, Lancashire, England, 1885.

Martha Anne Ashworth is in trouble in school, once again. The precocious and gifted 10 year old daughter of mill owner John Ashworth has, for the umpteenth time, tried school and parental patience and now legal authority with her quick wit, sharp tongue, impudent defiance, and certain determined independence. With her mother dying, and her father drowning his woes in whisky, young Martha Anne’s wildness leads to her eventual arrest as an Incorrigible Rogue; all seems to be spiraling out of control until an uncanny friendship with the village wise woman, Betty Nuppy, helps guide Martha Anne on a path to salvation, if not, at least, redemption.

The Jungle Entrepreneurs

Allen and Franco are two young entrepreneurs coasting their last year of Business School in New York. Feeling drained and uninspired by the pressures of success, they take on an expected journey to the jungle of Costa Rica, where they will do what they can to make a business out of an old, abandoned property, submerged in local rumors.

Once surrounded by the power of the place, they unravel an unexpected family history, which will take them on a wild and spiritual inner journey. The struggles of arduous work and lack of resources will shape these men’s partnership, new friendships, and the way they each understand their lives.

In this intimate tale, N.V. Parks takes us on a unique spiritual journey, a rite of healing and transformation into adulthood, unraveling a new meaning of happiness and success, while soaking in the magnificent beauty of Ostional Wildlife Refuge.

The Land of Bondage

The tranquil dawn of April 20, 1997, in the blossoming town of Cambridge Springs, PA, unexpectedly veers into the precipice of a global cataclysm. World peace teeters on the edge as a confrontation unfolds between a Soviet nuclear submarine and a U.S. vessel in the chilly waters off Alaska’s coast, a moment in history that threatens to plummet humanity into a nightmarish abyss.

On this fateful morning, Ben Forsythe, the esteemed mayor of Cambridge Springs, orchestrates a delightful lawn party at his elegant estate, hosting the town’s dignitaries. While his wife is away in Philadelphia, a myriad of guests, including the endearing yet cantankerous Shuler Whitfield, grace the event. Unbeknownst to them, this idyllic gathering is but the calm before a storm of apocalyptic proportions.

A few hours hence, Ben finds himself awakened amidst the ruins of his once grand abode, the echoes of a fiery cataclysm reverberating through the charred remains of his haven. The ghastly spectacle of devastation unveils itself as he steps into a world mourning the loss of life, his guests and housekeeper now mere memories amidst the ashes. The sorrow-laden trees and the silence of the land accompany Ben’s desperate gaze as he scans the horizon, a solitary figure yearning for a sign of humanity amidst the gloom.

With a heart heavy yet undeterred, Ben embarks on an odyssey of survival in a world unhinged from its yesteryears of peace. The Land of Bondage unfolds a chilling narrative of a nuclear showdown between the Soviet Union and the U.S., painting a stark yet compelling tale that mirrors the looming fears of a world on the brink. Readers traversing through this haunting narrative will find themselves entwined with a dire prophecy, a harrowing reminder of a path that must never be tread.

The Last Ones

In the chilling depths of The Last Ones, six individuals, burdened with a sinister curse since birth, find themselves entangled in a malevolent game of life and death. Trapped in a twisted labyrinth of deadly challenges, their survival hinges on one crucial element: love.

As the enigmatic puzzle of their cursed existence unfolds, the bonds they forge become their only hope. In a race against time, they must navigate treacherous trials where victory guarantees life, while defeat offers no escape but a gruesome demise.

Together, they must unravel the dark mysteries behind their individual curses, discovering the hidden connections that bind them and the shared secrets that hold the key to their salvation.

Can love becomes the ultimate weapon against the insidious forces which seek to claim their souls?

The Last Trip

Six years after a devastating trip shattered his world, Samuel journeys back to a place he once called home. The familiar surroundings now feel foreign, haunted by the echoes of a long-gone happiness. A flicker of truth ignites a relentless pursuit for answers. As he delves deeper, the line between memory and reality blurs. Will Samuel find the solace he craves, or will the unearthed truth bury him even deeper in the wreckage of the past?

The Last True Blonde

Every summer, hordes of Ernest Hemingway lookalikes swarm Key West to compete on Papa’s birthday.

This summer, one of them is a killer.

When a vacationing family discovers the headless corpse of a Key West party girl, the case falls to Monroe County homicide detective Jack Dodge. A third-generation conch and Key West native, Dodge has been on an extended lost weekend aboard his dilapidated houseboat the Jackie Oh! since his lover was brutally slain in a botched drug bust. He’s the best there is, but these days the only dead body Dodge wants any part of is his own.

As the body count climbs, nervous merchants pressure Dodge’s cocky young Key West Police Department counterpart Rick Michaels to hastily solve the case in the press before the big-money weekend slips through their fingers. Everyone’s happy with Rick’s quick fix except Dodge, whose conch instincts lead him to the mysterious Wilde sisters and their exotic discotheque where anything goes… even murder.

The Last True Blonde takes you inside the exotic world of after-hours Key West, where quick-money schemes, rum-soaked ambition and insatiable sexual hungers combine for an explosive 110-proof mystery.

The Last Vanishing Point

2013

Olivia discovers letters and a painting by her uncle William, an artist and WWII bombardier who vanished after being shot down over France just before D-Day. Inexplicably compelled, Olivia begins a personal quest to discover William’s fate.

1943

William says goodbye to his new wife, Maddie, a concert pianist in New York City, and joins the RAF to battle the Nazis in occupied Europe. He quickly comes to regret the death and devastation wrought by his bombing missions, in sharp contrast to his times on leave, painting landscapes of the English countryside. Unexpectedly, William is recruited as an agent for the Special Operations Executive by a mysterious woman at a manor in the Cotswolds and leaves for the Scottish Highlands. Based on her family connections with the Underground, Maddie embarks on her own treacherous journey that leads her to join the French Resistance in Paris.

The Last Vanishing Point is a compelling love story of mystery and intrigue, and of how the power of art and the enduring bonds of family can heal trauma and loss. The reader is transported through historical details and the author’s cinematic writing style will take you to another time and place where a heartfelt and timeless story unfolds.

The Lost Words

From the gritty streets of Boston, Massachusetts to the warm and secure blankets that wrap up his children at night, John Cole has provided us with a collection of stories and prose that capture the essence of everyday working-class life.

From young adulthood to fatherhood, John Cole uses his own words to paint vivid emotional pictures of the blue-collar realism that exists for most of us during the earlier stages of the twenty-first century.

The weight of his words and the significance of his stories are delicate and powerful, and readers will handle these stories with the care and gentle reserve they ask for.

The Loura Lure

Dr. Shamus Bergin lands a coveted position of Staff Psychologist in the Secure Treatment Unit of a mental hospital right out of school. He is soon vexed by an amnesiac patient who defies clinical diagnosis and whom every other doctor has written off. Inconsistencies about the man’s origins intersect with Shamus’s own doubts that the patient even belongs in an institution.As his own investigation continues to be met with redacted files and evasion from governmental agencies, the doctor-patient relationship suddenly undergoes a radical shift. The patient discloses that he has time travelled from a forgotten Age of Loura to seek help from modern day members of The Sacred Order of Keepers to find the last living angel. Only the angel can turn the tide in the ultimate struggle between good and evil in this deliberately erased timeline 20,000 years in the past. With his parents tragically lost in a boating accident a decade earlier, Shamus must turn to his one true friend, Dr. John Browse, to make sense of the voices within which are calling him to action.With career and grip on sanity at stake, Shamus must decide whether he has succumbed to the delusions of a sick mind or whether he should take a leap of faith and help the man achieve his mission.

The Man Who Wanted to Be Cary Grant

George is at rock bottom: His wife is leaving him, his job is gone, and even his kids can barely stand him. But instead of wallowing in despair, George opts for a drastic makeover. Inspired by his cinematic hero, Cary Grant, he sets out to reinvent himself, enlisting the help of modern-day mentors akin to Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering from ‘My Fair Lady.’

Suddenly, George is the toast of Hollywood. He rubs elbows with A-listers like Bradley Cooper and George Clooney, while acclaimed directors like Spielberg are captivated by his charm.

But when George’s estranged mother orchestrates a reunion with his childhood love, he’s forced to ponder the cost of his new life. Is this glamorous façade worth losing the one who got away? The choice becomes even more complicated when he spots her in the arms of another man.

Returning to LA, George finds that his friends and family have teamed up for the ultimate romantic intervention – with a celestial assist from Cary Grant himself.

The Marigold Chemise

A stunning intergenerational mystery set in Italy, full of intrigue, betrayal, and murder. The silky marigold chemise seems to have a mind of its own. Whoever wears it ends up having prophetic dreams and is incapable of parting with it. In the early seventeenth century, sixteen-year-old Lucida secretly poses in the garment for a series of sensuous paintings, done by her best friend Alessia. Her talented friend longs for recognition, but women are not considered serious artists at the time. The paintings can never see the light of day. Lucida and Alessia’s families would be dishonored by the impropriety of the chemise and Lucida’s poses, as well as the female artist behind them.

However, the paintings are so good, and would set up Alessia’s family for years, that her father sells them anonymously. They wind up in the studies of wealthy Italian businessmen in Roma, one of whom is the father of Lucida’s arranged new suitor, Niccolo, though Lucida is under the chemise’s spell and cannot part with it even then. The garment and the paintings travel through generations of Italian families all the way through present day, following the headstrong women of the Bianchi, Galvani, and Orazio families through Rome, Florence, New York, and finally Corsica.

As the luxurious marigold lingerie passes from woman to woman, arousing greed, deception, and secrecy, the women and their families must find a way to persevere and stay together.