All books listed in this portfolio are traditionally published and available in both e-book and paperback at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Booka-a-Million unless noted below in their short blurbs.

 

THE SWAMP DRAGON : (Whiskey Creek Press 2011) Civil War Fantasy for YA and Adult readers- From the misty mountains and shadowy hollows of Laurel, West Virginia a new legend arises. It is 1863 in Civil War torn southern Hardy County.  Beloved schoolteacher, George Voorhees cares only for the children he teaches and the love of his life, Sarah Cunningham.  However, he soon finds himself involved in a war he is trying to avoid.  In this part of the county, Captain Luther Boggs, a vicious leader of a gang of bushwhackers he calls the Confederate Home Guard, uses the war to steal from and terrorize neighbors. George becomes the unlikely hero shortly after he joins the Union militia known as Swamp Dragons at his brother’s insistence.   When George is shot by Boggs during an ambush, Abigail, his friend and local midwife/witch turns him into a real swamp dragon in order to save his life and right a cosmic wrong. Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, revenge, magic, and power beyond what he ever knew as reality. With only Abigail’s advice for guidance and the continued love of Sarah, he fears he will lose, George must navigate the dangerous terrain of a strange world and end the reign of terror by a man whose evil knows no bounds. Thus begins a local legend, and chain of strange and chilling events that lead all the way to Washington. 

 

DARK WATERS : (Salvo Press 2012) Maritime Historical Fiction -  The story of one of the greatest ocean liner disasters – The sinking of the Lusitania at the very beginning of WWI as seen from members of crew and a few of her passengers as well as those on the U-boat that sank her. It is a story filled with controversy.  The Lusitania, the most magnificent and fastest liner of her time held a deadly secret.  She had been built with Admiralty money to be easily converted to an armed naval cruiser and was being used to smuggle arms and ammunition to England her passengers unknowingly in the role of human shields with her captain in denial of the operation.  It is also a tale of a more genteel world forcibly being introduced to the concept of total war by desperate combatants where the submarine was an experimental but frightening new weapon of stealth being used in large numbers for the first time in history.

 

LUCKY NAT: JUSTICE FOR A SLAVER  (Wordwooze 2023) – Maritime Historical Fiction-Part Sea chase and part courtroom drama, this is the story of notorious slaver, Nathanial Gordon, the only slaver hung for the crime of piracy by a 1820’s law declaring slavers to be pirates that was never enforced until the Lincoln administration.  It is also the story of those men who brought him to justice from the US Navy crew of the USS Mohican that captured him with 970 slaves, mostly children, crammed aboard his small ship to the judges and prosecuting lawyers, and the defense lawyers who tried to save him from the gallows taking the case all the way to President Lincoln on the requests of his naïve young wife and mother.  Heavily researched, Storm Warning is a story that bursts from one of the darkest parts of American history putting light on the true cause of the Civil War.

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GHOST OF A CHANCE - (Wordwooze Books 2022)- Political Comedy/Ghost Story - A ghost story, but not just any typical ghost story.  It starts with Frank Barnes, a young freshman progressive senator from West Virginia who is running for POTUS on a third-party ticket against a corrupt Republican incumbent and not much better Democratic contender with the help of his dedicated and harried campaign manager, Andrea May who considers herself as den mother to their whole campaign.  Behind in the polls, underdog Frank hasn’t the ghost of a chance until a real ghost – the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt makes a startling appearance.  A book bought for Frank’s birthday at an antique bookstore, Alice in Wonderland, came from Teddy’s personal library and his ghost is attached to it.  With a famous Roosevelt quote at each chapter heading, so begins a wild political adventure that is either hilarious or scary depending on the politics of the reader.

Also available on Audio.

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THE CAT WHO FELL TO EARTH - (Wordwooze 2024) Science Fiction – Set in the contemporary United States in Sedona, AZ this is a quirky first contact story involving a covert alien plot to make it happen while anti-contact and pro-contact factions argue it out in their Confederation of Planets council. Caught in the middle are two of the most unlikely of heroes - Kedi, a leonine alien planetary environmental scientist who’s science probe delivering ship is deliberately sabotaged to create the incident and Crystal Hopkins, a Sedona AZ New Age shop owner who witnesses the crash landing and gets involved with helping him escape capture by Area 51 military forces known as MAJESTIC that are quickly closing in. The story takes the reader on a wild often controversial ride sprinkled with laughs all culminating in a final confrontation at the crash site in Boynton Canyon with Earth’s future in the balance.   "...literary catnip..." Kirkus Reviews.  "Love this story ...A page turner that will keep science fiction fans reading into the night."  Inkitt Reviews.

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THE 13th CHILD - (Hellbender Books/ Sunbury Press 2020)  Horror - For over two hundred years, the people of the New Jersey Pine Barrens have talked of the 13th child in wonder and fear. Some say he is simply a folktale - a legend created to frighten children on cold winter nights or to keep older folks walking the straight and narrow. Others swear he is a terrifying nature spirit returning again and again to protect the forest from those who exploit it out of greed. And to those who have seen him, he is all too darkly, horrifyingly real. This is a novel of horror follows the legendary Leeds Devil from his birth in 1733 to a harried Quaker woman with too many mouths to feed to the infamous mass sightings of 1909 to modern times and a run in with a group searching for Bigfoot.  It is told from many viewpoints of the family and people he affected and that of the inter-dimensional spirit creature himself, a tragic character in his own right forever in search of acceptance.  Semi-finalist for the 2018 Chanticleer International Book Award.

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ARIZONA RED GHOST - (Wordwooze 2021) Western Novella - In 1883 Arizona Territory, Joe Crane has been successfully using camels in his freight business for years.  That is, until three outlaws decide to attach his small caravan headed to Solomonville thinking he's carrying gold from the mines in Jerome. He is critically wounded and when the outlaws find nothing of value, they play a cruel revenge of lashing him to a camel and leaving him to his fate in the desert.  They don't take into account the man's son and his ex-slave partner's determination to find him or the vengeful nature of camels. Available on Amazon in e-book and audio book format.

 

FLASHBACK: LIFE AFTER MURDER - (Wordwoose  2023)- Paranormal Crime Novel - Equine veterinary technician Walter Watson reincarnated as a racehorse must expose a cruel insurance fraud and his own murder.   He will not be alone in his quest.  Merlin, a black barn cat once a homicide detective; famous animal psychic Sally Andrews and her P.I. friend Chris Mackenzie will see to that. Audio book version.

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JERRY SWIFT AND CHIRON'S PRIDE - BOOK 1- (Penit Publications 2023) YA Contemporary Fantasy Series - In Kentucky horse country two dimensions touch.  A portal is created. High school genius Jerry Swift finds a glowing stone on the side of the road, but the school star quarterback Andrew Collins takes it from him calling him a “real horse’s ass” in the process and throws the stone into a cornfield.  Jerry’s whole world is changed.  The next night he is awakened when his bed collapses and he finds he is now a centaur.  On his quest to get his old life back, Jerry quickly begins navigating two worlds.  One is of pure myth where magic and the old Greek gods, goddesses and monsters are frighteningly real.  The other is in his own world where he risks all in helping his sister in her equine sport of stadium jumping for her Olympic quest when her horse becomes seriously injured.  However, Jerry and his family are not alone in their search for answers and breaking the curse.  True to the old saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears”, Chiron, centaur teacher of heroes, comes to their aid in an adventure fit for a Homeric epic.

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