An eruption on the Sun leaves the Earth powerless, but is it a temporary inconvenience or the start of a spiral into anarchy?
Belfast Professor Martin Monroe knows the answers, but once branded a conspiracy nut, he struggles to get anyone to listen to his warnings of the impending disaster. His only friend, Simon Wilson, still coming to terms with the loss of his wife, is the only person who will listen.
Fighting against bureaucracy and her own lack of confidence, Government Communications officer Lisa Keenan struggles to get the word out. Despite the protests of her colleagues, she enlists the help of the professor.
With a wife and new-born child to think of, Prison supervisor, Derek Henderson, must weigh duty against family, and live with the consequences of an impossible decision.
Will the world’s total reliance on technology, and the electricity that powers it, lead to the irreversible disintegration of society on a global scale?
The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic
The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic
“Plural identity is where respectful practice begins.”
Who are you? Just the one body and mind? Does your story begin with your birth? Or how far back would you go?
The Oldest Word spans ten thousand years and more than a dozen settings. Human contradictions are reconciled time and again, with tragedy and humor feeding off each other. From the twin mirror mazes of history and psychology, amid ever-shifting social and natural landscapes, enduring patterns emerge.
The story opens with the discovery of a mysterious box from the distant past. Its makers are five orphaned friends who hope to help civilizational knowledge survive disruptive climate change centuries in the future: the ending of the Ice Age. The bar is continuously raised as the box travels through space and time to the present day. Readers are tacitly encouraged to partner with the author and fill in the blanks by considering their metaphorical boxes, lessons for the future from their past.
Visions of Johanna by Peter Sarno
“A beautifully written literary novel . . . Sarno’s use of metaphors and lush language draws readers into the story . . . [who] may shed a tear or two before the final page is turned.”
—BlueInk, Starred Review
Johanna, an artist, and Matt, a music critic, couldn’t be more different, but by a simple twist of fate, she plucks him from a crowd at a Dylan concert. What follows is a heady and intense relationship buffeted by the usual suspects that gently rocked the ‘80s. Matt’s lessons in art—as well as life—at the hands of Johanna, drive the novel into pockets of feminism and quiet revolution. All of this is tempered by deeply held traumatic secrets that torque their intimacy.
Yet it’s Revere—and not Boston—that remains one of the underlying attractions in “Visions of Johanna”. This north shore backdrop brings Matt into full focus—a child in a city of recent immigrants, life by the ocean, the bilious flavor of the Mob are just some of the elements rendered in skillful detail. Johanna, a renegade from Wisconsin—freewheeling and hyper-energized—draws Matt out of his comfort zone and into her world.
A meditation on art and unrest, “Visions of Johanna” celebrates life, love, memory and the undying power of the deep connections that sustain us. The novel follows Johanna and Matt as they pursue their dreams to paint and to write. But burdening problems collide with these artistic desires and other forces conspire against them. Ultimately, the two are done in by their inability to share aspects of their past they believe they must hide from.
The novel travels through time and social unrest to the final moment hinted at in the prologue. Within this book’s pages, tragedies haunt, acts of moral goodness manifest themselves, and benevolence reigns with a finality that absolves all.
“A beautifully intimate romance that doesn’t shy away from challenging topics.”
—Publishers Weekly’s BookLife
“This would be a perfect book club book. With questions that address the concepts of faith and hope to the efforts put towards the women’s movement, there is a lot that can be talked about…Detailed, wonderfully written, and thought-provoking, ‘Visions of Johanna’ will have readers thinking long after they put the book down.”
— Kristi Elizabeth, Manhattan Book Review
Targeted Age Group:: Adult
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I read a novel about a younger man and an older female artist and it hadn't rung true. Though written by a well-established author, it seemed to me to be about a "pretend" artist. Of course, I could be dead wrong. Other folks were engaged and enjoyed it. But—with a certain level of arrogance—I thought, I knew a talented and brave artist and might be able to share the experience of what that artistic life was like more effectively.
Then I thought, "Why hadn't that relationship worked out?"
Ten Threads by Richard R Becker
Ten Threads by Richard R Becker
Ten Threads is a brisk 125-page, 10-story companion to the bestselling, award-winning collection 50 States.
Published as a Kindle exclusive, it can be read as a stand-alone anthology or as a continuation of stories found in 50 States. Specifically, this collection features stories set in Idaho, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Utah, Pennsylvania, California, Vermont, Nevada, Maine, and Kentucky.
• An Idaho farmer who earns a second chance at life finds that the past has a hard time letting him go.
• A risk-averse young man must make a bold move after stumbling into a nightmarish government biohazard. • An aging alcoholic vigilante finds common ground with a teenager in a secret witness protection program.
50 States readers will find that eight stories feel like continuations. The other two, while connected to their counterparts, aren’t strongly linked. Whether read together or alone, Becker’s body of work plays out like a puzzle with new little bits shared a few pieces at a time.
The Mess in Her Womb by Chhavi Gandhi
Pranay Ahuja and Drishti Kapoor are quintessential young, happily married couple in their thirties in the Garden city of Bangalore. Their seemingly smooth ride through life is jolted by a hurricane when Drishti learns about her issues of infertility. With constant failures, miscarriages, and continuous In-vitro fertilization procedures, Drishti spirals into depression. The chase for the baby leads to a strained relationship with her parents, finding solidarity in the people with the same circumstances, and resentment towards people with pregnancy announcements. Understanding her deteriorating mental health and initial denial of the treatment, she diverts her chase from the baby towards mental peace.
This is the story of a woman who has everything everyone else wishes for, a loving husband, an extremely supportive set of parents, a blooming career, and financial security. In order to pursue what she can’t have, she risked everything she had. While drowning in the sea of sorrows, she finds solace in her best friend Naina, who like her, is trying to be pregnant through IVF, Mrs. Seema, a successful business owner and her next-door neighbor, and her boss and colleagues at her workplace.
In this contemporary fiction of pain, hurt, rage, disappointment, loss, love, and hope, follow Drishti and Pranay in their mission to find their purpose, rekindle the lost love in their relationship, and build the world they have longed for.
Targeted Age Group:: 16 years and above
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
My husband and my battle with infertility inspired me. Through this journey, I met the strongest women of my life who encouraged me to pen down what we go through every day. If our readers know someone who are the victim of infertility, they will learn the compassion and support those couples need.
Your Father has Something to Tell You by Dave Riese
What kind of shadow does a family secret cast over the child?
Mark Aherne is a middle-aged, married man living in Chicago. He’s estranged from his parents in Boston, his father having bullied and belittled him throughout his childhood.
One Sunday, he receives a desperate phone call from Leslie, his sister, who has cared for their parents for many years. She needs help: his aging parents are sick and are drinking again. Mark soon finds himself back home with his sister dealing with their parents’ loss of independence.
As he cares for his parents, he remembers the past when he lived with his father’s emotional control over him and the family. Although Mark now recognizes the humor in many of his childhood memories, he still recalls those that filled him with guilt and a sense of separation.
As he slowly comes to understand his family’s dysfunction, he discovers secrets in his parents’ lives that led to their own unhappiness. While coping with his mother’s dementia and his father’s stubborn isolation, Mark fears his own aging as he learns to lay to rest the experiences of his childhood.
Targeted Age Group:: 18+
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I wrote several short stories about my childhood in the 1950s for my children but didn't publish them. When my elderly parents required help in their 80s, my sister and I shared caring for them. After they died, I wrote a memoir about their last years and reflected on their lives.
When I wrote the book, I turned the plot from a memoir into fiction. In order to introduce drama, I added family conflict: a domineering father, an estranged son, and an undercurrent of long-held parental secrets.
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The Jackson MacKenzie Chronicles Broken Valor by Angel Giacomo
Duty. Honor. Country. The motto by which Major Harry Russell lived as a United States Army Special Forces officer. How does he move forward when his entire life has been turned on its head? Everything Harry worked toward all his life is gone. Gone like his foot in a nighttime mortar attack. Gone like his career since the Army kicked him out as worthless dead weight. Gone like his friends, missing on a secret mission. All he has now is himself. And as a Vietnam veteran, that may not be enough.
Targeted Age Group:: Adult
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The beginning of the 1st book in the series came in a dream and an article in Time magazine. Heroes today are few. And we need more of them. This book is a continuation of that theme as it follows a secondary character in the first book as he fights through the loss of his foo
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The Jackson MacKenzie Chronicles Brothers In Arms by Angel Giacomo
Duty – Service – Love of country – Honor – Dreams – Family. Those words mean everything to young Michael “Mikey” Roberts. From a small Kansas town, Mikey wants to find his path in life. To accomplish that he joins the United States Army. During his first tour of duty in Vietnam, he found his path…medicine. He became a Special Forces medic. However, in war that path can fork many times. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst. Mikey finds more horror than he expected and learns more about life than he ever wanted to know.
Targeted Age Group:: Adult
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The beginning of the 1st book in the series came in a dream and an article in Time magazine. Heroes today are few. And we need more of them. This book is a continuation of that theme. It goes into the backstories of the characters and how they met, seen in the eyes of the unit medic.
[Read more…] about The Jackson MacKenzie Chronicles Brothers In Arms by Angel Giacomo
The Jackson MacKenzie Chronicles Forged in Fire and Blood by Angel Giacomo
USMC Camp Pendleton, 1951. Jackson Joseph MacKenzie, a seventeen-year-old with a calling, enlists in the US Army. He finds himself hip-deep in the muddy trenches, machine gun nests, human wave attacks, and artillery barrages in the Korean War. Does he have the resiliency to keep moving toward his dream after watching his friends die? Is he a leader or a follower? Will he fold under pressure? Or rise to the top? Questions he must answer before reaching for that coveted prize, an appointment to West Point.
Targeted Age Group:: Adult
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The beginning of the 1st book in the series came in a dream and an article in Time magazine. Heroes today are few. And we need more of them. This book is a continuation of that theme. This is an early years book where the main character enlists in the Army with a dream of going to West Point. It was even fact-checked by a graduate of the actual class of the character.
[Read more…] about The Jackson MacKenzie Chronicles Forged in Fire and Blood by Angel Giacomo
50 States by Richard R. Becker
50 States by Richard R. Becker
An Idaho farmer who aches for absolution after a tragedy is given one more chance at redemption. Two runaways cross paths in a Tennessee bus station with only one ticket between them. A family sees looters racing toward their home as they escape an Oregon wildfire. A young couple takes a reckless turn off a state highway in Utah and find themselves in a nightmarish government biohazard area.
These and 46 more shorts make up an anthology that will surprise readers with each new thought-provoking story as they skip effortlessly across different genres, moods, and states of mind. Together, they provide a character-driven sampling of the American experience over the last 60 years — the kind and the cruel, the heroic and criminal — in unpredictable and exciting ways.
50 States is a debut collection of short stories that captures the human condition and reveals how perception shapes destiny. The book spans several literary genres with each short story set in a different state across America. It is soon to be released as an audiobook, narrated by a 5-time Emmy winner.
