About the Author
Ken Lord is an eclectic writer of both fiction and nonfiction. Since 1976, he has penned novels, including adventure, romance, mystery, western, and inspirational tomes. He has written extensive educational and directive nonfiction, including training materials, magazine articles, blogs, commercial advertising, and “how-to” publications. His experience as a ghostwriter is extensive. His business publications list is extensive, including negotiation, real estate, management, motivation, establishment of goals, and measurement of results.
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FEATURED RELEASE!
SIZZLE & GRIT
Price: $21.76
In the quiet, unassuming town of Sunrise, Iowa, the peace is shattered when an explosion rocks Millie’s Diner, sending shockwaves through the community. What follows is a pulse-pounding journey through a tangled web of secrets, betrayal, and survival that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Amid the flames and destruction, Jack Wagner plunges into the heart of danger, risking everything to retrieve a mysterious package from the burning wreckage. What could possibly be worth the risk?
As Jack digs deeper, the whispers of the town’s buried past begin to surface, pulling him into a labyrinth of deception and hidden agendas. Every shadowy alley and dusty corner of Sunrise hides a clue, while the town’s officials, hobos, lawyers, and even the local preacher play a part in a story that runs far deeper than anyone could have imagined. The diner, once a symbol of hope in a town battered by the Great Depression, becomes the epicenter of a thrilling mystery where nothing—and no one—is as it seems.
From a fateful Thanksgiving dinner to the explosive downfall of a corrupt mayor, this suspenseful tale is packed with twists and revelations. As the stakes skyrocket, Jack is forced to navigate treacherous waters, with the fate of the town—and his own life—hanging in the balance. Can he unravel the truth before it’s too late, or will the dark forces at play bury Sunrise’s secrets forever?
Step into this gripping saga where redemption collides with retribution, and uncover the shocking answers hidden within a small town on the brink of chaos. The truth is out there—but it comes at a price.
Fictional; Christian
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THE BARBER OF ANDERSONVILLE
Paperback: $37.10
They arrived at Andersonville in rags, marched under sun and rifle toward a stockade built not to hold men, but to punish them for the decisions of others and to forget them. They drank from a ditch, slept in filth, and watched the strongest crumble.
Then came the promise of freedom—parole, transport, the long road home. And he survived Andersonville.
But the war had one last cruelty to endure. The real trial would begin on the way home.
Private Arlo Farrington dreamt only of returning to Maine, to the barbershop he left behind and the family he loves. But when he’s crammed aboard the Sultana with thousands of fellow Union survivors, his journey takes a fateful turn.
Based on the true stories of the Confederate’s worst prison and America’s deadliest maritime disaster, this novel traces one soldier’s path through the ravages of war, the imprisonment by the Army of the Confederacy, the shadows of corruption, and the fire-lit waters of the Mississippi—where survival may come at the cost of his soul.
And the Commandant of Andersonville faced a tribunal.
History forgot them. This story does not.
Fictional
SIZZLE & GRIT
In the quiet, unassuming town of Sunrise, Iowa, the peace is shattered when an explosion rocks Millie’s Diner, sending shockwaves through the community. What follows is a pulse-pounding journey through a tangled web of secrets, betrayal, and survival that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Amid the flames and destruction, Jack Wagner plunges into the heart of danger, risking everything to retrieve a mysterious package from the burning wreckage. What could possibly be worth the risk?
As Jack digs deeper, the whispers of the town’s buried past begin to surface, pulling him into a labyrinth of deception and hidden agendas. Every shadowy alley and dusty corner of Sunrise hides a clue, while the town’s officials, hobos, lawyers, and even the local preacher play a part in a story that runs far deeper than anyone could have imagined. The diner, once a symbol of hope in a town battered by the Great Depression, becomes the epicenter of a thrilling mystery where nothing—and no one—is as it seems.
From a fateful Thanksgiving dinner to the explosive downfall of a corrupt mayor, this suspenseful tale is packed with twists and revelations. As the stakes skyrocket, Jack is forced to navigate treacherous waters, with the fate of the town—and his own life—hanging in the balance. Can he unravel the truth before it’s too late, or will the dark forces at play bury Sunrise’s secrets forever?
Step into this gripping saga where redemption collides with retribution, and uncover the shocking answers hidden within a small town on the brink of chaos. The truth is out there—but it comes at a price.
Fictional; Christian
SPLINTER!
Paperback: $18.95
In Pine Knot, Maine, lumber mill owner Winston Carrington has been murdered and the mill has been torched. His son, Daniel, has been summoned from New York City and State Police Investigator Quentin Price has been assigned to find the perpetrator. Daniel returns via a chartered flight that lands a hundred miles away from home. He is then driven home by a part-time preacher who has been asked to conduct the memorial service. The will is read and contains several surprises, most of which are inconvenient to both an angry widow and a young man with no intent to stay. Things change at the service. Quentin and an associate find leads not only to the fire and the murder but also stumble on the international smuggling of contraband. A mill hand is also arrested and his wife pulls an empty gun. But things are not as they seem. Quentin must return to Pine Knot because he’s concerned he has the wrong man. And the Mountie always gets his man. And then there is Daniel and Elsie, Tyrone and Edna.If you’re looking for a Christian mystery/love story, you might try SPLINTER!
Fictional; Romance, Murder
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 1
Paperback: $17.99
An Acceptable Substitute (A story of Nebraska)
Pioneer Horace Humphrey’s daughter Rebecca Langley is suddenly widowed. He cannot support her and two grandchildren, so he advertises for a husband for his daughter. He got more than he bargained for, however. The novelette traces the second family… until the tragedy.
The Baptism of Maisie Morgan (A story of Texas)
Unmarried Preacher Hank Morgan attends a Civil War reunion at the Splinter Saloon. On a dare, he places an advert in search of a wife, provided others do so also. Responses are both serious and frivolous, but he is drawn to one – a woman who appears different from what he expects.
The Amish Widow (A story of Texas and Pennsylvania)
Jesse Beiler is dead. Hannah must now either rejoin her family or depart the settlement. Wesley Palmer’s children want him to find a “new mommie.” God tells him to advertise. When a critical neighbor discards the newspaper, Hanna takes it and the fun begins.
A Joint Venture with God (A story of Arizona)
Gabriel Pearson has lost his business, wife, family, car, and his house. Broke, he’s living at a rescue facility. He has a ticket for Arizona State football. Wandering near the stadium, he encounters two people who will change his life. Before he finally accepts the partnership of God in a new business, he must meet seemingly insurmountable challenges.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 2
Paperback: $18.99
No Unpaid Debt (A story of Oregon)
Amabel Durning is a widow who returns to teaching. She is hired to organize a women’s program at a new Christian college. Tucker Maxwell is a widower and sawmill owner. His business frequently takes him to Sacramento, where in 1875 he encounters Amabel at a train station. With much in common, they experience the reigning spirit of Chintimini.
Love Demands No Return (A story of Montana)
Marianna Webster’s father challenges her to leave St. Louis and teach in the wilds of Montana. Aaron Winchell is a detective recruit hired to protect her. Each finds interest, until it’s apparent it’s no coincidence they are together. The town of Handy has a depleted gold mine. A wildcatter discovers a blue stone that stone directs romance in a town at the edge of the country.
The Passage of Beatrice Bevins (A story of Colorado)
It seemed obvious to Beatrice that the master’s interest in her extended more to her physical attributes than her competence. Her training restrained against the idea of a tryst. She must not risk the disapproval of God. The pressures of young adulthood sought to overthrow both, yet the idea of a compromise seemed inviting.
The Resurrection of Bartholomew Kelly (A story of Australia)
He began life in the squalor of the back alleys of Kilmurray, County Cork, Ireland, in the summer of 1823. His life ended, courtesy of His Majesty’s government, on the gallows of Norfolk Island, a thousand miles east of Sydney, Australia, in 1845. He was hanged with a handful of other convicts for attempting the piracy of His Majesty’s Ship, the Governor Phillip.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 3
Paperback: $18.99
Love Creates Music (A story of Montana)
Second in the series. Marianna Webster discovers that Aaron isn’t the love interest she thought. She feels he has betrayed her. He, on the other hand, was doing only what he was hired do. So she leaves Handy and returns to St. Louis, only to undergo the same harassment from her father. Unable to find work, she returns to Handy, and the sparks fly.
Silver Love (A story of Colorado)
Edna Strong of Cleveland has a test of wills with the mother of one of her school students and finds herself unemployed. An inheritance bequest gives her many shares of a Colorado mine. Seeking to determine their value, she journeys to Leadville. What she finds is not the gold she expected, but a rock of dubious value.
A Penny Saved (A story of Kansas)
Louise likes the porch swing her father gave her when her mother died. She wishes one thing—a new mother to share it. Justin Montgomery has died. His wife is unable to care for their child. It’s time to leave, but to what? Penelope Montgomery is on her knees seeking guidance. Then a newspaper enters her life.
Shay (A story of overcoming adversity)
How does God speak to a disabled child? How is the holy message conveyed to someone who cannot read and who can barely understand life? What is a father to do when it appears that his son is ostracized and bullied and fails understand why?
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 4
Paperback: $18.99
The Parson of Crow Creek Crossing (A story of Wyoming)
Naomi Heatherton’s intended is a bank robber who sold himself as an upstanding citizen and a worthwhile husband. But he’s dead—killed during a robbery. She arrives in Cheyenne with few resources and dashed expectations. And then she meets a man who changes her focus.
Thanks for your Time (A story of Neighbors)
Alan Batson lived next door. An engineer, he was friend and mentor. He helped with homework, taught about model airplanes, tools, and his favorite hobby. Alan had a gold-colored box that contained something very precious. After his funeral, it was delivered to me. What it contained was precious.
Strategic Withdrawal (A story of Kansas)
This is a World War I war bride story. Its characters are real, though their names and locations have been changed. While the circumstances may be rare, they are close to what thousands experienced. This story is the first of two. The next is in the next volume of these novelettes.
West of Goshen (A story of California)
Byron Taylor and his partner sold the gold claim, split the proceeds, and separated. He found work at a ranch but determined he’d have a spread of his own. But he wanted a wife, so he advertised. He never expected to meet Anna Troyer of Goshen, Indiana. But there she was, and she was an experience.
A Christmas Blessing (A story of Massachusetts)
There was no reason for Charlie Nickerson to stay open on Christmas Eve. Mabel was gone. He might as well stay because the weather was closing in for a major snowstorm. And then there were visitors, but none like these.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 5
Paperback: $18.99
Bittersweet Returns (A story of Kansas)
This concludes the war bride story begun in the previous volume. Ben Harris and Celeste LeBarge marry, return from France, and sire Babbette. Babbette is now an adult and has married a naval ensign. World War II is about to start.
Love is Kind (A story of Montana)
Aaron stays in Handy when Mariana returns home in a pique. She encounters the same pressures that existed before she left the first time. She returns to Handy upon guarantee of employment, but she’s cautious this time. Last in this series.
Polished Love (A story of Colorado and Nebraska)
This is the conclusion of the story of Vince and Edna. The Matchless Mine is approaching the end of its productive life. Edna, who has stock in the mine, agrees to sell it to allow her husband to return to Nebraska and to the cattle business.
The Angels of Dog Creek (A story of Oklahoma)
Kevin Dugan loses his job in the oil fields and abandons Brenda and their six children. After feeble attempts at support, he drops out of sight. Brenda must work to support herself and the children. They can’t do it without God’s help.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 6
Paperback: $18.99
The Race At Cross Hollow (A Story of Oregon)
Darren Hillyard is an Oregon horse trader. He’s firm but fair. However, he won’t forego a good trade. Beth Sinclair is also a horse dealer with a run of bad luck. When she tries to sell Warrior, a Thoroughbred, the buyer challenges Beth to a stakes race, with the horse as the purse. Or is it Beth herself?
The Whisper In A Windstorm (A Story Of California)
Tulelake, California, has a bird sanctuary and the hottest horseradish. Here an Indian tribe was defeated and a detention camp was built. Augusta Kernagar, a young Amish woman, has a land allotment and strange things occur when religious relics are found in her field.
The Second Moon (A Story of Oregon)
BB Milton is a son of a wealth. Against his father’s wishes, he joins the Union Army. Agatha Thurman is a widow whose husband dies under a collapsed load of logs. Her father-in-law encourages Agatha to again marry and to help her, he advertises for a suitor, offering land and marriage.
The Hack (A Story of New York City)
The call came at 3:00 a.m., Christmas morning. Another three hours and I’d be headed for home at the end of my second shift job. I drive a cab, but I wasn’t prepared for an elderly woman about to take her most important trip. I listen and my life is changed. What another might cabbie have done?
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 7
Paperback: $19.99
The Wind in the Tules (A story of California)
Augusta Kernagar takes government-provided land at Tule Lake, California. She must clear the land of the tules, a water weed. She falls into a large hole, where she finds what appears to be Spanish religious artifacts. When she hangs a cross inside her house, mysterious things began to happen.
Instant Family (A story of Ohio)
Jerry Carter and Myra Williams are runaways who encounter “Pola” Behr while begging for work and food. Behr is a retired wealthy industrialist who lives alone in a large mansion, attended by a housekeeper and gardener. Behr meets their needs and challenges them to change their lives.
Walter’s Song (A story that could be in your town)
When Arthur Cummings contracts Parkinson’s, his son Walter must forfeit his career ambitions and take over the business. When his wife dies, he must care for his daughter. Susan Elliott falls in love with the widowed father and his daughter. But Lois Wilson has designs of her own on Walter. Part 1 of 2.
Fire in the Belly (A bit of self-motivation)
There are those to whom things happen; those who make things happen; and those who wonder what happened. The differences lie in our culture. This short story details the steps to make you successful in whatever endeavor you undertake.
Fiction, Spiritual
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes – Volume 8
$20.99
A Talisman for Ida Mae (A story of Ohio and Oregon)
Facing conscription, Bradley and his family move to Oregon. Ida Mae promises to wait and write, but Rufus seeks to change her mind. Bradley returns, locates Ida Mae, offers the magic talisman, and she shuns Rufus.
Sing Unto the Lord
Psalm 96 is a call to inform the nations about God’s glory and His great salvation. It follows directly Psalm 95, which relates the obstinate, hard-heartedness of Israel in the wilderness despite God’s goodness towards them.
Tule Winds—the Hostilities
Augusta now has a husband and a son involved in the war. A Japanese American citizen relocation camp is built close by and she invites a family to visit. The wounding of her husband and the temporary loss of her son drives her to the cross on the wall. But we must still learn the power of that cross.
Walter’s Song (A story of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois)
The first part of Walter’s Song ended on a sour note. There’s more. Susan decides a future with Walter is impossible and finds work in Chicago. Lois applies pressure. Walter shuns it all and buries himself in his work. And then something happens that turns the world completely around.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Secret Son
$15.00
Barry, the illegitimate son of Judy, is a perpetual lawbreaker and has spent much of his life in prison. Judy, his mother, kept his existence from Harold when they married. Once he learned about Barry, Harold insists that Judy notify the court of Barry’s guilt. Barry is convicted and threatens his mother. Harold and Judy change their names to Howard and Jessica and head for Vermont. Rebecca has lost her husband Jason to a subway killer and leaves New York City to relocate to a job in Vermont. She changes her mind once she has arrived and takes over a now defunct diner, the scene of a murder/suicide. Howard dies. Jessica meets Carlton. Sheriff Gabe has an interest in Rebecca. But then Barry attacks Jessica. The story has a mixed ending that you may not expect.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Walter’s Song
Walter Cummings must change his college major and give up pursuit of his dream—musical performance—when he is informed that his father has Parkinson’s Disease. Walter’s parents own Bijoux Fine Jewelers, and Walter must take over the store. He studies business and gemology. At business school, he meets and marries Beryl. Their child, Heidi, is eight when the story begins. On her way to an appointment, Beryl is hit by a drunk driver and killed. Walter, in his office, is summoned to the church, where his Pastor tells him he is now a widower.
Apart from the loss of a spouse whom he loved profoundly, Walter must locate care for his daughter. He hires Susan Elliott, a community college student. A bond develops between her and Heidi, who begins to pressure her father to invite the babysitter to be her “new mommy.” There is only a five-year difference in their ages and Susan develops a fondness for Walter. Walter feels some of the same emotions but continues to grieve. He doesn’t feel right about pursuing a romance.
At a birthday party, Walter answers the door to find an old flame, Lois, herself a widow, with two undisciplined children. Lois works at the community college and campaigns to reignite old feelings and find a father for her children. Immediately, there is bad blood between Lois and Susan. Seeking to remove the competition, Lois finds a job for Susan—in Chicago. There she is accosted by a thief, assaulted by her supervisor, and leaves the job. When she swears out a complaint, she is invited to live in Chicago’s Entertainment District and work in a posh restaurant. When a riot occurs and the restaurant is torched, she’s without either work or a place to stay. Walter drives in a snowstorm to Chicago to rescue her.
The story is scripturally-based, emphasizing gospel counseling practices and music.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
A WIFE OF NOBLE CHARACTER
Paperback: $17.30
Wesley Mayfield, an 1888 graduate of the Cleveland Medical School, takes his first position in the town of Wichita Falls on the plains of North Texas. There are things there that are not available in Ohio, such as a tornado or a prairie fire. Horses and cattle aren’t new but hundreds of them in one place at one time definitely are.
He needs a nurse. Somebody asks the question every week, especially when it comes to that procedure. Never-married Wesley answers, “They’re all in the east.”
Advertise for a wife,” advises his friend Ike Tilton. Guided by his much-too-helpful minister friends, Wesley agrees. However, he wants God’s woman, so fliers are placed in churches from Boston to Atlanta. Now he must wait for the mail.
Ike’s wife Beatrice is the postmistress and town gossip. Many residents of Wichita Falls are interested in Doctor Mayfield’s mail!
Wesley receives several responses, but he’s interested in only four, each with a unique perspective on marriage, faith, religion, nursing, and childbearing. As he considers each, one arrives—with notoriety, convinced that God has led her there.
If you’re interested in a Christian fiction tale contained in a mail-order bride love story, you may enjoy A Wife of Noble Character.
Fiction; Spiritual Theme
The Princess of Pudding River
Paperback: $17.99
How should rancher Harlan Graves act when his daughter Bernice runs away from boarding school, arriving home frightened and wanting her mother? He hasn’t a clue, and the child’s mother is buried on their ranch.
How should Angelina Busto, The Cupcake Queen of New York, react when a nun attempts to set her up with a man nearly three thousand miles away? Her mother wants her to marry and bear children… but must it be so far away?
This is a story of the pairing of two adults and the assimilation of a child who fears for her future. The principals meet in the mail (early in the 20 th Century) and try to find a way to mesh. They meet in person and it doesn’t work out. So she goes home.
Was it a mislead? Is there a future for these two? Gilbert and Sullivan both have something to say about it. Especially if you like pastrami.
Among the unique features of the book is a Godly way to explain menses. The story captures the interest of the mail-order bride stories but includes scriptural guidance in child rearing and worship.
Fiction; Spiritual Theme
Overnight Delivery
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Overnight Delivery
$17.26
A turn of the century story of man (Brad Watson) meets woman (Carol Taylor) but woman has responsibilities and obligations (children, mortgages, single motherhood, business disaster) . He is a retired serviceman who is now a truck driver; she is a florist with four children. He is carrying memories of a lost love. She’s over-the-barrel both emotionally and financially. But both aren’t exactly what you might think they are—until something happens that she simply didn’t expect. This is a story of spiritual awakening that begins with an emergency delivery, is seasoned by a fire, is enhanced by salvation, is melded in some of the fancy places… and a few not so fancy and is proved under duress. It also has to do with acceptance and recognition that there are many good years yet to be had.
ETERNITY’S EMBRACE
Paperback: $25.40 (411 pages)
Kindle: $3.99
Frank Trask, a Maine lobsterman, is approached by Alan and Marjorie, children of Vernon and Bernice Townsley, who seek their mother’s grave. They claim she lived in a lighthouse, which is impossible. The siblings’ memories present contradictions. The words of One-eyed Bennie merely confound.
Bernice Jennings is the daughter of wealthy Bostonians. Vernon Townsley is a Kansas farmer who enlists in the Army and is wounded in France in WW1. The two meet at Togus Military Hospital, near Augusta. They fall in love and have a spat. Vernon searches for Bernie and finds her on Cross Island in Machias Bay. They marry, sire a family, and endure tragedy. Frank’s research untangles the confusion and resolves the questions. Bernie’s spirit guides the siblings to the grave, where their parents are left in Eternity’s Embrace.
Fiction; Romance.
Christmas Victory
Kindle: $2.99
Variations of this story have been around for years. Like other traditions, it bears interpretation and retelling.
Near Boston and just before Christmas, 1999, the area was “snowed in” from a sudden storm that literally shut things down.
For a widower who ran a gas station, however, life is about to take on an entirely new meaning. There is the couple desperate to get to the hospital. There is the man who half-heartedly attempts a robbery. There is a policeman whose wisdom infuses the scene with understanding. And there is someone who seems to be orchestrating the whole thing, until he disappears.
Short Story; Spiritual
CANANDAIGUA BRIDE
Paperback: $19.99 (340 pages)
The animal had gone to one of two places to seek grass or water. The three watering holes would have frozen with enough ice to deny the animal a drink. The steer would collapse the ice. The ice was not broken at the first two, but at the third, he heard the tortured bleating of the steer. It was there, trapped up to its haunches.
Connor gathered his coat close against the snow. His face showed perspiration. His waxed handlebar mustache was now a firm icicle that stretched from cheek to cheek.
He dismounted at the edge of the ice. The wind had cleared the surface and the ice appeared solid to the bottom, yet the steer had broken through and stood in waist-high water.
“I’m coming. I’m coming.” He spoke gentle words, as he hitched a rope to Sadie’s saddle horn and slowly began to edge out onto the ice. The edge held, but as he moved, it began to crack. He lowered himself to the ice and slid toward the distressed animal. If he could get the lariat loop over the animal’s head and horns, he could grasp the rope, work his way back to the horse, and pull the steer loose.
But the animal had another idea; it reared to shake the rope away. Unable to dodge an oncoming horn, he was gored and collapsed beside the steer, as the water in the hole slowly turned crimson.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
LOVE HAS A SOUTHERN HEARTBEAT
Paperback: $21.99
This is a love story, but not quite the way one would expect it to happen, with a surprise ending. It has gentleness, joy, pathos, and sadness. It puts you squarely into Victorian-era Arizona at a time when the railroad has not yet arrived and travel is by stagecoach.
Henry Stratham is a civil engineer, a former Union artilleryman, and a principal investor in a major railroad scandal. Elizabeth (Lizbeth) Truman is the widow of an Arizona logger who has two children. What do they have in common? Not much.
Thaddeus Truman, the widow’s father-in-law, decides it’s time for her to remarry and sets into motion a mail-order-husband effort. While Henry perceives that the opportunity allows him to obtain western employment and land, Lizbeth wrestles with the inevitability of her remarriage, if for no reason other than her children.
Campbell Stanley is a Michigan schoolteacher who attracts Naomi Givings, a young Georgia governess who has been ordered by the court to deliver her charges to a New Mexico orphanage. Was it only a chance meeting, or was there some overarching plan to draw her to the western city of Flagstaff, Arizona?
Two children, Martha and Jacob, each in search of a father, bring to the story the sadness over the loss of a parent and the consideration of a potential replacement who challenges their relationship with each other.
The wealthy traveler (Claude Chana) who rescues the orphanage and the U.S. Government auditor (J.R. Wentworth) who serves a warrant for the arrest of Henry Stratham—where do they fit into the story?
And finally, there is Old Wellington—the smartest horse you ever saw.
Fiction; Spiritual Theme
LOVE NEVER FORGETS
Paperback: $21.99 (365 pages)
Kindle: None
Mary Frances Cammack, 9, wishes to marry Cyrus Grantham, 17, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute. He’s in the Confederate Cavalry, headed toward Gettysburg. The Cammack Mansion is beset by gloom, due to the death of the mother and a sibling. The father will die at Vicksburg.
The thread that binds this family is a cook, Ida Mae Bell, who joins in a conspiracy to assist Mary Frances’ contact with Cyrus. Cyrus is wounded by artillery and is stripped of his uniform. He is picked up by Union troops detailed to bury victims. When he awakens in a barn, unaware of who he is, he selects a new name, Austin Boone.
Mary Frances grows, teaches, and writes as Felicity Harrison. After 20 years, she responds to a marriage solicitation in the newspaper, taking Boone’s offer to travel from Richmond to Los Angeles. Austin has no recollection of her. A romance kindles, but not without difficulty. The confusion over names is just the beginning. And there is the “Witch of Endor.”
Fiction; Romance.
THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT
Paperback: $19.99 (266 pages)
Kindle: $2.99
A fiery train wreck consumes Binney Cooper’s husband, Norris, leaving her to provide for herself and her twin boys. Left penniless by the loss of her teaching position, she asks a court to declare Norris dead, permitting insurance benefits.
Bigamist Norris’s second wife, Eliza, also wants that money. To give Liza the slip, Binney and her twin boys relocate. But Eliza finds her. So Binney runs again, across the continent, this time to Carson City, Nevada, where Blake Taylor, rancher, attorney, and a former suitor during college days now lives. Their friendship becomes a romance, helped along by widower Blake’s twin daughters and Binney’s sons.
Then Norris, the ‘dead’ husband shows up to claim his wife and sons. Enraged when he hears of his former wife’s interest in Blake, Norris shoots Blake, winging him, while Blake returns fire, killing Norris. How will they explain to Binney’s sons that the father they thought was lost in a train wreck was killed by a man they have come to love, Blake?
Fiction; Spiritual Theme
Final Performance
$16.99
Police Chief Quentin Price is called to the scene of a bloody murder backstage at the Bellson Theater. Steve Gossman, playing Willy Loman, has been executed with a 12-gauge buckshot load at the end of the play, Death of a Salesman.
Who wanted Steve dead? Nobody. Well, nearly nobody. His wife Mildred wanted him questioned about the death of her parents. And she wondered about the perfume on Steve’s shirt. Did someone she knew want Steve dead?
It was Ben Tilden’s turn to play the part this night, but he was ill and Steve agreed to substitute. The two of them were friends, had a working relationship, and shared interests in shooting. Did somebody get the wrong actor? Who?
Might it have been Arnie, the Building Inspector? He had a beef with a Vegas gangster; that would have given him motive. Might it have been Alice, the counselor who had something going with both Ben and Karla, Ben’s wife? Might it have been Larry Dole, the theater landlord? Might he have had a motive?
State Police Major Alton Douglas was convinced that the real target for the night was Ben. And what about the shirt that Ben exchanged with Steve?
Why did it happen then? There was a deadline. Was that before or after the Vegas muscle men demanded a hundred thousand dollars? Was that before or after Arnie and Karla met in the roadhouse? And what about the Mercedes?
Shakespeare said, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” The Bible says that the destination of those who do evil will be Hell, without recourse. This story is about good and evil. The evil is evident—the murders (via commission and omission) and those involved. The good is the good news and redemptive power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
The Urge to Kill
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The Urge to Kill
$18.20
He sits eating breakfast, nursing a cup of coffee, and performing a western ritual—raising his baseball cap and running his hands through diminishing hair. He does this whenever somebody approaches. The cap, gray to match the clothing he wears, is marked in red with the words “The Intimidator.” On his arms are tattooed “Intimidator,” and “Invincible,” respectively. Thus begins a killing spree motivated merely by annoyance at the foibles of people living their lives. And he leaves a calling card.
Police veteran Charlie Creehall is attacked by an assailant using a zip gun. Left to die in a field, young boys discover him. Charlie is a mentor to children and a member of a top-notch motorcycle club. The same is true for Bradley Gibbons, whose only sin was that he was proud of his pickup truck. Of course, he had a “big mouth” and ran afoul of “The Intimidator.”
Copycat Marty Srzynski, a washed-out Navy Seal, has scores to settle, but wouldn’t use a zip gun. He has demolitions experience. He also likes snakes. He works at the lumber mill, has a bevy of paramours, and a chip on his shoulder much larger than those produced at the mill.
Chief Price is given an invaluable gift. But Doris Odland, a widow with a blunderbuss, makes his life interesting. She rides down Main Street, ends up in “court” and there speaks her mind. Too bad she was killed in Marty’s plot to assassinate the Chief.
The shrink, Dr. Carole Roberts, helps Price to investigate Duggie Hanson and Marty Srzynski. There are also Mayor McCheese and the Radio Amateurs who search for Marsha Randall, who right now is recoiling from a snake bite. A relationship develops between Roberts and Price.
This is a mystery story with two avowed killers who have different motives but a relationship between them that is destined to upend the City of Bellson, California. It deals also with spiritual matters, which may seem an odd combination. Enjoy.
PRELUDE TO A BAR MITZVAH:
Paperback: $19.99 (228 pages)
A wedding reception in the North Carolina Mountains comes to a halt when the groom collapses at the head table and dies. The wedding planner is an amateur sleuth and the local law is helpful—to a point. Several people wanted the groom out of the way. There is a baby involved, but the father of the baby is not the groom, and the father of the bride has made an arrangement guaranteed to suppress the
story and push him into the statehouse—until it all blows up.
Mystery; Police Procedural
DEAD IN THE WATER
Paperback: $19.99 (246 pages)
Ithnan Nickelson seeks high adventure, sailing his yacht on the Tasman Sea. If his voyage meets with success, he’ll circumnavigate the globe. But it’s a large if. He needs a crew to sail from New Zealand to Australia. He’ll find young people with a yen for adventure, preferably women.
Colleen, Georgina, and Philip each puts a desire for escape and adventure above better judgment. They didn’t know there was no auxiliary engine, safety and communication equipment, maps of the sea, proper steerage, or seaworthiness certification. Or that It had a captain, Ithnan, who had never sailed the open sea by himself. Each trusts the skipper for safe delivery to Sydney. All look forward to a relaxing
sojourn that might take two weeks.
Both the law and a drug lord are looking for Ithnan. Drugs and untaxed gold fill secret compartments in the yacht. If he doesn’t deliver, he’ll be hiding the rest of his life. If the law catches him first, who knows?
Narrative Non-Fiction; Historical
EXPLOSION ON EVERGREEN AVENUE
Paperback: $11.99 (167 pages)
Detroit on Christmas morning, 1958. Children were unwrapping Christmas packages, looking for long-sought gifts of special meaning when the unthinkable happened. Who knew that they would all face death when the furnace exploded?
Faced with recovering life and family in the absence of the breadwinner, Denise would set her life aside and devote many years to their recovery. In the process, she nearly lost control of her own life, making one radical misstep after another.
Driven to exasperation by a domineering mother, she finds herself living with a major medical condition called PTSD, operating on the wrong side of the law, and finally, disappearing into anonymity. It was just as she wished.
Non-Fiction; Memoir
THE BROKEN ROSE
Paperback: $19.99 (340 pages)
Gus murders Rose and runs to Russia. What were they doing in Alaska in the second decade of the 20th Century? Gus Priesner is a coal miner from the Ruhr Valley. A Prussian who served in the Kaiser’s Navy in 1900, he goes to Canada prior to World War I. Enroute to the Klondike, he meets a Boer War veteran, changes direction, and becomes a copper miner in the Alaskan wilderness. A strike at the mine changes his focus, and he becomes a druggist, dispensing medicinal alcohol during Prohibition.
Rose Silberg is a Long Island socialite who resolves to find her fortune in the wide-open town of McCarthy Alaska, near the Kennecott Copper Company’s mine. She does, and becomes the most expensive madam in the Alaskan Territory. Rose and Gus are thrown together by an influenza quarantine in 1918. He needs her money for an expensive shipment. She needs her money to “go home” to Long Island. The lifting of the quarantine brings the situation to a head. Gus runs to Russia. This story tells what happened to McCarthy Rose.
Mystery; Historical
THE PIRATES OF PEARY VILLAGE
Paperback: $13.99 (152 pages)
Kindle: $2.99
Someone is stealing Kit Lang’s newspapers! Set in the State of Maine after World War II, Kit is working for his family after his father loses his defense job. The story begins in 1940 in the City of Brewer, Maine and traces Kit’s family to Portland as the country prepares for the war. Kit’s father finds work in the shipyards where Liberty Ships are built.
Angus McNutt is a janitor from Boston who lived through the stock market crash of 1929 by denying himself luxuries and keeping his money out of banks. Lenore Cash is the widow of a poultry farmer; she owns property on which the government wishes to build a housing project for shipyard workers. On this land, Peary Village is constructed. And on his paper route in Peary village, someone is stealing Kit’s newspapers.
Kit is advised by the Guy Gannet Publishing Company, whose papers he delivers, that the situation must be rectified. When he does, he uncovers some serious criminal activity in the village.
Fiction; General
“Average” Is Not a Goal
Kindle: $2.99
I was once asked if I could produce a “shortcut to success.” I responded that probably that would not be possible, but that I could distill a method of finding success in a home-based business in the earliest possible time. This book is that primer.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Business Motivation Primer
Kindle: $1.99
You can learn many techniques about HOW to do business in the books and on the web. There is very little about success perspectives, however. What I’ve done in this book is to invite you to consider twenty very important perspectives about your business future.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Fire in the Belly
EBook (PDF): $3.60
This book is designed to motivate and assist the developer of a home-based business to achieve the utmost return for the efforts expended. Motivating oneself is most often difficult in the absence of external support. This book offers techniques that, if applied, bring success.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
MLM: THE ROYAL TREATMENT
Paperback: $29.95 (495 pages)
MLM: The Royal Treatment is an extensive and comprehensive course in doing multi-level marketing the RIGHT way. It does not suggest a lead to quick riches; it leads to success. The author took what he learned in building a large MLM business and has shared it here. Caution: it IS comprehensive. If what you want is “eight quick ways to make a million dollars,” this book is not for you. Somebody has made you an offer you wonder if you can refuse. For some reasonable sum of money, you have been invited to join, and you have decided to do so.
This book will acquaint you with reality—if you wish to accomplish something significant, don’t plan on sitting back and hoping the money rolls in. It doesn’t happen that way. The investment you make to get involved is merely the first. Your investments will be in time, money, and yes, heartache. But if you see the reward, this is the way to do it right—the “no withdrawal” way.
Non-Fiction; Directive
Persist Until You Succeed
Kindle: $2.99
We often give up altogether too early and too easily. What I’ve written here are some positive considerations and techniques for undertaking projects and sticking to them until the results are successful. We examine why things fail and detail what we must do to make them the success we know they can be.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
POLISH YOUR CROWN
Paperback: $9.99 (115 pages)
You have the knowledge. You have the experience. You have the ambition. Why not take your own show on the road and go into business for yourself? Experiencing doubt? Faced with some difficult questions? Weren’t we all when we went into business? Each of us had fears of risk, loss, or problems.
We are told that 80% of new businesses fail within the first two years. Often, it’s not because we can’t locate customers. It’s because we fail to attempt great things. Life is a gamble; so is business.However, business is a function of attitude tied to ambition and a willingness to take a risk. This little book will help you to confront your innermost fear about working toward success and will well repay its cost.
Non-Fiction; Directive
Sell Your Own Home
Paperback: $7.99
eBook: $3.69
You contemplate selling your own home or other property. Every weekend you compare the real estate pages to your home. Then there is a start realization: six percent commission on a $200,000 (or more) home is a lot of money! Granted that an agent can provide many services, but every one of those services you can do for yourself—if you’re careful. This book will provide guidance as to how.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
The Representative
Kindle: $3.99
You need to make a little additional money and have decided to work from home. But you’re shy— cautious and perhaps somewhat afraid to “put yourself out there.” This book is a narrative nonfiction about breaking out of your shell and building a successful business that you can do from your home.
There’s good business training for people without a “head for business.” There is good management training for people desirous of leadership responsibility. Because this is not a step-by-step formula, it is written as a story about people with perhaps the same problems you face, and moves forward to assist you to success as a means to resolve some of those problems.
Narrative Non-Fiction; Advisory
THE AVON BUSINESS FOR NEWBIES
Paperback: $15.99 (316 pages)
Kindle: $4.99
You’ve needed extra income, so your Avon representative recommended that you join. You’re convinced you don’t have any idea how to go about it. She recommends a meeting with the district manager, her upline mentor, and you to learn the process. You do and you do some of the things they recommend, and something happens.
You decide that what you’re making is not enough and you know that others in your district are making significant sums. It’s now time to learn the nuances of the business and the techniques that some of the more successful people use.
Ken Lord, “Ken the Avon Man,” was for 18 years a most successful Avon representative. He took over a very small business and turned it into one doing $300,000 per year. He proved that with some creative thinking and a whole lot of courage, Avon could become not only a full-time vocation, it could provide the kind of income available only to professionals.
If you want a large successful Avon business, you owe it to yourself to read this book. There are tips and techniques here that will pay far more than the cost of the book. Ken will tell you how to exploit the business and how those who have been most successful have done it.
Non-Fiction; Directive
AVON: Selling Versus Order-Taking
Kindle: $2.99
This subject is something about which I feel a passion. Nothing happens unless a sale is made. Order Taking is the process of distributing the literature and merely entering requests for items the customer requests. The order taker derives enough to meet the ho-hum. Perhaps she will take enough orders to make it to an award level, but she can’t be bothered to attend meetings. She feels none of the sense of organization or camaraderie with others.
She’ll do just enough to get a percentage and no more, with as little hassle as possible, never walking on the extra mile. If she gets an order from this customer again, that’s OK. If she does not, the customer’s name is but a file copy in an old order book. She lacks what many of us have—a very distinct “fire in the belly.”
Selling implies a whole host of things that go far beyond the mere recording of an order, its placement, its delivery, and its payment. It is with the salesperson that I’d like to spend some time now, for I am very convinced that the successful AVON representative needs the motivation and the tools necessary to become the superstar we all know she can become.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Closing the Avon Sale
Kindle: $2.99
It’s easy enough to show, to demonstrate, and to get the customer to try. All you have to do is to give away your profit. I don’t think that is necessary. There are very specific ways to handle the sale to a potential customer and here, concisely stated with supporting rationale is how I managed to get more from customer sales throughout the 17 years I sold Avon.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Avon Service Tips and Techniques
Kindle: $2.99
It’s easy enough to take a beauty order. It’s somewhat more difficult to build a customer relationship that brings many orders and many new customers. Avon customers have some interesting perspectives on the representatives who serve them. In this book, Ken identifies the ways he was able to build a $300,000 business with customers who continued to return and buy.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
THE RELUCTANT AVON LADY
Paperback Edition: $22.99
Kindle Edition: $4.99
If there is one thing an Avon recruiter hears repeatedly, it would have to be this: “I can’t sell anything.” That is often followed by “I can’t sell cosmetics.”
Face it. You looking at this book because you’re considering selling something—perhaps it’s Avon. You’re looking because you need to make some money, for one of many reasons, ranging from personal support to extra money for things for your children. I’m here to tell you that you can. Avon is one of many ways to add to your income with a minimum of effort, giving it only the time and effort that you can. Rewards come with the work.
Avon can provide skills for the rest of your life. You’ll learn to deal with people and how to overcome your fears. You’ll find a camaraderie with others of similar interest who will help you to find as much success as you wish. You are the only limit you have. Might you challenge yourself to excellence?
This book teaches what you need to become a successful Avon representative. I did it. For eighteen years, I was “Ken the Avon Man,” and built a $300,000 Avon business. When I was first asked, I said, “I can’t sell Avon… I can’t sell lipstick.” In response, I was told, “You can’t sell Avon. A man can’t sell Avon.” That’s all it took. I began with fear. I finished with victory. You can do it, too. It takes some effort, but you can take it just as far as you wish. This narrative nonfiction will give you some ideas how.
Narrative Non-Fiction; Advisory
A Large Mouth with Many Teeth
Kindle: $1.99
This is the experience of a young man who went to Papua, New Guinea (PNG) to become a chef at a copper mine. It tells of the disconnect between the natives and his own heritage as a resident of Luxembourg. The title comes from the Pidgin Language. You may be interested to learn what it means.
Short Story; Historical
Engraved
Kindle: $0.99
Boston slumlord Trenton Farnsworth is out on a hot humid Friday afternoon to collect his rents. He has an altercation with a tenant. After eating at a local restaurant, he is accosted by hoodlums who steal his wallet, gash his face, and wound his side. He stumbles after the hoodlums, ending up after dark in the North End of Boston, where he encounters a stonecutter who is chiseling his name onto a grave
marker.
Short Story; General
Jesus in Watching
Paperback: $9.97
EBook (PDF): $5.00
A collection of short stories–some biographical, some observational, some essay, a couple that are historical, and at least one that may bring tears to your eyes. There’s a love story, a couple horror stories, a history story, some memoirs of the author’s early years, a heart-warming story of a community’s support, and the fulfillment of a convict’s wish. There’s even a humorous article here.
Short Story Collection
Moose Breath
Kindle: $1.99
Moose was a 175-pound Newfoundland puppy that, while being AKC sired, could not qualify to be shown. He came into the old man’s life at a time there was much unhappiness and provided much inspiration—right up until the man had to leave and couldn’t take the dog with him. It’s not a long story, but you may find it both humorous and touching.
Short Story; Historical
My Eyes Are Playing Tricks
Kindle: $1.99
Kevin Bishop overslept this morning. He wasn’t planning to do that. He had set the clock for six, but last night’s storm killed the power when lightning struck the transformer down the block. The problem is that there was no storm last night. And every mirror has a different face.
Short Story; Mystery
Septic Tank 1; Fire Engine 0
Kindle: $1.99
When a person in authority INSISTS on doing something he knows he should not, the results may often be disastrous. This is a story of a leadership decision gone awry when the proper procedure was ignored and the leader insisted on solving the problem “his way.” True Story from Arizona.
Short Story; Historical
Sister to the Sacred Cow
Kindle: $1.99
On June 23, 1950—the day before the opening of the Korean War—Northwest Flight 2501, bound from New York City to Milwaukee crashed into the waters of Lake Michigan, and has never been located since, despite major recovery efforts. The flight, a Douglas DC-4, simply disappeared, thought it was under the positive control of the Air Route Traffic Control (ARTC) system of radar. Buffeted by a storm, and perhaps broken up by a mid-air explosion, Flight 2501 repeatedly called for lower altitudes, but was not permitted to move there. This is the story of Flight 2501’s last mission.
Short Story; Historical
Tell Them I’m Eccentric
Kindle: 1.99
This is a story of yours truly sprung upon the air routes on the sky. It documents a trip as far as Kansas City on what was intended to be a round trip from New Hampshire to Nebraska and Kansas, on to Louisiana, and back. We did make it back, but the first half of the trip—the one documented in this book—was hair-raising and full of white-knuckled maneuvers, while wearing a bright orange sweater at altitudes where the Beech Musketeer’s heater wouldn’t work.
Short Story; Historical
The $100,000 Prize
Kindle: $2.99
It’s amazing what an incentive a hundred thousand dollars is. For Jesse Unruh, it would be the reward for lessons well learned. The problem is that his motivations just might not have been the best. However, there is yet one lesson to be learned, and he learns it in the richest subdivision of Tucson, Arizona.
Short Story; Mystery
The Hanging Court
Kindle: $2.99
Doris Odland is an “odd duck.” When this elderly woman holds up traffic by riding a donkey down Main Street, Chief Quentin Price sends her home—first offense. Then she rides an elder’s tricycle along the same route, claiming, as she had during her first escapade, responsibility for six murders.
Short Story; Mystery
THE WISDOM OF WOOD SMOKE
Kindle: $3.99 Paperback: 8.99 (180 pages)
Pay the Mortgage! Horace (Hank) Henderson and his wife Leona work to keep a homestead farm intact. The economy is bad; outgo exceeds income, and there’s that large hospital bill.
He mortgages his southern New Hampshire farm and cannot make even the regular payments. The mortgage holder threatens foreclosure and has a buyer waiting for Hank’s default. When Hank takes his product to market, he sees two men talking beside the road. Later, when making a delivery to one of the men, Darrell Savage, he asks about the woodstove and expresses fondness for the odor of dry wood burning.
Aware of Hank’s need, Savage provides scriptural leadership that helps the farmer to find a solution. Each meeting, it seems, is saturated with the odor of wood smoke. Hank’s children, Emily and Ritchie, each has an interest to pursue, and as Hank wrestles with his future, the buyer appears and the problem is resolved. But is it? Savage must soon depart and a major change is imminent.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Murder of the McCarthy Madam
Kindle: $1.99
The full story of McCarthy Rose is contained in the novel “The Broken Rose,” also on Kindle. This shorter version is a news item I wrote for an Alaskan newspaper. Rose Silber—a former New York socialite—has become the madam of the little town of McCarthy, Alaska. She has been killed by one of her patrons, Gus. It may have been a robbery—except both money and jewels were left. It may have been jealousy, but few could understand that, because she was well liked, even by her competition. This is a nonfiction retelling of a murder done in the wide-open town adjacent to the Kennicott Copper Mine in Alaska, nearly a hundred years ago.
Short Story; Mystery
THE BARBER OF ANDERSONVILLE
Paperback: $37.10
They arrived at Andersonville in rags, marched under sun and rifle toward a stockade built not to hold men, but to punish them for the decisions of others and to forget them. They drank from a ditch, slept in filth, and watched the strongest crumble.
Then came the promise of freedom—parole, transport, the long road home. And he survived Andersonville.
But the war had one last cruelty to endure. The real trial would begin on the way home.
Private Arlo Farrington dreamt only of returning to Maine, to the barbershop he left behind and the family he loves. But when he’s crammed aboard the Sultana with thousands of fellow Union survivors, his journey takes a fateful turn.
Based on the true stories of the Confederate’s worst prison and America’s deadliest maritime disaster, this novel traces one soldier’s path through the ravages of war, the imprisonment by the Army of the Confederacy, the shadows of corruption, and the fire-lit waters of the Mississippi—where survival may come at the cost of his soul.
And the Commandant of Andersonville faced a tribunal.
History forgot them. This story does not.
Fictional
SIZZLE & GRIT
In the quiet, unassuming town of Sunrise, Iowa, the peace is shattered when an explosion rocks Millie’s Diner, sending shockwaves through the community. What follows is a pulse-pounding journey through a tangled web of secrets, betrayal, and survival that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Amid the flames and destruction, Jack Wagner plunges into the heart of danger, risking everything to retrieve a mysterious package from the burning wreckage. What could possibly be worth the risk?
As Jack digs deeper, the whispers of the town’s buried past begin to surface, pulling him into a labyrinth of deception and hidden agendas. Every shadowy alley and dusty corner of Sunrise hides a clue, while the town’s officials, hobos, lawyers, and even the local preacher play a part in a story that runs far deeper than anyone could have imagined. The diner, once a symbol of hope in a town battered by the Great Depression, becomes the epicenter of a thrilling mystery where nothing—and no one—is as it seems.
From a fateful Thanksgiving dinner to the explosive downfall of a corrupt mayor, this suspenseful tale is packed with twists and revelations. As the stakes skyrocket, Jack is forced to navigate treacherous waters, with the fate of the town—and his own life—hanging in the balance. Can he unravel the truth before it’s too late, or will the dark forces at play bury Sunrise’s secrets forever?
Step into this gripping saga where redemption collides with retribution, and uncover the shocking answers hidden within a small town on the brink of chaos. The truth is out there—but it comes at a price.
Fictional; Christian
SPLINTER!
Paperback: $18.95
In Pine Knot, Maine, lumber mill owner Winston Carrington has been murdered and the mill has been torched. His son, Daniel, has been summoned from New York City and State Police Investigator Quentin Price has been assigned to find the perpetrator. Daniel returns via a chartered flight that lands a hundred miles away from home. He is then driven home by a part-time preacher who has been asked to conduct the memorial service. The will is read and contains several surprises, most of which are inconvenient to both an angry widow and a young man with no intent to stay. Things change at the service. Quentin and an associate find leads not only to the fire and the murder but also stumble on the international smuggling of contraband. A mill hand is also arrested and his wife pulls an empty gun. But things are not as they seem. Quentin must return to Pine Knot because he’s concerned he has the wrong man. And the Mountie always gets his man. And then there is Daniel and Elsie, Tyrone and Edna.If you’re looking for a Christian mystery/love story, you might try SPLINTER!
Fictional; Romance, Murder
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 1
Paperback: $17.99
An Acceptable Substitute (A story of Nebraska)
Pioneer Horace Humphrey’s daughter Rebecca Langley is suddenly widowed. He cannot support her and two grandchildren, so he advertises for a husband for his daughter. He got more than he bargained for, however. The novelette traces the second family… until the tragedy.
The Baptism of Maisie Morgan (A story of Texas)
Unmarried Preacher Hank Morgan attends a Civil War reunion at the Splinter Saloon. On a dare, he places an advert in search of a wife, provided others do so also. Responses are both serious and frivolous, but he is drawn to one – a woman who appears different from what he expects.
The Amish Widow (A story of Texas and Pennsylvania)
Jesse Beiler is dead. Hannah must now either rejoin her family or depart the settlement. Wesley Palmer’s children want him to find a “new mommie.” God tells him to advertise. When a critical neighbor discards the newspaper, Hanna takes it and the fun begins.
A Joint Venture with God (A story of Arizona)
Gabriel Pearson has lost his business, wife, family, car, and his house. Broke, he’s living at a rescue facility. He has a ticket for Arizona State football. Wandering near the stadium, he encounters two people who will change his life. Before he finally accepts the partnership of God in a new business, he must meet seemingly insurmountable challenges.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 2
Paperback: $18.99
No Unpaid Debt (A story of Oregon)
Amabel Durning is a widow who returns to teaching. She is hired to organize a women’s program at a new Christian college. Tucker Maxwell is a widower and sawmill owner. His business frequently takes him to Sacramento, where in 1875 he encounters Amabel at a train station. With much in common, they experience the reigning spirit of Chintimini.
Love Demands No Return (A story of Montana)
Marianna Webster’s father challenges her to leave St. Louis and teach in the wilds of Montana. Aaron Winchell is a detective recruit hired to protect her. Each finds interest, until it’s apparent it’s no coincidence they are together. The town of Handy has a depleted gold mine. A wildcatter discovers a blue stone that stone directs romance in a town at the edge of the country.
The Passage of Beatrice Bevins (A story of Colorado)
It seemed obvious to Beatrice that the master’s interest in her extended more to her physical attributes than her competence. Her training restrained against the idea of a tryst. She must not risk the disapproval of God. The pressures of young adulthood sought to overthrow both, yet the idea of a compromise seemed inviting.
The Resurrection of Bartholomew Kelly (A story of Australia)
He began life in the squalor of the back alleys of Kilmurray, County Cork, Ireland, in the summer of 1823. His life ended, courtesy of His Majesty’s government, on the gallows of Norfolk Island, a thousand miles east of Sydney, Australia, in 1845. He was hanged with a handful of other convicts for attempting the piracy of His Majesty’s Ship, the Governor Phillip.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 3
Paperback: $18.99
Love Creates Music (A story of Montana)
Second in the series. Marianna Webster discovers that Aaron isn’t the love interest she thought. She feels he has betrayed her. He, on the other hand, was doing only what he was hired do. So she leaves Handy and returns to St. Louis, only to undergo the same harassment from her father. Unable to find work, she returns to Handy, and the sparks fly.
Silver Love (A story of Colorado)
Edna Strong of Cleveland has a test of wills with the mother of one of her school students and finds herself unemployed. An inheritance bequest gives her many shares of a Colorado mine. Seeking to determine their value, she journeys to Leadville. What she finds is not the gold she expected, but a rock of dubious value.
A Penny Saved (A story of Kansas)
Louise likes the porch swing her father gave her when her mother died. She wishes one thing—a new mother to share it. Justin Montgomery has died. His wife is unable to care for their child. It’s time to leave, but to what? Penelope Montgomery is on her knees seeking guidance. Then a newspaper enters her life.
Shay (A story of overcoming adversity)
How does God speak to a disabled child? How is the holy message conveyed to someone who cannot read and who can barely understand life? What is a father to do when it appears that his son is ostracized and bullied and fails understand why?
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 4
Paperback: $18.99
The Parson of Crow Creek Crossing (A story of Wyoming)
Naomi Heatherton’s intended is a bank robber who sold himself as an upstanding citizen and a worthwhile husband. But he’s dead—killed during a robbery. She arrives in Cheyenne with few resources and dashed expectations. And then she meets a man who changes her focus.
Thanks for your Time (A story of Neighbors)
Alan Batson lived next door. An engineer, he was friend and mentor. He helped with homework, taught about model airplanes, tools, and his favorite hobby. Alan had a gold-colored box that contained something very precious. After his funeral, it was delivered to me. What it contained was precious.
Strategic Withdrawal (A story of Kansas)
This is a World War I war bride story. Its characters are real, though their names and locations have been changed. While the circumstances may be rare, they are close to what thousands experienced. This story is the first of two. The next is in the next volume of these novelettes.
West of Goshen (A story of California)
Byron Taylor and his partner sold the gold claim, split the proceeds, and separated. He found work at a ranch but determined he’d have a spread of his own. But he wanted a wife, so he advertised. He never expected to meet Anna Troyer of Goshen, Indiana. But there she was, and she was an experience.
A Christmas Blessing (A story of Massachusetts)
There was no reason for Charlie Nickerson to stay open on Christmas Eve. Mabel was gone. He might as well stay because the weather was closing in for a major snowstorm. And then there were visitors, but none like these.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 5
Paperback: $18.99
Bittersweet Returns (A story of Kansas)
This concludes the war bride story begun in the previous volume. Ben Harris and Celeste LeBarge marry, return from France, and sire Babbette. Babbette is now an adult and has married a naval ensign. World War II is about to start.
Love is Kind (A story of Montana)
Aaron stays in Handy when Mariana returns home in a pique. She encounters the same pressures that existed before she left the first time. She returns to Handy upon guarantee of employment, but she’s cautious this time. Last in this series.
Polished Love (A story of Colorado and Nebraska)
This is the conclusion of the story of Vince and Edna. The Matchless Mine is approaching the end of its productive life. Edna, who has stock in the mine, agrees to sell it to allow her husband to return to Nebraska and to the cattle business.
The Angels of Dog Creek (A story of Oklahoma)
Kevin Dugan loses his job in the oil fields and abandons Brenda and their six children. After feeble attempts at support, he drops out of sight. Brenda must work to support herself and the children. They can’t do it without God’s help.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 6
Paperback: $18.99
The Race At Cross Hollow (A Story of Oregon)
Darren Hillyard is an Oregon horse trader. He’s firm but fair. However, he won’t forego a good trade. Beth Sinclair is also a horse dealer with a run of bad luck. When she tries to sell Warrior, a Thoroughbred, the buyer challenges Beth to a stakes race, with the horse as the purse. Or is it Beth herself?
The Whisper In A Windstorm (A Story Of California)
Tulelake, California, has a bird sanctuary and the hottest horseradish. Here an Indian tribe was defeated and a detention camp was built. Augusta Kernagar, a young Amish woman, has a land allotment and strange things occur when religious relics are found in her field.
The Second Moon (A Story of Oregon)
BB Milton is a son of a wealth. Against his father’s wishes, he joins the Union Army. Agatha Thurman is a widow whose husband dies under a collapsed load of logs. Her father-in-law encourages Agatha to again marry and to help her, he advertises for a suitor, offering land and marriage.
The Hack (A Story of New York City)
The call came at 3:00 a.m., Christmas morning. Another three hours and I’d be headed for home at the end of my second shift job. I drive a cab, but I wasn’t prepared for an elderly woman about to take her most important trip. I listen and my life is changed. What another might cabbie have done?
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 7
Paperback: $19.99
The Wind in the Tules (A story of California)
Augusta Kernagar takes government-provided land at Tule Lake, California. She must clear the land of the tules, a water weed. She falls into a large hole, where she finds what appears to be Spanish religious artifacts. When she hangs a cross inside her house, mysterious things began to happen.
Instant Family (A story of Ohio)
Jerry Carter and Myra Williams are runaways who encounter “Pola” Behr while begging for work and food. Behr is a retired wealthy industrialist who lives alone in a large mansion, attended by a housekeeper and gardener. Behr meets their needs and challenges them to change their lives.
Walter’s Song (A story that could be in your town)
When Arthur Cummings contracts Parkinson’s, his son Walter must forfeit his career ambitions and take over the business. When his wife dies, he must care for his daughter. Susan Elliott falls in love with the widowed father and his daughter. But Lois Wilson has designs of her own on Walter. Part 1 of 2.
Fire in the Belly (A bit of self-motivation)
There are those to whom things happen; those who make things happen; and those who wonder what happened. The differences lie in our culture. This short story details the steps to make you successful in whatever endeavor you undertake.
Fiction, Spiritual
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes – Volume 8
$20.99
A Talisman for Ida Mae (A story of Ohio and Oregon)
Facing conscription, Bradley and his family move to Oregon. Ida Mae promises to wait and write, but Rufus seeks to change her mind. Bradley returns, locates Ida Mae, offers the magic talisman, and she shuns Rufus.
Sing Unto the Lord
Psalm 96 is a call to inform the nations about God’s glory and His great salvation. It follows directly Psalm 95, which relates the obstinate, hard-heartedness of Israel in the wilderness despite God’s goodness towards them.
Tule Winds—the Hostilities
Augusta now has a husband and a son involved in the war. A Japanese American citizen relocation camp is built close by and she invites a family to visit. The wounding of her husband and the temporary loss of her son drives her to the cross on the wall. But we must still learn the power of that cross.
Walter’s Song (A story of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois)
The first part of Walter’s Song ended on a sour note. There’s more. Susan decides a future with Walter is impossible and finds work in Chicago. Lois applies pressure. Walter shuns it all and buries himself in his work. And then something happens that turns the world completely around.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Secret Son
$15.00
Barry, the illegitimate son of Judy, is a perpetual lawbreaker and has spent much of his life in prison. Judy, his mother, kept his existence from Harold when they married. Once he learned about Barry, Harold insists that Judy notify the court of Barry’s guilt. Barry is convicted and threatens his mother. Harold and Judy change their names to Howard and Jessica and head for Vermont. Rebecca has lost her husband Jason to a subway killer and leaves New York City to relocate to a job in Vermont. She changes her mind once she has arrived and takes over a now defunct diner, the scene of a murder/suicide. Howard dies. Jessica meets Carlton. Sheriff Gabe has an interest in Rebecca. But then Barry attacks Jessica. The story has a mixed ending that you may not expect.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
Walter’s Song
Walter Cummings must change his college major and give up pursuit of his dream—musical performance—when he is informed that his father has Parkinson’s Disease. Walter’s parents own Bijoux Fine Jewelers, and Walter must take over the store. He studies business and gemology. At business school, he meets and marries Beryl. Their child, Heidi, is eight when the story begins. On her way to an appointment, Beryl is hit by a drunk driver and killed. Walter, in his office, is summoned to the church, where his Pastor tells him he is now a widower.
Apart from the loss of a spouse whom he loved profoundly, Walter must locate care for his daughter. He hires Susan Elliott, a community college student. A bond develops between her and Heidi, who begins to pressure her father to invite the babysitter to be her “new mommy.” There is only a five-year difference in their ages and Susan develops a fondness for Walter. Walter feels some of the same emotions but continues to grieve. He doesn’t feel right about pursuing a romance.
At a birthday party, Walter answers the door to find an old flame, Lois, herself a widow, with two undisciplined children. Lois works at the community college and campaigns to reignite old feelings and find a father for her children. Immediately, there is bad blood between Lois and Susan. Seeking to remove the competition, Lois finds a job for Susan—in Chicago. There she is accosted by a thief, assaulted by her supervisor, and leaves the job. When she swears out a complaint, she is invited to live in Chicago’s Entertainment District and work in a posh restaurant. When a riot occurs and the restaurant is torched, she’s without either work or a place to stay. Walter drives in a snowstorm to Chicago to rescue her.
The story is scripturally-based, emphasizing gospel counseling practices and music.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
A WIFE OF NOBLE CHARACTER
Paperback: $17.30
Wesley Mayfield, an 1888 graduate of the Cleveland Medical School, takes his first position in the town of Wichita Falls on the plains of North Texas. There are things there that are not available in Ohio, such as a tornado or a prairie fire. Horses and cattle aren’t new but hundreds of them in one place at one time definitely are.
He needs a nurse. Somebody asks the question every week, especially when it comes to that procedure. Never-married Wesley answers, “They’re all in the east.”
Advertise for a wife,” advises his friend Ike Tilton. Guided by his much-too-helpful minister friends, Wesley agrees. However, he wants God’s woman, so fliers are placed in churches from Boston to Atlanta. Now he must wait for the mail.
Ike’s wife Beatrice is the postmistress and town gossip. Many residents of Wichita Falls are interested in Doctor Mayfield’s mail!
Wesley receives several responses, but he’s interested in only four, each with a unique perspective on marriage, faith, religion, nursing, and childbearing. As he considers each, one arrives—with notoriety, convinced that God has led her there.
If you’re interested in a Christian fiction tale contained in a mail-order bride love story, you may enjoy A Wife of Noble Character.
Fiction; Spiritual Theme
The Princess of Pudding River
Paperback: $17.99
How should rancher Harlan Graves act when his daughter Bernice runs away from boarding school, arriving home frightened and wanting her mother? He hasn’t a clue, and the child’s mother is buried on their ranch.
How should Angelina Busto, The Cupcake Queen of New York, react when a nun attempts to set her up with a man nearly three thousand miles away? Her mother wants her to marry and bear children… but must it be so far away?
This is a story of the pairing of two adults and the assimilation of a child who fears for her future. The principals meet in the mail (early in the 20 th Century) and try to find a way to mesh. They meet in person and it doesn’t work out. So she goes home.
Was it a mislead? Is there a future for these two? Gilbert and Sullivan both have something to say about it. Especially if you like pastrami.
Among the unique features of the book is a Godly way to explain menses. The story captures the interest of the mail-order bride stories but includes scriptural guidance in child rearing and worship.
Fiction; Spiritual Theme
Overnight Delivery
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Overnight Delivery
$17.26
A turn of the century story of man (Brad Watson) meets woman (Carol Taylor) but woman has responsibilities and obligations (children, mortgages, single motherhood, business disaster) . He is a retired serviceman who is now a truck driver; she is a florist with four children. He is carrying memories of a lost love. She’s over-the-barrel both emotionally and financially. But both aren’t exactly what you might think they are—until something happens that she simply didn’t expect. This is a story of spiritual awakening that begins with an emergency delivery, is seasoned by a fire, is enhanced by salvation, is melded in some of the fancy places… and a few not so fancy and is proved under duress. It also has to do with acceptance and recognition that there are many good years yet to be had.
ETERNITY’S EMBRACE
Paperback: $25.40 (411 pages)
Kindle: $3.99
Frank Trask, a Maine lobsterman, is approached by Alan and Marjorie, children of Vernon and Bernice Townsley, who seek their mother’s grave. They claim she lived in a lighthouse, which is impossible. The siblings’ memories present contradictions. The words of One-eyed Bennie merely confound.
Bernice Jennings is the daughter of wealthy Bostonians. Vernon Townsley is a Kansas farmer who enlists in the Army and is wounded in France in WW1. The two meet at Togus Military Hospital, near Augusta. They fall in love and have a spat. Vernon searches for Bernie and finds her on Cross Island in Machias Bay. They marry, sire a family, and endure tragedy. Frank’s research untangles the confusion and resolves the questions. Bernie’s spirit guides the siblings to the grave, where their parents are left in Eternity’s Embrace.
Fiction; Romance.
CANANDAIGUA BRIDE
Paperback: $19.99 (340 pages)
The animal had gone to one of two places to seek grass or water. The three watering holes would have frozen with enough ice to deny the animal a drink. The steer would collapse the ice. The ice was not broken at the first two, but at the third, he heard the tortured bleating of the steer. It was there, trapped up to its haunches.
Connor gathered his coat close against the snow. His face showed perspiration. His waxed handlebar mustache was now a firm icicle that stretched from cheek to cheek.
He dismounted at the edge of the ice. The wind had cleared the surface and the ice appeared solid to the bottom, yet the steer had broken through and stood in waist-high water.
“I’m coming. I’m coming.” He spoke gentle words, as he hitched a rope to Sadie’s saddle horn and slowly began to edge out onto the ice. The edge held, but as he moved, it began to crack. He lowered himself to the ice and slid toward the distressed animal. If he could get the lariat loop over the animal’s head and horns, he could grasp the rope, work his way back to the horse, and pull the steer loose.
But the animal had another idea; it reared to shake the rope away. Unable to dodge an oncoming horn, he was gored and collapsed beside the steer, as the water in the hole slowly turned crimson.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
LOVE HAS A SOUTHERN HEARTBEAT
Paperback: $21.99
This is a love story, but not quite the way one would expect it to happen, with a surprise ending. It has gentleness, joy, pathos, and sadness. It puts you squarely into Victorian-era Arizona at a time when the railroad has not yet arrived and travel is by stagecoach.
Henry Stratham is a civil engineer, a former Union artilleryman, and a principal investor in a major railroad scandal. Elizabeth (Lizbeth) Truman is the widow of an Arizona logger who has two children. What do they have in common? Not much.
Thaddeus Truman, the widow’s father-in-law, decides it’s time for her to remarry and sets into motion a mail-order-husband effort. While Henry perceives that the opportunity allows him to obtain western employment and land, Lizbeth wrestles with the inevitability of her remarriage, if for no reason other than her children.
Campbell Stanley is a Michigan schoolteacher who attracts Naomi Givings, a young Georgia governess who has been ordered by the court to deliver her charges to a New Mexico orphanage. Was it only a chance meeting, or was there some overarching plan to draw her to the western city of Flagstaff, Arizona?
Two children, Martha and Jacob, each in search of a father, bring to the story the sadness over the loss of a parent and the consideration of a potential replacement who challenges their relationship with each other.
The wealthy traveler (Claude Chana) who rescues the orphanage and the U.S. Government auditor (J.R. Wentworth) who serves a warrant for the arrest of Henry Stratham—where do they fit into the story?
And finally, there is Old Wellington—the smartest horse you ever saw.
Fiction; Spiritual Theme
LOVE NEVER FORGETS
Paperback: $21.99 (365 pages)
Kindle: None
Mary Frances Cammack, 9, wishes to marry Cyrus Grantham, 17, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute. He’s in the Confederate Cavalry, headed toward Gettysburg. The Cammack Mansion is beset by gloom, due to the death of the mother and a sibling. The father will die at Vicksburg.
The thread that binds this family is a cook, Ida Mae Bell, who joins in a conspiracy to assist Mary Frances’ contact with Cyrus. Cyrus is wounded by artillery and is stripped of his uniform. He is picked up by Union troops detailed to bury victims. When he awakens in a barn, unaware of who he is, he selects a new name, Austin Boone.
Mary Frances grows, teaches, and writes as Felicity Harrison. After 20 years, she responds to a marriage solicitation in the newspaper, taking Boone’s offer to travel from Richmond to Los Angeles. Austin has no recollection of her. A romance kindles, but not without difficulty. The confusion over names is just the beginning. And there is the “Witch of Endor.”
Fiction; Romance.
THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT
Paperback: $19.99 (266 pages)
Kindle: $2.99
A fiery train wreck consumes Binney Cooper’s husband, Norris, leaving her to provide for herself and her twin boys. Left penniless by the loss of her teaching position, she asks a court to declare Norris dead, permitting insurance benefits.
Bigamist Norris’s second wife, Eliza, also wants that money. To give Liza the slip, Binney and her twin boys relocate. But Eliza finds her. So Binney runs again, across the continent, this time to Carson City, Nevada, where Blake Taylor, rancher, attorney, and a former suitor during college days now lives. Their friendship becomes a romance, helped along by widower Blake’s twin daughters and Binney’s sons.
Then Norris, the ‘dead’ husband shows up to claim his wife and sons. Enraged when he hears of his former wife’s interest in Blake, Norris shoots Blake, winging him, while Blake returns fire, killing Norris. How will they explain to Binney’s sons that the father they thought was lost in a train wreck was killed by a man they have come to love, Blake?
Fiction; Spiritual Theme
Final Performance
$16.99
Police Chief Quentin Price is called to the scene of a bloody murder backstage at the Bellson Theater. Steve Gossman, playing Willy Loman, has been executed with a 12-gauge buckshot load at the end of the play, Death of a Salesman.
Who wanted Steve dead? Nobody. Well, nearly nobody. His wife Mildred wanted him questioned about the death of her parents. And she wondered about the perfume on Steve’s shirt. Did someone she knew want Steve dead?
It was Ben Tilden’s turn to play the part this night, but he was ill and Steve agreed to substitute. The two of them were friends, had a working relationship, and shared interests in shooting. Did somebody get the wrong actor? Who?
Might it have been Arnie, the Building Inspector? He had a beef with a Vegas gangster; that would have given him motive. Might it have been Alice, the counselor who had something going with both Ben and Karla, Ben’s wife? Might it have been Larry Dole, the theater landlord? Might he have had a motive?
State Police Major Alton Douglas was convinced that the real target for the night was Ben. And what about the shirt that Ben exchanged with Steve?
Why did it happen then? There was a deadline. Was that before or after the Vegas muscle men demanded a hundred thousand dollars? Was that before or after Arnie and Karla met in the roadhouse? And what about the Mercedes?
Shakespeare said, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” The Bible says that the destination of those who do evil will be Hell, without recourse. This story is about good and evil. The evil is evident—the murders (via commission and omission) and those involved. The good is the good news and redemptive power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
The Urge to Kill
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The Urge to Kill
$18.20
He sits eating breakfast, nursing a cup of coffee, and performing a western ritual—raising his baseball cap and running his hands through diminishing hair. He does this whenever somebody approaches. The cap, gray to match the clothing he wears, is marked in red with the words “The Intimidator.” On his arms are tattooed “Intimidator,” and “Invincible,” respectively. Thus begins a killing spree motivated merely by annoyance at the foibles of people living their lives. And he leaves a calling card.
Police veteran Charlie Creehall is attacked by an assailant using a zip gun. Left to die in a field, young boys discover him. Charlie is a mentor to children and a member of a top-notch motorcycle club. The same is true for Bradley Gibbons, whose only sin was that he was proud of his pickup truck. Of course, he had a “big mouth” and ran afoul of “The Intimidator.”
Copycat Marty Srzynski, a washed-out Navy Seal, has scores to settle, but wouldn’t use a zip gun. He has demolitions experience. He also likes snakes. He works at the lumber mill, has a bevy of paramours, and a chip on his shoulder much larger than those produced at the mill.
Chief Price is given an invaluable gift. But Doris Odland, a widow with a blunderbuss, makes his life interesting. She rides down Main Street, ends up in “court” and there speaks her mind. Too bad she was killed in Marty’s plot to assassinate the Chief.
The shrink, Dr. Carole Roberts, helps Price to investigate Duggie Hanson and Marty Srzynski. There are also Mayor McCheese and the Radio Amateurs who search for Marsha Randall, who right now is recoiling from a snake bite. A relationship develops between Roberts and Price.
This is a mystery story with two avowed killers who have different motives but a relationship between them that is destined to upend the City of Bellson, California. It deals also with spiritual matters, which may seem an odd combination. Enjoy.
THE PIRATES OF PEARY VILLAGE
Paperback: $13.99 (152 pages)
Kindle: $2.99
Someone is stealing Kit Lang’s newspapers! Set in the State of Maine after World War II, Kit is working for his family after his father loses his defense job. The story begins in 1940 in the City of Brewer, Maine and traces Kit’s family to Portland as the country prepares for the war. Kit’s father finds work in the shipyards where Liberty Ships are built.
Angus McNutt is a janitor from Boston who lived through the stock market crash of 1929 by denying himself luxuries and keeping his money out of banks. Lenore Cash is the widow of a poultry farmer; she owns property on which the government wishes to build a housing project for shipyard workers. On this land, Peary Village is constructed. And on his paper route in Peary village, someone is stealing Kit’s newspapers.
Kit is advised by the Guy Gannet Publishing Company, whose papers he delivers, that the situation must be rectified. When he does, he uncovers some serious criminal activity in the village.
Fiction; General
THE WISDOM OF WOOD SMOKE
Kindle: $3.99 Paperback: 8.99 (180 pages)
Pay the Mortgage! Horace (Hank) Henderson and his wife Leona work to keep a homestead farm intact. The economy is bad; outgo exceeds income, and there’s that large hospital bill.
He mortgages his southern New Hampshire farm and cannot make even the regular payments. The mortgage holder threatens foreclosure and has a buyer waiting for Hank’s default. When Hank takes his product to market, he sees two men talking beside the road. Later, when making a delivery to one of the men, Darrell Savage, he asks about the woodstove and expresses fondness for the odor of dry wood burning.
Aware of Hank’s need, Savage provides scriptural leadership that helps the farmer to find a solution. Each meeting, it seems, is saturated with the odor of wood smoke. Hank’s children, Emily and Ritchie, each has an interest to pursue, and as Hank wrestles with his future, the buyer appears and the problem is resolved. But is it? Savage must soon depart and a major change is imminent.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
The Urge to Kill
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The Urge to Kill
$18.20
He sits eating breakfast, nursing a cup of coffee, and performing a western ritual—raising his baseball cap and running his hands through diminishing hair. He does this whenever somebody approaches. The cap, gray to match the clothing he wears, is marked in red with the words “The Intimidator.” On his arms are tattooed “Intimidator,” and “Invincible,” respectively. Thus begins a killing spree motivated merely by annoyance at the foibles of people living their lives. And he leaves a calling card.
Police veteran Charlie Creehall is attacked by an assailant using a zip gun. Left to die in a field, young boys discover him. Charlie is a mentor to children and a member of a top-notch motorcycle club. The same is true for Bradley Gibbons, whose only sin was that he was proud of his pickup truck. Of course, he had a “big mouth” and ran afoul of “The Intimidator.”
Copycat Marty Srzynski, a washed-out Navy Seal, has scores to settle, but wouldn’t use a zip gun. He has demolitions experience. He also likes snakes. He works at the lumber mill, has a bevy of paramours, and a chip on his shoulder much larger than those produced at the mill.
Chief Price is given an invaluable gift. But Doris Odland, a widow with a blunderbuss, makes his life interesting. She rides down Main Street, ends up in “court” and there speaks her mind. Too bad she was killed in Marty’s plot to assassinate the Chief.
The shrink, Dr. Carole Roberts, helps Price to investigate Duggie Hanson and Marty Srzynski. There are also Mayor McCheese and the Radio Amateurs who search for Marsha Randall, who right now is recoiling from a snake bite. A relationship develops between Roberts and Price.
This is a mystery story with two avowed killers who have different motives but a relationship between them that is destined to upend the City of Bellson, California. It deals also with spiritual matters, which may seem an odd combination. Enjoy.
PRELUDE TO A BAR MITZVAH:
Paperback: $19.99 (228 pages)
A wedding reception in the North Carolina Mountains comes to a halt when the groom collapses at the head table and dies. The wedding planner is an amateur sleuth and the local law is helpful—to a point. Several people wanted the groom out of the way. There is a baby involved, but the father of the baby is not the groom, and the father of the bride has made an arrangement guaranteed to suppress the
story and push him into the statehouse—until it all blows up.
Mystery; Police Procedural
THE BROKEN ROSE
Paperback: $19.99 (340 pages)
Gus murders Rose and runs to Russia. What were they doing in Alaska in the second decade of the 20th Century? Gus Priesner is a coal miner from the Ruhr Valley. A Prussian who served in the Kaiser’s Navy in 1900, he goes to Canada prior to World War I. Enroute to the Klondike, he meets a Boer War veteran, changes direction, and becomes a copper miner in the Alaskan wilderness. A strike at the mine changes his focus, and he becomes a druggist, dispensing medicinal alcohol during Prohibition.
Rose Silberg is a Long Island socialite who resolves to find her fortune in the wide-open town of McCarthy Alaska, near the Kennecott Copper Company’s mine. She does, and becomes the most expensive madam in the Alaskan Territory. Rose and Gus are thrown together by an influenza quarantine in 1918. He needs her money for an expensive shipment. She needs her money to “go home” to Long Island. The lifting of the quarantine brings the situation to a head. Gus runs to Russia. This story tells what happened to McCarthy Rose.
Mystery; Historical
DEAD IN THE WATER
Paperback: $19.99 (246 pages)
Ithnan Nickelson seeks high adventure, sailing his yacht on the Tasman Sea. If his voyage meets with success, he’ll circumnavigate the globe. But it’s a large if. He needs a crew to sail from New Zealand to Australia. He’ll find young people with a yen for adventure, preferably women.
Colleen, Georgina, and Philip each puts a desire for escape and adventure above better judgment. They didn’t know there was no auxiliary engine, safety and communication equipment, maps of the sea, proper steerage, or seaworthiness certification. Or that It had a captain, Ithnan, who had never sailed the open sea by himself. Each trusts the skipper for safe delivery to Sydney. All look forward to a relaxing
sojourn that might take two weeks.
Both the law and a drug lord are looking for Ithnan. Drugs and untaxed gold fill secret compartments in the yacht. If he doesn’t deliver, he’ll be hiding the rest of his life. If the law catches him first, who knows?
Narrative Non-Fiction; Historical
The Representative
Kindle: $3.99
You need to make a little additional money and have decided to work from home. But you’re shy— cautious and perhaps somewhat afraid to “put yourself out there.” This book is a narrative nonfiction about breaking out of your shell and building a successful business that you can do from your home.
There’s good business training for people without a “head for business.” There is good management training for people desirous of leadership responsibility. Because this is not a step-by-step formula, it is written as a story about people with perhaps the same problems you face, and moves forward to assist you to success as a means to resolve some of those problems.
Narrative Non-Fiction; Advisory
THE RELUCTANT AVON LADY
Paperback Edition: $22.99
Kindle Edition: $4.99
If there is one thing an Avon recruiter hears repeatedly, it would have to be this: “I can’t sell anything.” That is often followed by “I can’t sell cosmetics.”
Face it. You looking at this book because you’re considering selling something—perhaps it’s Avon. You’re looking because you need to make some money, for one of many reasons, ranging from personal support to extra money for things for your children. I’m here to tell you that you can. Avon is one of many ways to add to your income with a minimum of effort, giving it only the time and effort that you can. Rewards come with the work.
Avon can provide skills for the rest of your life. You’ll learn to deal with people and how to overcome your fears. You’ll find a camaraderie with others of similar interest who will help you to find as much success as you wish. You are the only limit you have. Might you challenge yourself to excellence?
This book teaches what you need to become a successful Avon representative. I did it. For eighteen years, I was “Ken the Avon Man,” and built a $300,000 Avon business. When I was first asked, I said, “I can’t sell Avon… I can’t sell lipstick.” In response, I was told, “You can’t sell Avon. A man can’t sell Avon.” That’s all it took. I began with fear. I finished with victory. You can do it, too. It takes some effort, but you can take it just as far as you wish. This narrative nonfiction will give you some ideas how.
Narrative Non-Fiction; Advisory
EXPLOSION ON EVERGREEN AVENUE
Paperback: $11.99 (167 pages)
Detroit on Christmas morning, 1958. Children were unwrapping Christmas packages, looking for long-sought gifts of special meaning when the unthinkable happened. Who knew that they would all face death when the furnace exploded?
Faced with recovering life and family in the absence of the breadwinner, Denise would set her life aside and devote many years to their recovery. In the process, she nearly lost control of her own life, making one radical misstep after another.
Driven to exasperation by a domineering mother, she finds herself living with a major medical condition called PTSD, operating on the wrong side of the law, and finally, disappearing into anonymity. It was just as she wished.
Non-Fiction; Memoir
“Average” Is Not a Goal
Kindle: $2.99
I was once asked if I could produce a “shortcut to success.” I responded that probably that would not be possible, but that I could distill a method of finding success in a home-based business in the earliest possible time. This book is that primer.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Business Motivation Primer
Kindle: $1.99
You can learn many techniques about HOW to do business in the books and on the web. There is very little about success perspectives, however. What I’ve done in this book is to invite you to consider twenty very important perspectives about your business future.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Fire in the Belly
EBook (PDF): $3.60
This book is designed to motivate and assist the developer of a home-based business to achieve the utmost return for the efforts expended. Motivating oneself is most often difficult in the absence of external support. This book offers techniques that, if applied, bring success.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
MLM: THE ROYAL TREATMENT
Paperback: $29.95 (495 pages)
MLM: The Royal Treatment is an extensive and comprehensive course in doing multi-level marketing the RIGHT way. It does not suggest a lead to quick riches; it leads to success. The author took what he learned in building a large MLM business and has shared it here. Caution: it IS comprehensive. If what you want is “eight quick ways to make a million dollars,” this book is not for you. Somebody has made you an offer you wonder if you can refuse. For some reasonable sum of money, you have been invited to join, and you have decided to do so.
This book will acquaint you with reality—if you wish to accomplish something significant, don’t plan on sitting back and hoping the money rolls in. It doesn’t happen that way. The investment you make to get involved is merely the first. Your investments will be in time, money, and yes, heartache. But if you see the reward, this is the way to do it right—the “no withdrawal” way.
Non-Fiction; Directive
Persist Until You Succeed
Kindle: $2.99
We often give up altogether too early and too easily. What I’ve written here are some positive considerations and techniques for undertaking projects and sticking to them until the results are successful. We examine why things fail and detail what we must do to make them the success we know they can be.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
POLISH YOUR CROWN
Paperback: $9.99 (115 pages)
You have the knowledge. You have the experience. You have the ambition. Why not take your own show on the road and go into business for yourself? Experiencing doubt? Faced with some difficult questions? Weren’t we all when we went into business? Each of us had fears of risk, loss, or problems.
We are told that 80% of new businesses fail within the first two years. Often, it’s not because we can’t locate customers. It’s because we fail to attempt great things. Life is a gamble; so is business.However, business is a function of attitude tied to ambition and a willingness to take a risk. This little book will help you to confront your innermost fear about working toward success and will well repay its cost.
Non-Fiction; Directive
Sell Your Own Home
Paperback: $7.99
eBook: $3.69
You contemplate selling your own home or other property. Every weekend you compare the real estate pages to your home. Then there is a start realization: six percent commission on a $200,000 (or more) home is a lot of money! Granted that an agent can provide many services, but every one of those services you can do for yourself—if you’re careful. This book will provide guidance as to how.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
THE AVON BUSINESS FOR NEWBIES
Paperback: $15.99 (316 pages)
Kindle: $4.99
You’ve needed extra income, so your Avon representative recommended that you join. You’re convinced you don’t have any idea how to go about it. She recommends a meeting with the district manager, her upline mentor, and you to learn the process. You do and you do some of the things they recommend, and something happens.
You decide that what you’re making is not enough and you know that others in your district are making significant sums. It’s now time to learn the nuances of the business and the techniques that some of the more successful people use.
Ken Lord, “Ken the Avon Man,” was for 18 years a most successful Avon representative. He took over a very small business and turned it into one doing $300,000 per year. He proved that with some creative thinking and a whole lot of courage, Avon could become not only a full-time vocation, it could provide the kind of income available only to professionals.
If you want a large successful Avon business, you owe it to yourself to read this book. There are tips and techniques here that will pay far more than the cost of the book. Ken will tell you how to exploit the business and how those who have been most successful have done it.
Non-Fiction; Directive
AVON: Selling Versus Order-Taking
Kindle: $2.99
This subject is something about which I feel a passion. Nothing happens unless a sale is made. Order Taking is the process of distributing the literature and merely entering requests for items the customer requests. The order taker derives enough to meet the ho-hum. Perhaps she will take enough orders to make it to an award level, but she can’t be bothered to attend meetings. She feels none of the sense of organization or camaraderie with others.
She’ll do just enough to get a percentage and no more, with as little hassle as possible, never walking on the extra mile. If she gets an order from this customer again, that’s OK. If she does not, the customer’s name is but a file copy in an old order book. She lacks what many of us have—a very distinct “fire in the belly.”
Selling implies a whole host of things that go far beyond the mere recording of an order, its placement, its delivery, and its payment. It is with the salesperson that I’d like to spend some time now, for I am very convinced that the successful AVON representative needs the motivation and the tools necessary to become the superstar we all know she can become.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Closing the Avon Sale
Kindle: $2.99
It’s easy enough to show, to demonstrate, and to get the customer to try. All you have to do is to give away your profit. I don’t think that is necessary. There are very specific ways to handle the sale to a potential customer and here, concisely stated with supporting rationale is how I managed to get more from customer sales throughout the 17 years I sold Avon.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Avon Service Tips and Techniques
Kindle: $2.99
It’s easy enough to take a beauty order. It’s somewhat more difficult to build a customer relationship that brings many orders and many new customers. Avon customers have some interesting perspectives on the representatives who serve them. In this book, Ken identifies the ways he was able to build a $300,000 business with customers who continued to return and buy.
Non-Fiction; Advisory
Novelettes with Spiritual Themes — Volume 7
Paperback: $19.99
The Wind in the Tules (A story of California)
Augusta Kernagar takes government-provided land at Tule Lake, California. She must clear the land of the tules, a water weed. She falls into a large hole, where she finds what appears to be Spanish religious artifacts. When she hangs a cross inside her house, mysterious things began to happen.
Instant Family (A story of Ohio)
Jerry Carter and Myra Williams are runaways who encounter “Pola” Behr while begging for work and food. Behr is a retired wealthy industrialist who lives alone in a large mansion, attended by a housekeeper and gardener. Behr meets their needs and challenges them to change their lives.
Walter’s Song (A story that could be in your town)
When Arthur Cummings contracts Parkinson’s, his son Walter must forfeit his career ambitions and take over the business. When his wife dies, he must care for his daughter. Susan Elliott falls in love with the widowed father and his daughter. But Lois Wilson has designs of her own on Walter. Part 1 of 2.
Fire in the Belly (A bit of self-motivation)
There are those to whom things happen; those who make things happen; and those who wonder what happened. The differences lie in our culture. This short story details the steps to make you successful in whatever endeavor you undertake.
Fiction, Spiritual
Christmas Victory
Kindle: $2.99
Variations of this story have been around for years. Like other traditions, it bears interpretation and retelling.
Near Boston and just before Christmas, 1999, the area was “snowed in” from a sudden storm that literally shut things down.
For a widower who ran a gas station, however, life is about to take on an entirely new meaning. There is the couple desperate to get to the hospital. There is the man who half-heartedly attempts a robbery. There is a policeman whose wisdom infuses the scene with understanding. And there is someone who seems to be orchestrating the whole thing, until he disappears.
Short Story; Spiritual
Final Performance
$16.99
Police Chief Quentin Price is called to the scene of a bloody murder backstage at the Bellson Theater. Steve Gossman, playing Willy Loman, has been executed with a 12-gauge buckshot load at the end of the play, Death of a Salesman.
Who wanted Steve dead? Nobody. Well, nearly nobody. His wife Mildred wanted him questioned about the death of her parents. And she wondered about the perfume on Steve’s shirt. Did someone she knew want Steve dead?
It was Ben Tilden’s turn to play the part this night, but he was ill and Steve agreed to substitute. The two of them were friends, had a working relationship, and shared interests in shooting. Did somebody get the wrong actor? Who?
Might it have been Arnie, the Building Inspector? He had a beef with a Vegas gangster; that would have given him motive. Might it have been Alice, the counselor who had something going with both Ben and Karla, Ben’s wife? Might it have been Larry Dole, the theater landlord? Might he have had a motive?
State Police Major Alton Douglas was convinced that the real target for the night was Ben. And what about the shirt that Ben exchanged with Steve?
Why did it happen then? There was a deadline. Was that before or after the Vegas muscle men demanded a hundred thousand dollars? Was that before or after Arnie and Karla met in the roadhouse? And what about the Mercedes?
Shakespeare said, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” The Bible says that the destination of those who do evil will be Hell, without recourse. This story is about good and evil. The evil is evident—the murders (via commission and omission) and those involved. The good is the good news and redemptive power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Fictional; Spiritual Theme
A Large Mouth with Many Teeth
Kindle: $1.99
This is the experience of a young man who went to Papua, New Guinea (PNG) to become a chef at a copper mine. It tells of the disconnect between the natives and his own heritage as a resident of Luxembourg. The title comes from the Pidgin Language. You may be interested to learn what it means.
Short Story; Historical
Engraved
Kindle: $0.99
Boston slumlord Trenton Farnsworth is out on a hot humid Friday afternoon to collect his rents. He has an altercation with a tenant. After eating at a local restaurant, he is accosted by hoodlums who steal his wallet, gash his face, and wound his side. He stumbles after the hoodlums, ending up after dark in the North End of Boston, where he encounters a stonecutter who is chiseling his name onto a grave
marker.
Short Story; General
Jesus in Watching
Paperback: $9.97
EBook (PDF): $5.00
A collection of short stories–some biographical, some observational, some essay, a couple that are historical, and at least one that may bring tears to your eyes. There’s a love story, a couple horror stories, a history story, some memoirs of the author’s early years, a heart-warming story of a community’s support, and the fulfillment of a convict’s wish. There’s even a humorous article here.
Short Story Collection
Moose Breath
Kindle: $1.99
Moose was a 175-pound Newfoundland puppy that, while being AKC sired, could not qualify to be shown. He came into the old man’s life at a time there was much unhappiness and provided much inspiration—right up until the man had to leave and couldn’t take the dog with him. It’s not a long story, but you may find it both humorous and touching.
Short Story; Historical
My Eyes Are Playing Tricks
Kindle: $1.99
Kevin Bishop overslept this morning. He wasn’t planning to do that. He had set the clock for six, but last night’s storm killed the power when lightning struck the transformer down the block. The problem is that there was no storm last night. And every mirror has a different face.
Short Story; Mystery
Septic Tank 1; Fire Engine 0
Kindle: $1.99
When a person in authority INSISTS on doing something he knows he should not, the results may often be disastrous. This is a story of a leadership decision gone awry when the proper procedure was ignored and the leader insisted on solving the problem “his way.” True Story from Arizona.
Short Story; Historical
Sister to the Sacred Cow
Kindle: $1.99
On June 23, 1950—the day before the opening of the Korean War—Northwest Flight 2501, bound from New York City to Milwaukee crashed into the waters of Lake Michigan, and has never been located since, despite major recovery efforts. The flight, a Douglas DC-4, simply disappeared, thought it was under the positive control of the Air Route Traffic Control (ARTC) system of radar. Buffeted by a storm, and perhaps broken up by a mid-air explosion, Flight 2501 repeatedly called for lower altitudes, but was not permitted to move there. This is the story of Flight 2501’s last mission.
Short Story; Historical
Tell Them I’m Eccentric
Kindle: 1.99
This is a story of yours truly sprung upon the air routes on the sky. It documents a trip as far as Kansas City on what was intended to be a round trip from New Hampshire to Nebraska and Kansas, on to Louisiana, and back. We did make it back, but the first half of the trip—the one documented in this book—was hair-raising and full of white-knuckled maneuvers, while wearing a bright orange sweater at altitudes where the Beech Musketeer’s heater wouldn’t work.
Short Story; Historical
The $100,000 Prize
Kindle: $2.99
It’s amazing what an incentive a hundred thousand dollars is. For Jesse Unruh, it would be the reward for lessons well learned. The problem is that his motivations just might not have been the best. However, there is yet one lesson to be learned, and he learns it in the richest subdivision of Tucson, Arizona.
Short Story; Mystery
The Hanging Court
Kindle: $2.99
Doris Odland is an “odd duck.” When this elderly woman holds up traffic by riding a donkey down Main Street, Chief Quentin Price sends her home—first offense. Then she rides an elder’s tricycle along the same route, claiming, as she had during her first escapade, responsibility for six murders.
Short Story; Mystery
Murder of the McCarthy Madam
Kindle: $1.99
The full story of McCarthy Rose is contained in the novel “The Broken Rose,” also on Kindle. This shorter version is a news item I wrote for an Alaskan newspaper. Rose Silber—a former New York socialite—has become the madam of the little town of McCarthy, Alaska. She has been killed by one of her patrons, Gus. It may have been a robbery—except both money and jewels were left. It may have been jealousy, but few could understand that, because she was well liked, even by her competition. This is a nonfiction retelling of a murder done in the wide-open town adjacent to the Kennicott Copper Mine in Alaska, nearly a hundred years ago.
