Easter Water

By Sara Lee Burke

Girls born first are unlucky. If they are born into poverty and addiction, they are unluckier still.

Easter Water is the story of a firstborn girl, forced to grow up too soon and sacrifice too much.

Hilma spends her days in a logging camp kitchen taking care of her younger siblings. Her parents, exhausted by long days filled with hard work and consumed by their own problems, have little left for their children. But there are angels among us, and Hilma finds them.

Henri and Helen provide a refuge, until jealousy and anger put an end to it. Clairvoyant Sister Nicole allows Hilma to claim as her own, some surprisingly prophetic visions. And Cook is her champion, insisting she get the only thing she has ever dared to want.

The devastation of the Great Depression and fear of impending war compound the family’s struggles, as they try to survive in the lumber camps of Quebec and small town Northern Ontario.

Torn between protecting those she loves and saving herself, Hilma makes a heartbreaking decision, and comes to understand we make our own luck.

Easter Water is rich in the history of the period and the nostalgia of life far removed from the way we live today. It is a funny and touching look back, with lessons about courage and faith to guide our looking forward.

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Pioneers on the Ottertail

By Rob Felder

Based on the true story of an immigrant Pioneer family's journey from their home country of Germany in the 1880's. They settled on the new frontier of Minnesota at a place called Otter Falls, at the edge of the vast White Pine Forest, on the banks of the Ottertail River. Here, they established their farm at the edge of the prairie.

When August Pfieffer arrived in 1885, the Ottertail River was a river of logs flowing to the saw mills all along the Ottertail. Here at Otter Falls, was the brewery where August became the Brew Master.

This pioneer family braved all the elements of the raw wilderness, the bitter cold and snows of the winters and the threat of the unsettled Indian population. They struggled with the hardships of pioneers living in this remote frontier, and the total absence of any of the conveniences of city life.

The story takes this pioneer family through the first half of the 20th century. The family grows, and a new generation is born, as they now struggle with a new world of inventions and technologies, and wars.

While August ran the brewery, his eldest son Joe, began building a large and successful farm on the prairie. When prohibition closed the brewery, Joe and his father held into the dream of re-opening the brewery. When prohibition ended, Joe and his brothers began rebuilding the brewery. Would they complete the task of reopening the brewery before time ran out for Joe and his brothers?

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Belerion Odyssey

By William H. Russeth

It was just a bit of gold and a map etched on an ancient medallion, gifts from Poseidon, found on the ocean floor, neither enough proof to convince anyone to search for treasure. That is—unless you are a runaway Helot slave with nowhere to run, or a pirate with no place to hide. Then the promise of finding Jason’s fabled treasure with the woman of your dreams could only be good fortune beyond your wildest dreams. That is—until you realize your closest shipmate is the Spartan who is hunting you, and the love of your life may be an incarnate of Medea, the monstrous witch....

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Totem Lost

By James Hadman

While Copper Spirit copes with the death of her beloved father, his spirits appear to her. They tell her that to save her people she must become a shaman. These apparitions set her on a perilous path that unfolds in the wilds of Southeast Alaska and highlights the native Tlingit and Haida cultures and beliefs. Copper Spirit’s struggle to protect her people and their lands from the fateful arrival of the whitefaces drives her to ful fill her destiny....

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Return To High Grade

By D. Lincoln Jones

The year is 1872 and there’s talk of building a railroad across the mountains of Colorado.

Could the appearance of two strangers in the frontier town of High Grade be a coincidence? One is well dressed and a smooth talker; the other a hardened criminal. These men arrive on the same day.

Life has settled into a pleasant routine for Sheriff Ben Jones. Recovered from his battles in the Civil War and finally at peace with his partial amnesia, Ben and his new wife Molly have led a nearly idyllic existence.

Crime, terror, and political ambitions disrupt the sleepy town of High Grade. Friendships and loyalties are tested as the sheriff seeks help from the community. The deputy chosen for the sheriff is a former Confederate officer. How will Ben and Molly endure their life’s many new challenges?

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The Baljuna Covenant

By Tim Pelkey

James Andrews finally appears to be catching a break. After years of searching for Genghis Khan’s tomb, he unearths a bone during a dig on Burkhan Khaldun, Mongolia’s holy mountain. After tests suggest the bone belongs to Genghis Khan, Andrews and his colleague Abbey Conrad follow the strands of the bone’s DNA back through time and begin to unlock the secrets of thirteenth century Eurasia.

Mongolia is in the midst of turmoil. As the world’s superpowers vie for control of its vast resources and open lands, Andrews’s quest takes center stage. Past and present collide, revealing ancient truths along with a web of deception that tears Andrews’s life apart and pushes the world to the brink of war.

Part historic fiction, part archaeological mystery, and part political thriller, The Baljuna Covenant tells stories of a poor boy’s rise to the heights of world power, of two friends and unimagined betrayal, and of a secret kept for over half a millennia. Most of all it tells the story of a promise between Genghis Khan and his people, a promise kept until this day....

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The Mind of an American Revolutionary

By Jon Foyt

Why would an immigrant lad from off the docks of Liverpool, one Robert Morris, pay for critical portions of the American Revolution out of his own pocket, while helping found the first ever bank in the Colonies, and then end up in debtor’s prison? Just ask his Bavarian talk therapist, a surgeon in the Hessian Mercenary Army who gets into Morris’ complex mind.

Jon Foyt’s 12th novel—heavily researched—uncovers the inner motivations of this illegitimate and uneducated immigrant boy who became one of our most unusual Founding Fathers. Relive his affairs, his marriage, and his fortitude, he being only one of three men to sign all vital Revolutionary documents: the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

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The Ramadi Affair

By Barry Shaller

Connecticut judge David Lawson is a decorated veteran of Iraq, now thrust onto the national stage when the press learns he’s up for an unexpected vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite his successful career and his loyal political team of friends who understand Supreme Court politics, David is haunted by tragedies—from his early life and in combat. Secrets threaten his nomination and call into question his moral judgment—dark secrets pushed to the outer reaches of his mind, two decades after he fought in Ramadi.

Now his rampaging platoon sergeant faces trial for murder, threatening to unearth the past. Cornered, David is forced to relive his most painful nightmares and examine his integrity and relationships. But while war is the severest test of moral strength, secrets can erode the hardiest of souls.

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The Archimedes Device

By C. M. Hanna and Michael C. Perkins

Throughout history, the protectors of its secrets have sacrificed their fortunes, their happiness, and even their lives. And when the device comes unexpectedly into the life of Rebecca Sanders, its effect is no less profound.

Rebecca’s journey begins with the unsettling disappearance of her mother, a respected Princeton professor. The only hints to her whereabouts are a series of clues left by an unknown scribe more than 500 years ago.

To track down her mother, Rebecca has no choice but to rely on the help of Mark Whitmore, a professional treasure hunter with obscure motives. Joined by her mother’s quirky assistant, they soon discover why Rebecca’s mother has disappeared: she’s searching for an ancient document penned by Archimedes himself, a blueprint for a mysterious device that could rewrite history.

The search for Archimedes’ blueprint soon takes a dangerous turn. As Rebecca and her unlikely partners work to decipher the ancient clues, they must stay one step ahead of a ruthless antiquities dealer who’ll stop at nothing to acquire the priceless document, and elude a secret society that has spent two thousand years hiding the truth of the Archimedes device.

From ancient Alexandria to medieval Constantinople to the streets of modern-day Manhattan, The Archimedes Device is an epic journey of adventure, intrigue, and discovery.

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Rhuna: The Star Child

By Barbara Underwood

Set in mystical Ancient Egypt, Rhuna faces new challenges as the Dark Master's followers develop Dark Magic, and her own daughter falls in love with their leader. Rhuna's exceptional powers, enhanced by the power of the Great Pyramid, has so far protected the Atlan people from the influence of the Dark Master, but has she now been compromised?

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The Trinity Crown

By Hilary Rhodes

From the author of The Lion and the Rose and The Aetheling's Bride series comes The Trinity Crown, leading us into the world of one of the most famous -- and controversial -- kings in English history: Richard the Lionheart. It continues the story of William the Conqueror's legacy and his descendants, the dynamic, talented, and fatally flawed Plantagenets....

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China Jewel

By Thomas Hollyday

Media around the world cover an inspiring and beautiful ocean race as international tall ships once again sail the ancient tea route to China. Yet, beneath the bright sails hide evil and treachery as the competitors sabotage and even murder... each other to win the billion dollar prize.

The American entry is the Peregrine - a replica of a famous Nineteenth Century clipper with a mysterious past. Tough former soldier Jim Cutter is the ship's race director. It's his responsibility to ensure the ship makes it to its destination in one piece.

Then far at sea, the Peregrine disappears. Against impossible odds, Cutter must track down the ship and rescue its crew. Most importantly, he must still conquer his recurring personal demon. His only son is aboard. Cutter failed him once before - and he will go through Hell and High Water to bring him safely home again.......

Thomas Hollyday was born in Easton, Maryland. His father was an acclaimed photographer and his mother a brilliant teacher. His father's family were active in the history of Maryland since its settlement while his mother's family were prominent in Democratic Party politics. His grandmother's family descended from a well known German industrial family of Baltimore. He grew up in the southern atmosphere of the Eastern Shore with its maritime and military heritage. He studied writing with Elliott Coleman at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and with C.Michael Curtis of the Atlantic Monthly. He served with distinction in Vietnam and became a successful international businessman.He also drew illustrations for national magazines and published maritime and Civil War history. He currently edits popular video blogs on you tube for animal water rights and for book reviews. He draws the popular humorous Animal Viewpoint Cartoons for newspapers. He continues to please his fans with new novels in his River Sunday Romance Mysteries collection. In his fiction he describes his recurring theme that human settlers since prehistoric times in the Chesapeake region have left a mist of legend and history that permeates its modern stories with a certain compelling truth. At the same time he incorporates the stories of machines with those of their human owners. Each novel, located in the small town of River Sunday, Maryland, also records the continuing beautiful nature of the area. His writing portrays today's problems, conflicts, and memorable local characters with their loves and their combat with evil.

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Acaju

By Douglas Beye Lorie

Brazil. For Europeans in the 1700s, a frontier in which all dreams could come true. The dream of saving souls. The dream of scientific discoveries. The dream of wealth. Wealth from the sugar fields, only attainable with the enslavement of both African and native peoples. Wealth that can be created only from human misery.

Acaju begins with a baby left at the gates of a Catholic mission. The baby, named Jasy, is dark skinned but with blue, European eyes. Who was his mother? Who was his father? The child is raised in part by a priest who educates him and in part by a Tupi foster mother who shows him the ways of the forest.

Douglas Beye Lorie’s Brazil in Acaju is sometimes mystic, sometimes all too real. His characters—the priest, the healer, the botanist, the orphan, the slaver, the sugar baron, the mysterious woman who appears when her people need her and disappears into the forest again—carry this complex and satisfying story that will remind readers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in its scope and beauty.

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A Thousand Faces

By Kristina Fahl

It’s November 1918. Eastern Europe. Germany has surrendered and the Great War has just come to an end, but the journey of Private Dietrich Groening is just beginning. Headed West, Dietrich enters a village to stock up on much needed supplies, but what Dietrich encounters there is so surreal and chilling, it gets under his skin—literally. Dietrich finds himself hijacked by the Guardian, the village’s thousand-year-old protector.

He’s gone by many names, and hidden behind a myriad of faces, collecting countless memories from the people he’s inhabited for almost a millennium. Yet he knows nothing about himself.

Longing to find answers, the Guardian leaves the village on a journey to make sense of the first and one elusive memory he can say is his: a tiny pinecone, completely devoid of seeds—taking Dietrich along for the ride, whether he wants to or not.

A Thousand Faces is a tale of friendship and discovery, that will transport you from the sweeping marshes of Belarus, through the cobblestone streets of post-World War I Germany, to the misty Redwood forests along the Pacific Coast. Feel the wonder and awe as the Guardian takes you into his world, through the corridors of time and memory......

Kristina Fahl was born and raised in Sacramento, California. She has a fascination with languages and the worlds she discovers when she learns to speak them. Some of her favorite comfort foods include a steaming hot bowl of chicken rice porridge, coconut ice cream, and potato lefse with meatballs and lingonberry sauce. Currently she lives and writes in Virginia, where she is working on her next novel.

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Where Wolves Dream

By Armand Nassery

In the mystical setting of the fictional town of Balluria, Iraq, Salam and his best friend Hamid spend their days together with their peers of young boys and girls listening to mesmerizing stories, legends and myths told by a childless and mysterious gypsy, Barrya. Acting as a surrogate mother for the local children, Barrya reveals the secrets of the mystic town. As young teenagers, Salam, Hamid and Hamid’s sister Amel form a special bond through poetry and love songs, but the relationship is not strong enough to keep Salam in Balluria. At the age of 17, he leaves for America to study medicine.

In America, Salam turns his back on his old life, family and history to start anew. Even as the Gulf War and the long years of the harsh embargo tear the lives of his family and friends apart, he ignores their letters. Salam marries and becomes a successful artist, acting as if his life in Balluria never happened, until the events of 9/11, the War on Terror and later the invasion of Iraq send his world spiraling downward. He opens the old letters and begins to relive the past.

Salam returns to Iraq after 2003, hoping to come to peace with his past and the family he left behind. He finds a mirage of Barrya, who attempts to heal him by revealing secrets hidden in the history of his homeland. The man who never felt quite a part of either country, or understood his existence as a citizen of two countries and two worlds, learns to be comfortable with himself while coming to terms with his past and starting to believe and see the hope in the future.

Nassery hopes that his novel reflects Iraq’s past and present realistically while providing readers with a glimpse of what life is like for immigrants in the United States. He depicts the struggle between desires to start a new life and the memories of a painful past and history of a country long held in the darkness of war and violence.......

Armand Nassery is an Iraqi-American author and independent filmmaker who was born in a remote rural area near the marshes of the province of Dhi-Qar. He is the middle child of eleven siblings. His father chose to live in the outskirts away from other people due to his extreme independent nature. Armand grew up in a setting that is close to many of his depictions in his novel. He recalls that period as, “… a detached parallel universe between realty and myth.”

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Sunset of the Iroquois

By Michael Winston

It is the summer of 1779 and the height of the American Revolution. The New York frontier from Albany to the Pennsylvania border is in bloody turmoil as raiding parties of Iroquois Indians from different tribes join with Tories to attack their neighbors who they call rebels and traitors against the Crown of England. Deep in the forest, lying at the bottom of the largest of the Finger Lakes, is a small tribe of Cayuga Iroquois Indians who wish only to live their lives in peace by remaining neutral in the white man's war. But what can a young brave do when he learns that the great General Washington has ordered a 5000-man army to invade his country and burn every town to the ground and kill or take hostage all his people and drive them from their land in revenge for these border raids? "Sunset of the Iroquois" is a gritty, character-driven, and historically accurate depiction of the Clinton-Sullivan campaign, the invasion of the Indian country and the largest military operation ever undertaken during the American Revolution. Rarely mentioned in the history books, this true story is told from both sides with famous figures and colorful personalities, with emphasis on young warrior and Iroquois way of life. Join with Yellow Bear as he follows his father, the war chief Too Tall Pine, along with Fishcarrier, Cornplanter, Red Jacket, and other Iroquois warriors as they take up the hatchet to protect their people from annihilation. Most of the General officers who participated in the campaign kept daily journals which provided an accurate framework for this exciting, action-packed adventure novel that also tells the story from the viewpoint of a platoon of Morgan's Rangers, an elite group of riflemen, including the famous Timothy Murphy and his group of sharpshooters, led by the bold but rash Lieutenant Thomas Boyd, who, along with 16 of his men met a tragic end while scouting for the army.

A graduate of Ithaca College, Michael Winston has served in the U.S. Navy and has worked for the Department of Defense. In addition to enjoying sailing he is also an artist.

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Flint Bluff

By James Duermeyer

Flint Bluff is an extraordinary saga following three generations in the lives of several families as they settle a frontier community along the Mississippi River in the upper Midwest.

In his second historical fiction novel, James Duermeyer, author of Heroes in Obscurity, Market Time Conspiracy, and The Bastard Trail, creates a colorful tapestry of the period of 1833 to 1900 in which the American frontier became a magnet, drawing individuals to the vast lands of the newly opened Louisiana Purchase. You will meet European immigrants, Native Americans, and African Americans as they all make their way in this new community. Based on historical events of the era, this richly detailed story follows key figures of two families as they grow and face tremendous challenges, including Indian attacks, outlaws, and the growing pains of the frontier town, participation in the siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War, as well as both love stories and strained family dynamics.

The author skillfully incorporates events of humor, character-building, pathos, love, war, crime, and spirituality in this exciting, entertaining, and informative read that you are sure to enjoy.

James Duermeyer began writing after retiring from a career in private industry and government service. In addition, James is a retired U.S. Navy Commander and served on active duty during the Vietnam War. He has won awards for two of his books, Flint Bluff, and The Bastard Trail.

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Great Timber Race

By Tim Champlin

  

The map of America is changing--no less so in the brawling Pacific Northwest, where powerful lumber barons pit their ambition against settlers who've staked their lives on land they've reclaimed from wilderness.

Now, to expand their empir...e even further, the timber kings have declared a schooner race to the finish over raw, turbulent ocean. The stakes are a dazzling cache of gold and currency. The interested parties include a gang of hell-burning cut-throats--and Matt Tierney, primed to meet a lusty challenge from the sea. And to even a deadly score on land.......

Novelist Tim Champlin was born in Fargo, North Dakota, only 80 miles from Jamestown, North Dakota where fellow western novelist Louis L'Amour was born 29 years earlier. Similarities in their histories don't end there. They both have French/Irish ancestry and the fathers of both writers were large-animal veterinarians--a fact that may explain their mutual love of horses, buffaloes and other wild and domestic critters. Drawing on his familiarity with the West,his knowledge of western fiction and his admiration for L'Amour, Champlin is currently writing Louis L'Amour's Wild West for Voyageur Press in Minnesota.

Champlin grew up along the fringes of the old frontier in Nebraska, Missouri and Arizona before moving to Tennessee. After earning a bachelor's degree in English from Middle Tennessee State College, he declined an offer to become a Border Patrol Agent with the U.S.Immigration Service in order to finish work on his Master of Arts degree in English at Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt University).

Living in the West fostered Champlin's lifelong interest in outdoor sports such as shooting, tennis, sailing and riding. It also gave him a love of the Old West that eventually led him to write historical fiction. After he spent ten years selling magazine articles and short stories, Ballantine Books published his first western novel, Summer of the Sioux, in 1981.

One of the most underappreciated historical novelists, Tim Champlin is a treasure waiting to be discovered. With more than 35 novels to his credit, he is highly regarded for his literary style and well-researched stories that touch on almost every aspect of frontier America, from outlaws and lawmen, the U.S. Cavalry, Indians, prospector, stagecoaches, railroads, steamboats, to the Pony Express and the Civil War. As one of his growing number of fans says, "Champlin is a superb storyteller with a masterful ability to seize his reader's total attention with a vivid narrative, memorable characters and unexpected plot twists."

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The Samurai Poet

By Travis Belrose

The year is 1615. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the greatest shogun in Japanese history, has just eliminated the last meaningful opposition in the land. Before he can celebrate his victory though, he must decide the fate of Ishikawa Jozan, a man once counted amongst his most loyal retainers but whose mistake in battle almost cost Ieyasu his life. Rather than invite Ishikawa to commit suicide, Ieyasu chooses a far more subtle and insidious punishment, challenging Ishikawa to re-examine the decisions that led to his nearly fatal mistake. Consequently, he must make his way alone in a new world order where constrictive social roles are rapidly being codified and the biggest obstacle a person can face is not belonging to a group.

The Samurai Poet will transport you to seventeenth century Japan and challenge preconceptions about what life was really like in the time of the samurai. Individuals and groups had more freedom than is generally believed, but the consequences of transgressing legal and social boundaries could still be lethal. Once you see Japan through the eyes of Ishikawa Jozan, you will never think about it the same way again......

Travis Belrose was inspired to write The Samurai Poet after repeated visits to Shisendo convinced him that there was far more to Ishikawa Jozan's life than tourist pamphlets and biographical sketches indicated. By using fictionalized biography to stretch the novel form, he has endeavoured to combine the best of history and fiction to tell Ishikawa's story. He currently resides in Canada where he is at work on his next novel.

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Falcon at the Court of Siam

By John Hoskin

Set toward the end of the seventeenth century, Falcon at the Court of Siam recounts the true story of Constantine Phaulkon, a Greek of low birth who spectacularly rose to fame, and infamy, as King Narai's favourite courtier - in effect, if ...not in name, First Minister of Siam. No other foreigner, before or since, has ever held such a position of power and influence in Siam.

Fleeing from his home on Cephalonia at the age of 11, the Greek became a seaman on English merchant ships for the next twenty years, and then enjoyed a meteoric rise to power in Siam - all the time walking a political tightrope between ill-fated wooing of English and then French allies, and his attempts to outwit dangerous enemies at the Siamese Court who were inflamed by jealously and anger at his arrogance and ambition.

Against a backdrop of pageantry and peril, Phauklon pursued a destiny of greatness that he believed was his. Was he a man who would become king? A loyal servant to King Narai? Or simply an arrogant, conniving foreigner bent on his own material gain?

Told in narrative and in a fictionalized journal, this historically accurate novel captures the remarkable character of Phauklon and the exceptional times in which he lived.....

John Hoskin is a professional writer who has been based in Bangkok for the past 35 years. After completing a BA degree in History and a Masters in Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, England, he began his career in London. Subsequently, he lived and worked in Sydney, Amsterdam and Hong Kong before moving to Bangkok in 1979. He is the author of more than 25 books on travel, art, culture and history in Thailand and Southeast Asia, including Ten Contemporary Thai Artists, The Mekong, Bangkok By Design, Cambodia – A Portrait, The Supernatural in Thai Life and This is Thailand, as well as the historical novel Falcon. He also regularly contributes feature articles to various regional and international publications.

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