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the caretakers

For the few among many who have ventured this way and settled down—the Mojave Desert provides a unique and sometimes revealing perspective for their lives. Indeed for some, Route 66 itself becomes a directional beacon toward their place in our world. For a selected few of these selected few, it can also become a much-needed place of respite.

A sanctuary. A place where hitherto held perceptions are allowed to shift, sometimes even double-back on themselves. No longer needed “pasts” are blown away—riding in the rush of a dust-laden Mojave wind gust. Dispatched to who-knows-where.

What would grandpa say

A fifth-generation farm boy from Minnesota writes quirky stories about people and events from the Minnesota River Valley. The journey takes you through executions, mob lynchings, prohibitionists, gangsters, and the Ku Klux Klan—along with accounts of slavery and murder trials. The boy, his dad, and his grandfather tell tales, some laced with blarney, of their ancestors, relatives, and neighbors. Certain yarns will make you shake your head, some will leave you teary-eyed, and others will bring a chuckle; you might even laugh out loud. These are no-holds-barred cornball stories like none other and they’ll leave you longing for more, even if you’re not from Minnesota. This book has been certified 97% free of the politically correct virus. You betcha!

Branded a rogue cop by some and hailed as a hero by many, Jiggy Frisco takes us on a journey from the island of Manhattan to the Greek island of Chios; a trip that includes mass murder, carnage and no shortage of violence thanks to his client Miss Jadin VonTrech—rich, beautiful, bi-sexual, and certifiably insane. Jiggy’s best friends are hookers—his worst, a long list of lousy life choices—and a surprise. Who would imagine within this list of commiserations he could also find redemption....

Against a backdrop of 1960s and 70s Los Angeles, 19-year-old Kate Prescott finds her soul mate in art student Jack Morrison, a man who understands her yearning to do something important with her life. Where Kate’s ambitions are vague, Jack’s are razor-sharp: become a famous artist. They marry, and, as Jack Morrison’s wife, Kate falls under the spell of the art world and helps Jack realize his dream. However, social change is afoot in the business world where Kate earns a living, and as she progresses up the corporate ladder, her own ambitions crystallize: this is where she belongs. Inevitably, as Jack’s star rises, his priorities clash with Kate’s. The consequences force Kate to confront the possibility of a life where she’s no longer Jack Morrison’s wife, and to face the deeper challenge of who she might truly be.

Iris Apple is like most teens in the 1950s except for two things: She's the granddaughter of Boston's most notorious bookie and she suspects her father murdered her mother.

But how can she prove it? The cat and mouse game with her father began on her tenth birthday—the day her mother was gunned down—and tension reigns through her teen years. They live in her family’s Kenmore Square rooming house, a haven for Boston’s down and outs and where her motherless drama plays out.

When Iris turns eighteen, she defies her father and sets out to discover the truth about her mother’s demise. Teaming up with Madame Charlemagne, a has-been cabaret singer who lives at the rooming house, Iris learns that a nearby innkeeper holds keys to the puzzle. Instead, she discovers a web of secrets and transgressions that are entangled with hers. Mustering all the courage she has, Iris must unravel the dark webs to bring truth and love into her life.

The Red Rock Inn & Café, Red Rock City itself, and the inhabitants, visitors, and locations therein, exist only in author’s imagination. But Red Rock Canyon State Park and the surrounding Mojave Desert terrain are magnificently real. There is a particularly magical spot on California Interstate 14 south of Inyokern, where if you stop and take in the sunset over the Sierra Nevada Range—fanciful tales of love, revenge, and murder come to life.

Luska, the orphaned girl introduced in A Petal in the Wind, begins a new life in Bohemia as Lala Hafstein, adopted daughter of Jakob and Sarah. It’s 1914; Lala is now a young woman with one desire—to study art—but her parents won’t let her reside alone in Prague. She contrives a marriage to her childhood friend and art student Armin, her father’s wealthy employer’s son; she would be free to join him, and he could silence gossip about his disinterest in women. Armin agrees, but Lala’s heart is troubled. Both families are thrilled about the engagement, and now Armin is too—believing they can make the marriage “real.” Lala is shocked when she uncovers proof Armin and his male classmate are more than just good friends. But with both families intent on the marriage, and Lala wearing the heirloom family engagement ring—how can she renege? She’s haunted by a recurring vision—at her easel wearing her ring, and feeling the warm embrace of her true beloved, unseen behind her. How could this splendid dream ever come true? As both families travel to Berlin for Armin’s art show on August first, a desperate Lala devises a way to change her destiny—but no one is prepared for the horror that begins that momentous night. As the world around her plunges into war and fate drops a surprising hint about her repeating dream, Lala finds she must battle the nightmares of the past, or risk being set adrift again—like a petal in the wind.

The Lock of Indian Springs grabs us with an unforgettable narrative voice that draws us into a young boy’s life—and leaves us longing for more. It’s 1960, school is out for the summer, and rural Mississippi yields plenty of excitement for a boy and his friends—play, life’s adventures, dangers, and dilemmas—all experienced and told from the charming point-of-view of eleven-year-old Vern. Indeed, Vern takes chances, wrestles with outcomes, and asks himself the bigger questions—like how to go somewhere without his little sister, and whether he might go to hell for losing his daddy’s wrench. Then life takes on scary new dimensions--from fires to near-drownings and the death of a beloved neighbor. Vern must suddenly bargain with life in deeper ways. But he is helped by his daddy showing him what it means to “do what’s right,” no matter what, and that of course, you can always just go fishin’.

There are many events and stories hidden underneath shifting desert sands, and quite possibly many of these tales are doomed to ride ad infinitum on relentless desert winds—ghosts trapped on a plane-of-existence they can never escape. The town of Shiné (Shy-knee) is a fictional concatenation of several of these magical places, fanciful thoughts, and hidden dramas. A place where provocative and unanswered questions actually escape the entrapment of Mojave winds and take center stage.