THE LAST PROFESSIONAL
By Ed Davis
This is a story of America! Lynden Hoover, a young man on the brink of a new beginning, cannot embrace it without confronting the traumas of his past. Help comes from The Duke, an old loner who calls America’s landscape his home. He clings to an honor code, but in fleeing from Short Arm, his merciless enemy, his code is being tested.
At the end of the 20th century, few Knights of the Road still cling to their vanishing lifestyle. The Duke mentors Lynden, enlisting old traveling friends to keep himself and his apprentice just ahead of Short Arm’s relentless pursuit. When two of those friends are murdered, the stakes become life or death. Bonds are formed, secrets exposed, sacrifices made, trusts betrayed; all against a breathtaking American landscape of promise and peril. Here are three unforgettable characters hurtling toward a spellbinding climax where pasts and futures collide and lives hang in the balance.
THE AUTHOR
Ed Davis began his writing career over 40 years ago, pausing in boxcars, under street lamps, and in hobo jungles to capture the beats and rhythms of the road as he caught freight trains and vagabonded around the Pacific Northwest and Canada. The Last Professional began in a boxcar. His short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals. His novella, In All Things, and his collection of travel pieces, Road Stories, have both been Amazon Top Ten bestsellers.
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FAULTS
By Orion Gregory
Beware of those close to you …
As a struggling twenty-four-year-old tennis professional, Sydney Livingstone has never had a game to die for. But all that is set to change during a tournament that serves as a precursor for the prestigious US Open. Someone from her past with a secret vendetta is trying to kill her before she can make a name for herself in the world of tennis. A bold threat scrawled on her car, followed by a mysterious delivery from a stranger, sets the stage for a wild ride of revenge and murder that will leave you wondering if you can truly trust those around you.
THE AUTHOR
Greg Milano writes under the pen name of Orion Gregory. He is an award-winning writer in the newspaper and advertising industries and is a nationally published magazine contributor. He is a graduate of Wright State University with a degree in Communication Arts and resides in Southwest Ohio.
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SURVIVING CHAOS
By Harold Phifer
For more than fifty years, Harold Phifer’s childhood living conditions remained a secret, even from those who thought they knew him best. No one knew about his past growing up with a mother who suffered from mental illness, a greedy aunt, a mindless and spoiled older brother and an absent father.
It wasn’t until an explosion in Afghanistan that his memory was blasted back into focus. This book is the result of a long, cathartic chat with a stranger at a beach bar, where Harold finally found some peace.
THE AUTHOR
Harold Phifer was born and raised in Columbus, Mississippi. His first 25 years were spent entirely in his home state. After graduating from Mississippi State and Jackson State Universities, he became a highly specialized air traffic controller, living and working as an international contractor, serving numerous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is his second book.
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THE POISON FACTORY
By Lucy Kirk
Decktora Raines (Decky) is on leave from the CIA, doing her best to dodge heartbreaking and traumatizing memories. A surprise contact from a Russian defector she once handled urges her to come to London immediately to solve the recent murder of another Russian defector. The only clues: claw marks and an unidentified white powder. Once she’s in London, the bodies start to pile up. The local Metropolitan Police and the public think a serial killer is on the loose. The claw murders now include individuals Decky has contacted in London. Why and who?
She and a British colleague soon come to believe the defector assassinations are part of a Russian intelligence operation. In fact, a senior Russian diplomat assigned to London is indeed out for revenge against these particular defectors, with the assistance of his protege and aide, Olga, a ruthless, damaged woman, who carries out the murders. Will Decky and her colleagues survive and will they catch the Russians?
THE AUTHORS
Lucy Kirk is a retired CIA operations officer and former Chief of Station. She spent over three decades working in the Central Intelligence Agency on assignments both in the U.S. and abroad. She focused on the USSR and post-Soviet Russia. She currently teaches courses on world events, espionage and the Cold War in New York City.
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HELEN IN TROUBLE
By Wendy Sibbison
Helen is sixteen and pregnant. It is 1963. Abortion is a crime. What can she do? What should she do? Author Wendy Sibbison offers an insightful, thought-provoking perspective in this coming-of-age novel; a poignant exploration of burgeoning womanhood, mother-daughter relations, family dynamics and sexual awakenings rooted in the mores of an era that offers lessons for the present.
The novel is beautifully written, a meaningful read for mature readers of all ages and for book groups interested in the debates about Roe v. Wade.
THE AUTHOR
Wendy Sibbison was born in Ohio, grew up in Northern VA, and had a lot of higher education in various places. She lives in Western MA, where she practiced law for 35 years. Now she’s written this novel, loosely based on her own high-school experiences.
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MY STORIES HAVE NO ENDINGS
By Gayle Gonsalves
Kai is a spiritual child who dips her ears into the wind where she hears the voices that tell stories from the forgotten past. Though she grows up in poverty in the Caribbean, her quick mind wins her a scholarship to the island’s most prestigious all-girls school where she’s catapulted into a very different world. Her newfound friendships lead her to the joy of an unlikely love with Hayden, the handsome green-eyed son of one of the richest families on the island.
The taboo surrounding their love forces her to confront the conflicts seeking to tear her from Hayden. Through heartache and upheaval, Kai claims her storytelling voice, using the folklore of the Ancestors that is whispered in the wind to make the lost stories from the past come to life.
THE AUTHOR
Gayle Gonsalves is an established storyteller. Her first novel, My Stories Have No Endings, received 3 Indie awards. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. Her first book, Painting Pictures and Other Stories, is a collection of lyrical stories of love and betrayal, reflection and reconciliation in Canada and Antigua. Gonsalves enriches her narrative by evoking colours, textures and shapes with words. She’s lived in Antigua and Canada. Gayle is a graduate of York University in Toronto, the city where she currently lives and writes.
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THE CONFESSIONAL
By Claudia Ermey
Mirta DeSalvo and her husband, Alberto, refugees of the Dirty War of Argentina, owe their lives to a wealthy American, Julia Parks, who rescued them from the horrors of the junta and offered a new life in Two Rock, CA. Julia, confronted with a late-in-life pregnancy, asks the DeSalvos to adopt the baby with the added condition that they not return to Argentina until baby Francesca is grown. Though aware of the extraordinary sacrifice the promise will require, the DeSalvos have no honorable choice but to accept. The search for their own granddaughter will have to wait, as will Mirta’s burning desire to bring to justice the military officer who destroyed her family.
A generational story that skillfully illuminates the resilient lives of characters touched by loss and betrayal, loved ones stolen in the night, and the search for a birth mother hiding in plain sight, The Confessional is a compelling rendering of how war and love thousand of miles apart create trauma that ripples through two generations and emerges as love, understanding and forgiveness.
THE AUTHOR
Claudia Ermey’s writing career started as a way to cope with tremendous emotional trauma and heartbreak. Writing became a habit. This book was inspired by a trip to Croatia marveling at the old confession booths; her imagination went wild. The story didn’t fully come together, however, until a few years later when she stood in the Plaza de Mayo of Buenos Aires and watched kerchiefed women march in an attempt to be reunited with their children stolen from them during the Dirty War of Argentina (1976-83). She’s now working on something a little bit lighter!
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