Realities

Sara wants this baby more than she has ever wanted anything.

Sara has worked her entire life to overcome the name Barefield. To be a Barefield in the rural Appalachian county where she grew up means that you are the poorest of the poor, that you are shiftless and untrustworthy, lazy and stupid. Sara has succeeded in proving that she is none of those things. At the age of forty she has a nice apartment, a decent car, and a good job as a school secretary.

Tully Rutland, a Vietnam War veteran who is the father of her baby and the only man Sara has ever loved, dies before she tells him that she’s pregnant. The Rutlands have never approved of Sara. She feels that her only choice is to move away so she can make a new life for herself and her baby.

Sara has practically no savings and no one to support her. She knows she will have to go on welfare, but she escaped poverty once and believes she can do it again. But the poverty Sara plunges into after she gives birth is beyond anything she had expected. She never imagined she’d be facing eviction and the possibility of living on the street. Nearly overwhelmed by her situation, she must find a way out.

“First and foremost, get a box of tissues because you are going to cry and get angry and be dumbfounded all at the same time. When you are done you will want to tell everyone about this book! I highly recommend it.” Andrea L. Stoekel 

“Sara isn’t a quitter. She does what is necessary to survive, and the reader goes on this incredible journey with her, accompanying a decent, determined woman as she wends her way through the underside of American life, fighting to achieve her dreams. You’ll cheer her on as she tells you her compelling story.” The Midwest Book Review

Keywords: Women’s Contemporary fiction, poor and pregnant, hand to mouth, eviction, Appalachia, white trash, getting off welfare, welfare mother, single mother by choice, single mother stories, poverty, social class

The publishing world has secrets...

Secrets can't be kept forever.

The fictional Clymer Workshop is one of the oldest writers' conferences in the country. Aspiring writers who are accepted, like Laura Belmont, are dazzled by its reputation.

Laura's plan is to make a connection with one of the famous staff authors or a literary agent who will help her get a publishing contract. But after she arrives at the conference she realizes that other writers are attending for the same reason she is there.

The male writers on the staff are more interested in Laura’s body than in her manuscript. She goes to creative writing workshops unaware of the literary politics being played in the shadows by the famous authors teaching her—the favors made, the courtesies given, the grudges held. 

As the intensity at the conference builds, Laura receives an offer that comes with a price. It also comes with a veiled threat. 

Is there a price too high to pay for your dream?

“The twists of the plot are unexpected; there is so much information about the realities of the publishing world; and her characters' dark sides and hope breathe life into a well-constructed novel. A great read.” Lillian Bloom

“I enjoyed every minute that I spent reading this excellent novel, and I was pleased to read so many reviews from writers who confirm that the description of the conference is quite accurate.” A. Rees

 Keywords: literary fiction, Story about writers, creative writing workshops, getting a literary agent, writers’ conferences, novels about writers, literary success, writers at work, writers on writing, inside publishing, aspiring writers

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives.
 
For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently?
 
These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts.
 
Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother’s Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent.
 
All author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable organizations focusing on mental health issues.

— Washington Post, Best Memoirs of 2016

Avery wants to marry Ginger.

Ginger is happily married to Buddy.

Buddy and Ginger have been happily married for 27 years. Avery is divorced. When he meets Ginger, he believes he has found the perfect mate. Determined to marry her, he offers her a job at an inflated salary.

Buddy is suspicious. He thinks the job is too good to be true and makes Ginger feel as though she isn't worth the offer. She goes to work for Avery to prove Buddy wrong.

Ginger saves Avery a fortune in the first real estate deal she handles for his company. Flush with success, she believes the problems she and Buddy had are over. But everything changes when they have an unexpected guest from the past…

"I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to experience an emotional, heartfelt read."   Norm Hamilton, author

Keywords: Contemporary Women’s Divorce and adultery stories, women’s fiction marriage, midlife marriage, women’s fiction divorce, another man’s wife, betrayal in marriage, infidelity, The Story of a Marriage