Amazon
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Tell-Tale Publishing
ISBN-10: 161798082X
ISBN-13: 978-1617980824
“Here's your invitation to visit Civil War America, to go to the seat of war and the seat of domesticity as well, to know not only the fears of the soldier but the worries of the family he leaves behind. Once Candle in the Wind takes hold, you will not want to put it down. It's lively, evocative, and bursting with drama.”
-- William Martin, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Lincoln Letter
The year is 1863 and the Civil War – the “cruel war” as the poets and songwriters call it, is raging with a fury unimagined just two short years ago.
Back then, in April of 1861, when the ‘Fire-eaters” of South Carolina had fired upon the Federal flag in Charleston Harbor, the prediction on both sides of the Mason/Dixon line was unanimous that the forthcoming, “gentlemen’s disagreement”, would be over in three months. The boys would be home by Christmas; chests festooned with medals and noble brows crowned with laurel wreaths of glory.
But as said the poet Bobby Burns; “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.”
And so they have.
The “Gentlemen’s war” has evolved into a bloody slaughter with scarcely a town or home on both sides untouched by the tragic loss of the flower of its young men.
And as if to emphasize the seriousness of the struggle, President Abraham Lincoln has just announced the first order of “Draft” in the history of the American Republic. Because he knows that if the war is lost, the fledgling attempt at self-government will collapse into the dustbin of history.
It is against this background that two families come to realize just what the war means to them, their lives and their countries.
They are the Dawes: Jeptha, Fiona and their five year old daughter Bridget; A young family of farmer/fishermen living on a thin spit of sandy peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic from the rocky coast of Massachusetts.
And the Denby’s: The proud descendants of Southern planters turned lumber producers from the foothills of the Carolina’s.
Both families are heading for wrenching events that will propel them into the maelstrom of war and leave them all changed forever.
As the story opens a young wife and her daughter begin a desperate journey and race against time. Fiona Dawes has traveled from their seaside home in Massachusetts through New York, Gettysburg and south into the Confederate capital in Virginia and up to the Piedmont Mountains in search of her husband who was listed as missing presumed dead since the three day battle at Gettysburg. She does not believe it.
She is also being pursued by cutthroats in the pay of their arch Nemesis at home; the powerful Frost family - who own most of the town. For reasons Fiona does not understand they want the Dawes farm and a mysterious chest of old documents rumored to be hidden there. And they are ruthlessly prepared to get it by whatever means necessary. There is also an even more sinister collusion under the surface between the Frosts and a malevolent southern colonel that hints of war profiteering by smuggling southern cotton to northern mills.
This mystery deepens as Fiona finds sketchy accounts that her husband Jeptha, survived the hellish cauldron that was the Battle of Gettysburg and was taken as a prisoner to the infamous Confederate prison of Belle Isle in Richmond.
To make matters worse, the long arm of the Frosts and their minions dog Fiona and her daughter at every turn. They struggle desperately to stay ahead of Frost’s cutthroats who pursue them through the perils of New York during the infamous Draft Riots (made famous in “Gangs of New York), Richmond and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
It is in a backwoods tavern there that Fiona’s luck finally runs out and she runs afoul of the odious Confederate colonel, Vincent Bouchard, who in addition to being secret partners with the Frosts has developed a smoldering lust for Fiona that once refused leads him to threaten Fiona and her daughter with the most vile retribution possible.
Events then takes an unexpected turn and Fiona’s narrow escape throws her into the company of a man who offers her protection out of the most chivalrous of motives which Fiona gratefully accepts. But in doing so she has perhaps exposed herself to unexpected feelings of her own which may ultimately prove more devastating than the Frosts and the evil Bouchard combined.
The story races from there through a multilayered plot in which Fiona and her husband find themselves separated not only by distance and war but the temptations of other loves and perceived betrayals. And along the way our protagonists are not just immersed in love, danger and heart stopping action, but witness to and participating in history with some of the giants who helped to write it – such as Abraham Lincoln himself!
Fans of History, Mystery and Romance are certain to enjoy, “Candle in the Wind.”
Midnight BlueAmazon
Barnes & Noble
Wild Child Publishing
ISBN-10: 1936222116
ISBN-13: 978-1936222117
From the author that brought you Shadow of Innocence, Acid Test, and The Scrimshaw comes Midnight Blue. Michael, a young man known as "Blue Eyes," falls hopelessly in love with a girl with jet black hair, green eyes, pale skin, and blood red lips. But the girl is not the angel she appears. She is, in fact, a vampire. He swears he would give his life to be with her forever, but, apparently, he has never heard the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for." The beautiful vampire grants his request and sets him on a path that brings them head to head with an evil as old as the dawn of the civilized world. Together, they must battle this evil or be destroyed themselves. Who will win? A vampire tale like you've never read, Midnight Blue takes you on a rollercoaster ride full of thrills, laughs, heart ache, and triumph.
Amazon
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Wild Child Publishing
ASIN: B003VYBRVS
Is there ever a right and wrong where love is concerned? How about when love clashes with honor?
In England at the end of the 12th century, that question had only one answer: honor. Especially if you were a member of the new Norman nobility. But that is the question that a twenty-nine-year-old knight from Yorkshire must wrestle with when he finds himself being drawn into an inappropriate relationship with a girl not only young enough to be his daughter, but through laws and custom, almost like a sister to him!
Honor's duty calls him to King Richard's great Crusade, and he flees towards war and death to keep that honor intact. But when he returns home five years later, crippled and broken, he may have the rest of his life to wonder if he had made the wrong choice.
Barnes & Noble
Wild Child Publishing
How far would you go to prove your love? Would you be willing to give everything you have? What about if you were a new bride? And if your husband questioned your fidelity? And what if you were a...vampire?
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Wild Child Publishing
ASIN: B003VTZVKQ
What happens when a sweet, naïve college girl from a small town in Ohio decides that she wants to leave the predictable small town life and small town boyfriend behind and take a "walk on the wild side"?
And suppose that one night she meets the lead singer in a rock and roll band--a guy just as wild and wicked as she is sweet and innocent. And suppose the lure of something dangerous, unpredictable, and life changing tempts her to throw all of her small town, good girl morals out the window.
What would happen?
Read Ric Wasley's At My Window with a Broken Wing and find out if longing for love and excitement is worth the price you may have to pay.
