On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., America's quintessential civil-rights leader, was assassinated. Two controversial questions remain unanswered even today-who assassinated him and why? While honeymooning with his beautiful wife Joy, Rick Champion, a successful African-American entrepreneur, becomes enraged when he learns of Dr. King s murder and vows to identify and destroy the perpetrators. His quest turns treacherous and deadly. A clandestine power elite bent on world domination decimates the highly successful software company he established with his two best friends to finance his strategy. Mounting a counterattack, he becomes proficient in astrology and uses it to penetrate the cabal, devise an ingenious plan known only by him, and establish a secret organization of prominent, highly accomplished African American men to implement the plan. However, his happy marriage to Joy, the love of his life, is threatened when she discovers his involvement with the diabolical power elite. With Rick s marriage on the rocks and the sudden, unexpected betrayal of his secret organization by one its embittered members, the story rockets to an unexpected finale that changes the world s political, social, and economic landscape forever.
Set in a small town in the early 1900's, Heads Deacon Tails Devil is the story of Robert Grant, an elementary school teacher and long-standing deacon and spirit-stirring soloist at Nazarene Baptist Church, who shows his best side to his adoring, unsuspecting public, but is the devil incarnate at home. Rachel Grant, who, as a young woman, married Robert against her mother's advice and was sorry for it from her wedding night on, tries her best to shield herself and her five children from Robert's devil side. But, Rachel's strong and wise mother, Mom Maggie, has to step in. With her prophetic gifts, cunning and mother-wit, Mom Maggie fights Robert every step of the way and tries to give her daughter and grandchildren a happy, normal life. As he becomes increasingly frustrated with his ability to control his family and his life, Robert's devil side grows stronger, and Rachel and the children suffer horribly because of it. Blaming Rachel, the children and Mom Maggie for anything he doesn't like about his life, Robert turns to other women to ease his mental and physical needs. As Robert tries to destroy one life in hopes that another will satisfy him, Mom Maggie and Rachel plan to show Robert that the devil is a liar.
Although the story is set initially in a world that is familiar to the fantasy genre with the elements of Celtic mythology and Arthurian legends, it thoughtfully lays down a vast universe that encompasses Heaven and Earth for the first installment and its sequels, and brings forth a massive, multi-ethnic cast which includes many endearing characters who carry rich cultural backgrounds that will generate strong echoes from readers of different ages and ethnicity. The story perhaps is the first to depict the convergence of the western and eastern civilizations in a fantasy setting in the dimensions of culture, philosophy, mythology and theology. The story is deeply provocative in politics and humanity through the shadows of factual events in human history; nonetheless, it is a good read with complex plot lines, suspenseful outcomes, well-developed characters with diverse backgrounds and epic events with cinematic visualization.
As dramatic as it is compelling, Joseph N. Crew explores the intricacies of human behavior in Abraham’s Burden with a brilliant cadence. Crew examines with unique insight the role our past endlessly plays in the formation of our present day prejudices. Newly elected congresswoman Helen Sparks and her lover go missing, and the authorities believe Charlie Abraham, a Native American on the wrong side of Helen’s political agenda, is involved. While the media zeros in on Charlie, the real killer’s half brother plants evidence to ensure Charlie will be charged with the crime. As an ethnically divided jury struggles with their deliberations, the body of a headless woman is discovered in the nearby woods. The public is convinced it is their popular congresswoman. The brothers know the truth, but familial ties break and a strange justice is served, and redemption becomes possible for the wronged.
Saffron Dreams is a tale of love, tragedy, and redemption from the award-winning author of Beyond the Cayenne Wall...
You don't know you're a misfit until you are marked as an outcast.
From the darkest hour of American history emerges a mesmerizing tale of tender love, a life interrupted, and faith recovered. Arissa Illahi, a Muslim artist and writer, discovers in a single moment that no matter how carefully you map your life, it is life itself that chooses your destiny. After her husband's death in the collapse of the World Trade Center, the discovery of his manuscript marks Arissa's reconnection to life. Her unborn son and the unfinished novel fuse in her mind into one life-defining project that becomes, at once, the struggle for her emotional survival and the redemption of her race. Saffron Dreams is a novel about our ever evolving identities and the events and places that shape them. It reminds us that in the midst of tragedy, our dreams can become a lasting legacy.
Torn between two worlds, Dina Youngblood must make a choice.if it doesn't kill her first. Cheha Youngblood disappeared without a trace from the Bitterroot Confederacy three months ago, and her older daughter, Dina, is determined to find out why. What do the clues in her mother's journal mean? Who is the giant-winged creature that so terrified her mother, a Native Christian convert? Could any of the tales that are as old as the Indian nations and told in the blackness of deep nights in the South Florida Everglades be true? And why are owls beginning to perch outside of Dina's home? Then handsome Marty Osceola, the son of the most powerful witch on the Florida East Coast and the boy Dina had a crush on in grade school, arrives back in town.. A unique coming-of-age novel about the stunning consequences of choices presented from a Native viewpoint.
Will Duane had it all. Head of Numenon, the vast, multi-national corporation he founded, Will was the richest man on the planet and made more money with every breath. Still in his prime at sixty-three, he had the looks, the women, and the wherewithal to be completely on top of the world.
He surrounded himself with the best of the best, from the people in his company, to his fifteen thousand square foot home overlooking the San Francisco Bay, to the gourmet chef who prepared every exquisite morsel that went into his mouth.
But a force he could not identify pursued Will Duane. A dark and destructive power lurked just beyond his awareness, ready to overpower him whenever he was weak. The stalker.
Driven by his need to win back the love of a mysterious woman, Will takes his top executives to The Meeting, a week-long spiritual retreat in the New Mexico desert.
The Second Life is set in the 1990s San Francisco Bay Area. It has two parallel story lines; the Armenian Genocide committed by Ottoman Turks in 1915, and Nina’s divorce. Both stories contain intense pain from the past and Nina’s ability to forgive or move on. Nina takes both journeys simultaneously.
Will she ever experience full forgiveness of her husband and reconciliation with her nation’s past? Find out how destiny gives her a second chance in The Second Life.
The Reckoning, by Tanya Parker Mills, tells the story of a journey home gone terribly wrong, but even when all the light has gone, forgiveness and redemption can heal the past and show a way to the future. Through gritty, gut wrenching prose Mills?s heroic and courageous storytelling exposes the horrors of dictatorship and the mindless cruelty that flows from political repression. It also sends a message of hope, inspiration, and faith in the human heart. Mills?s The Reckoning masterfully weaves the real horrors of Saddam Hussein?s Iraq with the rich threads of a compelling fictional narrative as raw and real as anything taken from today?s political headlines. Told with tenacious honesty and unflinching realism, in a style sure to disturb and entertain, The Reckoning shows how we can transcend the past, no matter how painful or murky it may have been, and that the future is out there, full and bright, if we are willing to embrace it.
Samuel Dover is distressed at becoming separated from his wife of twenty-seven years, but he’s determined to follow a dream. He plans to sail around the world and purchases an antique sailing ketch that appears to come directly from the past. Sam restores the vessel to its original condition allots her the name Dark Trader. Sam isn’t deterred when he learns the ship has had a dark and troubled history—the boat abandoned and the crew disappeared on two occasions. He hires Mike, a former bar bouncer, as his mate and they set sail from Annapolis, Maryland, for Marquesas, following the course of the original Dark Trader.
Upon landing in Nuka Hiva, the Land of Men, Captain Sam and Mike discover a land of the past; they’re in the 1800s where mysticism and warriors rule. Sam falls in love with the native Kaitu, who has haunted his dreams from his first moments on the schooner. He will do anything to be with her. As Sam and Kaitu try to change their destinies, fate intervenes. Meanwhile, Mike realizes his happiness lies in the past. He must decide if he can leave the present to reclaim his true love.
When Lucy’s Reyna spies on her mother, following her into the woods and witnessing a voodoo ritual, she feels a personal calling and knows that it is her way out of slavery. Reyna, a tall, skinny eight-year-old slave girl living on the Riverview Plantation in 1840’s Georgia, is thrown into a tumultuous journey that will forge her desires and her destiny. Realizing her mother’s secret and witnessing the price she pays does not break Reyna’s resolve. Separated from her mother, Reyna faces the world on her own, never forgetting that her mama said, ”Chile, you be a queen.“
On this sweeping journey the reader is reminded of the brutality, cruelty and dehumanization slavery represented. Reyna is first placed in Master Goodman’s household until tragedy strikes, and she is sold to a new master in New Orleans. There her stark beauty invites unwanted attention, and she soon finds herself a student of Marie Laveau, acclaimed voodoo high priestess. No longer able to conceal her own powers, Lucy’s Reyna lets them get the better of her, and soon she must leave.
The Gold Rush is in full swing when Reyna arrives in San Francisco. Calling herself Reyna Royale, she works tirelessly to gain the freedom of her own people and begins to build her empire. In time, her accomplishments take form, and the true nature of those people who she has surrounded herself with comes to light bringing this amazing story to a surprising end and leaving the reader wanting more.
"Jim Duggins masterfully pens a spell-binding epic story of a young slave girl who faces daunting life obstacles to become a courageous Underground Railroad worker, San Francisco madam, and successful business woman. Duggins takes historical events and uses them as a backdrop upon which he weaves the characters and their own stories of struggle to gain freedom and wealth. Suspenseful and blushingly erotic at times, this novel keeps the reader entranced." -- Holly Cronk
Adventures of the Homeless is a lively, fictional story that describes the struggles of a Jewish man who sets out to liberate his friends and himself from poverty, and to overcome his mental illness. Amid these undertakings, he is confronted with violence, discrimination, and problems associated with drug and alcohol abuse.
This romantic rouse crosses the Pond from Ireland to America. It's 1985. Rich American Businessman Bradford Thompson is at Dublin's Trinity College to interpret the message of The Book of Kells. When he collides with Mary Grace Clooney, she turnes his world upside down and inside out. A twist of fate? Perhaps. Bradford, enraptured with the young girls's Irish seductiveness, needs to bring Mary Grace to America as his mistress. But Mary Grace has a secret scheme of her own... Has Bradford fallen into her trap? This Dublin game player is blessed with gypsy power, clever allies, and the guidance of her Grandmum Clooney, who spouts Irish wit and Irish warnings. When Mary Grace threatens Bradford's world, the game turns vicious. These prime players will stop at nothing to triumph. But alas! There can only be one winner left dancing!
1970: a young British woman leaves home for a job as a nurse-midwife in a remote community in the Canadian Arctic. Through her diary, we see through fresh eyes a remarkable place and the people who inhabit it.
An Inuit elder sits watch at the bedside of his critically ill daughter. Through his stories, we witness the extraordinary changes that marked his generation, as they were transformed from hunters to wageworkers.
A young Inuit man writes letters to his adopted kid brother, who is away at a hostel school. Through his correspondence, we learn about the joys and challenges of contemporary settlement life.
As the lives of these characters become intertwined, they confront issues of love and loss, identity and belonging. All the while, political forces are reshaping the map of Canada, as the new Territory of Nunavut is created in 1999, on the eve of a new millennium.
Three generations of mothers and daughters take center stage, with 20th century events as backdrop, in this novel of depth and humor spotlighting the power of music—from classical to jazz to rock and international folk—and the tug between ethnic loyalty and global consciousness.
