Fiction
Adder in the Path
Beautifully written and unflinchingly honest, Adder in the Path is a tragic chronicle of the Mormon War, and two very different families caught up in a maelstrom of intolerance and violence. It is a tale that teaches the fragility of human connection and the destruction caused by fanaticism and hypocrisy--crucial lessons that resonate long after the last word.
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Before White Night: Rescue from Jonestown
John Olsen hurries to rescue his daughter from the Jonestown Cult before it is too late.
by Joseph Hartmann
Bill Hausman, an American diplomat in Guyana, has scarcely heard of Jonestown, the religious “paradise” that has recently established itself deep in the Guyanese jungle. He knows very little about the Peoples Temple or their leader, Jim Jones, a passionate, pro-integrationist minister with a vision of a harmonious future for all God’s children—and dark personal demons that will twist that vision into a horrifying nightmare. Yet Bill quickly becomes acquainted with all these things when his world collides with that of John Olsen, an American businessman whose ex-wife has moved to Jonestown, taking their daughter, Katrina, with her. As rumors surface of hunger, beatings, manipulation, and other strange abuses within the closed cult settlement, John grows increasingly frantic to get Katrina out of there, before the cruelest of these rumors comes to fruition…before Jim Jones’ long-awaited White Night.
Set in the truth of history, with detail that comes from the author’s firsthand experience, Before White Night is a fictionalized account of courage at the threshold of one of the twentieth century’s most shocking and unsettling tragedies.
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City in the Sky
“Freedom. Must. Fall.”
For Ryan Kendrick, being mugged on the way home from work is the perfect end to another terrible day. So when a stranger appears just hours later with a job offer from a mysterious organization, Ryan accepts without knowing anything more than the company’s name: Atlantis Technologies, Inc. But Atlantis is no ordinary company. In fact, it’s not a company at all—it’s a civilization.
Atlantis, thought to be long lost to legend, has been hiding in plain sight for millennia, and Ryan has been offered a chance to be part of it. Now, Ryan must adapt quickly to life on a city floating thousands of feet above the Atlantic Ocean, where telepathy and flying soldiers are commonplace. But even as he makes friends and strives to build a life for himself in this new world, Ryan soon realizes that Atlantis is not quite the utopia it claims to be.
And far worse, an ancient enemy known only as the Order has finally emerged from the shadows, vowing to destroy the Atlantean way of life. The Order sank Atlantis once before, thousands of years ago. Now, Ryan must do what he can to protect his new home and stop the Order from doing it again—this time permanently.
Desperate Endeavor
If only Humanity knew what sense to make of the fight with AranthChi, the future would be less bleak.
Thirty-five years after the only interstellar war Humanity has ever fought—with the only aliens Humanity has ever met—one man has wondered his entire adult life why the hell that war happened. As part of the peace, the AranthChi hired Humanity to do scientific research for them, and Mikail's job is to ensure the safety of Humanity's secrets. But the AranthChi's long-term conspiracy is beginning to unravel, and Mikail knows something is very wrong. He sets out on a quest to find answers and soon learns that Humanity is in more danger than ever before . . . and time is running out.
Fish-Eye Lens
by Jody Rathgeb
When Cherry arrives on the island of East Taino as part of an ecological documentary film crew, she has two things on her mind: proving to her boss and male colleagues that she can handle anything they can throw at her; and figuring out what to do about her husband back home, whose notions of wifely duties have become increasingly stifling. Her job is to interview the women on the island to document how they drove out a seedy land developer named Benny Royston. Cherry delves right in—only to discover that the real story is far more complex than it appears. She quickly finds herself sucked into an insular world of booze, gossip, sex and religion—a world in which she might lose herself or find a sense of purpose and a place within the unlikely Taino sisterhood. If only she can stay out of trouble and root out the secrets no one’s telling her.
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Folly
Ezra Magee has worked hard to make a good life for himself as a professor, husband, and father. He’s even made peace with the fact that he can’t remember any of his childhood in the small town of Folly, Alabama, before a traumatic event at the age of twelve erased it from his memory.
But when his own son turns twelve and exhibits symptoms of an illness Ezra thought long-gone from his life, Ezra is suddenly caught between the lies he’s told and the events of his past he was grateful to forget. For the sake of his son and his marriage, he returns to Folly to search for answers: for the truth about his eccentric father, his own history of mental illness, and the harrowing event that robbed him of his family and his childhood.
A Little Rebellion Is a Good Thing: Troubles at Traymore College
When David Pritchard is hired to teach political science at a remote women’s college in 1969, he anticipates a quiet year before moving on to bigger things. However, it soon becomes apparent that all is not well at Traymore College. President Barton and his administration curtail basic academic freedoms, harass tenured professors, and impose tight constraints on students’ personal lives. Appalled, David engages in intimate alliances with sympathetic faculty and several members of student leadership to stand up to the school’s administration. Together, they aim to ignite the press and spark far-reaching legal action. But Barton will not go down without a fight.
The Man Called Jesus
by T. F. Lloyd
The Romans rule Israel with an iron fist, and young Hanan is angry and conflicted. The soldiers murder his father and take their livestock, and he becomes sole provider for his mother. Yet without the cattle that had been his family’s livelihood, Hanan turns to a secret life of thievery. He manages to care for the family while keeping his ways hidden—until he pilfers a valuable Roman necklace and becomes a wanted man. Riddled with guilt and fear, he believes his fate is sealed. Only one beacon of light shines to give Hanan hope for removing his guilt and cleansing his soul: the man called Jesus. Hanan follows the teacher, feeding on his every word and miracle, hoping to find the salvation he craves, before it’s too late.
Matewan Garden Club
by Iris Underwood
Eighteen-year-old Henry Blankenship dreams of building a house for his childhood sweetheart, Annie Dill, and his mother, Gertie, known by their hill folk as the “woman with a shovel.” Annie dreams of six children and a room of her own to pen the unsung legacies of Appalachian women—yet Annie’s mother, Margaret Dill, President of Matewan Garden Club, has other, bigger plans for her only child. Unwittingly, Russian refugees Natalia Semenov and her son Olaf, Henry’s employers at Hunt’s Feed & Seed, come to Henry and Annie’s rescue.
Matewan Garden Club spans three generations and a multitude of dreams amongst the tight-knit immigrant coal camps and struggling towns along Tug Fork: Williamson, Blackberry City, Red Jacket, Thacker Holler, and countless hollers in between. Like the river’s many tributaries, these communities converge in Depression-era Matewan, West Virginia to build enduring love amid the business of native flora and fauna—seedlings of a post-WWI Europe in chaos, the Bolshevik Revolution—and a brand new America.
Papa's Obsession
“Papa,” the Santo family’s protective and eccentric patriarch, is a man of many obsessions. As he struggles for control in the lives of his loved ones, he’s driven to meticulously collect the items that make up the world around him. But no amount of obsessing can give him what he desires most: a grandson to carry on the family name. Or can it? When Papa’s carefree son Ricky finds himself the beneficiary of a beautiful girl’s indiscretion, he soon learns he might be the father of Natalie’s growing child. The possibility sparks a high-stakes game in which Ricky and Natalie are pawns to Papa’s ambitions. The Santo legacy hangs in the balance, but so do the futures of all involved.
That You Remember
by Isabel Reddy
In 2019, Aleena Rowan, adrift in the wake of a failed marriage, receives a box of her father's desk diaries from the years he worked as a coal executive. She expects to find nothing more than the cost of business lunches and meeting notes. Instead, she finds a mysterious name, Sara, scrawled on a slip of paper in her father's handwriting.
Frank Rowan meets Sara Stone while fishing on a frigid January day, and sees her again waiting tables at Otter Creek’s only restaurant. It is 1970, and Frank and Sara’s relationship grows despite the impossible distance between a New York corner office and a Kentucky coal hollow. Initially, Sara sees Frank as her ticket to a better life, but other forces compete with her dreams – like protecting her town from the increasingly perilous coal slurry dam.
In her debut novel, told from both sides of the coal industry, Isabel Reddy brings to life the conflicts and undercurrents of an Appalachian mining town on the eve of disaster.
Verities: A Journey by Tracks
written by Randy White
“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” Take a ride down the train tracks in the small town of Verities, and you’ll see one young man’s quests for meaning in his troubled life. Follow Sam’s journey as he grows up facing ugly truths about love and loss on the wrong side of the tracks. Verities is a hopeful story of rising above one’s circumstances, even in the cruel face of social injustice.
PRAISE FOR VERITIES:
“What’s important in life? No, what’s really important? Is it material possessions; what others think of you? Or, what at the end of much searching leads you to real happiness and contentment? Through a tornadic life, Sam faces questions about family, friends, trust, love, and the price to be paid for securing his dream. Fast-paced, with unexpected but clever plot twists, Verities carries the reader along with its stand-out characters every inch of the way. It also spotlights, in an era of receiving information in short bursts, the enduring value of books that make you think and see things you might never have seen.”
—Rich Garon, author of Felling Big Trees and Lee Fitts
The 3rd Option
by Ben Sharpton
Allan Chappel enrolled in seminary to change the world, but people lied and people died, and he turned in his clerical collar for an office cubicle. Now, years later, the ghosts of his past are back to haunt him, and they’re uglier and more powerful than before. When the offices of a new medical think tank called Inc.Ubator are destroyed in a fiery blast, Allan finds himself the prime suspect and the target of an international manhunt. Forced into hiding, he sets out to find the terrorists responsible and clear his name. But his quest for answers only leads to more questions: What were the researchers at Inc.Ubator hiding? And who was willing to spill blood to keep their work a secret? Allan must stay alive long enough to untwist the truth. Unfortunately, the forces opposing him will stop at nothing to prevent the release of the 3rd Option.
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