Books
One Small Town, One Crazy Coach : Mike Roos
One Small Town, One Crazy Coach
In the summer of 1962, peripatetic and irrepressible Pete Gill was hired on a whim to coach basketball at tiny Ireland High School. There he would accomplish, against enormous odds, one of the great small town feats in Indiana basketball history. With no prospective starter taller than 5-10 on the team, few people predicted more than five wins for the Spuds of 1962-63.
Yet, after inflicting brutal pre-season conditioning, employing a variety of crazy motivational tactics, and overcoming fierce opposition, Gill molded the Spuds into a winning unit that brought home the town’s first and only Sectional title in an unforgettable, tense 20-19 championship victory over Springs Valley. Then, incredibly, they captured the Regional title with a buzzer-beating basket to defeat Washington, 39-37.
Matched against the Goliaths of defending State Champion Evansville Bosse in the Semi-State, the diminutive Spuds trailed only 17-16 at half time, before succumbing at last. Relying up on narrative strategies of creative non-fiction rather than strict historical rendering, the book goes deep inside a colorful and varied cast of characters to provide a compelling account of their inner struggles and wide-ranging emotions throughout the season, in the process vividly capturing small town life during a period in Hoosier history now gone forever.
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Tales From Ma’s Watering Hole : Kaye Linden
Tales From Ma’s Watering Hole
Ma, a ninety- nine year old Australian aboriginal shaman, owns a Sydney café where the lonely and homeless gather. Each evening, Ma, or one of her quirky patrons shares a story.
These linked tales weave together nostalgic themes relating to lands lost, families scattered and the joyful support found in human companionship. Ma is the playful trickster who holds these stories together.
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Ascension : Nadine Lalonde
Ascension
What would you get if you combined Law & Order SVU, Criminal Minds and Dexter with Twilight?
Nadine Lalonde’s “Ascension”, Crime and Action in an Intelligent, Gripping Novel with a Supernatural Twist!
ASCENSION combines the intrigue of the criminal element, the intelligence of the investigation, the allure of the supernatural, and enduring love with some steamy sex.
The story of Ivy Lewis, a once meek and abused woman, who finds herself in a world of violence that she can’t fathom; a world where she must kill to survive. Adopted into an immortal family after a near fatal assault, she is torn between her strong connection to humanity and her need to kill. Ivy succumbs to her primal urges, discovering that she has a rare and special gift, in the process. She meets Jay, a night club owner, and they are drawn to each other by an unexplained force, a passion so strong that it escapes reason. Embracing her new family and her new love, Ivy hones her immortal qualities finding some satisfaction in using them to exact justice in New York City.
With a chosen few from the NYPD accepting of their vigilante ways, Ivy and her de facto family hunt the most appalling criminals in NYC, including the College Rapist, a notorious serial offender. As his spree escalates to murder, one of their own is a target of the College Rapist’s nefarious deeds. Will Ivy find this victim in time and deliver her brand of justice?
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The Last Christmas Tree : Laura Monti
The Last Christmas Tree
The Last Christmas Tree is a story about sudden change in a woman’s autumn years. After her husband Roger’s death in late September, Andrea Morgan is left in a blur of confusion. When family conflict arises over Andrea’s impending future on the day following his funeral, Andrea leaves her home to take a walk.
Within minutes, an adolescent-aged boy jumps the curb with his bicycle a few feet away from Andrea in an effort to avoid hitting her. While apologizing and helping him with the bike’s broken front wheel, she discovers he is her old friend Carmela Dempsey’s grandson, Jessie Michaels. During a short visit at the Dempsey home that follows, Andrea becomes amused with Jessie’s charismatic personality and the endearing interaction he has with Gramps George and Grams Carmela.
Upon returning home though Andrea discovers the discussion among her children has escalated, and their voices are ricocheting against the walls. In a moment of haste coupled with raw emotions, Andrea tells them to leave. During the following days and weeks, her children, all of whom live hours out-of-town, attempt to phone, but their calls go unanswered.
Jessie Michaels is intrigued with the newly widowed woman who lives down the street from his grandparents. Hoping to perhaps help her with yard work and maybe earn some Christmas money, he appears at Andrea’s doorstep with a bouquet of mums, and a warm friendship blossoms between the two. Jessie feels a connection with Miss Andrea, secretly comparing her to a grandmother he never knew, while she compares him to the grandsons she hardly knows. And although Miss Andrea doesn’t say much about her children, Jessie senses something is wrong.
The old friendship Andrea once had with Carmela and George Dempsey is soon rekindled, and slowly laughter and hope enters Andrea’s solitude. As time passes, she can’t help missing her children and grandchildren all the while dreading the approaching holiday season. She can’t bear looking at Christmas decorations, hearing Christmas carols or watching any kind of holiday special. Andrea Morgan simply wishes Christmas would go away.
After Andrea spends Thanksgiving with the Dempseys, daughter Marissa invites her siblings and mother for a holiday gathering in Vermont. Initially apprehensive, Andrea fears the tension with son Larry might worsen, however slowly comes around with the influence of Jessie and his grandparents and begins to look forward to it. She would not have to stay in her dark, undecorated home. She would not have to envision the brightly decorated mantel, the white lights that trimmed her front porch, and the beautiful, perfectly shaped balsam fir Roger used to get every year. When a serious mishap occurs, plans are changed and Larry Morgan must solicit Jessie’s help in searching for a Christmas tree at the eleventh hour. What remains in the garden centers and shopping center lots hardly come close to the Morgan’s traditional, elegant tree, until…
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Illuminating Crystal : PB Morlen
Illuminating Crystal
18-year-old Crystal Blue, a child from the stars, has answered a call to earth so that she may spread her light by opening the door to the new age and closing the door on the old one.
But she doesn’t now this…yet.
When she discovers an ancient manuscript in the basement of a bookstore buried deep within a box, she inadvertently unleashes a powerful force, a polarized energy of lightness and dark, harnessing her with unique powers so she can walk between worlds, an ability attained only by masters, shamans, medicine men and women.
It is 2011 and the Fourth Age is passing away, entering the Fifth: the Age of Illumination, an age where ancient prophesies claimed the world would come to an end. But it won’t. Not the way most humans think it will. These are indeed the end of times for century old belief systems and structures, and it might seem like the end is near, but a new world is dawning, transitioning from the old into the new. The Earth and Mankind are poised on the brink of the greatest compassionate shift in the history of humans… and it’s going to get intense.
Crystal’s mission, to travel the world and unveil the ancient’s well-guarded secrets—secrets of the divine feminine human—is paramount to a successful transition. But Crystal would rather not go. She’s just found a bit of happiness with the handsome Adam Walker, loves her new job at the Blue Crystal bookstore, and has just rekindled her relationship with her sister, Claire. Only after being saved from a botched kidnapping by a certain green-eyed stranger is Crystal convinced she must go, otherwise, Earth and Mankind are certain not to survive the changes ahead.
It is now up to her, but a dark force now follows her, intent on her destruction.
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The Unholy : Paul DeBlassie III
The Unholy
A young curandera, a medicine woman, intent on uncovering the secrets of her past is forced into a life-and-death battle against an evil Archbishop.
Set in the mystic land of Aztlan, the Unholy is a novel of destiny as healer and slayer. Native lore of dreams and visions, shape changing, and natural magic work to spin a neogothic web in which sadness and mystery lure the unsuspecting into a twilight realm of discovery and decision.
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Deadly Deadly : M J Vigna
Deadly Deadly
Get lost in this western epic of adversity, despair and triumph.
Don’t let the cover fool you; this is a story for the more mature reader. It revolves around a deep bond that is established after a young man, alone in the world, discovers a newborn Texas Longhorn Bull and rescues him from deaths grip.
As the bull matures, due to his lethal 7’ horn spread, he eventually becomes know as Deadly. The unique relationship grows into an inseparable partnership and they become an indomitable force, which will be a blessing for the beautiful woman who ultimately depends on them as her only hope for survival.
Deadly Deadly is an exciting, larger than life story that takes place during the growth of our nation westward. It details the hardship encountered on a very special trail drive in the 1800s.
This exciting novel tells a truly original story among a backdrop of harsh and extreme conditions. Crafted with an enormous passion, this amazing story pits an eclectic cast of characters against the unforgiving elements and the evils of men. A one-of-a-kind story, readers cannot afford to pass up.
With a Texas Longhorn as one of its main characters, Deadly Deadly stands out against the homogenous backdrop of today’s fiction. Inspired by a life long love and study of horses, whether it was raising, training, showing, breeding or through art, author M. J. Vigna combines this priceless hands-on knowledge with an exciting Western setting to create a captivating, character-driven story that is as gripping as it is heartfelt. Expertly written with authority and passion, whether it’s the loveable characters, unique relationships, budding romance, or natural and man made dangers, this remarkable novel creates something stunning that will capture the hearts of every reader.
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Wonderment : Nigel Hey
Wonderment: A Love Affair With Adventure, Writing, Travel, Philosophy, and Family Life
Wonderment is a memoir designed to intrigue, invoke smiles, and perhaps bring more brightness to readers’ lives. Some readers have called it inspiring. Reviewers give it a unanimous thumbs-up.
This book is a fast-moving blend of thought and action, from author Nigel Hey’s childhood nightmares to the suspense of a brush with death in the neurology unit of a London hospital, to adventures among the Indians of the American Southwest. Amazon greeted Wonderment with a royal flush of five-star reviews and it was nominated for the biography prize in a 2013 regional book contest. Press clippings accumulated from around the United States and United Kingdom.
Wonderment became a different kind of story because Nigel Hey had a different kind of life, in which he has found contentment, excitement and joy while being called upon to meet and overcome an assortment of unusual challenges. Sometimes it is funny or mildly quirky; sometimes it is thoughtful: it is after all the life history of a writer born to travel and invested with a love of adventure, people, new experiences, and the mystery of who we are and why. One reviewer remarked that it is laced “with the humor, romance, family lore and drama that anchors a life well lived.”
As a child Nigel Hey had come face to face with mortality. As he matured, a personal sense of spirituality took form, gently, almost without his knowing it. In the final stages of writing Wonderment he discovered how precious it had been in times of adversity. No matter how distressed he had been by the difficulties of life, he had found solace in the all-encompassing greatess that is the divine scheme of all things. He realized he needed to share his story with his children. He also wanted to share it with the world.
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The Priest’s Wife : PJ Connolly
The Priest’s Wife
One man, two women, a child. How did a young nun come to find herself caught up in such an unconventional arrangement?
There are strange goings on in the Wicklow hills where the former Sister Susan is married to the man who was once her priestly confessor. The Priest’s Wife is the story of a marriage. But this is no ordinary marriage. All chance of a peaceful existence went out the door with the arrival of a young French artist to whom she offers shelter but who rewards her kindness by making unprecedented demands on the marriage, demands which face Susan, the narrator of this story, with an extraordinary dilemma.
Tragedy and treachery are the twin demons which conspire to wreck the quiet life Susan had hoped for when they went to live in the Irish countryside outside Dublin.
Believing herself to be pursued by a vengeful God she ends by making a proposal the sheer audacity of which may well shock some readers. In doing so she throws herself at the feet of the mystic mountain which lies across the valley and holds within his bosom a secret which is known to only a very few.
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The Frenchman : B.B. Boudreau
The Frenchman
Robbery, escape, rendezvous, pursuit and romance all season “The Frenchman ” as Jean LaChance, running from his criminal past, finds solace in the isolation of the bleak California desert. There, in search of the money he and his unscrupulous partner have stolen, LaChance instead finds Lilly Parsons and her children.
Over four days they forge a sense of belonging for the first time in their lives, loneliness and despair begin to melt away. This bond of trust is seemingly broken when Lilly flees with the children, unaware that the money is in the trunk of her car. Now LaChance is in determined pursuit of the woman and children he has grown to love, but he is unconvinced of their motive for leaving, taking the money and sending the cops. What will he do when he finds them?
