From the Author:
"Me, a woman, on a jury? Are you kidding me? Not in Pine County, Texas, no way, not even more than thirty years after American women gained the vote in 1920. This must be a mistake.”
In 1955, Kelly Edwards, an attractive, intelligent young housewife, mother of two, and a church organist, receives her postcard jury summons in the mail and thinks the postcard is a mistake—an accident. A quick phone call to the county clerk’s office affirms the jury summons is for her. Kelly will join eleven men in weighing the guilt or innocence of a man accused of a crime of violence, and she will vote on his fate.
In the 1950’s, television is young. Most married women are housewives. A wife’s place is at home with the children. Some in her family think Kelly Edwards is too young and pretty for jury service. Her pastor thinks women are too emotionally frail for jury duty. The judge, district attorney, and even the lawyer for the defense are not sure what to think. Then Kelly stepped into the jury box.
From the author:
​
I served as a high school principal during most of the 1980’s, the years shortly before cell phones, texts, and tweets made instant communication the new normal. I never went to work worried that a deranged person might bring a rifle to school to murder students or a teacher. I believed that my school was safe. I was naïve.
​
Set in the decade before the mass murders at Columbine High School slapped America in the face, Just To Be Fair follows Izzy's and Amy’s teenage romance. The two meet on a school bus as goth dressing outliers. In a time and place where being different is risky, JTBF paints a vivid image of how relationships in the culture of a high school can easily turn septic, sucking everyone around into a whirlpool of ugliness.
From the author:
​
When my fifth-grade granddaughter Eva asked her teacher if she would read Birdbrain to the class during the closing half-hour of the school day, I was stunned. That Eva would even ask the teacher meant that she thought what the old man had written was worth the whole class hearing. Made my week, still makes me smile.
​
Birdbrain is a moral-driven blend of fiction and memoir about growing up in the 1950’s. I purposefully wrote it to show my five grandchildren that some things haven’t changed in a long time. There were bullies back then, as now, and first girlfriends/boyfriends, cheating in school—or not, and being terrible as a Little League player.
There are some oddities in Birdbrain, like the just a rock and there is discovering the reality that some things just aren’t as they should be.
From the author:
​
I live in Texas and I have always enjoyed the dragons I've met in books, from McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern and Tolkien's Smaug, to Novick's Temeraire and the Game of Throne's fearsome fire-breathing siblings.
I had an itch to write a dragon story, but I wanted my dragon to be unique--a Texas dragon. What better than an enchanted horny toad--a truly Texas lizard that can 'spit' blood from its eyes when threatened by bigger critters. With a little Druid magic a long time ago, a palm-sized horny toad grows into a sentient house-sized, flying dragon named Leine.
In 1840, Leine meets teenage Mally when the dragon eats the human girl’s horse. Undeterred by such a prickly introduction, the two become fast friends. The story climaxes when the dragon and her rider become reluctant participants in the historical Battle of Plum Creek, the pair determined to rescue captured women from the raiding Comanches.
From the author:
The early Texas Rangers hold a unique place in Texas history. Their bravery is held in high esteem as the mounted militiamen who protected Anglo settlers from the murderous raids of Comanche and Apache warriors. Often the Rangers were frustrated when their enemies crossed the Rio Grande River into safety in Mexico with their stolen horses and 'taken' women and children.
In 1855, Ranger Captain James Callahan led over a hundred well-armed rangers into Mexico in pursuit of Apache raiders. In a hostile land where the Texans' presence was seen as a military threat in violation of international law, Callahan's outnumbered command fought Apaches and Mexican soldiers, Colt revolvers and shotguns faced lances and muskets.
​
A Different Country Entirely includes Captain Callahan's historical raid and more, as the story takes a candid look at the hard life in the new American state of Texas,.
From the author:
Whittled Away is my first novel, the title stemming from the inexorable 'whittling away' of the fifty-three young men from San Antonio, Texas who became the Alamo Rifles. The actual history of the Alamo Rifles includes rampaging disease, capture in a mass surrender in their first battle, followed by months as prisoners-of-war in a freezing prison camp. After a prisoner exchange, come more battles, each with its horrors of violent death and dismemberment.
The story climaxes with the brutal battle at Franklin, Tennessee, where those soldiers of the Alamo Rifles who had survived over a dozen bloody engagements were thrust into the center of a massive assault, fighting for their lives at Carter's Cotton Gin.
​
There is only one short romance in this book since I was focusing on the grit of the war history first, and the characters second. In that effort I most likely failed, as I wasn't able to hold back Private Jesús McDonald and Corporal Bain Gill. You'll like those guys.
From the author:
​
During the terrible years of our American Civil War, the pine forests and swampy bayous of Louisiana became bloody battlegrounds. With Might & Main is the story of a dozen soldiers, neighbors and kin from the same small town of Lockhart, Texas who stay the course and soldier on.
​
The United States Army has invaded the Trans-Mississippi region. Ironclad gunboats patrol the wide rivers, while Vicksburg is under siege by 30,000 Union soldiers.
The only Confederate force in northern Louisiana are the 5,000 soldiers of Walker’s Texas Division—Walker’s Greyhounds. Captain Sam McDowell leads Company K of the 17th Texas Infantry, part of Walker’s Division.
​
Before Vicksburg falls, the 17th Texas fights a brutal battle at Milliken’s Bend. In its first combat, Company K suffers the most casualties of the forty Confederate companies engaged. The vicious clash is also the first battle ever in which African-Americans comprise entire regiments of riflemen in the United States Army.
For ten more months, the underfed, footsore Texas soldiers endure disease, desertions, and hellish weather while opposing the advance of the Union army. Finally, to prevent an invasion of Texas, the 17th Texas Infantry and Company K again fight during two climactic days at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill.
​
​
From the author:
​
Tangled Honor is the first of a three-book set that follows Confederate Captain John McBee through the Civil War. An Indian fighter at twenty, and now a Confederate officer at forty, McBee leads his men, who are from a single Texas town, into the maelstrom of battle at Gaines’ Mill, Second Manassas, and more.
​
Beyond the battles, Tangled Honor explores the vexing relationship between McBee and Levi Miller, the young family slave who accompanies the captain to war as his body-servant.
Even as Captain McBee is mastering the skills of commanding men in battle, a muddle of seemingly unstoppable violence and intrigue wells up and endangers his position as an officer, all starting when his bloody, blistered feet come to the attention of a woman named Faith.
From the author:
As the year 1863 begins, the Confederacy is still celebrating General Lee’s stunning victory at Fredericksburg. Generals and Privates alike expect the spring campaign will bring more battlefield victories that will win the war. Captain McBee will soon take his company of Texans north to do battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and south to fight at Chickamauga, Georgia.
Levi Miller and John McBee continue to grapple with the likelihood of their kinship, and the futility of recognizing it in the face of the immutable taboos of southern society.
In a house that isn’t hers, Faith Samuelson is about to deliver her first child, fathered by Captain McBee, a good man who is not her legal husband.
Dangerous intrigue will again hound McBee and Faith as a Union spy master and the Confederacy’s Secretary of State, Judah P. Benjamin, ensnare the couple in a web of deceit and violence.
From the author:
1864 stands as the year the stubborn Confederacy held on, even after the crushing defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in ’63. Captain McBee and the Fifth Texas Infantry continue to hold their place in the thin gray line of Rebel soldiers through the battles at The Wilderness and the siege of Petersburg, all while the Confederacy is rapidly running out of soldiers.
​
Secretary of State Judah Benjamin calls on Captain McBee once again, continuing the intrigue that nearly killed McBee and Faith in Kentucky the year before.
​
As for Levi Miller and John McBee, well, I hope you’ll read Defiant Honor to discover how the two men reconcile just who each is to the other.