The first few months of 2020 consisted of a wild ride for most of the world. The spread of the coronavirus, resulting in a pandemic, the subsequent sheltering-in-place orders, and all that followed from economic collapse to violence and unrest are the backdrop of this story. Sheltering in Place exposes that wedge of history parallel with the more personal events going on in Dora Maxwell's life. Life in Maine, it seems, has made a sharp left turn, leaving Dora, if not stunned, at least dism...

Gloria in Excelsis is a sweeping family saga that steps back in time to the latter years of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century, and while the lead characters in this saga are women, interestingly, it is often the actions of the male characters in the book that cause the upheavals driving the sudden plot twists as the story evolves. The first section is Gloria's story, but it doesn't end with Gloria's marriage to the rakish man who wooed and won her. That ...

Three Wednesdays, Book II in the Jake and Dora series, takes place during an extremely volatile time period in our nation's history. This novel interweaves Jake and Dora's two parallel lives after they parted company at the end of Sheltering in Place, and the reader wonders if they will ever meet again. On January 6, 2021, when Joe "Jake" Jacobson, in a dusty little town in Georgia, sees someone he used to know breaching the United States Capitol building on the television news during that...

Book III in the Jake and Dora series, One Weekend in Tombstone, takes place against the backdrop of the desert southwest, and unfinished business is the order of the day. In Sheltering in Place, Book I, spoiler alert, Jake and Dora ultimately go their separate ways. In Book II, Three Wednesdays, these two would-be lovers ended up being ships that passed in the night. But in Book III, there is hope for a happy reunion. Or is there? Now that the pandemic has somewhat subsided, Dora has decid...

Books about death are invariably about life. In her book Memento Mori, Muriel Spark says: “Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs.” In that vein, this book deals with the ever-present reality of death while concurrently embracing life. It celebrates the lives of the greatest generation while alerting aging baby boomers...

Letters from Grace: The Story of an American Family is an intimate peek into the lives of the Quinn family. This story is akin to an anthropological excavation into what it means to be a family, celebrating said family in all its nuances. It is a story that will certainly appeal to your inner voyeur. When people die, they take with them a lifetime of secrets. Or do they? Letters from Grace begins after Grace has died. While this book begins with the death of Grace, it is not a distressing ...