In 1970, a Spearfish Lake kid walked into a patch of jungle in Vietnam, and was never seen again. In an era when many people were tired of the war or just didn't care, most were ready to forget about him -- except for his friends, some of whom he'd never met, but who kept the faith anyway. They kept pecking away at the mystery of what happened to their friend long after the world had moved on to other things.

This collection contains the novellas Dodging Mom, Peeking Over the Fence and With a Little Help all for one low price. Dodging Mom: Racially exotic Sonja Lambert holds dual citizenship, American and Israeli. Her mother Zivah, an Israeli Army officer, expects Sonja to do her duty in the Israeli army. When Sonja's mother shows up with the intention of browbeating her daughter into doing her duty as an Israeli, Sonja, an American at heart, has no cho...

All she ever wanted was to be normal! Her mother considered Judith a hopeless invalid to be cared for all her life -- but then as she's about to finish high school, Judith acquires a boyfriend, Ken, who helps her learn that her mother is dead wrong. Judith's mother doesn't like Ken because he keeps widening Judith's understanding of what she can do, so her mother pushes another suitor at Judith, but she keeps going back to Ken. In a touching, slowly building romance, Ken and Judit...

Jon Chladek and Tanisha Blythe have a lot in common despite the fact that he's white and she's black. As exceptional engineering students at Georgia Tech, they see a lot of things the same way, but their dysfunctional families have their own ideas about what the two should be doing, and would go ballistic if they knew they were seeing each other. When the chance of a lifetime comes, they're faced with a big decision -- whether to take the chance and pay the price they know they'l...

College and the years just afterwards are pivotal for many people, establishing their lives, and sometimes having many adventures along the way. Sophomore Randy Clark wants to avoid the family business and learn how to white water kayak and raft and ride a surfboard. Physical education major Crystal Chladek wants to become a professional outdoor bum, and her super-geek roommate and best friend Myleigh Harris wants to be a college English lit professor. Randy's high school girlfriend doesn'...

Pat McDonald didn't have the happiest time as a student in the Bradford High School Class of 1988, but he's found a home in the army. He's headed for the Gulf War in late 1990 when he meets a classmate, Cindy Yeager, who has broken up with her former boyfriend, Russ Bradstreet. Cindy thinks Pat ought to have someone to tell him goodbye and worry about him while he's gone. It turns into a one-night stand with long and profound results lasting for many years, even though Cindy winds up going...

When John and Candice Archer's jobs go bad and their kids are sent to lousy schools, they decide it's time to get out of the city and head back to John's home in Spearfish Lake. It takes a little getting used to because their lives are different there, and they can't help but change to face new circumstances and new opportunities as well as finding new friends and new interests. But then, their new friends are undergoing changes, too. One couple is having trouble getting used to a slow li...

Two kids, a dream, and acres of dogs . . .  Josh and Tiffany want to become dogsled racers. They just have to grow up first – and learn about what they’re doing along the way. A follow-on to Busted Axle Road, focusing on Josh and Tiffany’s adventures. It's not necessary to read Busted Axle Road first.     

Early retiree and widower Roger Bishop found life lonely and boring, so he bought a small motor home and headed south to the Gulf Coast to help with the Hurricane Katrina cleanup efforts. Amid all the rubble, he makes friends with an Amish crew and then meets a lifelong free spirit, Catalina Smith and her tattoo, also there on a mission to help. They hit it off immediately, and loneliness is no longer a problem for either of them.  Cat's flaky mother enters the picture with even wilde...

One afternoon Dayna Berkshire decided to practice her guitar at the mall -- then people started throwing money in her gig bag! An epiphany that changed her life struck her: "This beats hell out of work!" It takes a while to learn the tricks, but Dayna and her friend Sandy set out to explore the free-wheeling life of being street musicians, earning their money on street corners, in shows, at renaissance faires, or wherever they can, living the lives they choose to lead. But into ...

At Scott Tyler's tenth class reunion, he and his wife Sonja didn't expect the class of the small rural high school to be very surprising. Anticipating that they would be one of the more exotic couples there, they found the Bradford Class of 1988 had produced a millionaire prostitute with a PhD piloting her own Learjet, and another, a musician with a business card that read, "Wandering Medieval Minstrel." Most surprising was a beautiful, personable blonde woman, Dr. Eve McClellan ...