“How are you doing?” she asked me excitedly. “Wow, look at all these people! Your sister’s a popular girl these days!”
“She sure is. I’ve barely even talked to her for months, it seems.”
She shook her head and looked around, marveling at the crowd. “Just incredible. I didn’t even realize she was your sister until they announced the finale party was going to be held here. Then I put it all together. I didn’t see you here, though.”
“No, I was down in Florida with my—well, he’s my husband now. We got married the day before Madison did.”
“Oh, fabulous! Congratulations. I’m still single.” She laughed humorlessly and waved her ringless hand in the air. “Probably will be forever. So, how did you do in McGovern’s class?”
“I got an A. I graduated last spring.”
“Good for you! So did I. I only got that A thanks to that group project we did together. Boy, did I ever get off the phone with you? I should have sent you flowers afterward. That whole assignment was murder.” She laughed.
“No kidding. So, are you a teacher here?”
“Yeah, I transferred here this past fall. They’ve got me teaching English. Not my favorite subject. I’d much rather be back teaching drama, but you’ve got to take what you can get these days.”
“Oh, my husband’s an English teacher, too.”
“Is he really? Maybe he could give me a few pointers. Is he here?”
“Yeah, he’s just over this way. Here, follow me. Just leave your jacket.”
She followed me down through the crowd to the place where Jerry was sitting with his feet perched against the backs of the seats in front of him.
“Hey, hon,” I said, scratching his shoulder.
He turned around and looked at me, then did a double take. “Hey,” he said.
Still blanking on her name, I decided to do the introduction backwards. “This is my husband Jerry,” I said.
“Hi, Jerry,” she said, smiling warmly at him and extending her hand. “I’m Karen.”
“Karen and I went to grad school together,” I explained as he shook her hand slowly.
She tipped her head at him, her eyebrows knitting thoughtfully. “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”
Jerry smiled with his lips pressed together, shaking his head. “Can’t say as I remember.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” she said. “And congratulations to both of you. Phoebe’s a great girl.”
“She sure is,” he said, scratching my back lightly with the hand Karen had finally let go of. “She’s the best.”
A family conceals a cruel secret.
Emma Perkins’ life appears idyllic. Her husband, Jared, is a hardworking farmer and a dependable neighbor. But Emma knows intimately the brutality prowling beneath her husband’s façade. When he sends their children away, Emma’s life unravels.
A woman seeks her spirit.
Deep in despair, Emma seeks refuge aboard her uncle’s riverboat, the Spirit of the River. She travels through a new world filled with colorful characters: captains, mates, the rich, the working class, moonshiners, prostitutes, and Gage-the Spirit’s reclusive engineer. Scarred for life from a riverboat explosion, Gage’s insight into heartache draws him to Emma, and as they heal together, they form a deep and unbreakable bond. Emma learns to trust that anything is possible, including reclaiming her children and facing her husband.
A man seeks revenge.
Jared Perkins makes a journey of his own. Determined to bring his wife home and teach her the lesson of her life, Jared secretly follows the Spirit. His rage burns cold as he plans his revenge for everyone on board.
Against the immense power of the river, the journey of the Spirit will change the course of their lives forever.
ISBN#9781932815931
US $14.95 / CDN $18.95
Fiction
Available Now
www.kathysteffen.com
WHAT DO A TRIGGER-HAPPY BOOTLEGGER WITH PANCREATIC cancer, an alcoholic helicopter pilot who is afraid to fly, and a dead guy with his feet in a camp stove have in common?
What are the similarities between a fire department that cannot put out fires, a policeman who has a historic cabin fall on him from out of the sky, and an entire family dedicated to a variety of deceased authors?
Where can you find a war hero named Termite with a long knife stuck in his liver, a cook named Hoghead who makes the world’s worst coffee, and a supervisor named Pillsbury who nearly gets hung by his employees?
Sequoyah, Georgia is the answer to all three questions. They arise from the relationship between A. J. Longstreet and his best friend since childhood, Eugene Purdue. After a parting of ways due to Eugene’s inability to accept the constraints of adulthood, he reenters A.J.’s life with terminal cancer and the dilemma of executing a mercy killing when the time arrives.
Take this gripping journey to Sequoyah, Georgia and witness A.J.’s battle with mortality, euthanasia, and his adventure back to the past and people who made him what he is—and helps him make the decision that will alter his life forever.
ISBN#9781933836386
US $25.95 / CDN $34.95
Hardcover Fiction
June, 2008
I killed my husband, a town hero, and then called the police and turned myself in. “He’s dead as a doornail,” I said to the officer and then spit on Harland Jeffers’ bloody, dead body.
With my head held high, I allowed myself to be escorted to a squad car outside my house. A house which had been more of a prison than the cell I was headed for.
Cameras flashed.
“Why did you kill Harland?”
Because he needed killing. And I, Montana Ines Parsons-Jeffers did just that.
So begins the rest of what’s left of Montana’s life. Not that she ever really had one.
Now she’s headed for prison. There’s no escaping it. It was the ultimate destination in her Flight to Freedom.
But one man might be able to help…
ISBN#9781933836379
Trade Paperback
US $15.95/CDN $19.95
Fiction
May, 2008
Bertie Byrd is unique. To say the least.
She calls Sweet Meadow, Georgia, home, where she works for her father doing auto repairs. She also drives the tow-truck, although Sweet Meadow’s rather colorful denizens tend to treat Bertie more like the local, free taxi service. You know, someone has to get to a doctor’s appointment or pick something up at the dry cleaners.
Bertie’s favorite day of the week is Friday, when she leaves the wrecker with her father for the whole weekend and joins her friends at the Dew Drop Inn for a night of dancing. Her best friend, Mary Lou, sometimes fixes her up with dubious dates, although Bertie has to remind her friend not to tease her hair too high for those occasions. Like the time when they went to Carrie Sue’s open house, and a ceramic cow with angel wings hanging from a ceiling fan locked its hooves into Bertie’s big hair and refused to let go. She had to wear it all night, dangling chain and all.
Bertie’s nearly perfect life is about to take a downhill turn, however. It starts when her landlord, Pete, currently a resident in a nearby nursing home, starts showing up at her house. In his birthday suit. A very badly wrinkled birthday suit. And then she goes to her mailbox, a rubber large mouth bass, and finds a notice from the zoning commission saying she can no longer park the wrecker in her driveway. The notice is signed by George Bigham. But when she goes to the courthouse to take care of her little problem, it is only to discover George Bigham is deceased. And Mary Lou’s pregnancy test just came up positive. Can it get any worse?
In a word…yes.
ISBN#9781932815177
Hardcover Fiction
US $24.95 / CDN $33.95
Available Now
www.doloresjwilson.com
Bertie Byrd Fortney never thought she’d be spending her wedding night in a maternity ward. But her best friend went into labor right in the mid
dle of the conga line at Bertie and Arch’s wedding reception, and it wasn’t until her friend’s son made his entrance into the world that Bertie, her husband, and her stepdaughter could leave on their motor home honeymoon. The trip’s trials, however, leave Bertie wondering if a honeymoon is some kind of test a woman must pass before becoming a wife.
To add to her tribulations, Bertie returns to Bertie’s Garage and Towing to find Linc, her tow truck driver, is being threatened by the Redneck Mafia. The mob boss has told Linc to return to Atlanta to marry his daughter, or he will move him there himself…one body part at a time.
And then Bertie is taken hostage by a man who has taught his goats to bark and his twins to talk. A mistake on both counts, in Bertie’s not-so-humble opinion.
Finally, a bizarre accident involving an elderly drunken citizen Linc mistakes as a hit man, a golf cart, a trip to the hospital, and a positive pregnancy test has tongues wagging in Sweet Meadow, Georgia. Did Bertie really get knocked up on a golf cart by her tow truck driver?
Will Bertie be able to douse the rumors? Will she be able to save her faithful employee from the mob? More importantly, will she pass the wife test?
ISBN#9781932815634
Hardcover Fiction
US $24.95/CDN $33.95
Available Now
www.doloresjwilson.com
Bertie is at it again.
It starts when she wants a traffic light at a dangerous intersection. But because the purchase of an automatic traffic counter would cut into the city council’s Christmas party fund, Bertie is forced to count each car personally and present a report. Then Bertie, in her inimitable fashion, gets into it with one of the council members. When he dies of a heart attack, she’s accused of causing it. Goaded into running for the now-open position, an unlikely political career is launched. That’s not all.
She finds herself running against Booger Bailey, he of barking goat fame. That’s going to be interesting. Who, for instance, is the mysterious donor financing his campaign?
And then there’s the two octogenarians who talk Bertie into backing them in a business venture: street vending their boiled peanuts. But what are they really up to?
Seemingly insignificant events once again twist Bertie’s life into a series of improbable, and hilarious, misadventures. Because Bertie is off…and running.
ISBN#9781933836119
Hardcover Fiction
US $24.95/CDN $33.95
Available Now
www.doloresjwilson.com
WHEN KATE BRODIE INHERITS WATERFALL GLEN IT seems like the start of an exciting new life. Full of romantic notions, she swaps her dull routine in San Francisco for life as a Highland lady.
But the stunning beauty of the glen belies a troubled history and uncertain future, and Kate’s imposing new home, Greystane House, is full of disturbing revelations about her family’s past. Each portrait on the ancient walls tells an un-nerving story, while the empty rooms echo with rumors of a centuries-old curse that takes on new significance when unsettling events threaten the small community whose fate lies in her hands.
The only person Kate can turn to is a man haunted by equally troubling events, a man she has every reason not to trust. Only with his help can she find a way to defend old values against the materialism of the modern world. Only together can they lay their ghosts to rest.
ISBN#9781932815832
US $6.99/CDN $9.99
Mass Market Paperback
Available Now
www.daviehenderson.bravehost.com
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