Books Descriptions

"A Time for Redemption"

Can he find his faith when spiritual forces are fighting against him?

 
Arnold Collins is back and thrust into a world of darkness after a fatal semi-truck accident leaves him physically and emotionally wounded. The road to recovery leads him to the last place on Earth that he wants to be—stuck at home with Alice, his embittered and detached wife. The love they once shared is lost along with faith in himself and the God in whom he has never believed.
After cruel words are exchanged, driven by anger and despair, Arnold embarks on a soul-searching journey. As he navigates the highways of his past and present, his mind takes him back to the idyllic distant memories of 1971 and 1972. When times were slower, when Arnold and Alice’s love was pure, and when their futures were bright.
Arnold will confront the demons within himself, the individuals that he never wished to face, and the God whom he never wanted to serve. He will find his faith or be forced into an unsuspecting reckoning.
“A Time for Redemption,” a poignant and emotionally driven story, told through a dual timeline narration, is the story of a later-in-life married couple and delves into the depths of human pain and regret. Is it possible for the deepest wounds of one’s heart to find healing? Can lost and stumbling Arnold find the faith that he needs? Will long-lost lost love find a second chance?
 
This dual timeline story contains elements of spiritual warfare that allows readers a glimpse into characters’ lives and the unseen mysterious spiritual realm that surrounds them. The spiritual realm depicted is from a conservative Biblical perspective rather than the routinely used occultic perspective. There is no profanity or sexual themes but fallen angels may use crude language (ex: crap, whore, etc).
NOTE: “A Time for Redemption,” a family drama, is a work of Christian Fiction and is Book Two in the “War Songs” series.

Unprotected

An idyllic town shattered by a corrupt government.

 
The United States government seeks to strip American citizens of their constitutional right to bear arms. For months, the nation has heard the talk, but most never thought it would happen. Now that it has, the clock is ticking until everyone must relinquish their guns, rendering them helpless to protect themselves and those they love the most.
Bartlett’s Bend, Illinois is a quiet rural town where nothing bad ever happens, where the pace is slow, and where everyone knows everything about everyone. Soon, along with citizens all over the country, they watch in horror as entire cities fall prey to rioting and looting. Lawless hordes rush to burn landmark institutions to the ground, destroying untold numbers of innocent lives.
They think their town is safe from the mayhem, but soon they will find out just how wrong they are. James Tanner, his wife Sara, and family friend Julie witness relentless criminals vandalizing their neighbors’ homes and reducing beloved local businesses to cinder and ash.
As national peril spreads like wildfire, fear cripples the residents of Bartlett’s Bend, who can no longer protect their families and their homes if the unfathomable happens in their own lives.
Sheriff Connor grapples with enforcing a new law with which he doesn’t agree and works to appease his disgruntled townspeople. Can he keep his beloved town safe amid national chaos, or will the insurrections of the dregs of society destroy everything they hold dear?
 
Unprotected is a story of Christian fiction that follows an entire town through perilous and uncertain times and is told from the perspective of Conservative Christianity. It is free of profanity and sexual themes.

A Christmas to Live For

It’s the holiday season in New York City. Bryan Crandon, from across the room at his best friend’s annual Halloween gala, spots an unknown girl, the girl of his dreams, Kristin Greene. Over the course of the evening, he strikes up a casual conversation with her, but they leave the party without exchanging contact information. As the days pass, even though he is reluctant to enter into yet another romantic relationship, he finds it impossible to get her out of his mind. 

 
Unbeknownst to his family and friends, Bryan struggles with issues of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. He does not feel he can enter into a successful relationship, regardless of how enticing the notion seems. However, with strong advice from his best friend, Andrew Cooper, he goes against his feelings and reaches out to Kristin, ultimately yielding to a budding new relationship.
 
With the backdrop of sparkling New York City during the Christmas season, holiday fun and festivity ensues for a young group of friends. Bryan, a clinical psychologist, finds himself fighting to balance his faith, a new romantic interest, his career, and his struggles with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. 
 
While this story is a work of fiction, I wanted to delve into a world of disordered eating–something typically seen as a woman’s issue–and weave it into a story that is told from the male perspective.

When Raindrops Fall

“In February 2022, “When Raindrops Fall” hit #4 on the Amazon TOP 100 BEST-SELLER’S LIST.

Ash and Brooke Ellington have been married for six years and lead a fairy tale life in the fast-paced metropolis of Chicago. Ash  lives life to the fullest until he gets the best news of his life, followed by the worst. 

Brooke, world-renowned violinist and star performer in the Chicago Philharmonic, has found out she is expecting their first child, and their world of happiness soon crumbles.

Ash is thrilled at the prospect of being a parent, but Brooke is unwilling to allow pregnancy and childrearing to disrupt her coveted music career. His seemingly perfect life comes to a grinding halt when Brooke informs him that she will abort the pregnancy, with or without his approval. 

Desperate, Ash tries everything to change her mind, ultimately even offering to raise the child on his own. When Brooke refuses to compromise, brokenhearted he leaves Chicago for a few hours to ponder life. 

Three days later, he arrives at the Sassafras Inn, a quaint country Bed & Breakfast in the sleepy waterfront town of Raindrop, New Hampshire. In Raindrop, the big-city outsider meets an eccentric group of locals who become Ash’s unlikely allies: Mamie, the wise and resourceful Sassafras proprietor; Lili Beth, Mamie’s granddaughter and employee; Colton, the kind-hearted and often rambunctious waiter at Puddle’s Cafe; Holly, Colton’s girlfriend who carries a secret of her own; Cindy, Lili Beth’s faithful friend and sidekick. 

Ash will impact some of his new friends in wonderful ways, while others will rue the day they ever met him. Over the span of several weeks, a tumultuous long-distance relationship between husband and wife emerges. Will Ash’s fervent and emotional pleas snatch his unborn child from certain impending demise, or will Brooke sacrifice it all, marriage and family, to preserve the career of her dreams?

Lost Song

Nate Niklas, nationally-known recording artist, has fallen in love with one of his dearest friends, Rachel. When he confesses his true feelings, she says she only wants to be friends.

Heartbroken, he gives up his lucrative singing career and takes an extended trip to Ireland to assess his life, his ambitions, and most importantly, to take some time away from the woman with whom he needs to fall out of love. Telling only his best friend Carter of his plans, he leaves Los Angeles.

In Hawley’s Island, Ireland, he meets a new batch of friends, eventually learning that you can try to run away from a broken heart but there’s no hiding from it.

War Songs

There is an invisible realm around us that we can neither discern with our eyes nor hear with our ears. This invisible realm is where the powers of darkness and light reside. They can see and hear us, but we cannot see and hear them.

Jenner Alekson is a leader in his praise and worship band that travels extensively in the tri-state area of Cape Kennington, North Carolina. He makes little money in his chosen profession, yet the rewards he reaps in obedience to his call of ministry are eternal, and that’s enough for him.

He is blindsided when his life suddenly catapults into turmoil, and he is thrust into a crossroads where discontentment, anger, and loss of desire to carry the gospel with his song takes root in an otherwise sheltered and stable life.

Unbeknownst to Jenner, his wife Hyacinth, and best friends Camden and Lucas, a spiritual war rages around them. The powers of darkness will try their best to derail Jenner’s spiritual walk, his marriage, his ministry, then ultimately his life.

Meanwhile across the country, rough and gruff long-haul trucker Arnold Collins leads a different kind of life. He’s a recovering drunk who chases women and is unhappy with an unloving, belligerent wife who could out-cuss any man who ever dared to challenge her. Without a warm and inviting place to call home, Arnold prefers the wide-open road before him.

As he rumbles across the terrain of small-town America one lonely night in his eighteen-wheeler, grumbling about his unfulfilling lot in life, he happens upon a radio preacher. Not interested in religion, he flips past the station with mutters of disdain, but for reasons he cannot explain, he is compelled back to it and hears a sermon he doesn’t understand but can’t get out of his mind.

Will the schemes of the powers of darkness pull Jenner away from the faith that means everything to him? And will the same powers prevent Arnold from finding the faith he needs but never wanted?

Heaven and Earth, light and dark, good and evil, are about to collide in ways Jenner and Arnold and those they love could never imagine.

NOTE: WAR SONGS has a subject matter of spiritual warfare dealing with humans in the physical realm and angels and fallen angels in the spiritual realm. Some chapters depict the physical realm and the spiritual realm separately, while some chapters converge the two worlds into one “realm,” where spiritual beings taunt and interact with humans, but without the humans’ knowledge of what’s going on around them. The spiritual warfare in the book is not “occult based,” but is written more from a Christian perspective. It’s the author’s hope that readers of all walks of life–Christian or not–would pick up and enjoy this work. Readers are encouraged to remember, though, that this is a complete work of fiction, and the author took certain “literary licenses” in depicting the spiritual realm in order to propel the novel forward, and to give readers a thought-provoking and enjoyable reading experience. This book should in no way be regarded as the author’s intent to dogmatically proclaim how things work in the spiritual realm, but is simply a work of the author’s creative mind.

Trigger Warning: WAR SONGS is free of profanity and sexual situations (There is some mild slang terminology spoken by fallen angels and certain human characters, ex: crap, whore, etc). Also, there is one short scene in the book that depicts violence with very minimal graphic details that could be triggering and/or upsetting for some readers.