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AN AMERICAN IN CALIFORNIA A Historial Novel By Peter Kazaks Adventure, romance, jealousy, murder, and travel through a harrowing wilderness combine in this historical novel set in California and the mountain West in 1826 to 1828. Order from Sunstone Press: (505) 988-4418 Legendary mountain man Jedediah Smith crosses the desert and finds amidst the lushness of the Spanish missions suspicious Mexican officials, the brutal life of mission Indians, and a simmering insurrection. Two American ship captains who trade along the Pacific coast introduce Jedediah to a Mexican landholder, Estevan Mendoza, his wife, Isabella, and their daughter, Laura. The rancher wants to recruit Jedediah and his mountain men to lead a revolt against the Mexican government. Soon a budding romance and jealousy lead to murder. Political intrigues lead to other killings. What follows is the story of how Jedediah, despite personal yearnings, tries to get his men back to friendly territory, all while attempting to make a profit from the venture. Romance, adventure, jealousy, murder, and travel through a harrowing wilderness combine in this historical novel set in California and the mountain West from 1826 to 1828. Includes Readers Guide.
Peter Kazaks is a theoretical physicist with degrees from McGill, Yale, and University of California Davis. He is also the author of two accounts of summer long canoe trips in the extreme north of Canada: From Reindeer Lake to Eskimo Point and Lands Serene. He has traveled extensively in the American West. Sample Chapter
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BEYOND HIS MERCY A Civil War Novel By Johnny Neil Smith and Susan Cruce Smith "A deftly written, entertaining, and ultimately thought provoking read, 'Beyond His Mercy' is unreservedly recommended..." --The Midwest Book Review Order from Sunstone Press: (505) 988-4418 The American Civil War claimed and destroyed lives, stealing fathers and sons from those they loved. The horror caused many returning to cry out for death. They carried the festering scars of battle and were unable to overcome the torment of their souls. This is the story of Thomas Wilson, a soldier who returns home haunted by the destruction and devastation he both witnessed and caused. Although his regiment respects and reveres him as a sharpshooter, each man he has killed condemns him to a life of terrifying dreams and troubled days where forgiveness can never be obtained. Neither the love of his family nor the affection of a woman with sparkling dark eyes and soft black hair can chase his war demons away, for he is beyond mercy. Includes Readers Guide.
As a child Johnny Neil Smith often sat at his grandparents’ fireplace listening to stories of their parents’ struggles while pioneering south Mississippi in the eighteen hundreds. Now a retired educator with an ardent interest in early American history, Smith weaves the stories he heard as a child into all his novels. In Beyond His Mercy, he tells the story of his great-great grandfather, Lott Williams, who located the children of his murdered son-in-law and deceased daughter who lived in Cass County, Texas, and who then brought his grandchildren to live with him in Mississippi. In all of Smith’s writings, he captures the emotions behind the events that were passed down to him from his grandparents. His wife, Susan Cruce Smith, also a retired educator, takes his stories and brings them to life by adding spiritual meaning, literary style, and a woman’s perspective. They are also the authors of Beyond the Storm, and Johnny Neil is the author of Hillcountry Warriors and Unconquered, all from Sunstone Press. Sample Chapter
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BILLY OLD, ARIZONA RANGER A Historical Novel Based on a True Story By Geff Moyer In this historical novel, Billy Old and Jeff Kidder were Arizona Rangers at the turn of the twentieth century and best friends. In 1908, while acting in the line of duty, Kidder was murdered by five crooked Mexican policemen. No charges were filed against his killers. They were quietly skirted away to various locations throughout the county of Sonora, Mexico, a vast, desolate area covering nearly twenty thousand square miles. In 1909, shady politics in the Territory of Arizona brought about the disbanding of the Rangers, leaving many to drift into obscurity and some into degradation. In that same year Billy Old vanished into Sonora to find and kill the men responsible for his friend’s death. He returned close to two years later with that deed accomplished.
During Billy’s search of hundreds of sleazy Sonora whorehouses and cantinas he experiences many exciting, humorous, and tragic encounters. There’s a bloody and deadly confrontation with four scalp hunters; a mystical meeting with an old, dying Hopi Indian; an attack by the legendary “Red Ghost” of the southwest; a sorrowful meeting with a past fellow Ranger; cannibal Indians from East Texas; renegade Apaches; flushing toilets; the wonders of ether; Dancing Devils—fifty-foot high swirling dust funnels that can blind an animal; and a whore named Abbie Crutchfield who proves vital to Billy’s quest. And then there’s his horse Orion and a mule named Captain, all a part of a critically changing time in the American Southwest.
Includes Historical Background and Readers Guide.
Geff Moyer is a published playwright and retired high school theater and creative writing instructor. His play scripts have been produced by hundreds of schools and theaters across the country, including Canada, Greece, Australia, and the United Kingdom. This is his first novel. He and his wife Cathy have three sons and two granddaughters and live in the Kansas City area. Secure Movie & TV Rights
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THE CASSANDRA GROUP Meddling with Future History By Joseph A. Bonelli The president of the United States enlists a foreign power in locating hidden missile sites but with mixed results.
Read the "Movie/TV Treatment" below. In this speculative socio-political novel, a prestigious think tank—The Cassandra Group—led by a military historian general is aiding the president of the United States behind the scenes in sensitive negotiations with a foreign leader. As part of the plan, three brilliant young predictive historians in the Cassandra Group are assigned to devise a way to uncover the foreign nation’s hidden ICBM launch sites. Cassandra has devised a way to locate these “missing” sites by supporting a spin-off group called The Searchers composed mostly of women with highly unusual talents and time-tested old fashioned strategies. But they work. Too well, perhaps. Then bad stuff happens and everything gets messy as each hidden launch site is located. Is The Cassandra Group helping or merely meddling with history? Does this information help with the president’s negotiations? Or is it too late? Will both countries be hit hard? he Cassandra Group will tell you its truth—but you may not want to believe it. Shame on you.
Joseph A. Bonelli holds a Bachelors degree in Comparative World Literature from the University of Southern California and a Masters degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. He has worked in policy analysis evaluation and regulatory writing in Washington, DC and for the State of California. He has been a child protective services supervisor, substitute teacher, and medical social worker. He is also the author of Congo Ape Kitabu and The Caballero from Catalonia, The Life of Juan Duval, the latter from Sunstone Press. Secure Movie & TV Rights
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THE CIVIL WAR IN NEW MEXICO By F. Stanley New Foreword by Marc Simmons. Taking nineteen years of research by the author, this is the story of the Civil War as the Volunteers of New Mexico lived and fought it. One chapter deals with the scene in Washington, DC, ten years before the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter; another chapter deals with the Texas claim to all the area of New Mexico bordering the Rio Grande and the near war with the United States over Santa Fe County, Texas. The last chapter gives the alphabetical list of all the New Mexico Volunteers from A to Z as found in the records of the War Department. The author included this list in order to enable any relatives to trace the war record of the heroic men who fought at Valverde, Peralta, Santa Fe, Glorieta, Pigeon’s Ranch, and the Indian campaigns.
The march of the Colorado Volunteers and the California Column is completely covered as well as the work of these men during the war years. The New Mexico Volunteers were unjustly maligned by Edward Canby, the author said, and authors ever since have echoed his sentiments without investigating the facts. This book corrects many misconceptions that may be useful to all interested in the Civil War in New Mexico.
Includes bibliography.
“An easterner by birth but a southwesterner at heart, Father Stanley Francis Louis Crocchiola had as many vocations as names,” says his biographer, Mary Jo Walker. “As a young man, he entered the Catholic priesthood and for nearly half a century served his church with great zeal in various capacities, attempting to balance the callings of teacher, pastor, historian and writer.” With limited money or free time, he also managed to write and publish one hundred and seventy-seven books and booklets pertaining to his adopted region under his nom de plume, F. Stanley, The initial in that name does not stand for Father, as many have assumed, but for Francis, which Louis Crocchiola took, with the name Stanley, at the time of his ordination as Franciscan friar in 1938. All of F. Stanley’s titles have now reached the status of expensive collector’s items. Website: http://books.google.com/books?id=m5D0-2Jgj3QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=9780865348158&hl=en&ei=NR_QTt-0
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CRISIS GAME A Novel of the Cold War By Craig Eisendrath "A FLAT-OUR ROCKET RIDE..." Order from Sunstone: (800) 243-5644 They once had power--all four of them--and they enjoyed it. Now, in the heat of the Vietnam conflict, they're on the fringes of government, relegated to participating in a war game, trying out moves that mimic reality rather than making policy. Yet, they tell themselves, this game is important. It will help the government avoid a false step that could launch nuclear terror. The crisis they must deal with is a Chinese Communist thrust into Thailand and a Soviet attempt to take over Iran. But the four players-a former assistant secretary of state and Strategic Air Command pilot, a former effete ambassador, a philandering law professor, and a corrupt former U.S. senator-desperately want this game to be real, and they play it as if it were. Soon they're obsessed, as their wives begin to realize. Each move becomes a personal commitment, not just an exercise. Reality and game-playing blur. Before long, these four members of the State Department team are deep in conflict with a more aggressive team from the Defense Department. As they continue to explore their strategies, they reveal their deepest secrets and ambitions, and in the end they have to face the fact that they are real human beings--not just players in a game. CRAIG EISENDRATH served as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State, working in the area of outer space and nuclear disarmament. With a Ph.D. from Harvard University, he became a college dean and then head of the state humanities council in Pennsylvania. Today, he is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and the author of several books on international affairs, including The Phantom Defense: America's Pursuit of the Star Wars Illusion. Eisendrath also writes plays, most recently The Angel of History, which tells the dramatic story of a resistance fighter against the Nazis and her heroic attempt to rescue a famous philosopher. PRAISE FOR CRISIS GAME: Steve Zettler, author of The Second Man and Double Identity says: "Crisis Game is a flat-out rocket ride; giving new and intensified meaning to both crisis and game. When does the crisis end and the game begin? More crucial, when does the game end and the crisis begin? Eisendrath's style is thoroughly engrossing. Characters seemingly leap from the pages, struggling to match wits and backbone with the best and the brightest; but unable, or more likely, unwilling to escape from either the game or the crisis they have created. How cold was the Cold War...? You're about to find out." Cordelia Frances Biddle, author of Beneath the Wind reports: "Craig Eisendrath shows us insider Washington in a dangerously isolationist mode where global politics become 'games' enacted by players with nothing to lose. Reading Eisendrath's tale of the Cold War, one wonders what lessons--if any--our present leaders have learned." Secure Movie & TV Rights
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END OF THE TRAIL A Novel of the Philippines in World War II By Atilano Bernardo David “...Many of you will return to your loved ones covered with glory. Many of you will not return.” —General Douglas MacArthur, July, 1941 On April 3rd, 1942, the Japanese infantry staged a major offensive against Allied troops in Bataan in the Philippine Islands. The invasion was led by General Masaharu Homma, who had already forced General Douglas MacArthur’s troops from Lingayen. The Japanese began to fire every half hour, increasing in intensity each time, while the defenders crouched down in their foxholes. At the same time the Japanese 22nd Air Brigade started dropping more than sixty tons of bombs. Dive bombers flew low to strafe troops and trenches. USAFFE Artillery and telephone lines were neutralized. Bamboo thickets, banyan trees, sugar cane fields were set ablaze. Then, as the dust cleared on April 9th—the anniversary of the death of legendary Emperor Jimmu, the first ruler to sit on the Japanese imperial throne— General Edward King of the United States Army Forces of the Far East surrendered to General Homma and the infamous Bataan Death March began. In this novel war, an evil wind, rages over a beautiful planet Earth. Like a scythe, it claims all the young men in their teens and twenties. This is the story of five on their journey to the end of the trail in the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.
Atilano Bernardo David was born in Angeles in the Philippines. He graduated from the University of Santo Tomas and then enlisted in the United States Armed Forces of the Far East during World War II. After the war, his various career activities included the founding of a fashion magazine and a home magazine and writing for advertising firms, newspapers and magazines. He was a Scout Executive for the Boy Scouts of America in Union, New Jersey, and he worked as an editorial cartoonist for The Freehold Transcript in Freehold, New Jersey. He also appeared in TV commercials and movies before retiring to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Secure Movie & TV Rights
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ESPRIT DE CORPS A Novel Inspired by Actual Events By Connie Bertelsen Young with Herbert H. Roebuck Order from Sunstone: (505) 988-4418 Will Brown, a small town boy from West Virginia, an inexperienced youth who gets cold feet when he’s with his childhood sweetheart and cringes at confrontations with loud mouthed bullies, dreams of joining the Marines so he can become the man he longs to be. Sidesplitting antics include Will’s first experience in a rowdy Southern bar, training his uncooperative hound dog, a traumatic night at the dance, a wedding, recruitment and survival techniques as Will is molded into a Marine. Along with laughter, it’s a sober reminder of the horrifying price paid for war. While in the trenches of enemy territory, Will’s life is changed as he endures hardships far away from home and watches brave men give their lives to rescue others. Although a fictional tale, readers will find details about the Marine Corps’ strenuous and excellent training at Parris Island, Camp Lejeune and Camp Pendleton during the sixties, and the Marines’ incredible fortitude required throughout the War in Vietnam.
Herbert H. Roebuck had an outstanding career in the U.S. Marine Corps including service in Vietnam. He was born in 1928 in Tampa, Florida. His many experiences over the years inspired this book. He has received recognition for recruiting over 931 Marines. Herbert’s experiences in the Marine Corps and his creative ideas inspired Connie Bertelsen Young to write Esprit de Corps. Her first book, Signs of the Time was published in 2013. She has also written a humor column called “Valley Gal” for two San Joaquin Valley, California newspapers and many of her stories and articles have been published in various books and magazines. Secure Movie & TV Rights
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HIGH SKIES AND FAT HORSES A Novel of War and Human Imperfection By William J. Wallisch “There’s a little of the Appo Kid in all of us.” When Air Force Captain Norm Whitman gets his orders to a remote island off the southern coast of Korea he finds himself working for Major Dubbs, who already hates his guts. But it only takes a day for Whitman to team up with his fellow site mates: An alcoholic chaplain (Father Paul); the irreverent site medic (Sergeant Goldman); a fellow captain (Andy Packer, nickname “Oyster”), made constantly miserable by his Korean “Yobo” girl friend (Adja); and a group of Korean officers dedicated to both their military mission and serious partying. The creed for survival: “It’s your mind or your liver!” Curiously flawed and alcoholic, Whitman carries his Catholic guilt from brothels to brawls. A group of Irish priest missionaries and other assorted characters who fly in and out from bases all over East Asia join in the rice-wine driven mayhem that drives base commander Dubbs up the wall. The good times end when Whitman must deal with the murder of one of his closest site mates, the Korean police, and his own shock at how suddenly life can turn ugly. On the heels of tragedy, Whitman is selected for an assignment just as surreal: Train and accompany his Korean counterparts for a top-secret mission to Vietnam. What happens in the war zone will prove to be his day of reckoning.
William J. Wallisch is a retired professor of English who’s been a life-long collector of military character sketches and tall tales. He’s filled many notebooks with “war stories” penned during his own twenty-three years of active duty service. Typical of his essays on military heroism is “In the Belly of the Whale,” published in War, Literature, and the Arts. His University of Southern California doctoral dissertation was a study of “The Integration of Women into the United States Air Force Academy.” This first novel was originally a collection of short stories, taken from what he refers to as his “dark notebook.” Though set in Korea and Vietnam, it amalgamates a variety of characters and tales, gathered from many assignments around the world. When asked if the story is a memoir, Bill replies, “No, but there’s a little of the Appo Kid in all of us.” He divides his time between Colorado Springs and Leadville, Colorado.
Includes Readers Guide Secure Movie & TV Rights
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HOPI TEA A Murder Mystery By Kent F. Jacobs “Kent Jacobs delivers a story with a rapid-fire pace that mixes murder, mystery, and interesting tidbits of New Mexico history that is sure to entertain.” —Michael McGarrity
“Jacobs is first-rate, delivering the reader effortlessly to war-era Fort Stanton and Lincoln, conceiving the perfect setting for suspense, betrayal and murder.” —Andrew J. Wulf, PhD, Executive Director, New Mexico History Museum and the Palace of the Governors A mysterious murder faces border patrol agent Tracker Dodds as he assumes control of the first Prisoner of War camp in the United States under a mandate from the Department of Justice. It’s a hot summer day in 1942 when he enters Fort Stanton and he is shocked to discover a brutally scalped German inmate floating in its Olympic-sized swimming pool.
A river separates the camp from a state-of-the-art tuberculosis hospital in this alpine back country of southern New Mexico which adjoins the massive Mescalero Apache reservation. Could the scalping have been done by someone from the reservation? Or was the murderer another distressed German seaman? The camp is packed with German sailors. Did a bystander see the chance to silence his blackmailer?
Though the camp is remote and cut off from civilization, every soul involved feels the crushing destruction of a world at war. And the mysterious murder facing Tracker Dodds is just an example. Includes Readers Guide.
Kent Jacobs is a graduate of Northwestern University College of Medicine with a specialty post-graduate diploma from the University of Colorado College of Medicine. His interest in writing began during his early years as a full-time academician. He is also the author of The Turned Field and Zuni Stew, both from Sunstone Press and he lives with his wife, professional painter Sallie Ritter in southern New Mexico. They received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2014, the state’s highest award in the arts. Secure Movie & TV Rights
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TO BE A WARRIOR A Novel By Robert Barlow Fox A FOCUS ON NAVAJO "CODE-TALKING" Order from Sunstone: (800) 243-5644 Clay Walker is a Navajo boy who is taught the old ways of his people. He dreams of being a warrior, but is told that there are no more wars and there are no more warriors. He is selected to be one of the "code talkers" in the Marine Corps and becomes disillusioned with his dream. THE MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW says: "...a deeply engaging, wonderfully crafted, highly recommended novel." BOOKLIST reported: "...the action, the adventure, and the remarkable code-talking aspect will justifiably attract readers." Robert Barlow Fox served in the Navy in the Pacific and the Army in Europe. He was also a missionary for three years among the Maori people of New Zealand. He earned Bachelor and Masters degrees and did other graduate studies at the University of Utah and Utah State University and is now a retired educator. He is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and has published short stories, articles, poetry, and essays in many magazines and journals. He also won three Freedom’s Foundation Awards. One, an essay on Abraham Lincoln, was read into the Congressional Record by then Senator Wallace F. Bennet of Utah. Robert Fox is also the author of THE BOY WHO HEARS MUSIC, INHERITED FAMILY, and THE SEEKER, all from Sunstone Press. Secure Movie & TV Rights
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