Electronic publication of books has become yet another “next wave,” in the realm of popular technology. “Epublishing” is beginning to overtake traditional publishing, and electronic versions of books are outpacing paper versions. More and more, readers will find far greater variety and choice through electronic publishing sites, with both brand new and well known books available.

With that phenomenon, however, come new problems, both for readers and writers. Ebooks cannot be found, perused, and selected from book shelves. They do not stand up in rows, with covers available so readers may simply pull them out read blurbs on the back. Instead, they are buried in lists and files which the reader must sort through, searching by author, title, or by “key words,” and unless one knows exactly what they are looking for, it can be difficult to find new and interesting books that way.

For writers, the problem is reversed. Our books disappear into these files where we have to hope someone either knows to look for us or chances across our work through the same sorting process. More and more, those of us with books only on epublishers will approach readers through blogs, to present our work, offer the equivalent of a back cover blurb, and better yet, offer sample chapters to help a reader quickly determine whether to pursue each book at its epublishing site.

That is the purpose of this blog, to present this writer’s work in a more visible way; I hope you will take a look and if you like what you see, follow up through the indicated links.

Stan

Monday, August 8, 2011

List of books currently available by your host

So far, I've published seven books, two of non-fiction, five novels:

THE AWFUL ARITHMETIC, VOLUME I   
        Available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006KY2X8M)
        Available at Smashwords at http//www.smashwords.com/books/view/75922

THE AWFUL ARITHMETIC, VOLUME  II
       Available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005DKKC5A
       Available at Smashwords at http//www.smashwords.com/books/view/76028


The Awful Arithmetic is a non-fiction book, in two volumes, about the Civil War. For those just entering a study of the war, The Awful Arithmetic covers the entirety of the conflict, from its true cause——which was neither secession nor slavery——to the intricate details of the war’s ending. For those seeking greater depth in understanding the war, The Awful Arithmetic presents far more than a basic narrative will offer, leading readers to new layers and levels of the conflict that are seldom touched in conventional accounts, whether in written form or in other media.
Much that is taken for granted in most discussions is challenged, analyzed, and dissected in The Awful Arithmetic, and this analysis is based upon many varieties of documentation, including letters, general orders, official battle reports, autobiographies, biographies written by contemporaries of the subjects, memoirs of generals, speeches, and other writings produced by those involved in the events described. Many of these documents
illuminate controversies that raged in the course of the war, including direct challenges between generals on opposing sides, and in some cases, between generals who were ostensibly colleagues and allies.
Much use is made of the biographies written about Lincoln by his private secretary, John Nicolay, and his assistant, Jacob Hay, both of whom became notable diplomats in later years. They worked directly with Lincoln, in his capacity as president, day in and day out, served as his sounding board, and they were present at the momentous meetings and decision-making conferences that related to the prosecution of the war from the Union side.
     The source of the title comes from another secretary to Abraham Lincoln about the reality of the war, and what it might take to win:
     “We lost fifty per cent more men than did the enemy, [in the battle of Fredericksburg] and yet there is sense in The Awful Arithmetic  propounded by Mr. Lincoln. He says that if the same battle were to be fought over again, every day, through a week of days, with the same relative results, the army under Lee would be wiped out to its last man, the Army of the Potomac would still be a mighty host, the war would be over, the Confederacy gone, and peace would be won at a smaller cost of life than it will be if the week of lost battles must be dragged out through yet another year of camps and marches, and of deaths in hospitals rather than upon the field. No general yet found can face the arithmetic, but the end of the war will be at hand when he shall be discovered.”
     The Awful Arithmetic most of all shows how prophetic Lincoln’s words proved to be, and how his search to find that general finally came to fruition.

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Allegheny Road
      Available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005AHOIEM
      Available at Smashwords  ag http//www.smashwords.com/books/view/75796

 
        Allegheny Road is a frank, intense story of two men and two women whose lives converge on a plantation in the Shenandoah Valley of 1860’s Virginia.
Scott Patton is a college professor from Cincinnati who has joined the Union Army to track down and apprehend his wife’s killer.
Ashley Lynn is the wife of the plantation’s owner, and secretly operates a station in the Underground Railroad, under the very nose of her husband George Lynn, who is away fighting with Stonewall Jackson in the war.
Millie Turner is a slave who grew up as George Lynn’s personal servant but later became his secret lover, until his family forced him to marry Ashley, the girl from the plantation next door.

After failing to find his quarry, Scott passes through Allegheny Road, the plantation owned by George Lynn, on his way home to Ohio. He tarries there for a rest and meets Ashley and Millie, and upon learning that they rescue and transport slaves north, he volunteers to help. Waiting to make the next run to the Ohio River, still heartbroken over his wife’s death, Scott finds in the kindness of the two women solace and healing he could never have believed possible and is unable to resist falling in love with both.
Ashley and Millie, who each shared love for George Lynn in the past, are both estranged from him now, and although it was greatly his fault, the pain of it drove him away to join the war, uncertain if he cared whether he lived or died. While his absence has freed them up to carry on their noble work in the underground railroad, however, it has also left the plantation in some difficulties.
While waiting for the next slaves seeking transportation to freedom arrive, Scott does what he can to improve conditions on the property. All the while, his relationship with each of the women grows, and with it, dread of the final farewells when he must leave.
He is still there, on the verge of setting forth, when George Lynn suddenly reappears on furlough from the war. Having convinced himself his wife was unfaithful, George finds what he believes is the evidence of it in the presence of a Yankee on his land. The confrontation that erupts between the two men is tempered by the presence of Ashley and Millie and although volatile, is short lived, with George stalking off back to the war, swearing vengeance on Scott if he ever sees him again.
When the two men clash next time, in the waning days of the war, the consequences will change the lives of those on Allegheny Road forever.



THE MARUNDI AFFAIR
     Available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CMXMO
     Available at Smashwords at http//www.smashwords.com/books/view/75949

   In The Marundi Affair, Dr. Sharon Witt is caught up in conflict with a corrupt pharmaceutical company, leading to the disappearance of her estranged husband, a forbidden love affair, and a desperate passage into war-torn Marundi, where the resolution of her personal torment must be balanced against her commitment to the sanctity of human life, even at the risk of her own. 

Along with Sharon, the plot follows four other key characters, whose stories come together in Marundi. Lee Cunnningham is the man who has become the love of Sharon’s life, but a discovery about their common past, that comes after they have been caught up in a torrid romance tears them apart. In his own anguish, Lee will throw away his life in Marundi, seeking to rescue Sharon’s husband. 

Henrietta Masterson is a world class journalist who has fallen in love with Lee as well, and will prove willing to follow him to his death; Doug Witt is Sharon’s husband, whose involvement with the pharmaceutical company and his reasons for betraying her are far different from what she had come to believe. 

The man named Prentiss is an unexpectedly pivotal character in the story. At first, working with the pharmaceutical company, while he claims to lust after her, Prentiss intimidates Sharon into silence about her husband’s plight, but at the end, in Marundi, he has the chance to redeem himself and salvage Sharon’s mission, or turn on her and bring about her end. 

While possessing elements of a political thriller, Marundi is most of all a character-driven story, designed to appeal both to male and female readers on several levels. 

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ALAMO SQUARE

 Available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005O5VVY0
 Available at Smashwords at http//www.smashwords.com/books/view/90006

         Alamo Square is an epic novel that follows the lives of a man and woman who are separated for six years by war.  In that time, each struggles to survive and to learn the fate of the other, while becoming participants in the rebuilding of the shattered nation. 
The core of the story is the battle between social intolerance and hatred in its fullest expression, against  the power of love and human kindness. 
In Alamo Square, Mike Lansford and Jenny McGuire, who have been reunited after meeting each other and falling in love two years before, are again separated by a nightmarish war; in the aftermath, white separatists seize control of large sections of the country, with visions of a renewed Confederacy, holding not just African Americans, but every other minority as slaves.
Jenny, carrying Mike’s daughter, is caught and passed from one group to another; using her strength and intellect not only to survive, she is able to influence even the most virulent racists to improve conditions for all her fellow captives. 
Mike, who as an internationally known journalist, has already brokered the end of one war, while mourning Jenny, unaware his daughter was even conceived, must now help rebuild the government, working with the help of Canadians and Europeans, by breaking the power of the separatists, without causing the unnecessary death and suffering of those they enslave.
Working toward the same grand purpose, with Jenny and their daughter on the inside and Mike on the outside, over the course of six years the two bring about a resolution which may heal the nation, yet lead to both their deaths, unaware they are only miles apart when the end approaches. 

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EL CHORRILLO

Available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005U81VKK
Available at Smashwords at http//www.smashwords.com/books/view/95188


In El Chorrillo, Kel Hamilton is an agent working for the president, in league with the woman he abandoned as a lover eight years ago, in a tense secret war against elements of the government that seek to destroy the administration. The president has no knowledge of Kel’s existence, but he considers the woman, Shannon McDowell as his most trusted aide. Shannon operates currently out of the US Embassy in Panama City, seeking to uncover the truth of a threatening terrorist group called the Red Line Front, which Kel has discovered is not a foreign entity at all but part of the clandestine forces threatening the administration.

The danger to the administration, brings Kel and Shannon back into contact and at first they work together in an uneasy peace, but their love is renewed, stronger than ever despite the likelihood neither will survive to make a life together. 

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HARRISON’S DAUGHTER

Available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dpB00BO8FODU
Available at Smashwords athttp//www.smashwords.com/books/view/291430


In Harrison’s Daughter, a terrorist organization has developed a biological weapon genetically engineered to affect only people of non-Caucasian makeup. In order to perfect the weapon and carry out other unethical experiments, the group has kidnapped biologists around the world and forced them into virtually slave labor.

Harrison Bonnell and his sister are top-flight microbiologists and when his sister is among those taken, he sets out to both find her and neutralize the weapon before it can be used as a form of ethnic cleansing.

In this mission, Harrison teams up with Courtney Blanchard, a friend of the family, who is a cable news journalist known for her powerful investigative skills, and has connections with international intelligence services. Together, they set out to find word about Harrison’s sister Natalie, while seeking clues to the identity of the terrorists and a means to stop the weapon that has been tested on civilians around the world. After obtaining samples of tissue of those killed by the weapon, they are chased into hiding in a secure facility where Harrison can study the specimens in search of a cure. To complete the process, Harrison must access a computer more powerful than what is available at the lab. Knowing that, however, the terrorist group has laid a trap for him and capture him when he leaves the secure.

Now, Harrison is one more biologist in their hands. Their purpose, beyond developing the so-called ethnic bomb that Harrison tried to neutralize, is to find cures and medical advances that will be made available only to their clients who operate the cabal. Harrison learns that these secret operations have been ongoing for decades and the group has successfully cloned human beings on a wide scale and in so doing, have also discovered the means to speed up or slow down human aging, up to a certain point, all of which they’ve withheld from the rest of the world. Now, they want Harrison and the others to improve on the age-controlling process, by learning to extend lifetimes into centuries, of course only for the use of themselves and their clients.
They do force Harrison to undergo the same life-extending process, which will leave him in their hands for more at least a couple hundred years. If he does not cooperate, they will seal him up in solitary confinement. Rather than waste his life entirely, Harrison sets to work, hoping that whatever he achieves will one day reach the rest of humanity.

Secretly, however, as he carries out the work they demand, he also devises a way to eventually break open the prison, although it takes thirty years to free himself and his fellow researchers. 

Throughout his confinement, Harrison constantly dreams of finding Courtney again; now knowing the secret to slowing and even reversing aging, he hopes to find her while she is still alive and apply the process to effectively return her body to the equivalent of her thirties, to match his own, so they can both live together for the rest of the time the process gives them. Therefore, from the moment he escapes, everything in his life is pointed toward returning to the lab where he last saw her.


What he finds, however, is not Courtney, but a woman who looks like Courtney of thirty years ago. At first, believing his love has already been treated with the age-changing process, he is overjoyed, until the woman before him shows no awareness of who he is, and in fact, turns him away, spurning him entirely. The woman is Whitney, Courtney’s daughter, who was of course born after Harrison disappeared. 

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