literary fiction

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Third Wheel by Richard R. Becker

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Third Wheel by Richard R. Becker

Third Wheel is an exhilarating coming-of-age thriller about belonging, betrayal, and breaking away. It is the story of a boy trying to find his identity without the benefit of clear role models. He takes chances on random and fragile relationships forged in the pre-boom hours of Las Vegas, 1982.

Brady Wilks is remarkable as a transformative protagonist. He must make tough decisions as his friends try to navigate a dangerous path selling cartel-supplied drugs.

Four-time award-winning author Richard R. Becker once again shares his unique insight into the human condition. Desolate and gritty, Third Wheel is a triumphant debut novel.

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Abroad: A Novel of Cross-Cultural Encounters by Greyson Bryan

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Abroad: A Novel of Cross-Cultural Encounters by Greyson Bryan

Come along for the ride with this “supremely readable” coming-of-age story about clashing cultures and complicated relationships. ABROAD follows Skip, Maddie, and Rex as they travel overseas and navigate romantic loves and friendships during the cultural upheaval and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s.

Booklife praises ABROAD saying, “In this literary novel centered on travel and the lessons we can learn from crossing borders with an open heart, Bryan, author of the Big thriller series, weaves an ambitious, globe-crossing narrative of interconnected lives and loves.”

Travel to Mexico and Paris, take a steamship to Europe, crisscross Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia all in one story. Read ABROAD and bring adventure with you wherever you go.

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The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic

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The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic

The story opens with the discovery of a mysterious box from the distant past. Its makers are five orphaned friends who hope to help civilizational knowledge survive disruptive climate change centuries in the future: the ending of the Ice Age. The bar is continuously raised as the box traverses more than a dozen settings to the present day. Readers are tacitly encouraged to partner with the author and fill in the blanks by considering their metaphorical boxes, lessons for the future from their past.

Exchanges between cultures and generations highlight human transience. Adoption is the preeminent motif, many characters being orphaned, or having adopted, or both. Nature’s agency is felt throughout the story, with animals, plants and landscapes presented as respected partners rather than resources to be exploited. Nothing can fully reconcile human contradictions, and true equilibrium must come from a transcendent perspective. Plural identity followed by association with all humans, past, present and future, is only a good start. Can we progress beyond all life forms? The book ends on the question: what can you do but hope?

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The Ring by Florence Osmund

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The Ring by Florence Osmund

Paige West is a well-educated, financially stable business owner who mourns the death of her father and misses the closeness she had with him throughout her life. Jessivel Salter is a high school dropout who had a child out of wedlock at sixteen and is now a single mother on the brink of becoming homeless. She also misses her now-deceased father, but for very different reasons. When fate unites them, Paige is drawn to Jessivel from the start and wants to help her. But Jessivel doesn’t trust Paige or her intentions and rejects her many “helping hand” offers.

The two women eventually connect and when certain disturbing truths are unveiled, they discover they have something in common that is inconceivable and shocking. Their relationship soon becomes contentious and forces each woman to decide whether she wants to take the easy way out and part ways forevermore or face up to the adversity that fate has thrown at them.

And it all started with “the ring.”

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They Called Me Margaret by Florence Osmund

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They Called Me Margaret by Florence Osmund

Margaret Manning has spent the better part of her life conforming to the expectations of other people—first her father, then her husband. Breaking away from this ruinous tradition, she becomes a cozy mystery writer and decides to open her own bookstore—The Indie Book Nook. But when her husband mimics the behaviors of some of the more unscrupulous characters in her books, she fears that she is losing him, or even worse that she is losing her mind.

While abandonment is nothing new to Margaret—she hasn’t seen or heard from her mother since she was six years old—the fear of losing her husband is devastating. She struggles to find the strength to mend her shattered marriage while also coping with obscure health issues, her daughter’s precarious behavior, a disingenuous neighbor, and an unpredictable mother-in-law.

Who in Margaret’s life is friend and who is foe is not always apparent, and it’s up to her to figure it all out.

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The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic

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The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic

“Plural identity is where respectful practice begins.”
Who are you? Just the one body and mind? Does your story begin with your birth? Or how far back would you go?

The Oldest Word spans ten thousand years and more than a dozen settings. Human contradictions are reconciled time and again, with tragedy and humor feeding off each other. From the twin mirror mazes of history and psychology, amid ever-shifting social and natural landscapes, enduring patterns emerge.

The story opens with the discovery of a mysterious box from the distant past. Its makers are five orphaned friends who hope to help civilizational knowledge survive disruptive climate change centuries in the future: the ending of the Ice Age. The bar is continuously raised as the box travels through space and time to the present day. Readers are tacitly encouraged to partner with the author and fill in the blanks by considering their metaphorical boxes, lessons for the future from their past.

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Ten Threads by Richard R Becker

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Ten Threads by Richard R Becker

Ten Threads is a brisk 125-page, 10-story companion to the bestselling, award-winning collection 50 States.

Published as a Kindle exclusive, it can be read as a stand-alone anthology or as a continuation of stories found in 50 States. Specifically, this collection features stories set in Idaho, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Utah, Pennsylvania, California, Vermont, Nevada, Maine, and Kentucky.

• An Idaho farmer who earns a second chance at life finds that the past has a hard time letting him go.
• A risk-averse young man must make a bold move after stumbling into a nightmarish government biohazard. • An aging alcoholic vigilante finds common ground with a teenager in a secret witness protection program.

50 States readers will find that eight stories feel like continuations. The other two, while connected to their counterparts, aren’t strongly linked. Whether read together or alone, Becker’s body of work plays out like a puzzle with new little bits shared a few pieces at a time.

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A Span of Moments by Robert Beech

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A Span of Moments by Robert Beech

A profound story of coming home to an old Florida island and struggling to save its way of life and native beauty: Midsummer 1994,a disillusioned Jake Crawford quits a prominent scientific career and retreats to the island home of his youth, longing for its old Florida way of life. Within hours of his arrival, he becomes entangled in a deadly series of events involving a billionaire real estate developer and a reclusive bridgetender with a long-hidden past. Jake’s struggle to navigate those events will determine whether Marcosta Island preserves its culture and native beauty or succumbs to the same overpopulation and environmental harm that has befallen the rest of southwest Florida.

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50 States by Richard R. Becker

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50 States by Richard R. Becker

An Idaho farmer who aches for absolution after a tragedy is given one more chance at redemption. Two runaways cross paths in a Tennessee bus station with only one ticket between them. A family sees looters racing toward their home as they escape an Oregon wildfire. A young couple takes a reckless turn off a state highway in Utah and find themselves in a nightmarish government biohazard area.

These and 46 more shorts make up an anthology that will surprise readers with each new thought-provoking story as they skip effortlessly across different genres, moods, and states of mind. Together, they provide a character-driven sampling of the American experience over the last 60 years — the kind and the cruel, the heroic and criminal — in unpredictable and exciting ways.

50 States is a debut collection of short stories that captures the human condition and reveals how perception shapes destiny. The book spans several literary genres with each short story set in a different state across America. It is soon to be released as an audiobook, narrated by a 5-time Emmy winner.

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The Essence of Nathan Biddle by J. William Lewis

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The Essence of Nathan Biddle by J. William Lewis

Protagonist Kit Biddle is a rising prep school senior who finds himself tangled in a web of spiritual quandaries and intellectual absurdities. Kit’s angst is compounded by a unique psychological burden he is forced to carry: his intelligent but unstable Uncle Nat has committed an unspeakable act on what, according to the Uncle’s deranged account, were direct orders from God.

An intelligent, clever, and captivating tale, The Essence of Nathan Biddle soars in the spaces that exist between despair and hope, darkness and light, love and loss. Beautifully written, profoundly moving, and resplendent with characters destined to remain with you long after the last page is turned, The Essence of Nathan Biddle is unforgettable.