Buy my novels from Amazon.com.
A Close Approximation of an Ordinary Life
Begin. I am ten now. Ten, two times five times onea million times over if I want. Or ten, ten ones areten every time. Ten. Dad says it’s Asperger’s, syndrome is a sickness, not like a bellyache but sometimes an earache or a brainache. AS means that some things that other kids think are easy are not so easy for me, and some things that other people think are hard are simple as pie for me. Look look look. Follow me, do not follow, look. That is what they say. They: Jan, Mom, Dad, Lucy. Look. They want to know what I remember. I remember everything. Follow the story of Leonard Anthony Pearce: brilliant, articulate, ambitious. And living each day with the challenges and opportunities of high-functioning autism, making his way in a confusing world. Read more…
Only Salt Remains
Sicily, 1935. Destined for lonely work at the salt flats,brothers Antonio and Francesco struggle to find their wayafter the violent deaths of their parents. Sara is an orphan, too, sent to the village when her family drowns at sea. Three desperate lovers. One terrible accident. Regret, redemption, and family intrigue combine in this dark, triumphant story. Read more…
A Stranger’s Map
Sometimes, it takes a stranger to lead us home.In Sudan, nineteen-year-old Ayen returns home after gathering water with her child to find their village destroyed by soldiers. The overcrowded refugee camp is not much safer, but Ayen takes a job in the infirmary, using skills her father taught her.While protecting her toddler during an attack, Ayen is left unconscious and badly burned. Dreaming of her father, Ayen reaches out her hand. She is not alone.Set in 2002 and spanning three continents, this is the emotional, optimistic story of love, loss, and redemption between a father and two daughters:on one hand, blood ties severed by family tragedy,and on the other, an unlikely surrogate bond that transcends devastating grief and a fight for survival. Read more…
The Slavery of Flight
July, 1997. A wealthy suburb of Johannesburg. An empty winter afternoon. Audrey and Brenton Du Plessis, twelve and eight, giggled behind a ten-foot concrete wall.A lifetime away. Across the street,Godwin William ‘Winnie’ Mathonsi stopped to listen to the laughter. “So happy,” he said to himself. “So free.” The man set down his blue plastic shopping bag and stood in the shade of a shedding eucalyptus tree. “Not right.”Where can you run when there’s nowhere to hide? Read more…
Velvet Corner Blue
Justice for a defenseless victim? Or blind vengeance? Oliver Radcliffe, a successful musician with a hidden past, has no choice. A mysterious letter, a careful plan, and a new identity lead him from a world of easy money and devoted fans to a devastating crime and a life in ruins. This fast-paced, uncompromising novel from a fresh new voice will leave you wondering about the nature of guilt, the weight of solitude, and the power of love. Read more…
Fall Daze
New school, new town, new life: sixteen-year-old Nicole Caulfield is about to find out the hard way that home can be a four-letter word. When her family moves the summer before her senior year, Nicole thinks her life is over. Fall Daze is a novel about a lonely teenager, an unlikely friendship, and finding joy despite great loss. Read more…
Safe Passage
Absolutely, positively, not. Fifteen-year-old Belinda Larsen wants nothing to do with a trip to the Mexican jungle with her parents and bratty younger brother. Twelve-year-old Jack has other ideas about the upcoming family adventure: an isolated island, a forest full of snakes, and scuba diving with his dad. Paradise. Then Jack gets a headache that won’t go away, and bruises he can’t explain. What happens now? Read more…
Zebras & Xylophones
Aura Corinne Speltzman has two problems: the kids at school and the sudden disappearance of her only friend, an invisible zebra named Harold. But everything flips upside-down when Aura’s new best-friend-to-be arrives on a thunderbolt in the middle of the night. Squinting through the storm from her bedroom window, Aura watches a family drop out of the lightning into the empty house across the yard. Lonely without her long-time imaginary playmate, eleven-year-old Aura climbs onto the school bus the next morning with a head full of the other kids’ teasing. Loud laugh and sunshine yellow braids down her back, Eva (‘Eve’) von Brandt introduces herself with a joke and a smile: life will never be the same. Read more…
Yodels & Yo-yos
Ready for more of Aura and Eve? Here they are: Aura Corinne Speltzman and Eva Antonella Simona Tamatha von Brandt, ready to share their latest adventures with you. What is Grandma Maria’s big secret? Why is Brad Pagliaro such a bully? How do you ice skate when you’re stuck in bed? And what’s that howling noise in the middle of the night? Find out! Read more…
Wishing for Water
They’re back: Aura Corinne Speltzman and Eve von Brandt return with more exciting adventures. Join the friends for more mystery and fun. Meet troublemaker Kiara Ratcher, who does her best to make life difficult for Aura and Eve. Is Old Man Morse really a monster? Someone is burning circles in the woods. And where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Read more…
Wrapped
Set against a canvas of frenzied corporateNew York City, a family farm in ruralOhio, a glass-and-chrome skyscraper in the medieval city of Milan, and a villa on theLigurian coast, this a fast-paced story of ambition, displacement, loyalty, and love.Twenty-two-year-old Andrea Carole is smart. Smart enough to ooze through a double math/economics degree at Cornell.Smart enough to duck serious relationships. Not smart enough to duck a dangerous romance with a handsome stranger thirty years her senior.Across the Atlantic, Massimo Bassanini is in trouble. At fifty-three, used to wrangling his way in love, family, and corporate war, he’s a successful entrepreneur with a problem: he needs anew financial adviser, someone as driven and brilliant as he is. One phone call toNew York, and the stage is set for a collision of cultures, generations, and desire. Read more…
Earth Child
This is a book about family. It is the story of a mother, a child, and a journey far away from home. A story that rises in pre-history with the evolution of a dominant species, travels through time, and leads us back to the beginning. It is a book about lineage, love and loss.
The narrative wanders, catering to paths less well known as well as to old standards. It clambers over ecology’s split pole fences, sprints over science creeks and delves into the deep woods of language, myth and magic. It shapeshifts with psychology, plays trills on sociology and dances with desire for better days.
This is also a book about hope in action. Hope based not on the outmoded ways of engaging with our planet, but in a changed relationship that starts with how we see ourselves. Hope that thrusts us forward with possibility, not backward toward an improbable future. Hope that is loud and bold, with a shifted vision for who we are, what we are doing here and how we can take responsibility for our impact on this third rock from the sun. Read more…