Confessions of an Aging Adulterer

By Laura Rittenhouse
238 Pages
Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald

On the surface, Vicky's a contented woman with grown children and a happy marriage. Below that surface, Vicky struggles with a dissatisfaction she can't quite put her finger on but the reason is all too obvious: she's having an affair with her boss. Her New Year's resolution is simple, figure out why she's behaving like a fool by writing an honest account of her actions and observations in a diary. As honest as she can be, anyway.

The Captain and the Cheerleader

By Elaine Cantrell
Mainstream, 334 pages
Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald

Blurb: Susan English can’t stand Robin Lanford! She’s so full of herself she irritates everyone on the faculty of Fairfield High. When Robin bets Susan fifty dollars that she can’t get a date with Kurt Deveraux, the head football coach, Susan jumps at the chance to put the little heifer in her place. She had no idea that teaching Robin a lesson would irrevocably change her life, strain treasured friendships, and throw two families into chaos.

Excerpt:
One
Robin Landford swept into the room and plopped down into an orange plastic chair beside Susan English. “I think Kurt Deveraux is gay.”

It was Friday afternoon, but Robin’s statement halted the teacher exodus from the faculty lounge.

“Why do you say that, Robin?” Susan asked. Yeah, her voice sounded chilly and a bit snooty, but she couldn’t help herself. Robin was fresh out of college and seemed to think she was God’s gift to men; she flirted with anything in pants. This annoying little creature had probably made a play for Kurt’s attention and been rejected. Of course, in Robin’s defense, she’d have to say that not many women could ignore Kurt Deveraux. There might be a man somewhere who had more sex appeal than the blond, blue-eyed coach, but Susan doubted it.

She watched as Robin tossed her hair and pouted. “If I can’t get his attention he isn’t interested in women.”

Several people rolled their eyes. “Oh, I don’t think that’s the problem at all.” Susan smiled her most serene smile at her irritating colleague. “You just don’t know how to attract a man like Kurt.”

“And you do?” Robin’s eyebrows shot straight up. “If that’s true why haven’t you already gone out with him? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be interested. He’s hot.”

“Until recently I was involved with someone else. I had no desire to see Kurt or any other man socially.”

“Well, I think you’re full of it,” Robin sniffed. “If I couldn’t get him to notice me, I know you can’t.”

Around the faculty lounge a murmur of delighted, horrified voices broke out.

Susan finished her soft drink and tossed the can into a nearby recycling bin. “I could make Kurt ask me out if I wanted to.”

“Yeah? Prove it. Get him to ask you out. I’ll bet you fifty dollars you can’t do it,” Robin taunted. “All he’s interested in is football.”

Melissa Taylor, Susan’s best friend, cleared her throat. “How long would she have to get the date?”

“Two weeks ought to be enough for an old pro like Susan.” Robin snickered as her gaze swept around the lounge. “Would the rest of you like to get a piece of the action?”

All at once a carnival atmosphere permeated the room. They chose Don Brooks who taught art to keep track of the bets, and everyone hurried to put money on his or her favorite.

From the corner of her eye, Susan watched as Robin smirked at everyone in the room. Why did Mr. Dennis hire such an undisciplined, annoying child? It would be a pleasure to give Robin her comeuppance.

Don recorded the last bet on a sheet of copier paper. “It’s about fifty-fifty. Sorry, Robin, but my money’s on Susan. When she enters a room, men sit up and take notice.”

Melissa, who stood near the door, wildly waved her hand to get their attention. “Here comes Kurt now.”

Kurt looked surprised to find so many teachers in the lounge. He probably was; on Friday the school usually emptied in a hurry.

“What’s up?” Kurt inquired of the room at large as he rounded the corner and turned toward his mailbox. “Why are you all so quiet?”

Old Ways and New Days

By Michael Embry
Mainstream, 395 pages
Cover art by Pat Evans

Blurb: John Ross is retiring after many years working as a journalist. He contemplates about what he wants to do with the rest of his life. But along the way he finds out that there are some things you simply can't control. Life simply happens.

John learns that work has caused him to lose touch with the neighborhood where he has lived for many years. And he finds out that things weren't always as they seemed to be -- in many ways.

Excerpt:
The kitchen was quiet when he opened the door. When he flipped on the switch, there was an instant shout in unison— “Happy retirement!”

Stunned for a moment, John glanced around the room at all the familiar faces. A banner draped across the wall in the adjoining dining room proclaimed “Happy Retirement, John!” in big red letters. He looked around to locate Sally. She stepped toward him with her arms spread wide and hugged him, then gave him a quick peck on the mouth.

“Did we surprise you, sweetheart?” she whispered in his ear.

“What do you think?” He grinned awkwardly as he looked around the room.

Before John could say anything else, friends and neighbors flocked over and patted him on the shoulders, shook his hand, and some of the women kissed him on the cheek. He was at a loss for words. He didn’t enjoy being the center of attention. He mentioned to Sally on several occasions that he didn’t like surprises, especially on his birthday. Maybe he should have included retirement. Too late now.

He made his way past multi-colored helium balloons strung to chairs and the streamers made from newspapers that dangled from the ceiling in the dining room. In the middle of the table was a large white sheet cake designed to look like a news page with a large “Happy Retirement” in black icing on white across the top like a headline. Brightly wrapped gifts sat on the folding table. Other than accepting the well wishes from the attendees, John didn’t know what to say, think, or feel.

“Congratulations, Daddy!” John turned around and his daughter, Chloe, gave him a big hug and kiss on the cheek. A moment later his son, Brody, a half-head taller and thirty pounds heavier, firmly shook his hand before giving him a bear hug that felt like air was squeezing from his lungs.

“This is a surprise,” John said, who could feel some tears coming on. Chloe had flown in from New York City, where she worked for one of the television networks as an assistant producer. Brody, a certified public accountant, was in from Chicago.

“We wouldn’t have missed this for anything,” Brody said with a beaming smile. “It’s not every day a person gets to retire. That officially makes you old.”

“Gee, thanks,” John said. “I guess that makes you my old son.”

“Whatever!”

“You deserve this, Daddy.” Chloe was teary-eyed, holding his hand. “Now you get to do what you want to do. And, by the way, you’re not that old.”

“Sometimes I feel that way,” said John, slightly rolling his shoulders up and down. “Now I have all the time in the world.”

“Or what’s left,” Brody said.

“Would you stop it, Brody?” Chloe gave him a nudge with her hand.

“Only kidding, sis!”

Before they could say any more, Sally announced to everyone that dinner was ready in the kitchen. On the counter, she had set up two large platters of finger sandwiches, a veggie tray, buffet-style bowls of potato salad, cole slaw, and chips and various dips, along with plates, silverware, and beverages. People began making their way to the food, filling their plates and going to the dining room, living room and den to eat and chat.

John wanted to escape to the bedroom, if only to rest for a few minutes and catch his breath, but he knew that wouldn’t be the sociable thing to do at a party given in his honor. He didn’t want to appear ungrateful to his family and friends. And he’d never hear the end of it from Sally.

The doorbell rang and Sally hurried to answer it. She returned a few seconds later with Clay Rawlings, who carried a large wrapped box with a big blue bow on top. Several other newspaper employees followed him including Eric Walsh, sports columnist Dan Easteridge, and metro editor Heidi Snow.

“You’re not getting away that easily,” Clay said in a booming voice that drew everyone’s attention. “Since you wouldn’t let us give you a party at the office, we’re bringing the party to you!”

A Soul Forsaken

By Kev Richardson
Mainstream/Historical, 299 pages
Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald
 
A true tale of how an Egyptian born son can be educated to achieve honours in his chosen university studies, yet denied the right to turn them into a career.

Every Egyptian child adopts at birth its father’s nationality, so many find themselves a foreigner in his land of birth. Another law denies foreigners in Egypt, the right to work. With neighbouring Sudan in an ongoing civil war, this young man risks assassination if even visiting his father’s country, let alone wanting to reside and work there.

What can he do when even visas are denied Sudan’s citizens to any western country, simply fearing being ‘smothered’ by countless Sudanese wanting to flee the mayhem?

In this case, a visiting westerner takes up the challenge of finding a way around this poor fellow’s political dilemma.

Excerpt:
Zamalec, Cairo…

“This, Mama?”

She nodded. “Yes, son. For the sunroom.”

Ali and his mother were going through the house, attaching coloured Post-It tabs to every item of furniture.

Yellow designated leave-in-the-house, green meant deliver to her father’s home, pink designated being sold at auction.

They were under no time limit to quit the Sudan government property, yet the hint had been ‘within a month or two.’ They were moving only a few streets away to her parents’ home, where tradesmen were currently closing this door and opening a new one in other walls, that the el-Haq duo had their own apartment of four rooms plus a kitchen and shared bathroom.

Madame el-Haq was now agitating even more strongly that Ali began thinking seriously of marriage.

“There is garden space enough that the new apartment can be extended another room, son.”

“Yes, Mother, but again I must insist that I do not yet marry. Any son born to me in Egypt will grow up with my dreadful impediment to life’s happiness. I simply cannot cast such a slur on any child.”

“The Sudanese problem will one day be over, Ali, when you could take your family to Khartoum or El Fasher. We have talked on this so many times.”
“Yes, Mother, and every time finish realising that the ‘when’ of it can never be gauged. Only when I can see myself safely welcomed into Sudan will I marry. If you do not want me living with you, I can take my own apartment somewhere, or go back to university and further my education.”

“I should miss you dreadfully if you moved away, Ali, but a man of your age continuing to live with his mother is not Allah’s way. It must attract suspicion of homosexuality to cast doubt on my father’s entire family. A bachelor son in his twenties should be marrying.”

“Well, until accepted in the Sudan, I cannot. But if you fear slurs, Mama, I shall take the University course. However, I would prefer time to see what happens in the Sudan, also to keep appealing to the British Embassy.”

Ali was silent a long time. We have been through this so many times, every time ending up deciding nothing. I could enter the monkhood, yet I cannot devote my entire life and spirit to that. I envy Evan the freedom he has, yet whilst I could be self-employed like that, I must depend on what money I could earn from outside Egypt. And changing foreign money has a limit, one too small to grant me a livelihood.

Every which-way he looked, there were barriers.

How long can a man keep sponging on his family and maintain pride? Suffer the ignominy of having no career or even purpose in life? Man was not made to live so. Life here can only continue demeaning.

He realised that family money, while continuing to give him a comfortable life, did nothing towards giving him personal satisfaction.

My studies in physics have me qualified to be earning good money, even one day to receiving some notoriety. Surely such is every man’s dream—every man but one born in Egypt of a Sudanese father!

The Fever

By Thomas Fenske
Mainstream, 409 pages
Cover art by Pat Evans

In the late 1800s, Ben Sublett was already known for his secret gold mine in the far reaches of west Texas. When Ben died in 1892, it was thought his secret died with him. Eighty years later in a central Texas jail, a dying, homeless wino named "Slim" Longo whispered a long-held family secret to twenty year old Sam Milton. Sam had comforted Slim as the old man succumbed to injuries suffered during arrest. That secret contained one word that changed Sam's life: Gold.

In his last moments on earth, Slim had rewarded young Sam's kindness with certain clues that old Ben Sublett had given to Slim's grandfather. In eighty years, neither Slim, his father, nor his grandfather had ever found the mine. In considering the source, a filthy, broken, shell of a man, Sam instinctively knew that surely this information was more of a curse than a reward, but the clues burned a hole in his soul and he could not help but continue a search that had already stretched out for another ten years. Sam had "the fever" and he knew he would either find the elusive gold mine or die trying...

Excerpt:
Sam got up and went to the door and attracted a patrolling guard’s attention through the same paperback book-sized opening used for the attempts at inter-block communication.

“There’s a guy in here that’s hurt,” he said, pointing over to Slim by the far wall.

“Oh, him?” The guard smiled like he was enjoying a private joke. “Don’t mind him. That’s just Slim, one of our regulars. I’m sure he’s fine,” the guard said. “Just leave him alone and let him sleep it off,” he added before turning to walk away.

After the guard left his line of sight, Sam returned to Slim, first stopping at the sink to get several paper towels from a dispenser next to the paper cups. He moistened a couple and kept the others dry, then returned to his patient, who looked worse, with fresh blood at the corner of his mouth. Sam dabbed at the blood with one dry towel to wipe it away and then patted Slim’s face with one of the moistened towels. This roused the old man.

“Wha… who? Oh, yeah,” Slim managed a slight smile of recognition. “I remember now, Sam. Thanks, son. What’cha here for?” he rasped.

“Illegal weapon,” Sam said. “I had a knife they said was too long.”

“Damn cops. Can’t they just leave you kids alone? They gotta ruin your life for a stupid knife?” Slim coughed again, and more blood dribbled down his chin.

Sam mopped a damp towel across the older man’s forehead and said, “Just take it easy, buddy.”
Slim looked up at him with wild eyes that seemed to be looking right through him.
“Take it easy? I… I’m dying, I know it.” Slim wheezed, and struggled to get a breath, then continued in a harsh whisper, “Listen, Sam, I gotta tell ya something.” The old man coughed again, so hard that Sam half expected to see a bloody lung on the floor.

Sam put his hand on Slim’s shoulder. “Okay, okay, Slim,” he said. “Don’t work yourself up.”

“I’m serious, you asshole,” Slim said, then he realized what he had said and frowned, shaking his head. “Naw, I’m sorry, you ain’t no asshole. You’re being nicer to me than anybody’s been to old Slim in a long time. I don’t deserve it. I ain’t lived a good life what with the drinking and leaving my family…but…maybe I can make up for some of it. I gots something for you, Sam.”

Slim coughed again and turned to his side, grabbing one of the dry towels out of Sam’s hand. When Slim turned back, there was deep red blood on the towel.

Sam looked around. The card games and talking and smoking continued as before. Nobody else cared what was going on over against the wall.

Slim continued with his rasping, wheezing whisper, “You gotta remember, you hear me? You gotta remember.” He grabbed Sam’s arm in a weak but desperate way, trying to pull their faces closer.

“Okay, okay, just take it easy.” He patted the old man’s shoulder again, trying to be reassuring, but deep inside he was scared to death.

Slim coughed again, then said, “Shit. Ain’t much time. I need to tell you something, but first, I need a favor. Out south of the river near Oltorf Street, you know where that is?”

Sam nodded, lying because he really had no idea.

Rainbow in the Snow

By Irene Crawford-Siano
Mainstream/Contemporary Romance, 317 pages
Cover art by Richard Stroud

Lindsay Macauley is a single mom with a 13-year-old son, Lee. Rand Dyson is a divorced man with a scarred heart. They meet on a train during the worst blizzard of the decade. She's on her way to Trailwood, a run-down horse farm she has recently inherited. Rand is going home to his horse-breeding estate, Windcrest. Rand is picked up by a friend on a snowmobile and they head home. When they realize their new neighbors are stranded they return with another snowmobile and sled to rescue them.

Then Lindsay and Rand begin their ride of lifetime.

Excerpt:
Lindsay Macaulay watched the wet snow pack against the window of the slow-moving train as her father’s version of the little ditty played over and over in her mind. Strange that she could remember the ditty but she couldn’t remember Jeff Macaulay or Trailwood, the family’s ancestral home in Riverton County.

Now after twenty-six years, Lindsay was going home, her thirteen-year-old son, Lee, asleep on the seat beside her. She and Lee were fortunate this morning to get seats on the only train running north as a mid-January blizzard was bringing traffic to a dead stop all across Southern Ontario.

Lindsay wondered if the horseman’s ditty was a warning against Trailwood, the one hundred-acre horse farm that she had recently inherited from her paternal grandfather, Jeb, or would it be a delight?

She didn’t remember Trailwood, her horseman father or even the first ten years of her life. She remembered only the pain and the doctors at the Toronto General Hospital who were determined to save her badly injured leg.

Now, during the worst blizzard of the last half-century, she was going home—not because she wanted to, but because the city’s juvenile judge had warned her “get this young man away from his so-called friends or next time...”

As the train slowed for its Riverton terminal, Lindsay couldn’t help wonder if the ditty was going to prove a horseman’s delight or a horseman’s warning?

Mariah’s Gift

By Lilly Linville
Christian Mainstream, 278 pages
Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald

Excerpt:
A full moon cast long, dark silhouettes across the pasture from the tall bare trees surrounding the farm. The clear night sky glistened like diamonds in the cold November air. Joe and Mariah huddled together watching the splendid display of shooting stars.

Snuggling closer to keep each other warm, he nuzzled her neck. Joe wrapped his arms tighter around his very pregnant wife as their eyes followed another star streaking across the sky. “Honey, did you make a wish on that one?”

“I did.” She smiled and placed her hands over his. “I wished that our child would be here soon. But I’m trying to be patient.”

“From the strong kick I just felt, I don’t think it’ll be long before your wish comes true.”

Mariah leaned back against her husband’s warm body. “I’m so excited about becoming a mother. I can hardly wait to hold our baby in my arms.”

He laid his head on her shoulder. “You just have to be patient a little longer. I already know you’re going to be a wonderful mother. I remember how the children back home always flocked around you. Your sweet ways drew them like a magnet.”

“Joe, have you thought about how special this year will always be for us with the baby coming next month? Our lives will never be the same.

“When I was a little girl, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I always told them I wanted to be a mother. I guess that didn’t sound very ambitious, but I can’t think of anything better than having a family and being just like my mama.”

Joe turned toward the house. “Why don’t we go inside? The wind’s beginning to pick up, and I can feel you shivering. We can sit by the fire and warm up before we go to bed.”

She took his hand and walked by his side. “It’s such a clear night and I love star gazing. I wanted to stay out and enjoy it, but I admit I am freezing. How about I fix us a cup of hot chocolate?”

“That sounds like a great idea and will definitely warm us up. I’ll add some more wood in the cook stove for you.” Joe picked up a pail of kindling by the door. It only took him a few minutes to get the fire built back up as Mariah washed her hands and took a small pot out of the cabinet.

“Do you think you’ll want more than one cup?” Mariah asked.

“Nope, one will be plenty for me.”

“Hot chocolate was one of the first things I remember my mama teaching me to make. I must have been about six years old at the time and scorched it a few times before learning it had to be heated slowly. Guess it was my first lesson in patience. Mama told my sisters and me that the vanilla was her secret touch and we had to keep it between us.”

Mariah placed a cup in front of Joe on the table and sat down beside him with hers.

The rich aroma of chocolate filled the kitchen. “It smells great, Mariah. This was one of my grandpa’s favorites, and many winter nights my grandma fixed it for us. I don’t know if she added vanilla to hers, but it really gives it a great flavor.”