Four young men go to Atlantic City to gamble and relax, but they discover that having fun doesn’t happen just because you want it to in “Everyone’s a Winner Here”. A woman out wandering at night stops in a diner and tells a story of her mother as a little girl, lost at a frightening carnival in “A Night at the Carnival”. A man travels to earth to receive a new heart and finds much more than he expected in “A New Piece for Cello”. A little boy secretly tells his young sister about dragons, although his mother has told him not to scare her in “Dragon Lessons”. A fireman watches a woman run safely from a burning building, then wonders what happened to her in “See the Jungle When It’s Wet With Rain”.
In these and other stories, readers of the collected tales in I’d Tear Down the Stars will enter worlds where simply being human is challenge enough...but then things happen anyway.
With settings in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Mexico, the stories in this collection follow the hearts of people who are seeking luck beneath the stars, wherever they shine.
I'd Tear Down the Stars is available from Amazon.
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Searching for a letter from Catherine the Great, cousins Paul Gildbridge and Luke Pharo wander through the summer streets of Charleston, South Carolina. As their search takes them from the city and out onto the islands, they begin to wonder whether the letter ever existed or where this quest could take them. Following a trail that at times seems illusory, Luke comes to realize that he is on a spiritual search, partially initiated by a witch he met several times in Moscow when he was living in Russia.
This novel began as a desire to write a book that took place near water. From that beginning, I chose a place I’ve always liked, Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston not only has water, but marshes, beaches, islands, and great food. So that's all perfect. Besides the modern city, Charleston has such an intense history that it seems to have pulled me in a historical direction with the book. I also managed to tie in another area that has been a powerful interest for most of my life—Russia. I’ve been to Russia six times, including a semester as a student in Moscow, and some of that experience influenced the book as well.
The Illusion of Being Here is available from Amazon.