Books

  • Crossfire in the Street - Lone Jack 1862

    The Civil War yielded many bloody battles and the Battle at Lone Jack was among the worst. Fought across a sixty-foot strip of dusty road, brothers fought brothers, neighbors fought neighbors, cousins fought cousins, and the blood of horses and men ran together in the street under the blistering August sun.

    The Green family tried to keep from being caught up in the war headed for their doorstep, but their efforts were lost—even before the Yankees came to town.

    In their youthful exuberance and ignorance, sixteen and fifteen year old Hank and Jesse sneak into town to watch the battle—and find more trouble than they bargained for. Pete, the oldest brother, joins the Rebels and fights to save his life—and that of his brothers. Cora, the oldest daughter on the cusp of becoming a woman, loves a boy who runs off to fight with the Federals—and breaks her heart.

    Read the first two chapters here.

  • THE OLD COOTS: Tom

    Tom Whitmore's only love was raising and racing horses - until Abby came along. Losing his heart to this filly, as wild and willful as either of his studs, he must tame her or lose himself.

    Yankee by birth and southern gentleman by residence and trade, Tom understands better than most the political chasm between north and south long before the War Between the States becomes reality.

    Following his heart, he enlists in the Northern Cause with the 8th Ohio Volunteers and spends the next three years in a living Hell.

    Will his love survive? Will he?

    Read the prologue here.

  • THE OLD COOTS: Sam

    Sam Whitmore hates slavery. Turning his back on his slave-holding family, he purchases a run-down tobacco plantation with the hope of someday making it a success. Freeing Horace and Jefferson, the slaves who came with what he now calls Summerset, they become Sam’s new family...

    Until the night he meets Ellie Baker and his life changes forever. Ellie believed what Sam believed and upon their marriage, she happily stays in Tennessee to help him make Summerset a success. The first few years Sam’s dreams are realized, but soon after the weather deserts him, leaving a worthless property and a wife who wants only to return home with their two children—to Missouri.

    The next ten years are prosperous, until the Missouri/Kansas border explodes in violence, a precursor of the coming Civil War. 

    From Missouri to Tennessee, Virginia, Gettysburg, and finally Appomattox, against all he believes, Sam fights for the southern cause—to soothe the burning need for revenge that burns in his belly—and costs him almost everything.

    Read the complete first chapter here.

  • Elizabeth's WAR Missouri 1863

    Elizabeth's WAR Missouri 1863In a time when raiders, bushwhackers, and Redlegs rode the Cass County, Missouri, countryside bringing fear and destruction with them, Elizabeth Miers and her family barely survived into the next day. When the enemy, in the form of Elizabeth’s neighbors, comes a-calling more than once with mischief on their minds, Elizabeth fights back to keep her children safe against men she once called friends.

    On August 25, 1863, following the issuance of General Order No. 11 by Union General Thomas Ewing, thousands of women, children, and the elderly were forced to vacate their homes in the brutal summer heat within fifteen days. With determination and a plan, Elizabeth sets out on a sixty-mile trek toward St. Clair County. Carrying enough prepared food and water on a rickety built sled to reach her aunt and uncle’s farm, she prays her kin are there to welcome them, not knowing whether they lived through the burning of Osceola two years prior—or not.

    Facing more than just the lack of food and shelter and the unbearable heat, they’re set upon by raiders and foraging soldiers who try to take more than just their meager provisions. Much more. Left with little after their supplies are stolen and their property destroyed, Elizabeth and her fellow travelers continue south, facing more indignities before their journey is done.

    Through Elizabeth and the thousands of other refugees that traveled ahead of and behind her, feel what they felt in the wake of General Order No. 11, an order that took everything and left them destitute and afraid they wouldn’t live to see one more day.

    Read the complete first chapter here.

  • Beginnings

    Although BEGINNINGS: Into the Unknown, is the last book in THE WHITE OAKS SERIES, it is really the beginning.  A prequel to the existing series, BEGINNINGS takes the reader back to the opening of Independence and Westport and brings the hardships the early pioneers faced to the fore. Beginning with a frightening steamboat trip up the Missouri, BEGINNINGS depicts how weather played such an important role in the every day lives of those settlers.  Experience a "star shower," the loss of a loved one, the Great Flood of 1844, both the Mexican-American War and pre-Civil War, and not one, but two cholera epidemics, to name a few of the hardships early settlers faced.  BEGINNINGS follows Jonathan and Emma Carter as they meet those challenges head-on to gain their fortune in the booming town of Independence and make their dreams come true.

    Read the complete first chapter here.


  • Maggie - The most recent entry in THE WHITE OAKS SERIES.

    MaggieJoin Maggie Douglas as she goes from Boston to Cheyenne to Deadwood and, finally, to the Standing Rock Reservation hoping to "make a difference" in the lives of the people around her. Whether it's stomping for women's rights, writing for the Cheyenne Sun, riding the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage to a burned out Deadwood and facing Indians, harsh weather, and desperate men to get there, or helping the Lakota at the Standing Rock Reservation, Maggie has one goal--to make a difference.

    She makes that difference, and gets into all kinds of trouble doing it.

    Read the complete first chapter here.

  • Amy

    AmyWith the first shots fired across Charleston Harbor, Amy Ross knew her life would never be the same. When the War Between the States lands right on her family’s doorstep that April 12th morning, they are forced to live with unprecedented hardships to survive. From the bombardment of their Charleston home and running the Union blockade, to stragglers from both sides taking what they no longer had to give, runaway slaves, murder, and the destruction of their plantation home by the Union Army, Amy and her family struggle to make it through every day alive.

    When everything she holds precious is lost and gold is found in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Amy sets out to find a new beginning. What she finds instead is captivity and hardship among the Lakota before and during the Battle of the Little Bighorn; but in that hardship Amy also finds love—once she lets her frozen heart melt from the crippling past she’s already endured.

    Read the complete first chapter here.

  • Caleb

    CalebThe lure of FREEDOM was great! Caleb, freed by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, seeks that freedom. The journey is long and full of danger, including slave catchers, bushwhackers, led by a past enemy who stumbles upon Caleb and is anxious to repay him for past transgressions, and finally, Mother Nature at her worst. In his search Caleb meets Prudy, the woman who would become his wife; Smokey, a small boy who needs a family, and Lula, an aged woman with a wisdom only time and experience can teach who freely imparts that knowledge—whether wanted or not.

    Caleb’s quest for respect is blocked by racism and intolerance.  After numerous battles and hard-won victories, he gains the respect he so desperately sought and settles in to a new life, but another adventure waits. A request is made he can’t refuse that takes him back to an old friend and an old debt he must repay—or die trying.

    To read an excerpt from Caleb, click here.

  • Ghost Dancers

    Ghost DancersSurviving the Battle of the Little Bighorn, George Hawkins returns to Fort Leavenworth to resume his duty as a cavalry lieutenant. Though nearly killed in that battle, George's sympathies lie with the Indian. Raised with a half-blood Sioux who is now his blood brother, George understands the true nature of what's happening to the Indians, and hopes to somehow change the course of events before they spiral out of control. Assigned to General George Crook to chase down the renegades Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse during what has come to be known in history as "the Horsemeat March," George learns early on that his task will not be easily accomplished. When he blatantly disobeys a direct order to kill an Indian woman and her son (in a factual "battle"), he is arrested, court-martialed and tossed out of the army.

    Seeking a new life, yet too ashamed to return to the ranch where he was raised side-by-side with Blue Fox, George meets Maggie Douglas, the strong-willed, impetuous daughter of the rancher he goes to work for. As their relationship grows, George realizes Maggie has other things she wants to do. Things that don't include him. A strong advocate for women's rights, Maggie goes to "find her voice" with Miss Susan B. Anthony and leave George to, once again, seek new direction in his life. When both an opportunity for work and the ability to help the Indians reveals itself, George takes the chance. Delivering goods as a teamster to the Indians for the newly established reservation system, George thinks it's just what he's been looking for. But again, he learns that helping the Indians will be much harder than he imagined. During his time as a teamster, he learns how crooked the reservation system is at the hands of unscrupulous men. He is unable to stop Crazy Horse's death with the help of one of his own braves. And unable to stop an entire band of Sioux attempting to escape incarceration from quarters far too small for their numbers, who are slaughtered on a bitter, winter day.

    While lobbying for the Indians in Washington, George chances upon Maggie, whom he's never forgotten. Disillusioned by her own quest, they resume their relationship, marry and return to the reservation together to "make a difference".

    But again, it's not to be. A new phenomenon has swept through the Sioux Nation--The Ghost Dance. The Dance of Ghosts instills fear in the white soldiers and Indian Agent at Pine Ridge. Now acting as the sub-agent at Pine Ridge, George is once again helpless as Sitting Bull is murdered by Agency Police, while in a surreal display nearby, the renowned chief's show horse performs it's dancing act from the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. In a last ditch effort to keep disaster from striking further, George sets out after the fleeing Sioux, but again cannot stop the destruction at Wounded Knee Creek, where 300 men, women and children are killed and left to freeze in the bitter temperatures as a blizzard rages and blankets the dead.

    This is the story of one man's struggle of conscience against orders, heart against wants, and right against wrong.

    To read the complete first chapter of Ghost Dancers, click here.