From the acclaimed author of the internationally bestselling Ava Lee novels, a bold and captivating new novel about a search for lost family and the cost of keeping secrets. As a boy, Jack Anderson was abandoned by his mother in a Glasgow movie theatre. Now living in the United States and facing his impending retirement, Jack and his wife Anne travel to Scotland to track down his long-lost sister. Their journey takes them from their home in a quiet Boston suburb to the impoverished mill towns of Ayrshire, the gray cobbled streets of Glasgow, and the majestic Scottish Highlands. Along the way, Jack gets entangled in local affairs and must confront uncomfortable truths about family, legacy, and the wife he thought he knew. Bonnie Jack, the first stand-alone novel by acclaimed author Ian Hamilton, is a compelling story about the importance of family, self-discovery, and the lengths we go to protect the ones we love.
Sqi Taylor (pronounced SKY) has lived an amazing life, including over ten years of work in law-enforcement, 20 years working with both juvenile and adult offenders and being a foster parent to over 60 youth. She has worked with prisons, directed two non-profit agencies, owned her own business and was once nominated as a "Woman of Distinction" in her community. In Casper, Wyoming she and a handful of believers founded a Therapeutic Riding Academy for people with physical, mental, emotional, financial or spiritual disabilities. Her pen name is an "on-air name" her daughter Lacy gave her, while working as a radio personality as a second job to make ends meet. Interestingly enough, "Sqi" was a female action hero in a card collection of crime fighting characters. Writing mostly as a passionate hobby for over 30 years, this was the "ONE" story she was absolutely compelled to share with the world. A tantalizing, 23 year-old unsolved homicide case, turned into over six years of research, ultimately leading back to a much older unsolved murder in Wyoming in 1949 and a mysterious death in Oklahoma in the 1970's. Eventually, all roads led back to, or were connected with the person who was finally arrested, tried and convicted of Jack Humphrey's murder, nearly twenty-nine years after his death. Whenever innocent blood is spilled in a cold, bizarre manner the emotional, mental and physical devastation is made even greater by either intentional or unintentional actions we naturally blame on "the system." Sad to say, it's not the system, just some people in it, the choices and decisions they make. Mishaps, mistakes, legal or local bias, laziness, political or personal agenda's more often than we realize, only repeatedly, re-victimize families or people we love or that love us. What followed the gruesome, senseless, slaying of Jack Humphrey was one of the most shocking, cruel and riveting persecutions of a victim's family anyone could imagine. How did the murder of an honest, hard-working family man of average means, become such a politically sensitive, unsolved murder case and remain so, for over a quarter of a century? That's the billion dollar question you ultimately must answer for yourself Throughout this tumultuous journey it's clear that good men and women then and now, risk careers, their families, lives and reputations every day, either fighting for truth and justice or falling to the temptation of the oldest and still deadliest of sins: Lust, Lies, Sloth, Greed and Murder For any one left to navigate through a very tricky, risky, tedious and complex maze, filled with paper and people, Justice for Jack is a must read
Until I Find You is the story of the actor Jack Burns – his life, loves, celebrity and astonishing search for the truth about his parents. When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womanizer, is always a step ahead – has always just departed in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local master or “scratcher.” Alice and Jack abandon their quest, and Jack is educated at schools in Canada and New England – including, tellingly, a girls’ school in Toronto. His real education consists of his relationships with older women – from Emma Oastler, who initiates him into erotic life, to the girls of St. Hilda’s, with whom he first appears on stage, to the abusive Mrs. Machado, whom he first meets when sent to learn wrestling at a local gym. Too much happens in this expansive, eventful novel to possibly summarize it all. Emma and Jack move to Los Angeles, where Emma becomes a successful novelist and Jack a promising actor. A host of eccentric minor characters memorably come and go, including Jack’s hilariously confused teacher the Wurtz; Michelle Maher, the girlfriend he will never forget; and a precocious child Jack finds in the back of an Audi in a restaurant parking lot. We learn about tattoo addiction and movie cross-dressing, “sleeping in the needles” and the cure for cauliflower ears. And John Irving renders his protagonist’s unusual rise through Hollywood with the same vivid detail and range of emotions he gives to the organ music Jack hears as a child in European churches. This is an absorbing and moving book about obsession and loss, truth and storytelling, the signs we carry on us and inside us, the traces we can’t get rid of. Jack has always lived in the shadow of his absent father. But as he grows older – and when his mother dies – he starts to doubt the portrait of his father’s character she painted for him when he was a child. This is the cue for a second journey around Europe in search of his father, from Edinburgh to Switzerland, towards a conclusion of great emotional force. A melancholy tale of deception, Until I Find You is also a swaggering comic novel, a giant tapestry of life’s hopes. It is a masterpiece to compare with John Irving’s great novels, and restates the author’s claim to be considered the most glorious, comic, moving novelist at work today.
This book, written for the eyes of a single reader, suggest a truth that touches us all. The romantic adventure between a beautiful young Russian immigrant and a high profile university chancellor spins from Manhattan, through Las Vegas and Nevada, to the rustic refuge of the California wine country. It bears witness that true love ignores all boundaries: age, ethnicity, social canons, geography, even the grave. Moreover, in the twists and turns of its telling the author posits that such a love arises unbidden, is sustained by its indefinable perfection, and evolves through the timeless illumination of two lives by a necklace of precious, perfect moments. We cannot help, therefore, but trust that thus entwined their souls are fuse for eternity. Also by Robert M. Bersi: "Boys Unto Men" "Jack and Jill: The Voyage" "Jack and Jill" "Silver Mountain" "Armed and Abandoned" Mount Parnassus" "Raising Margaret Ann" "Shaping our Environment"
My son asked me to write the things I did while growing up. The two chapters I thought I could write became forty-four chapters. My memories are happy moments, as I grew up during the Depression in a wonderful Christian home six miles south of Littlefield, Texas. The moment my Father saw me, he called me his Plains Angel. My Mother was a kind and thoughtful person with a precious disposition and always spoke with positive words. Living with my brothers and sisters was like having my best friends with me at all times. Life was great even with the sandstorms turning our daylight to darkness, planting black-eye peas instead of cotton because of little rainfall, gathering eggs from tall haystacks, hoeing cotton from dawn to dusk, and learning how to preserve fruits, vegetables, and meat for our winter food. My Father was a great farmer and helped provide electricity and a party-line telephone system to our rural community. He is known as Mr. REA (Rural Electrification Administration) in Littlefield, Texas. I researched my Littlefield School system in 1913 and found Mr. George W. Littlefield had donated land for a one-room school building. Ms. Willie Armstrong taught school in April, May, and June with a yearly salary of forty dollars. My dream to help children and fill their lives with sunshine came true the day I began my teaching career in Plainview, Texas. After writing about World War I, World War II, and the following wars, I have a better understanding what my two brothers and other family members must have endured. I am thankful my three wonderful sons – Terry, Dale, and Randy with their adventures at home, church, school, Scout trips, did not have to experience the pain of war. My life has been blessed with a wonderful husband, three great sons that are successful, a great daughter-in-law, and two precious grandchildren, Trevor and Lane. My joyful memories growing up on a Littlefield farm with my wonderful family gave me the foundation I needed for my life’s adventures and accomplishment. Bonnie Faye James Gaston
