FORTHCOMING BOOKS
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THE SENTINEL HEART TRILOGY
In Stones River (published 9/27/25), Jessie Gibbs finds a passionate love with Civil War ghost Lemuel Sanders, and helps to free him from his earthly vigil even though it means losing him to the afterlife.
Or so she thinks--but in Book II of the trilogy, Soldier’s Joy (to be published in early 2026), Lem is still secretly watching over Jessie and his newly-discovered 21st century relatives from the spiritual realm. At great risk to himself he can even re-enter the mortal world to protect them. His main mission is to help his great-great-great nephew, Avery Gowan, recover from the trauma of the Iraq war, and to bring Avery together with the woman whose love will help him fully heal.
Book III, Bright Canaan, (Spring 2027) tells the stories of the five women who have loved Lem—his mother, sister, and 19th century sweetheart, and, in the 21st century, Jessie and Sally Gowan, Avery’s mother.
One of them enables Lem to find eternal peace at last.
INVENTED LIVES (publication date TBD), a novel, is the story of an unbalanced friendship that careens into disaster. Reggie Stallworth, 27, has come home to western Massachusetts to recover after losing her mother, lover and job. She meets the dazzling Clarissa Dawson, 35, at an animal shelter, where Clarissa matches Reggie up with Rufus, a shy Lab mix who becomes her canine soulmate. Clarissa urges Reggie to get out of herself, which leads her to a new love with Aidan Lynch, an Irishman with a lilting voice and a way with dogs. But gradually the women’s relationship becomes strained by Clarissa’s jealousy of Aidan and by Reggie’s realization that Clarissa lies compulsively. The crisis comes when Reggie discovers Clarissa’s most shocking deception and confronts her with it. Clarissa strikes back in the ways she knows will inflict the most pain on her former friend.
UNHOLY SPIRIT (publication date TBD), a novel of supernatural suspense for the #MeToo era, is about two women fighting demonic possession: Bernadette O'Quinn, 20, haunting the mansion where her married lover hid her dead body in 1926; and, in 1968, Sister Gisela (Gigi) Krauss, 33, a nun in the convent school that now occupies the mansion. Gigi fears that her own rage against men, the result of a traumatic sexual assault in her teens, has roused the vengeful demon inhabiting Bernadette's spirit, causing the deaths of three male visitors to the school. When Father Trovato, an elderly Italian exorcist, is brought in to rid the convent of its diabolical presence, Gigi assists him in the ritual, which becomes a battle to save not only Bernadette’s soul but Gigi’s as well, as the demon tries to lure her into its power.
ASK THE ANIMALS: How Shelter Dogs Helped Me Make Peace with Life's Biggest Questions (publication date TBD) is a memoir of my transformative experience volunteering in an overstressed, underfunded urban animal shelter. The title comes from the verse in the Book of Job that begins: "Ask the animals, and they will teach you." The memoir’s major theme is how the shelter dogs helped me find my purpose in life, and how they gave me a model for becoming a better human being: in the way they live in the present, without fretting about the future or regretting the past; in their readiness to love, regardless of achievements, worldly position, or attractiveness; in their ever-new enthusiasm for the basic gifts of life; and in their ability, even after cruelty and abuse, to forgive and trust again.