San Francisco, 1950: The residents of the Honeysuckle Rose Hotel - musicians all - are a quirky bunch each with their secrets, addictions, sins of their own making, traumatic issues that weigh down upon their shoulders, nightmares from the past, or dreams of things the way they ought to be. Earl Crier, a blind, bluesy crooner, is their heart and soul, until one day when a policeman sees a tall black man mugging - hugging a blind white man on the front steps of the hotel, this house of cards begins to fall. As the blues man falls silent can the Honeysuckle Rose survive?

Silencing The Blues Man

Literature & Fiction

Sherman Smith

Genre Fiction

Elementá

"I have run away from the place where I grew up to conquer the world and found my home on an island. I fulfilled my dreams, loved more men than I can remember, danced, acted, choreographed and produced, designed and managed, healed and taught. I shared the wealth of my father and enjoyed the naked freedom of having nothing. But the more I gave away; it came back and blessed my life. The echo of love returned to the little boy with the sunshine smile." This is the long-awaited autobiography of Hans-Christian Wagner, born in 1952. Christian, the "sunshine boy" of its title, recounts his origins in an Austrian town on the outskirts of Vienna, his career as a dancer and choreographer, ... and the numerous ways of how finding his identity was part of developing his sensibilities as a gay man. Now settled on the island of Palawan, Philippines, he is designing homes for other liberal-minded people and provides a haven for travellers from all over the globe. The life told on these pages is a roller-coaster ride of amusing anecdotes, wisecracks and erotic adventures. Liz King, the prominent dancer, choreographer and pioneer of the Austrian dance scene, writes: "When I first met Hans-Christian in a cold and grey Vienna way back in the early seventies, it is clear now that this was a day in another century. As he came through the door all those years ago, I immediately warmed to the blond, curly haired young man in my dance class aware that something in his aura was special. As it would later show, this quality would reveal itself as a rare gift. We worked together as dancer-choreographers from time to time and in the following years we would occasionally meet to exchange ideas. "The Sunshineboy" describes those years in vivid pictures with valuable references to the world of stage and theatre in Vienna at that time. Hans-Christian, has in his book, given readers an insight into the perception of gender issues in post war Austria through describing touchingly his brave acts of defiance and the beautiful path he has chosen of healing and forgiving."

The Sunshineboy - Memoirs of a Dancer

Biographies & Memoirs

Wagner, Hans-Christian

Arts & Literature

Paul and Adriel are a fairly new couple, still exploring and sharing their worlds with one another. But their mutual naivete of her own family's heritage cause them to awaken things that were only meant to stay dormant. Now, with the little knowledge they've been able to muster, they're trying to keep up with something way over their heads... and deep beneath their feet. In an era of remakes and reprocessed ideas in the present cinematic landscape, author Trevor Tallmadge responded by delving into the rich worlds of Greek and Wiccan mythologies as they might find themselves in a modern day setting. Tallmadge has found these rarely explored opportunities as a deep pool of relatively untapped manna and this book is his reaction to a stagnant world of suppressed creativity."

The Hungry Earth - A Badtime Story

Tallmadge, Trevor

The Third Book

Iziken, Isaac

Romance

Ravenheart is a long series consisting of six parts, which follows a young redheaded girl named Eleni Ravenheart - a black-winged angel, who faces a number of troubles, obstacles and dangers on her mission to discover her true power, while trying to discover the reason behind her anima's and her childhood friend's mysterious disappearance about which her father refuses to talk about. Follow Eleni as she faces her unknown past and tries to prevent the new pending war between her home kingdom and the enemy kingdom, who already clashed once in the not so distant past, erasing nearly the entire great Ravenheart family in the process. "The Ravenheart story is one of the most engaging stories I had ever read, with interesting plot-twists and plenty of humour. I really enjoyed this story and I just couldn't stop reading it." - Sara Rotar

Ravenheart - Dawn and Dusk

Science Fiction & Fantasy

RAVEN

Fantasy

“This beautifully rendered novel will be appreciated not just by those familiar with India or Indian history but by anyone interested in literature, and looking for a good book to read.”― Swati Mitra, Executive Publisher, Eicher Goodearth\nThe Red Munia is a perfect example of the intersection between personal life, heritage, and political events. Far more than a history of the country, it follows Laila's task of restoring dignity to both herself and a nation. Her process and courage in pursuing her life goes far beyond historical events to probe deeply into the lives of the people during British occupation, offering a spirited and hopeful read that will engross a wide audience.― Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review\nLaila spends an enviable childhood in Kapurthala, Punjab, where she lives with her parents, grandmother and her younger sister Dia, in a luxurious Haveli. Horse riding, royal-style picnics, house parties along with games like Scrabble, Hide and Seek and climbing trees are a way of life. Frequent discussions at home make her politically aware at an early age. Extremely sensitive as she is, her adolescent shoulders want to share her father’s burden who is very disturbed about the anarchic state of affairs in India just prior to the exit of the British. Her life takes many dramatic twists before it settles down for Laila to plan what she wants to do for her country, India.\nShe is eighteen when she goes to Bombay to pursue a course in journalism and to hone her writing skills. It is in Bombay that she turns her childhood dream into a real mission; to meet with the Queen of England! The sole purpose of this visit is to extract an apology out of the British to restore the dignity of her country which has been torn to shreds during the two hundred year long period of being held captive by them.\nBut in London, during her pursuit of an apology for India from the British, she meets Jai who is like no one she has met before. She is unable to ward off the strong attraction she feels towards him…

The Red Munia

Puri, Kamini

Contemporary

Accidental Brownie comprises the tender, mostly factual, often very funny recollections of "an incredibly naive and honest kid" growing up in middle-class south Minneapolis during the fifties and sixties. His tales are populated by a memorable cast of exasperated parents, gimlet-eyed teachers, pretty but tragically inaccessible girls, and assorted mischief-makers, bullies, and oddballs, including the figurative "three-legged puppy"--literally a sweet, dull boy named Kermit--our hero feels compelled to protect. Relentlessly curious, obsessive, and well-intentioned, young Paul misses nothing, neither the quotidian details of neighborhood life nor the larger mysteries of his rapidly expanding universe, while fitfully discovering, in his rueful words, "that not everything my mother told me was true."  --William Swanson, author of Stolen from the Garden: The Kidnapping of Virginia Piper  Paul Froiland's finely crafted journey back in time and into the heart of the country beautifully captures those transformative years of childhood and adolescence, a time of innocence and exploration and confusion about where one is headed in the process of growing up. Told with humor and intelligence and a keen eye for universal truths about being young, these are stories that will delight readers and remind them of another part of life when everything seemed so much more mysterious and yet so very much simpler. --William Souder, author of Under a Wild Sky (Pulitzer Prize finalist), and most recently, On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson.  With enormous humor and grace, Paul Froiland recalls his Minneapolis boyhood in the 1950s & '60s, a world of street corner negotiations and crocodile tears and Ike. Here we get a front-porch view of those days of navigating the shifting moral codes of siblings, parents, and neighbors, of a boy stumbling into new, unknown roles much like the country was beginning to do then. Accidental Brownie is filled with the often hilarious, always poignant uncertainties and discoveries of childhood, along with an irresistible sense that life is most precious and unstoppable in these tiny moments of beauty. --Betsy Brown, winner, National Poetry Series for Year of Morphine

Accidental Brownie - A Childhood Memoir

Froiland, Paul

"Suddenly you are transported to post WWII San Francisco. A vague presence of eucalyptus and mist fill your mind. A sensory overload for the returning service men and woman. All are wounded in some way. All are seeking to heal. You are drawn into this extraordinary story of ordinary people seeking redemption. It's about how they fail and how they triumph. You are cheering for the good guys and jeering the villains. You pick up this story and you won't be able to put it down." - Geoff, Geoffrey F. Hughes, Eugene, Oregon, USA  "POETS CAN'T SING is an engrossing and entertaining read. Set in post WWII San Francisco, a motley collection of vivid characters, with three wounded veterans and a caring nurse at the core, are caught up in a series of dangerous misadventures and life-threatening challenges. Greed and cruelty block the way. Of what use, then, are love and compassion?" - Bill Bowler, Coordinating Editor, Bewildering Stories "A great historical novel has the intangible ability to allow the reader to experience that past time and place with endurable characters that make the story live. Smith has created a sensitive timescale mixing music and emotion as healing elements in helping men and women forget the bitterness of war and move on to better times. The author has done a masterful job." - A. Covo, Colorado, USA  "Poets Can't Sing is a story that will suck you in, consume you page after page... then let you out the other side both enter¬tained and wanting more." - Kent June, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Poets Can't Sing

Smith, Sherman

Anabaa, midwife to Queen Latezia delivers the chloroformed royal of a prince. Joy is cut short among the midwife and her attendants, Qiaona, Constance and Lizbett when a stillborn twin expels from the queen's womb. As Anabaa flees through secret passageways in panic with the tiny purplish-black corpse hidden in her apron events unfold and the infant miraculously revives. The surprised midwife swells with relief but before she can make her way back into the birthing chamber of heirs and replace the king's infant with its twin and their slumbering queen-mother she realizes with overwhelming horror King Breretyn has returned to the chamber and taken up his firstborn son and heir from his queen's arms. In this summer solstice hour the king holds forth the newborn prince above the balcony hand railing to the roaring cheers of his subjects. As the kingdom is launched into celebration Anabaa succumbs to darkness in the knowledge she harbors its royal twin outside the palace walls. The Canadian-born author was raised without television and educated back and forth across the provinces between Vancouver and Toronto in tiny one-room schoolhouses and the largest city campuses by an educator-mother possessed with a wanderlust spirit. Jeanette Skirvin, BSc. RDH (Loma Linda University School of Dentistry) resides by the seaside in California.

Jaguar Ravenz King

Skirvin, J. L.

Police are called to a dark home when neighbors spot an abandoned naked child banging his fists against the windowpane during a thunderstorm's lightning flash. The child known simply as Rollins by way of the police report is delivered to the stone fortress that is Holy Father's House of Lambs Found where he is settled into the shelter of young Sister Elizabeth's arms. The chief of police tries to reassure Monsignor Philippe the child's stay is only for the night until its parents are found and charged with child endangerment but Monsignor knows that closer to the truth is Rollins' stay will be far longer as he grows behind the walls among the orphans and salvaged abused discards until he comes of an age and is turned out...  The Canadian-born author was raised without television and educated back and forth across the provinces between Vancouver and Toronto in tiny one-room schoolhouses and the largest city campuses by an educator-mother possessed with a wanderlust spirit. Jeanette Skirvin, BSc. RDH (Loma Linda University School of Dentistry) resides by the seaside in California.

Rollins of Stone House

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