Bluegrass Homecoming Trilogy

3 generations, 3 second chances The Prequel Grace Baron had always been the good wife, despite a marriage based on a careless indiscretion, and sustained not by love, but by old-fashioned morality. She’d raised her daughter, bit her tongue, and silently lived with her guilt. Now that she’s a widow, she can’t help being glad for her sudden freedom. Howard Scott’s gentle, old-fashioned courting makes Grace feel alive again. Would marrying Howard be the trap Grace fears, or would it finally give her a kind of freedom she’d never imagined? Secrets Schoolteacher Kelly Baron raised her child alone. Now that her daughter’s grown and married, Kelly can finally start her new life, responsible only for herself. She has just one more thing to do: help her mother. To do so, she must return to Heritage Springs, Kentucky, the place she’d fled years before. Newly divorced lawyer Rob Scott seeks solace for his heartache in his small-town roots. The last thing he’s looking for is a relationship. Then he runs into Kelly, the girl who’d disappeared from his life years ago, leaving behind only hurt and unanswered questions. Kelly’s kept her secret all these years. But sometimes the only way to build a future is to face the past. Nom de Plume Divorced, with her dreams of a big, happy family smashed to pieces, C.B Lyons takes her son to live near family. Typing manuscripts for a famous author is the perfect job until she discovers the hidden truth about the reclusive writer. Madison Mallory is a best-selling romance author with a secret. “She” is a “he.” The original Madison is in a nursing home. Her son, Jamie Madison, is determined she’ll have the best care possible. Even if that taking up his mother’s pen name. Writing about romance is one thing. Making it work in real life is harder. When C.B.’s ex wants his family back, can the author and his assistant find a way to write their own happily-ever-after ending?

This is a collection of stories about growing up in rural Kipling, Northern Ontario, Canada in the 50s and 60s. Some of them are true, some have a hint of truth, and some are products of the author's vivid imagination...

In Niceville, a pleasant Southern town where evil lurks just beneath the surface, two back-to-back airplane crashes set off a spellbinding chain reaction of murder, inadvertent kidnapping, and double-dealing. Detective Nick Kavanaugh must balance his investigation into the accidents with family concerns and a long-buried mystery. He and his wife Kate, a family lawyer, have taken in Kate’s sister and her two children, escaping their abusive father Byron Deitz. The Kavanaughs are also caring for the orphaned Rainey Teague, who recently survived a strange kidnapping and has come back a very different child. Rainey was not the last person to vanish from a Niceville street; most recently, an administrator from Rainey’s school, and—even worse—Kate’s father, a local historian, have gone missing. Using her father’s files, Kate and Nick start to unearth their town’s bloodstained past, trying to discover the truth behind generations of disappearances. But a sinister someone—or something—stands in their way.

When Minnie Mullins sold her deceased husband's barbershop to Howard, a personable young stranger, little did she realize the portent of his sudden appearance in her community. Everywhere Jake goes something happens to get him drawn into resolving a mystery, even worse than when he was a cop. Like the Tennessee country music icon and his religious counterpart. Jake came to Knoxville to visit his "Dutch Uncle," only to find him incarcerated for murder. Albia is a typical mid-western county seat town of four thousand people, minus one. When an early blizzard finally relinquishes what it is hiding, the area will never be the same again. The snow-covered secret not only rewrites the community's history, but determines its future as well, and all the residents are affected.

Professional bull rider Judd Romeo defies death for a living, but there’s no escaping his grief when he returns home to settle his mother’s estate after her death. She’s the only one who encouraged him in his pursuit of his exhilarating but dangerous career. Going home means confronting his past, including the one woman he’s never forgotten. Maybe it’s time to extinguish the torch he’s carried too long. Veterinarian Mandy Sullivan doesn’t have room in her life for dangerous risk-takers. She’s too busy being both mother and father to the daughter her sister abandoned. But it’s impossible to ignore it when trouble shows up right next door in the all-too sexy shape of her former beau. She’d walked away from his piercing blue eyes and bad boy smile once. Can she do it again? Judd’s high school sweetheart may still be as pretty as a perfect eight-second ride, but she hadn’t been willing to stick it out in the past when the ride got rough. Mandy knows how to handle wounded animals but falling for a man with a wounded heart may be too great a risk to take. Is she willing to grab a second chance and let a Kentucky cowboy ride away with her love?

This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance. When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. Until he blows it. The school bookie says the odds are 12-to-1 against him getting Noah back, but Paul’s not giving up without playing his love really loud. His best friend Joni might be drifting away, his other best friend Tony might be dealing with ultra-religious parents, and his ex-boyfriend Kyle might not be going away anytime soon, but sometimes everything needs to fall apart before it can really fit together right. This is a happy-meaningful romantic comedy about finding love, losing love, and doing what it takes to get love back in a crazy-wonderful world.

Long before the official establishment of the Commonwealth, intrepid pioneers ventured west of the Allegheny Mountains into an expansive, alluring wilderness that they began to call Kentucky. After blazing trails, clearing plots, and surviving innumerable challenges, a few adventurers found time to pen celebratory tributes to their new homeland. In the two centuries that followed, many of the world’s finest writers, both native Kentuckians and visitors, have paid homage to the Bluegrass State with the written word. In The Kentucky Anthology, acclaimed author and literary historian Wade Hall has assembled an unprecedented and comprehensive compilation of writings pertaining to Kentucky and its land, people, and culture. Hall’s introductions to each author frame both popular and lesser-known selections in a historical context. He examines the major cultural and political developments in the history of the Commonwealth, finding both parallels and marked distinctions between Kentucky and the rest of the United States. While honoring the heritage of Kentucky in all its glory, Hall does not blithely turn away from the state’s most troubling episodes and institutions such as racism, slavery, and war. Hall also builds the argument, bolstered by the strength and significance of the collected writings, that Kentucky’s best writers compare favorably with the finest in the world. Many of the authors presented here remain universally renowned and beloved, while others have faded into the tides of time, waiting for rediscovery. Together, they guide the reader on a literary tour of Kentucky, from the mines to the rivers and from the deepest hollows to the highest peaks. The Kentucky Anthology traces the interests and aspirations, the achievements and failures and the comedies and tragedies that have filled the lives of generations of Kentuckians. These diaries, letters, speeches, essays, poems, and stories bring history brilliantly to life. Jesse Stuart once wrote, “If these United States can be called a body, Kentucky can be called its heart.” The Kentucky Anthology captures the rhythm and spirit of that heart in the words of its most remarkable chroniclers.