Finding Billy Battles

The year is 1914 and the world is in turmoil. In Europe, the Great War is raging. In Asia, fierce insurgencies are in progress against the colonial powers of Europe. In Mexico, a bloody revolution is ripping that nation to shreds and threatening to spill over into Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Billy Battles and his wife, the former Baroness Katharina von Schreiber, have managed to live an uncommonly sedate life for almost ten years. But, with one telephone call their tranquil world is shattered. Katharina and Billy set off on a succession of wild adventures that will alter their lives for all time. Their new and violent world is one brimming with miscreants, secret agents, treachery, and tragedy. But most importantly, it triggers Billy's mysterious decades-long disappearance. Where is he? What happened? The answers are in The Lost Years of Billy Battles, Book 3of the award-winning Finding Billy Battles trilogy

A link to the past no one could ever imagine. When a great-grandson inherits two aging trunks and a stack of meticulously detailed journals penned by his great-grandfather, he sets out to fulfill his great-grandfather's last request: to tell the story of an incredible life replete with adventure, violence, and tragedy. The great-grandfather's name is Billy Battles--a man often trapped and overwhelmed by circumstances beyond his control. For much of his 100-year-long life, Billy is a man missing and largely unknown to his descendants. His great-grandson is about to change that. As he works his way through the aging journals and the other possessions he finds in the battered trunks he uncovers the truth about his mysterious great-grandfather--a man whose deeds and misdeeds propelled him on an extraordinary and perilous journey from the untamed American West to the inscrutable Far East, Latin America, and Europe. But most of all he learns that in finding Billy Battles he has also found a long lost and astonishing link to the past.

Billy Battles is not in Kansas anymore! As Book 2 of the Finding Billy Battles trilogy opens, Billy is far from his Kansas roots—and his improbable journeys are just beginning. He is aboard an ocean liner sailing to the Mysterious East (Hong Kong, French Indochina, and the Philippines), among other places. The year is 1894 and aboard the S S China Billy meets a mysterious, dazzling, and possibly dangerous German Baroness, locked horns with malevolent agents of the German government, and battled ferocious Chinese and Malay pirates in the South China Sea. Later, he is inadvertently embroiled in the bloody anti-French insurgency in Indochina–which quite possibly makes him the first American combatant in a country that eventually will become Vietnam. Later, in the Philippines, he is thrust into the Spanish-American War and the anti-American insurgency that follows. But Billy’s troubles are just beginning. As the 19th century ends and the 20th century begins, he finds himself entangled with political opportunists, spies, revolutionaries and an assortment of malevolent and dubious characters of both sexes. How will Billy handle those people and the challenges they present?

Billy Battles is definitely not in Kansas anymore. As Book 2 of the Finding Billy Battles trilogy opens, Billy is far from his Kansas roots and his improbable journeys are just starting. The year is 1894 and Billy is aboard the S S China sailing to the inscrutable Far East. Trouble is not far behind. He has met a mysterious and possibly dangerous German Baroness. He has locked horns with malevolent agents of the German government and battled ferocious Chinese and Malay pirates in the South China Sea. Later, he is embroiled in the bloody anti-French insurgency in Indochinawhich quite possibly makes him the fi rst American combatant in a country that eventually will become Vietnam. Then, in the Philippines, he is thrust into the Spanish-American War and the brutal anti-American insurgency that follows. But Billys troubles are only beginning. As the 19th century ends and the 20th century begins, he finds himself entangled with political opportunists, spies, revolutionaries, and an assortment of vindictive and dubious characters of both sexes. How will Billy handle those people and the challenges they present? The answers are just ahead.

Where in the world is Billy Battles? As Book Three of the Finding Billy Battles trilogy begins we know where Billy is. He is in Chicago with his wife, the former Baroness Katharina von Schreiber living a sedate and comfortable life after years of adventure and tragedy. That changes with a single telephone call that yanks Billy and Katharina back into a life of turmoil and peril. Persuaded by a powerful old friend to go undercover for the U.S. government the two find themselves in Mexico during the height of the violent 1910-1920 revolution. There they grapple with assorted German spies, Mexican revolutionaries, devious political operatives, and other miscreants. Caught in the middle of the 1914 American invasion of Veracruz, they must find a way out while keeping their real identities secret. After managing to extract themselves from danger, disaster strikes. It’s an ordeal Billy is all too familiar with and one that will send him plummeting into a painful abyss of despair and agony. Consequently, Billy vanishes leaving family and friends to wonder what happened to him. Where is he? Is he dead or alive? What provoked his disappearance? In Book Three of the Finding Billy Battles Trilogy, those questions are answered, and the mystery behind Billy’s disappearance is finally revealed.

Western Kansas 1860. Billy Battles is born on a remote homestead just off the storied Santa Fe Trail. More than one hundred years later a great-grandson inherits two trunks filled with Billy's personal effects. Also in those trunks are several startling journals that chronicle an astonishing life that until now was obscured by the murky haze of time and Billy's deep-rooted desire for secrecy.The journals tell of a man both haunted and hunted who, in a desperate search for peace and redemption, journeys far from the untamed American West to the Far East, South America, and Europe. They meticulously describe Billy's interaction with a wide assortment of men and women0́4some legendary, a few iniquitous, and many lost to history. They also recount his participation in such cataclysmic events as the Spanish-American War, turmoil in French Indochina, and violent revolutions in Mexico and South America.Complying with Billy's last request the great-grandson assembles the journals into a compelling trilogy that reveals a man often trapped and overwhelmed by circumstances beyond his control, but who nevertheless manages to persevere for ten decades.

This is the story of Billy, a young boy during the Civil War who has to choose between right and wrong, good and bad, and life and death. Together he and his cousin, Stephen, get to experience what it's like to be involved with the war firsthand, but is it as glorious as it seems? As Billy struggles with his southern heritage, his character will be defined by the choices he makes. Amanda has a Bachelor's degree in Special Education and a Master's degree in Education. She taught public school for four years before deciding to become a stay at home mom. She enjoys reading, writing and spending time with her family. She currently resides outside of St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and their three children.