My Books
New Release ~ August 2024
The Legacy of Ruby Sanchez
An award-winning, soul-stirring, Christian historical romance steeped in Gothic suspense and shrouded in a swirling mist of adventure, peril, and reckless passion.
Nationally recognized by the
American Christian Fiction Writers (Historical Romance)
When the Esmeralda, a trading vessel under the command of Captain Clayton Carlisle, wrecks off the coast of New Hampshire's Isles of Shoals in the winter of 1837, survivor Gabriella Montez, a desperate stowaway from Málaga, Spain, finds herself at the mercy of an enigmatic light keeper, Ian McCabe, and his troubled Irish clan. With no safe passage available to the mainland until the spring, she becomes a reluctant guest on the romantic, rocky shores of Star Island, where she must bide her time in pursuit of the mysterious legacy of her great-grandmother, Ruby Sanchez. There, she finds herself engulfed in the strange and tempestuous affairs of Ian's four contentious sisters, who make no secret of their disdain for Gabriella and her exotic, gypsy-like ways. A prisoner on an island of stone, Gabriella is forced to confront the dark rumors and chilling lore that surround the Isles of Shoals and the notorious Keeper of the Light—a tortured poet whose presence she finds both frightening and irresistible.
Will she overcome the hidden perils of these legendary, ill-fated shores—or will her very life and legacy succumb to their quixotic, silvery mist?
Farming and Homesteading with the Saints (2023)
Cultivate your faith while cultivating the land.
Everyone who works the soil, whether on a prairie, the outskirts of a small town, in a city garden or on a hundred-acre, generational farm, can use inspiration and blessings to get through the endless work and daily challenges. Who better to look to for examples of strength, courage, and faith than the heavenly companions who have been there themselves? Farming and Homesteading with the Saints is a faith-filled, 224-page "field guide" to Catholic holy men and women connected to agriculture, animals and rural life, as well as timeless blessings to pray for your daily needs. Don't leave the farmhouse without it!
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Ephemeral
A Novel
When a jaded romance writer takes up horseback riding as research for her latest project, she joins up with a horse on an accidental journey that will challenge everything she knows about love…
Enter into New Jersey’s legendary horse country, where wealthy women, six-figure performance horses, and elite show barns are part of the natural landscape. It’s into this white-gloved arena that Clarissa Stamos, a reclusive, midlife romance writer is thrust when she decides to write a country-western romance. The only problem is—she’s never been on a horse.
Clarissa signs up for riding lessons and finds relief from her troubled marriage and her darkest secrets in the company of horses who offer an intoxicating sense of freedom and daring. Before long, she impulsively buys an ex-rodeo horse who spurs her to take charge of her own destiny—or wind up in the dust. Complicating matters is an intriguing, Argentinian dressage trainer with secrets of his own.
One part romance novel, one part literary fiction, one part love-affair-with-horses, Ephemeral is told from the viewpoint of a quirky, old cow horse who not only invites you into his world, but also shares his sensible and soulful outlook on human hearts and the meaning of true horsemanship.
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Eternal
A Novel
(Sequel to Ephemeral)
When four heartbroken strangers unexpectedly land in Hollywood, California to help produce a country-western rom-com, their lives collide in ways that none of them saw coming and challenge them to cowboy/cowgirl up—or go home.
(spoiler alert if you have yet to read Ephemeral)
Following the acclaimed, horse-centered novel, Ephemeral, brooding and unlucky-in-love horse trainer and Argentinian dressage instructor Sebastian Bergalo has left everything in New Jersey behind to start new life as a trail master at a vineyard in Sonoma, California.
Fashionista and songwriter Ella Crowne has sacrificed her own dreams in order to care for her mother’s horse and the family farm in the wake of her mother’s death. Though she detests all things country-western, she’s determined to bring her mother’s screenplay to life.
Nate Harper, a professional bull rider, has been physically and mentally stomped on by a bull named Mayhem. Unable to muster the courage to compete, he heads as far from rodeo country as his old truck will take him.
Famous country music singer Morgan Walsh is newly divorced, threatened by scandal, haunted by a difficult childhood, and looking for redemption in more ways than one. In the struggle to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, each must learn how to lean into hope—and one another—as they discover a providential plan for their lives that is greater than anything they could have dreamed for themselves.
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Saints in the City
A Novel
When the wife of a rural preacher falls in with a band of homeless veterans while working at a city soup kitchen, she risks all to explore her mysterious attraction to a damaged Vietnam vet who threatens to unravel her well planned life...
Helen Baldwin was raised in one of the poorest regions of southern Appalachia. When her ambitious husband is sent to plant a church in a NJ city, she accepts a job at the local soup kitchen where she finds a sense of place among the soup kitchen’s homeless guests.
Helen’s growing attraction to an enigmatic Vietnam veteran sets the stage for Helen’s struggle to discern between light and darkness – and leads her to embark upon a journey that will force her to confront her own demons from the past.
Praise for SIC:
Triple Finalist, 2009 Indie Book Awards (Romance, Religious Fiction, Social Change)
2009 PRODBRAM award: Best Religious Fiction With Universal Appeal
"Saints in the City" is a fine Christian novel of faith, love, and sainthood." ~Midwest Book Review
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The Shepherdess
2024 Catholic Media Association
Award-Winning Novelette
The Shepherdess was inspired by the brief life of St. Germaine Cousin of Pibrac as illuminated by Catholic history and tradition. An isolated and abused child stricken with an incurable, disfiguring disease, she became a shepherdess and radiant model of patience, humility, faith and fortitude — as well as the patroness of those suffering from abandonment, abuse, disability, or poverty. In a world plagued by the evils of human trafficking, St. Germaine is a serviceable saint for our times.
Written by a modern-day shepherdess, some names, characters, details, and events have been novelized as a means of presenting St. Germaine's story with heart and imagination while remaining faithful to the essence of her biography and heroic journey to sainthood.
Whether you're at home in the flock — or one who's wandering or lost — let St. Germaine lead you closer to the heart of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.