Stories

What if you turned out to be not you but someone else entirely? What if you were created and not born? How would you feel? Would you consider yourself real or a replacement? And if you are a replacement, are you just as good as the original? Can you surpass him or will people damn you for it, will they accept you as your own person or will you still only be a replacement, a replica. Would you regret being created?

The Deep Oceans are the last frontier of our planet. Charting has begun some time ago, but it’s time to use the resources from it. What might that process look like when we finally go to that extreme?

1845. In the spring Redburn leaves Peru for New York on a warship. He has nothing, and feels like a failure. Worst of all is the loss he leaves behind him in the Pacific – his husband is dead, and Toby is lost and presumably long buried. What awaits him in the fall when he arrives back 'home,' to a place he has not been for four years? There he must consider what his brother wants for him, against how Redburn might honor the noblest sacrifices of the men who love him have made.

It's been said that suffering builds character. And there are few that know suffering better than young Justin. Only 14 years old, he has found an easy way out. A suicidal tendency that he is hoping will bring an end to his misery. But when he meets a mysterious boy at the end of Navy Pier one dark evening...he is given an alternative. One that will give him purpose, and set in motion the events that will lead to his ultimate destiny....in a world not like our own.

"A Cold Spell," the fifth installment of my "Pleasant View" series is unlike anything that comes before or afterward in the ongoing lives of Jack, Brad, and friends. "A Cold Spell" is my foray into the world of sci-fi, and is also my homage to the eerie events surrounding a tragedy and a mythical (or real) creature that some say still haunts the hills and hollers of Appalachia.

It's been said that suffering builds character. And there are few that know suffering better than young Justin. Only 14 years old, he has found an easy way out. A suicidal tendency that he is hoping will bring an end to his misery. But when he meets a mysterious boy at the end of Navy Pier one dark evening...he is given an alternative. One that will give him purpose, and set in motion the events that will lead to his ultimate destiny....in a world not like our own.

The Ellesier brothers have been a team since the death of their parents five years ago. Geoff has done his best to help Richard with their little brother Jon, but raising a teenager is particularly difficult when you still have some growing up to do yourself.

Mateo is a handsome young man who is living a life that many would kill to have. He's got it all, beauty, brains and money. But... he is a mistress (Paramour) of a billionaire closeted married man, Henry Jackson who is possessive of him and treats him like his property. Problems emerge when jealousy, feelings and an unforeseen danger threatens to destroy his life. Will he ever escape from his situation or is he in too deep?

The South Pacific, 1842. These are powder-keg times, and in the midst of French Imperial gun boat diplomacy, Redburn has had enough of the sea. He draws a reluctant Toby into an adventure, and in the process loses something more valuable to him than his own life.

It's been said that suffering builds character. And there are few that know suffering better than young Justin. Only 14 years old, he has found an easy way out. A suicidal tendency that he is hoping will bring an end to his misery. But when he meets a mysterious boy at the end of Navy Pier one dark evening...he is given an alternative. One that will give him purpose, and set in motion the events that will lead to his ultimate destiny....in a world not like our own.