My home is Chicago, yet I enjoy writing about those who live off the land. I have a fascination with the rustic lifestyle. When I’m not writing, I can be found exploring the outer reaches of America. My joys are backpacking , mountain climbing, skiing, and, recently, jumping out of airplanes. But perhaps the most daring adventure I've faced--writing novels. I’ve wanted to write since before I could read. I remember sitting at my small desk in my bedroom drawing picture books. What a rush I’d experience creating characters and stories! One of my first picture books, which my mom still has, is about two lonely dinosaurs that meet and fall in love. Ironically that plot still permeates the novels I write today. It seems seeking love is a large part of our raison d’être. Not just dinosaurs. As of January 3, 2011, the day I signed my first contract, I’ve been a Dreamspinner Press author. The manuscript was “Between Two Loves,” a romance between an agnostic city boy and a devout Amish man. Two more novels in the Amish Series followed. And in the mix, four others made their way out of my head. I was 35 before I figured out how to finish a book. My trick? I write backwards. Anchored with a solid ending, my characters force me to finish. Characters drive my novels, but so does the settings. Rustic, rural, remote landscapes inspire me, whether Alaska or the lush Iowa corn belt. If I could live anywhere on earth, it would be in a cabin in the woods or a farm. Because my father collected leather-bound editions, I grew up reading adult-oriented literature. At fourteen, I was riveted by Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” There was just enough gore to keep my adolescent mind intrigued. I learned to appreciate the individual versus society, and how that plays out in personal relationships. I think my novels have a recurrent theme: a person must find his own passage. The reward? Love, of course! My favorite saying is “Liberty is a two-way street.” I don’t know who originated it, but it works for me. It’s one of those sayings that challenges people’s views regardless of which side of the fence they’re on. I love that! I write anything from historical to contemporary. Basically I’m a prisoner of my characters. Once those people pop inside my head, they are as real as you and I. They force me to tell their stories, whoever they are and wherever they might live. Some are modern idealists fighting big city corruption, others are Civil War veterans battling greedy bandits. The love I have for my characters I hope transmits to the reader. I love life, what it does and can offer, and through my characters, I hope to push myself and the readers to see that life can be whatever you make of it, and the rewards for such risks are wonderful and limitless.
Shelter Somerset
Backpacking in California’s Laguna Mountains to repair their troubled ten-year relationship, Owen Underwood and Dwayne Bosco never imagined their four-day “therapeutic excursion” would turn into twelve days of terror. Stalked by a ferocious, unwavering mountain lion, they find refuge the only place they can—on the roof of a boarded-up miner’s cabin. To stay alive they must keep the fierce, hungry predator from reaching them.
As the hours stretch into days, hope for rescue fades. Dwindling provisions and exposure begin to eat away at their bodies and minds. Their new hell makes their carefree college days where they first met at a fraternity party seem light years away. With each escape plan falling apart, their only deliverance might come with death. Yet even as they face their demise, they wonder if they can find the love they once had for each other to at least utter a final good-bye.
Between Two Loves
Sequel to Between Two Promises
Between Two Worlds: Book Three
Spring struggles against winter in the mountains of Montana as Aiden Cermak and Daniel Schrock settle into their new life together. Aiden, a journalist from the East Coast, wants to make a rustic home for them and their adopted dog, though he continues his reporter’s quest for the truth. Daniel’s roots are traditional Amish, and though he’s become a successful carpenter with his own shop, the modern world still baffles him.
When Aiden’s former boyfriend, Conrad Barringer, ill and alone, asks Aiden and Daniel for help, they agree and welcome him, but with misgivings that persist and grow. Aiden finds fulfillment in nursing Conrad, yet worries that the closeness he shares with Daniel will be lost, as Daniel isolates more and more. Then Daniel learns of an ugly revelation that could change everything, and he grapples with whether to tell Aiden the truth, or carry it with him to his grave.
Andrew Wingal’s life has become a farce. Unemployed for more than a year, he starts giving tours into the seedy parts of Chicago to tourists eager to witness real-life crime. The local media, politicians, the police department, and belligerent gang members don’t like him. When Andy’s job gets him into deeper trouble, his hotheaded boyfriend insists he flee town for a few weeks until things simmer down. With nowhere else to go, Andy heads for eastern Iowa, where his former brother-in-law, Harden Krane, lives on an idyllic farm with his two school-age children, Mason and Olivia.
Harden has his own specters haunting him. Left with his young daughter and son to raise on his own, he struggles to work full time and build a normal life for them. Yet when Andy shows up after a three-year absence, he hopes that the family’s hardships might ease up, if only temporarily. But during Andy’s stay, a common menace from Harden and Andy’s past appears unexpectedly—and Harden and Andy find solace in each other in a way neither imagined possible.
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