Village Writers' Club

   Growing up on a traveling carnival and surrounded by a host of real life Damon Runyan and O Henry characters has proven to be a truly wonderful life.

   The author’s paternal grandfather, father, and mother were instrumental in providing him a firm foundation for all of life’s challenges. From Broadway to carnival midways to the Atlantic City Boardwalk, these stories speak of a simpler time, but the life lessons are as applicable today as they were in the past.

   Mom was a Broadway star who worked with all the big band leaders of the 1930s and ‘40s. Dad was a carnie that grew up during the depression and lived by his wits. Grandpa was a carnie and a prizefighter. They and their friends formed the basis of what became the author’s life story, and a fascinating look at a different time in our country.

   Covering seven generations of the Holliday family from the 1700s to today, George Bailey’s Got Nothing on Me takes the reader on a unique genealogic ride with characters that are far from perfect and certainly not “politically correct.” Filled with individual triumphs and tragedies, it is as interesting a family memoir as you are likely to find.

Available at Amazon.com in either Kindle e-Book ($4.99) or paperback ($9.99)

Author: Cy Holliday

  The Black Cat Guide to Grammar through Light Verse contains more than 155 poems, two-thirds of which are on the subject of English grammar. 

  Think of it as a grammar primer, if you will, that will instruct you on a large number of topics including: semicolons, possessive apostrophes, parts of speech, writing a limerick, adverbs, the Oxford comma, ending a sentence with a preposition, predicate nominatives, pronouns with implied verbs, vocabulary, and, of course, the pluperfect subjunctive. 

  The last third of the book contains random, non-grammatically related poems on such diverse subjects as Frank Zappa, cooking with onions, solving simultaneous equations, Ohm’s law, and the $2 bill. All the poems are clever, a bit snarky, and include a zinger.

Available at Amazon.com

Author: Barrie Gauthier

After watching Cuban rebel forces clamp down on the dictator Batista, Carmine Spada and Bernie Swartz began hoarding US dollars and gold coins from the profits in their Cuban casino and call girl operations. It all ended for the two men on January 1, 1959 when Fidel Castro and his brother Raul took over the country and closed all the casinos. That same day, Carmine and Bernie left from the Isle of Pines, taking a lot of money with them but leaving behind a fortune in a sealed concrete vault. Like most Americans, they believed the communist country would revert to a capitalist economy. As time dragged on, it became apparent that diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba were not going to be restored anytime soon. Realizing they would probably never see Cuba again, Carmine and Bernie drafted an unusual will, leaving the hidden money to the survivors of the two families once the American flag went back up on the US embassy. When that finally occurred, fifty-seven years had passed and each man had only one heir left to find the money and bring it home. Gina Spada, Carmine’s great-granddaughter, and Eli Swartz, great-grandson of Bernie Swartz, now college students, set out for the adventure of a lifetime. Once local islanders learn that relatives of Bernie and Carmine are snooping around, guns emerge from their hiding places, and the island becomes a war zone.

From her first tale to the last, Madelyn F. Young entertains adults of all ages with fiction and nonfiction stories of family loyalty and love, discord, and intrigue in her book Views from An Empty Nest. A retired teacher and school administrator, Young has been an active member of Village Writers’ Club since 2003. 

Visit her blog at www.southernstorylady.wordpress.com

A Legend Among Us: The Story of William "Youngblood" McCrary, Kansas City Monarchs  tells the compelling story of a seventeen year old young man who entered the Negro Baseball League, before graduating high school, with great aspirations of playing in the Major League. Nicknamed "Youngblood" by Satchel Paige, William McCrary is a legend in himself and one of the few remaining figures of the acclaimed Negro Baseball League.

Mr. McCrary lives in Hot Springs Village.

Book is available on Amazon.com or from the author Linda Black at LBlack497@aol.com

Kaleidoscope of Tales: Humor, Romance, Drama, All of the Above is a compilation of 22 short stories with a variety of subjects to entertain all adult readers. It contains elements of humor, as in “Almost Perfect,” the remaining optimism of one who chronicles his physical ailments, and “Mother’s Day Gifts,” a hilarious story of a man’s experience with a wife and a girlfriend with a surprise ending. The romantic at heart will enjoy “Rebirth,” the heartwarming story of newfound love for a widow of two years, and “A New Beginning,” the bizarre results of a dating service utilization. Stories of a dramatic nature include “Willie’s Dream,” a true story about a legendary NFL quarterback who took time to make a dying boy’s dream come true, and “Demons,” an actual tragic story of the demise of a PGA tour golf caddy. 

The stories are both fiction and non-fiction and should appeal to all ages and both genders. Many of the stories have won awards in literary competitions. Notes follow each story from the author detailing what inspired the story.

Author Mickey Jordan.  jordanandassociates@suddenlink.net

Book is available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble website. 

Author John Achor introduces amateur sleuth Casey Fremont in a newly released edition of One-Two, Kill A Few: A Casey Fremont Mystery from Pro Se Productions.

Struggling to recover from a disastrous marriage and contentious divorce, Casey Fremont would prefer to make ends meet with her paycheck from a temp job; but now her goal of personal and mental renewal becomes one of staying alive as she solves a riddle of murder and mayhem.

Casey Fremont is on her way to interview for a temp job when a falling body nearly lands on her. Three days later, a second man, this one from her own office, dies in a similar manner and Casey is drawn into the intrigue. She confirms her suspicions, but one of her friends ends up in the hands of kidnappers. Casey must solve the mystery before she becomes the third body to go over the railing.

Available at Amazon.com (also in Kindle edition and audio edition).  

More info at http://www.johnachor.com

“Beer, Bait, and Ammo”  is Chap Harper's third published novel and his second with “Smoking Gun Publishing” in St. Louis, Mo.

The book is set in Garland and Montgomery counties in Arkansas and selected parishes in Louisiana. In “Beer, Bait, and Ammo” Lester McFarlin, who is known in the south as the “Redneck Sherlock Holmes” solves so many homicides his boss, Garland County Sheriff Adams, dreads an expanded and expensive investigation on every assignment. When a domestic triple killing is a cut-and-dried slam dunk, the sheriff says “go on to something else.” But Lester digs deeper and uncovers a criminal enterprise that has tentacles extending from Hot Springs, Arkansas to New Orleans, Louisiana. Afflicted with a severe case of dyslexia caused by a brain injury in a car wreck when he was five years old, Lester seeks the help of a beautiful speech therapist, Debi Green, and is convinced to go under the knife to remove a blood clot on his brain. From a gun fight on her first date with Lester, to a fight to the death in an airboat blasting through a swamp in Louisiana, the couple puts their lives at risk. Ferocious battles on many fronts combine to stop a former beauty- queen-turned-crime boss, dead set on turning Hot Springs into her private dynasty of evil.

Author Sandy Lundin dedicated her book to all caring volunteers who rescue, train, rehabilitate and love dogs.

The book Dogs Who Serve, Caring Volunteers, is a 300-page collection of ten stories about:

• Unkempt Shih Tzu is rescued from an outdoor cardboard box
• Vision-impaired collie becomes a therapy dog
• Puppy raiser's career in interrupted by fire.
• Humane Society volunteer fundraiser rescues emaciated boxer
• Animal Welfare League volunteer set up a spay/neuter clinic
• Using dogs, a retired military couple starts veteran's rehab class
• Quadruple amputee works in Occupational Therapy, drives a car, has Labrador helper

On September 6, 1949, the author was a bride and clueless as to the twists and turns her life would take as the wife of a US Army officer. Her husband served sixteen months at the end of WWII and completed his three-year obligation in the reserve forces. Meantime, he tried to complete college and enlisted in the Oklahoma National Guard while at the University of Oklahoma. The Guard unit was recalled to service with the 45th Division at the outbreak of the Korean War.

Elizabeth was ill-prepared for the kind of life she would experience as a military wife, the frequent moves from pillar to post while rearing four children, the separations from her husband, and parting from her friends and making new ones. Without a support system, she learned that military wives depended on each other.

It wasn't an easy life, but it offered many exciting adventures and presented friendships in many places. 

Author: Elizabeth Carroll Foster.  Book (also Kindle edition) is available at Amazon.com 

In the 1950's the doctor draft squelched any thoughts of the author Lawrence J Enders, M.D. being a "normal" hometown physician. But it opened a whole new world of unexpected events, people, and places.

From astronauts to Russian spies, Hollywood stars to an acquitted multiple murderer, and the John F. Kennedy family to a Nazi war-crimes scientist, these events and interactions found their way into the life of a military doctor and his book Surviving Serendipity.

Throw in 75 combat missions in Southwest Asia, dinner with the Chief of Starr of the Chinese Air Force, and a persistent FBI agent, and this true story seems almost unbelievable.

A local newspaper near the doctor's current residence calls him the "Forrest Gump" of the Village.  Judge for yourself as each serendipitous even unfolds.... one after another.

Available on Amazon.com (also in Kindle edition), at xlibris.com, or by contacting
the author at ljenders@sbcglobal.net

Author Sandra Lundin brings to life in graphic detail the Four Continents to Freedom a biographical account of the life of Millie Zygmunt Rytel.

At gunpoint Russian soldiers force their way into the Walter Zygmunt house in Poland and order the family to pack for a temporary journey. They are herded into a cattle car, and a month later, Millie Zygmunt, her parents, and sisters are unloaded at a slave labor camp in Siberia. 

"The Devil," an ugly man, assigns jobs and sets quotas. When the starving Polish slaves are freed after 18 months, Millie and her mother and sisters push, beg and work their way through four continents to reach freedom in America.

Kindle Edition available at Amazon.com   

Contact Sandra at  snd4n6@sbcglobal.net for more purchasing information.

Sometimes circumstances in one’s life play a big role in how the world is perceived. Odds were stacked against Chilly Willy from the beginning, and his behavior and attitude portrayed how he felt. Finally he discovers how to deal with negative forces in his life and turn them into positive outcomes through an encounter with Paul, who becomes his best friend and mentor.

Book is available at Amazon.com (also in Kindle version) and from author at  LBlack497@aol.com

Chuck Miller, The Traveling Guy, is a native Californian, has traveled to all seven continents, eighty-three countries and in December, 2012 completed his goal of playing golf in all fifty states in fifty weeks.

Golfing the U.S, takes the reader on a vicarious trip with freelance golf and travel writer Chuck Miller as he reflects on his 2012 fifty-week golf odyssey during which he played 141 golf courses while driving to and through a different state each week.

Enjoy learning about the courses he played, the places he stayed, and the good, bad, and ugly things that happened to him while golfing each of our fifty states during his year on the road.

Author John Achor's amateur detective returns ready to tackle crime once more in I. From Pro Se Productions.

Mystery and Danger follow Casey Fremont once again. This time, it might just get her killed... Casey Fremont's ex husband, Jarvis the Rat, is two months behind with alimony payments, so she asks TrueTemp Agency to find a temp job for her, this time with a legal firm. As the new job begins and Casey's life with her two roommates and detective boyfriend continues on, post cards begin arriving in Casey's mailbox. They contain images and cryptic messages. Messages that Casey believes relate to a series of murders occurring in the state capital, Little Rock. needing to decipher the messages to prevent further deaths, Casey has to both battle her stalker, the mysterious and deadly 'Romeo', and convince the police that they are on the wrong trail. All before Casey or any of her friends end up dead.

Available at Amazon.com (also in Kindle edition and audio edition).  

More info at http://www.johnachor.com

Authors: Mary Lou Moran and Jerry Davis