Lineage Series

Two different Worlds – Creating two vastly different 15-year-old female species who are thrown together in a disparate race to save loved ones and an alien World from extinction. Cat, born an orphan and now using all of her skills to survive the streets of San Francisco, knows what she needs to personally draw on to stay alive. Alone, Cat stands and sneers at the face of danger, but is that really who she is? Or is there something hidden in Cat's inner being scratching to get out? Anna, born a spoiled Princess of the New Spanish Empire - located in the Scorpii System 45 light years from Earth, now stows away on an Imperial New Spanish Armada flagship – whose mission it is to bring back defensive weapons from Earth to help stop a deadly invasion. Can Anna put away childish things and become a Princess of the Blood? Or have all of her years being pampered made her too soft? What will they have to endure before either one can find answers, hope, love, family or most importantly will they be able to save Anna's People?

This book lays the author's family tree against events in history with the presumption that individuals from the author's genealogical past were present and participated in the events. The author's family tree includes, inter alia, notables such as Aaron Burr, courtiers in the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII, and accomplices to Charles II's escape from England. It also includes family situations that involved murder, the Great Depression, and every war that Americans have fought in since the French and Indian (Seven Years) War in the mid-18th Century. Because this is the first book in the series, the stories are laid out in thirteen stand-alone vignettes, each of which is the foundation for a full-length novel in the future.   Roughly five years of research went into developing the author's family tree; it was at the end of that research that a decision was made to memorialize some of the intersections with history in novel format. The author took great care to ensure the historical accuracy of the events contained in each chapter, while at the same time inventing the fiction behind the family's involvement.

The Lineage Saga continues, as Cat, born an orphan and now finding the family she was denied for 15 years, decides to help her new-found family and fight for her planet's life. Anna, reborn as a Warrior Princess of the New Spanish Empire, embraces the cousin she never thought she would ever have and makes new friends on a primitive planet called Earth. The only planet that is known to the New Spanish Empire that can help them defeat the enemy's Battlefleet. Can they find the tools they need on this primitive planet? And if they do, will it be enough to defeat the swarm of warriors bent on wiping out Anna's People and get there in time?

As a young man, Edward Smith was devoted to his mother, or so everyone thought. When she disappeared, Edward began a downward spiral into the dark abyss of mental illness. In spite of his illness, Edward was a genius with an eidetic memory, and he used those attributes to his own advantage many times throughout his relatively short adult life. He even fought heroically in World War I and earned the nation's third-highest honor for gallantry in combat. He gets justice in the end for his wrongdoings, but from a very unexpected quarter.   This book, the third in the author's "Lineage" series, expands on the main characters of Book One ("Lineage: A Novel"), Chapter One.

This book follows the Harris family through the American Revolution and migration westward to the shores of Lake Ontario. Thomas Harris was the soldier's soldier and was awarded a battlefield commission by General George Washington just before the Battle of Yorktown. Following release from his military obligations and suffering severe hardships, Harris and his family moved westward from Connecticut, across New York State.   As in the first book of the "Lineage" series, the author laid down his own family tree against events in history, as if family members of the period could have participated. This book postulates contacts with the likes of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and others. Unlike the vignette format of the first book in the series, this volume tells a cohesive story about the challenges the Harris family faced during and after the American Revolution.  

The Haskins family moved from Virginia to Missouri in the 1830s. Virgil, the eventual patriarch, was a successful horse breeder. Despite his success and marrying the love of his life, Virgil had a dark side that proved to be his undoing in Virginia and almost cost him his life in Missouri. This book chronicles the family's origins in Virginia, its unexpected move to Missouri, and the effects that the Civil War had on family dynamics.   This book is the fourth in the author's "Lineage" Series. Although it is a standalone novel, it has connections to both Books One and Three in the series.  

While on his deathbed, King Henry VII knighted Thomas Overby, son of Shropshire landowner Sir Edmund Overby. By the dying King's command, Sir Thomas was immediately thrust into service, becoming Royal Standardbearer to the new King Henry VIII. However, Sir Thomas's position, which gave him anonymity even with its constant visibility, was merely a cover for his emergence as one of Henry's most trusted spies. As time goes on, Sir Thomas becomes a close confidant and envoy of the Crown and is heavily involved in the construction of Henry's favorite ship, Mary Rose. Constant proximity to Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, impacts both Sir Thomas and his wife, Lady Joan, in ways that neither of them expected before moving from their Shropshire estate to Greenwich Palace in London.  

A flip of a switch, a blink of an eye… death can come that quickly. As mortals, we all wish for that to be our case, blissfully devoid of our own suffering or the suffering of others who will painfully watch our final days.   Death by electrocution is usually quick, but not necessarily painless. The muscles of the body contract in wracking spasms and control of bodily functions is lost. The smell of singed flesh and burning hair permeate the room – certainly unpleasant for those the deceased left behind. In the United States, the process of electrification took several decades. Its proponents believed it was imminently safer and more reliable than oil lanterns and gaslights. Its opponents questioned its safety, and newspaper accounts were rife with stories of accidental electrocutions as well as intentional executions.   Archibald "Sparky" Thompson was involved in electrifying homes and businesses across broad swaths of Pennsylvania and Maryland. At one time, he worked for Thomas Edison, but was dismissed after a series of pranks backfired. Venturing out on his own, death seemed to follow his work from city to city. Was Sparky responsible, or was he an unwitting accomplice to someone else's evil deeds?   "I have read what happens to men who are sent to the electric chair. It is supposed to be quick and painless. One flip of a switch and 'zap!' it's done."   "It's not quite that glamorous, young man. First, the man is strapped to the chair at the chest, wrist, and ankles. He's already had a monk's tonsure shaven into his head; a wet sponge is placed over the shaved area and a metal cap is strapped over that. Then his bare feet are put in a shallow metal pan with just enough warm water to cover his feet. The warm water usually results in a yellow puddle forming under the chair."   "You're scaring me… please stop."   "That flip of a switch you described… when it happens, the man received a jolt of a thousand lightning bolts all at once. He's dead in less than thirty seconds. I will spare you the rest of the details on what happens to a person's body when it is electrocuted. It should be enough to tell you to be careful around electricity and never allow water and electricity within a yard of each other."

Germans, either by nationality or ethnicity, made their mark on the United States in the late Ninteenth and early Twentieth Centuries in the two decades leading up to World War I. Taking up mostly agricultural pursuits, some settled in Southwestern Michigan, and Berrien County in particular. Where did they come from? How did they get to Michigan? What difficulties did they face?   Emma Waldheimer and Freddie Fenstermacher were of the first generation born in the United States. They grew up in German farming families. A chance meeting at a fruit market near the beginning of the Great Depression was enough for the two of them to fall in love. Eloping on Emma's eighteenth birthday, the young couple was quickly catapulted into adult life with all of its trials, tribulations, and conflicts.   The Germans tells the story of how two ethnic German families emigrated from Imperial Russia to Berrien County Michigan, were eventually joined by marriage, and assimilated into American life. Most realized early on that this assimilation and especially the mastery of English was the essence of survival and prosperity. The one area that retained its German flavor was worship. The German community, wherever they settled, established churches and generally conducted services auf Deutsch, making it their own language of faith, not unlike Latin was to Roman Catholics.  

In a setting devoid of modern technology or modern transportation a family story unfolds in the mid-18th century. Richard Harris served multiple capacities before family circumstances interfered. He served as a Presbyterian deacon, an attorney and a captain in the Connecticut militia before the French and Indian War. Though he was forced to resign from the militia service, he maintained a strong friendship with a Mohegan Indian sachem and his family. Their sons both went off to fight in the war and somehow survived, with one of them becoming an accomplished sharpshooter and the other a First Sergeant.  In this story, love still blooms as Colonists began to marry Mohegans, children are found and some are lost – but they endure the struggles of their time in history.

Jonathan and Bethany Harris are retired naval officers. A twist of fate while on board Jonathan's inherited yacht separates the couple. After an extensive search by the United States Coast Guard, Captain Jonathan Harris, USN (Retired) is pronounced missing and presumed dead. Shortly after Jonathan's memorial service, Bethany unexpectedly finds herself pregnant despite her age. A visit to a medium not long after the birth of her son suggests that Jonathan may still be alive and an entry in his family tree prompts Bethany to dive deeper into Jonathan's history. Assembling a team of skilled researchers, she eventually finds Jonathan – but not in a manner or situation she could ever have expected.