The Rose Series

Toby, a war orphan living in northern France as the adopted daughter of a local blacksmith, carries a secret: a locket and a letter in a strange script she believes to be the only clue to her origins.  Outwardly well adjusted, Toby excels at school and loves riding horses. But then, a strange encounter at a local farmer's market launches her on an all-consuming search for a birth parent who seems to be looking for her as well. In this emotional coming-of-age novel you'll follow a courageous young girl as she journeys across the Atlantic to America where, separated from her benefactor and pursued by mysterious enemies, she seeks refuge first among the Atawara Gypsies and then with a Cheyenne Indian shaman woman. These strange and exotic experiences bring a spiritual dimension to her quest for her roots, and ultimately lead her to discover a centuries-old heritage that she could never have imagined.    Book I of The Rose Trilogy. (Book II, Three Deaths and a Tango; Book III, Los Conversos)

THREE DEATHE AND A TANGO - SYNOPSIS For two years Philip Rose, trained in a Zen monastery and now a principal in an architectural firm, woke each morning to face the horror that his wife Susan was dying of breast cancer. When she does die in his arms there is nothing in the thirty years of loving her that prepared him for the vast, cavernous loneliness that engulfed him. With much of his life still to live, he realizes quickly there is no guide to what he must do next. He is alone and he on his own. The Tantra of Tango is a meditation on emerging from this grief. A friend of his wife nags Philip into taking tango lessons. "This is what Susan would have wanted," she tells him. At night he begins to attend classes. The sheer physical activity of the dance provides the first small relief from his grief. His body loves the distraction. Engaged by a lawyer friend, Bert Stein as an architectural expert in a lawsuit over the death of a child killed by falling ice, Philip researches the unfortunate story of the child's death. He finds evidence of the greed he expected but also traces of massive money laundering.. He is confronted by the vast indifference of a society sinking deeper and deeper into criminality and delusion. During the day Philip researches architectural misdeeds. At night he goes dancing. Argentine tango, notoriously addicting, sets its hook deep. Subbornness keeps Philip returning to the dance hall in spite of the humiliation and rejection he suffers Gradually, his skills improve. He begins each night to search for that one dance that will quiet the dogs of loneliness. Relationships bloom and fade like tango lyrics. He falls in love and is then rejected by the beautiful Emily Savage. He dallies with the wonderful dancer, Camela. Still, he is alone. Then in one, unforgettable moment, during a single tanda of tango at a seedy dance venue in Sausalito, the threads of his Zen training, his experience as an architect, the web of tango and the dark secret of a love affair, produce an epiphany and change the trajectory of the lawsuit and the lives of the characters of this story.

The Converted, in Spanish Los Conversos, were the 15th Century  Spanish Jews forced to flee Spain and hide their religious identity to escape persecution—and death. This novel looks at their history through an historical wormhole created during the Spanish Civil War, and explored by Philip Rose , an American architect.  Through well-etched characters of vastly different backgrounds, The Converted weaves themes of the Kabbalah, gold lust, the Spanish civil war and the Nazi era  into a single compelling narrative encompassing medieval Spain and its great Sephardic minds, the tragedies of 15 Century El Alhambra Edict and the Holocaust, and modern Europe and California.