Books

In The Colored Car, Jean Alicia Elster, author of the award-winning Who's Jim Hines?, follows another member of the Ford family coming of age in Depression-era Detroit. In the hot summer of 1937, twelve-year-old Patsy takes care of her three younger sisters and helps her mother put up fresh fruits and vegetables in the family's summer kitchen, adjacent to the wood yard that her father, Douglas Ford, owns. Times are tough, and Patsy's mother, May Ford, helps neighborhood families by sharing the food that she preserves.

Who's Jim Hines? is a story based on real events about Douglas Ford Jr., a twelve-year-old African American boy growing up in Detroit in the 1930s. Doug's father owns the Douglas Ford Wood Company, and Doug usually helps his dad around the scrap wood yard located in the side lot next to their house.

Inspired by Foster's first trip to Poland in 1996 and her Polish-American heritage, Amber Necklace from Gdansk explores Polish immigrants' experiences with assimilation in the US, those immigrants' children's attitudes toward their ethnicity, and how these attitudes have been colored by America's typically disinterested view toward Eastern Europe- the other Europe that only recently began to emerge from history's shadow.

Mirroring the human response to the natural world, this book is a rare synthesis of stunning landscape photography and understated haiku poetry.

Even the beauty of Northern Michigan can’t put a smile on the face of Emily Kincaid’s perpetually cranky friend Deputy Dolly Wakowski, and when someone tries to destroy the only family Dolly has ever had, her crankiness turns lethal, even as the crime threatens to overwhelm her.

Poetry. "A humanist at heart, Linda Nemec Foster has demanded from her poetry an artfulness that engages ordinary life. With each new book her work has continued to mature, deepen, console, surprise, and TALKING DIAMONDS is as wise as it is lovely"--Stuart Dybek.

In this book of personal vignettes, the author discovers hopeful spiritual lessons hidden in difficult situations.

Cindy shares how the spiritual lessons she learned freed her to focus again on her own goals instead of the difficult behavior of others.

Remarkable Reprints: A Collection of Acclaimed Articles and Crowd-Pleasing Columns Enjoy reading and rereading this collection of enlightening and inspirational newspaper and magazine articles and columns.

Being a homebody, Nancy never would have spent a year in Italy had it not been for her husband’s wanderlust.

The couple didn’t go there to buy or restore a house or to heal a trauma from the past. As ordinary boomers, they simply wanted to experience “The Dream” – to live in Italy. They settled down in traditional Umbria, just east of Tuscany.

What is “the shadow” in these stories? It’s what lurks in the dark, and it’s different for everyone.
• For Isabel, it’s the whisper from the basement that invites her to come on down.
• For second-grader Emma, it’s the tortured spirit that has haunted her family for generations.
• For Deacon William, it’s the damaged android that frightens visitors in the retreat house halls.
All ten short stories in this collection are about how the different characters deal with what they find in the dark. Two of these stories received recognition from Writer’s Digest and others won awards or were published.

Sheft—maligned, hunted, chosen.
Mariat—the woman determined to save him.

"A potent mix of fantasy, romance, and intrigue." D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

Is it ever too late to leave the secrets that haunt you behind?
Angelica Schirrick wonders how her life could have gotten so far off-track. With two children in tow and a husband in jail, she begins a journey of self-discovery that leads her back home to Ohio. It pains her to remember the promise her future once held and the shattering truth about her family that derailed her life. She must learn to accept the violence of her beginning before she can be open to life, and a second chance at love.