Adventure, romance, jealousy, murder, and travel through a harrowing wilderness combine in this historical novel set in California and the mountain West in 1826 to 1828.

Order from Sunstone Press: (505) 988-4418

Legendary mountain man Jedediah Smith crosses the desert and finds amidst the lushness of the Spanish missions suspicious Mexican officials, the brutal life of mission Indians, and a simmering insurrection. Two American ship captains who trade along the Pacific coast introduce Jedediah to a Mexican landholder, Estevan Mendoza, his wife, Isabella, and their daughter, Laura. The rancher wants to recruit Jedediah and his mountain men to lead a revolt against the Mexican government. Soon a budding romance and jealousy lead to murder. Political intrigues lead to other killings. What follows is the story of how Jedediah, despite personal yearnings, tries to get his men back to friendly territory, all while attempting to make a profit from the venture. Romance, adventure, jealousy, murder, and travel through a harrowing wilderness combine in this historical novel set in California and the mountain West from 1826 to 1828. Includes Readers Guide.

Peter Kazaks is a theoretical physicist with degrees from McGill, Yale, and University of California Davis. He is also the author of two accounts of summer long canoe trips in the extreme north of Canada: From Reindeer Lake to Eskimo Point and Lands Serene. He has traveled extensively in the American West.

Sample Chapter
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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-190-0
186 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-525-9
186 pp.,$4.99

Order from Sunstone: (505) 988-4418

In this first in the Alex Bales Fiction Series, high-powered, Chicago CEO Alex Bales has it all, including a loyal friend named Randy Danhurst. Yet something is missing in his life. Alex’s flings with strange women and drunken debauchery bring him no satisfaction, and he has already begun to see the telltale signs of his body’s decline. He’s gone on like this for years, devoid of true happiness that transcends the material. Then a straw breaks the camel’s back, when Alex finds his friend Randy’s body dripping blood on a cold bathroom floor. That shock triggers introspection and a quest to relive his life, further encouraged by a mysterious ad Alex sees buried in the Chicago Tribune. It appears that a new experimental drug called FOY1 is about to be employed in a suburban research project. Alex makes the trek to the address listed in the ad, and that becomes the beginning of his plunge into deep, dark waters. He knows not whether the new characters he meets are real or imaginary. The strange character of Dr. Edward Stawson, the principal investigator in the experiment, promises to give Alex a new mental and physical identity at very little risk. Is Stawson, however, an uncompromising researcher or something far more sinister? Alex relives his life post-experiment, and goes down the “rabbit hole,” with the growing grim realization that something is amiss. Was his participation in Stawson’s experiment nearsighted, at best? Includes Readers Guide.

Albert M. Balesh, MD, lived in Rome, Italy for 20 years, where he obtained his Doctorate of Medicine. He has written over 100 medical columns and three books of poetry. He now practices family medicine in Texas.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-074-3
172 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-390-3
172 pp.,$4.99

A young woman in the Wild West wages her own personal war for freedom and a desperate attempt to stay close to the man she loves, Billy the Kid, in 1877.

Order from Sunstone Press: (800) 243-5644

In this sequel to Bandita Bonita, Romancing Billy the Kid, the Lincoln County War is far from over and William H. Bonney is now the most wanted, notorious outlaw in the New Mexico Territory. Elucia Howard, now christened with the celebrated moniker, Lucy “Lucky Lu” Howard, has settled into her new role as the Kid’s notorious outlaw sweetheart. With Billy condemned to death as a murderer, Lucy stands by him in his fight to clear his name, and with the few remaining Regulators, they embark on a journey that places Billy deeper within the clutches of the crooked law they had tried to destroy. Includes Readers Guide.

Nicole Maddalo Dixon was born in Philadelphia and raised in Bucks County, Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband, Wallace. Her first book, Bandita Bonita, Romancing Billy the Kid, was also published by Sunstone Press.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-133-7
218 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-472-6
218 pp.,$4.99

Order from Sunstone Press: (800) 243-5644

Are collegians Carl and Lawrence, alias “The Beebuzzards,” villains or Sir Galahads? Go with them in The Carcass (an old Model T) to comically “chastise” a cruel hermit who lives on their beloved desert in the mid-1930s. Watch them as they humorously “punish” a choir director bent on seducing their preacher’s daughter. Sit with them in church when they rubber-band a tinfoil missile into the bald head of Lawrence’s snoring cousin Boyd, prompting the minister’s mother to exclaim to the pained outburster, “Young man, I believe you’ve got the Holy Ghost!” See them on many more chuckle-grabbing adventure as they poke fun at other “victims” and themselves, sometimes impersonating characters who run the gamut from witty British scholars to laughter-provoking hillbillies.

Clarence W. Dawson, author of numerous magazine articles and Sunday newspaper features, is the author of two other novels, Return of Montezuma and Desert Vendetta. Born in Louisiana, Dawson spent most of his life in Texas, where he taught high school Spanish, English, and journalism. While teaching the latter subject, he was proclaimed Texas’ Journalism Teacher of the Year and was inducted into the Order of the Golden Quill. He holds BA and MA degrees from Hardin-Simmons University.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-174-6
166 pp.,$18.95

A black student is shot dead during a demonstration claiming “Beethoven Was Black” in Bonn’s historic Münsterplatz with its majestic monument to the Bonn-born composer. Attending a Beethoven jubilee conference in the city is retired professor turned art crimes detective Megan Crespi with her American colleague and Beethoven expert, Will Meridian. During their symposium on the composer one of the participants is also killed. Who is the assassin or assassins and why do the murders continue? The cast of characters and suspects Megan is confronted with include Bettina Brentano, ambitious conductor of the Bonn Classical Philharmonic, Oskar van der Fresser, founder of the Beethoven und Du Museum in Vienna, Dr. Seide Sammlerin, over-protective director of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Tobias Neidisch, Beethovenhalle night guard with a chip on his shoulder, Dr. Li Shutong, with a singular background relating to Beethoven in China, Leopold Weissknab, white supremacist student studying at Bonn University, Louis van Hoven, a self-declared direct descendant of Ludwig van Beethoven, Clemens Karl von Masuren, beloved conductor of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, and Takuto Nisemono, conductor and composer once considered “the Beethoven of Japan,” now disgraced but defiant and scheming a come-back.Megan’s pursuit of Beethoven-related criminal activity extends to a cruise ship bound for China and additional deaths. Can justice prevail? Includes Reading Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica to China and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, The Kollwitz Calamities, The Kandinsky Conundrum, and The Mahler Mayhem. All Comini’s scholarly books are available in new editions from Sunstone Press as is the entire Megan Crespi Mystery Series.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-341-6
390 pp.,$34.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-309-6
390 pp.,$26.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-603-4
390 pp.,$3.99

"A deftly written, entertaining, and ultimately thought provoking read, 'Beyond His Mercy' is unreservedly recommended..." --The Midwest Book Review

Order from Sunstone Press: (505) 988-4418

The American Civil War claimed and destroyed lives, stealing fathers and sons from those they loved. The horror caused many returning to cry out for death. They carried the festering scars of battle and were unable to overcome the torment of their souls. This is the story of Thomas Wilson, a soldier who returns home haunted by the destruction and devastation he both witnessed and caused. Although his regiment respects and reveres him as a sharpshooter, each man he has killed condemns him to a life of terrifying dreams and troubled days where forgiveness can never be obtained. Neither the love of his family nor the affection of a woman with sparkling dark eyes and soft black hair can chase his war demons away, for he is beyond mercy. Includes Readers Guide.

As a child Johnny Neil Smith often sat at his grandparents’ fireplace listening to stories of their parents’ struggles while pioneering south Mississippi in the eighteen hundreds. Now a retired educator with an ardent interest in early American history, Smith weaves the stories he heard as a child into all his novels. In Beyond His Mercy, he tells the story of his great-great grandfather, Lott Williams, who located the children of his murdered son-in-law and deceased daughter who lived in Cass County, Texas, and who then brought his grandchildren to live with him in Mississippi. In all of Smith’s writings, he captures the emotions behind the events that were passed down to him from his grandparents. His wife, Susan Cruce Smith, also a retired educator, takes his stories and brings them to life by adding spiritual meaning, literary style, and a woman’s perspective. They are also the authors of Beyond the Storm, and Johnny Neil is the author of Hillcountry Warriors and Unconquered, all from Sunstone Press.

Sample Chapter
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Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-232-7
280 pp.,$28.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-187-0
280 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-523-5
280 pp.,$4.99

The year was 1864. The freezing winds off Lake Michigan swept across the snow laden grounds and through the cracks of a building that held Southern prisoners in Camp Douglas, Illinois. Huddled with the other prisoners, John mulled over the reasons he had enlisted, even after his father had forbidden it. He knew the only real reason was to protect his best friend Frankie, who had enlisted first but never even bothered to show up at the station when the recruits left for war. Shivering, he wondered if he would ever see his family again or especially the girl he had loved since childhood. John realized that nothing but an act of God could deliver him from this hell on earth. Includes Readers Guide.

Johnny Neil Smith, a retired educator in Mississippi and Georgia, taught Mississippi, Georgia, American and World History. Smith has written three previous novels, Hillcountry Warriors which received praise from Publisher’s Weekly, Unconquered which was a finalist in the Georgia Writer Association’s Author of the Year, and Beyond His Mercy with Susan Cruce Smith. Four of his great grandfathers served in the Confederate Army, and he has long been fascinated with the Civil War. His knowledge of that war and Federal prison Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois has made Beyond the Storm true to the times. The main character, John Wilson, was named after his grandfather and many of the accounts of battle and prison life relate to his great grandfather, Joseph Williams, who lost an arm in the battle for Atlanta and was sent to Camp Douglas. Susan Cruce Smith, also a retired educator, has given the book a woman’s perspective and added many of the Biblical and scriptural insights.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-233-4
250 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-560-0
250 pp.,$4.99

In this historical novel, Billy Old and Jeff Kidder were Arizona Rangers at the turn of the twentieth century and best friends. In 1908, while acting in the line of duty, Kidder was murdered by five crooked Mexican policemen. No charges were filed against his killers. They were quietly skirted away to various locations throughout the county of Sonora, Mexico, a vast, desolate area covering nearly twenty thousand square miles. In 1909, shady politics in the Territory of Arizona brought about the disbanding of the Rangers, leaving many to drift into obscurity and some into degradation. In that same year Billy Old vanished into Sonora to find and kill the men responsible for his friend’s death. He returned close to two years later with that deed accomplished.

During Billy’s search of hundreds of sleazy Sonora whorehouses and cantinas he experiences many exciting, humorous, and tragic encounters. There’s a bloody and deadly confrontation with four scalp hunters; a mystical meeting with an old, dying Hopi Indian; an attack by the legendary “Red Ghost” of the southwest; a sorrowful meeting with a past fellow Ranger; cannibal Indians from East Texas; renegade Apaches; flushing toilets; the wonders of ether; Dancing Devils—fifty-foot high swirling dust funnels that can blind an animal; and a whore named Abbie Crutchfield who proves vital to Billy’s quest. And then there’s his horse Orion and a mule named Captain, all a part of a critically changing time in the American Southwest.

Includes Historical Background and Readers Guide.

Geff Moyer is a published playwright and retired high school theater and creative writing instructor. His play scripts have been produced by hundreds of schools and theaters across the country, including Canada, Greece, Australia, and the United Kingdom. This is his first novel. He and his wife Cathy have three sons and two granddaughters and live in the Kansas City area.

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Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-601-1
270 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-139-9
270 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-476-4
270 pp.,$4.99

This novella of becoming traces the growth of a young bi-racial woman’s struggles in life and love, marriage and motherhood as she leaves the home she must leave only to be drawn back by the forces of destiny. (SEE MOVE/TV TREATMENT BELOW)

In this first in The Salinas Trilogy, Nina Lucero discovers that blood guilt has its consequences as she fights her way to self reliance, escaping from the multicultural, Pentecostal confines of a rural upbringing in southern New Mexico. Whether in butchering prize farm animals for food, hunting deer in the nearby Manzano Mountains with her war-vet uncle, warding off the lecherous attacks of neighboring twin brothers, or protecting herself from combative school-girl rivals, violence and blood map the way of Nina’s individuation. Marriage to a delusional pastor caught up in snake worship offers her only tragic respite from the perverse darkness engulfing her spirit and the historic Native American and Hispanic ruins just beyond her father’s sheep ranch. She has the stuff to save herself and her children, but will she? Are divorce and a move to Albuquerque the answers? Will the soothing strains of her brother’s enchanting guitar and her mother’s fateful courage help? Atonement must come for Nina and her family but so must even more catastrophic blood guilt. Includes Readers Guide.

Robert Franklin Gish is the author of numerous works of fiction, memoir, biography, and essays. He teaches writing at the University of New Mexico where he is a distinguished alumnus and an emeritus scholar and professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa and former Director of Ethnic Studies at California Polytechnic State University. Gish is a member of the Authors Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, and Western Writers of America. He is also an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. His previous book for Sunstone Press was Twilight Troubadour.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-361-4
104 pp.,$16.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-640-9
104 pp.,$3.99

The president of the United States enlists a foreign power in locating hidden missile sites but with mixed results.

Read the "Movie/TV Treatment" below.

In this speculative socio-political novel, a prestigious think tank—The Cassandra Group—led by a military historian general is aiding the president of the United States behind the scenes in sensitive negotiations with a foreign leader. As part of the plan, three brilliant young predictive historians in the Cassandra Group are assigned to devise a way to uncover the foreign nation’s hidden ICBM launch sites. Cassandra has devised a way to locate these “missing” sites by supporting a spin-off group called The Searchers composed mostly of women with highly unusual talents and time-tested old fashioned strategies. But they work. Too well, perhaps. Then bad stuff happens and everything gets messy as each hidden launch site is located. Is The Cassandra Group helping or merely meddling with history? Does this information help with the president’s negotiations? Or is it too late? Will both countries be hit hard? he Cassandra Group will tell you its truth—but you may not want to believe it. Shame on you.

Joseph A. Bonelli holds a Bachelors degree in Comparative World Literature from the University of Southern California and a Masters degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. He has worked in policy analysis evaluation and regulatory writing in Washington, DC and for the State of California. He has been a child protective services supervisor, substitute teacher, and medical social worker. He is also the author of Congo Ape Kitabu and The Caballero from Catalonia, The Life of Juan Duval, the latter from Sunstone Press.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-271-6
110 pp.,$16.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-578-5
110 pp.,$3.99

In this novel, it’s up to seven uploaded consciousnesses to save the human race after a pathogen kills everyone on Earth.

A powerful pathogen is killing every inhabitant of Earth. Amid the chaos, an experimental spaceship designed as an ark is prepared for departure. After it transports Maria Ramos and six other people to a mysterious planet, they learn that their minds have been uploaded as digital consciousnesses and that all other passengers died during the journey. It’s up to these seven minds to save the human race. The ark contains frozen human tissues that can be used to grow colonists. But after the ship’s AI transfers the surviving consciousnesses into robots, some of them plot to steal and inhabit some colonist bodies and destroy the rest, even if it means that humanity dies out. After Maria’s murder, a community of mixed human and native blood develops, but it faces its own extinction event. Clues for survival come from a planet-wide AI created by an ancient civilization, astounding messages from a distant source, and an intriguing traveler who seems to know much about Maria and her long-ago efforts to promote sentient life. Castle of Sand is a compelling and inspirational exploration of what it means to be human.

Steve Bates’ first novel, Back to You, a humorous science fiction story in the mold of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, was released in 2021. More than a dozen of his science fiction short stories have appeared in periodicals such as Perihelion and Kzine. He has appeared on several television programs, including the “New York Nightly News with Chuck Scarborough,” as well as dozens of radio programs. His nonfiction book, The Seeds of Spring, Lessons from the Garden, was published in 2010. It earned an award from the Garden Writers Association and won an International Book Award. He was a reporter and editor for The Washington Post as well as other newspapers, magazines, and the web. He won numerous writing awards, including a Jesse H. Neal Award for business journalism and an investigative reporting award for coverage of riots in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-536-6
416 pp.,$29.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-701-7
416 pp.,$4.99

Corn Flower, an eleven-year-old Native American girl, is a member of the Kansa tribe living along the Cottonwood River in the 1820s. When winter arrives on the Great Plains, Corn Flower and her best friend Night Sparrow build a sled to challenge their brothers in a hillside race. Because of the icy temperatures, many activities such as bead making, storytelling, and completing the winter count for the yearly history of their tribe remain in their family lodge. As the ice pack hardens, the children participate in the snow snake as they throw a long rod or stick down a narrow channel in the snow. When a stray coyote attacks Corn Flower and her goat along the river, she is saved by her horse Brownie. Along with her father and brothers, Corn Flower travels to the trading post. On her return home, Corn Flower is startled to find that the tribal storyteller Walks at Night has fallen in the snow. Corn Flower nurses Walks at Night back to health by using her wild crafting skills with herbs and roots for healing. At the shell ceremony Corn Flower and Night Sparrow each receive a new shell on their necklace for surviving their twelfth winter season on the Great Plains. Includes Readers Guide.

James D. Lester, Jr., PhD is a veteran English instructor with over thirty-seven years of experience as a secondary teacher at Alpharetta High School and a college instructor at Gwinnett Technical College, both located near Atlanta, Georgia. He is also the author of the popular texts Writing Research Papers, 16th edition and The Research Paper Handbook, 4th edition. In this third in his series based on the four seasons, Lester has again tapped into his unique outlook about the joys and challenges of Native American life in Kansas during the early 1800s. Much like children in modern culture, Corn Flower pursues an endless quest for adventure as she cherishes the closeness of her family and the fun times and trials that she faces with her best friend Night Sparrow.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-273-0
118 pp.,$16.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-580-8
118 pp.,$3.99

In this second book in the series based on the four seasons, Corn Flower, an eleven-year-old Native American girl and a member of the Kansa tribe living along the Cottonwood River in the 1820s, is proud that her father White Plume has been selected as a tribal chief. With the guidance of two older tribal women, she also takes great pride in learning the skill of wild crafting to find herbs, roots, and leaves to use as medicines. After the harvest celebration of the corn crop, the members of the tribe head out to hunt for the great, shaggy bison. With the success of the hunt, much meat is prepared by all members of the tribe for the cold, winter months. One day while tending her herd of goats, Corn Flower and her best friend Night Sparrow find a stray horse wearing a saddle alone on the prairie. To discover the owner, Corn Flower and Night Sparrow travel to the trading post with their fathers White Plume and Red Branch. After leaving the trading post, Corn Flower nearly drowns while trying to return the lost horse at the nearby soldier fort. Saved by her father, she listens to White Plume’s story of how he came to know Kicking Swan and married her. The whole tribe rejoices with a naming celebration for a little girl of the tribe and for the marriage of Corn Flower’s brother Wanji to the maiden Running Dove. The story ends with the first heavy snowfall and a fun time in the winter whiteness with her brothers Red Cloud and Two Bears. Includes Readers Guide.

James D. Lester, Jr., PhD, is a veteran English instructor with over thirty-five years of experience as a secondary teacher at Clarksville High School and a college instructor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. He is also the accomplished author of the popular texts Writing Research Papers, 16th edition and The Research Paper Handbook, 4th edition. For this second book in the series based on the four seasons, Corn Flower on the Great Plains, and the first in the series, Corn Flower, A Girl of the Great Plains, Lester has again tapped into his unique outlook about the joys and challenges of Native American Life in Kansas during the early 1800s. Much like children in modern culture, Corn Flower holds an endless quest for adventure as she cherishes the closeness of her family and the fun times and trials that she faces with her best friend named Night Sparrow.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-250-1
112 pp.,$16.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-570-9
104 pp.,$3.99

Corn Flower, an eleven-year-old Native American girl, is a member of the Kansa tribe living along the Cottonwood River in the 1820s. She is a loyal daughter to her parents White Plume and Kicking Swan. Corn Flower and her best friend Night Sparrow are in charge of each family's herd of goats. Together they sing the “Song of the Kansa,” find excitement in their simple life, and delight in the folk tales spoken by an elderly tribal storyteller. Corn Flower enjoys the thrill of adventure as she travels with her father to a nearby trading post.

Once she returns home, her happiness is short-lived as a tornado sweeps toward their village with a great wind. Corn Flower saves a baby goat and barely escapes the storm. The late summer brings horrible heat and a swarm of grasshoppers. Relief finally comes when a huge thunderstorm sweeps the grasshoppers away, yet the lightening from the storm sparks a fire on the prairie. Fortunately, their village is spared, and Corn Flower returns to her hillside in the remaining days of summer to tend her goats and again sing the “Song of the Kansa” with her special friend Night Sparrow.

Much like children in modern culture, Corn Flower cherishes the closeness of her family, fun with her best friend, and the endless quest for adventure.

James D. Lester, Jr., PhD, is a veteran English instructor with over thirty-five years of experience as a secondary teacher at Clarksville High School and a college instructor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. He is also the author of the popular texts Writing Research Papers, 16th edition and The Research Paper Handbook, 4th edition. For Corn Flower: A Girl of the Great Plains, Dr. Lester has tapped into a new interest with a story about the joys and challenges of Native American Life in Kansas during the early 1800s.

Includes Readers Guide

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-219-8
104 pp.,$16.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-546-4
104 pp.,$4.99

A fictional diary of a medical doctor and his reflections on Covid-19.

Dr. Sigurd Bergman is a psychiatrist with twenty years of experience in various areas of psychiatric practice in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is also an amateur epidemiologist. As the Covid-19 pandemic rages, he keeps a diary of local events mixed with expert analysis of medical protocols for treating Covid. He compares Nevada and California death rates, predicts we will not see the end of Covid for several years, and suggests genetic testing of the fatally susceptible, in anticipation they will not respond to vaccines. Dr. Bergman discovers secrets neither the nation’s top doctors nor our presidents knew. He concludes that the pandemic is more than a medical problem with viruses; it is a mental health epidemic, a psychiatric emergency, of massive proportions due to widespread individual and systemic hysteria. The 10% positive rate for Covid testing means only one person in ten has the bug and nine out of ten are suffering from mild to severe hysteria, yet no one acknowledges this. He sees the national increase in insomnia as another indicator of his diagnosis. It seems like Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Just as no one noticed the Emperor was nude, so no one but Bergman notices that Covid-19 is cyclical, not seasonal, coming in predictable (and ever larger) waves of two or three months. He feels that encouraging everyone, even those with no symptoms, to get tested, slowed down discovery of positives and fueled the surge, the equivalent of shooting ourselves in the foot. His conclusion: hysteria caused political leaders to needlessly shut down the economy and close schools, ended the ascending career of at least one politician, and made a scapegoat of a president. He determines that next time we must have learned from these lessons.

Joseph A. Bonelli holds a Bachelors degree in Comparative World Literature from the University of Southern California and a Masters degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. He has worked in policy analysis evaluation and regulatory writing in Washington, DC and for the State of California. He has been a child protective services supervisor, substitute teacher, and medical social worker. He is also the author of the novels Congo Ape Kitabu and The Cassandra Group, the biographies The Caballero from Catalonia: The Life of Juan Duval and Bruce Lakofka, The People’s Artist; and 769 Movies You Must See Before Your 100th Birthday.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-349-2
78 pp.,$16.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-634-8
78 pp.,$3.99

Psychologist Scott Hunter is enlisted by his friend Detective Miguel Montez to assist in solving the gruesome homicide of a high profile and well-respected community leader and the complexity of the crime leads Scott to take a risk that stands to undo both the investigation and his professional career.

An anonymous caller makes a late-night report to the police that there is a lifeless body lying on the stage of the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater in Santa Fe. Upon arriving, the body of Paul Austin is discovered. He was a beloved and well-regarded counselor, motivational speaker, and founder of the Community of Revelation. He had been murdered under very strange circumstances at the site of one of his favorite speaking venues. Because of their previous work together, psychologist Scott Hunter is again enlisted by his friend, Detective Miguel Montez, to help solve this gruesome and perplexing homicide. As Scott investigates the events and people surrounding Austin’s murder, he encounters unexpected and surprising aspects beneath the surface of an ostensibly well-thought of community. He is further shocked to learn about the exploitation of some very vulnerable people that happen to be among Santa Fe’s most wealthy and well-known citizens. Because of the high profile of these individuals, Scott knows that he needs to tread very carefully. Many twists, turns, and suspects emerge, turning the investigation upside down before the villain is ultimately identified. The complexity of the crime leads Scott to take a risk that stands to undo both the investigation and his professional career. Includes Readers Guide.

Psychologist, consultant to executives, and educator, Myron Beard is the product of a family with one hundred years of history in Santa Fe. He has a particular interest in the psychology of exceptionally successful psychopaths and their ability to effectively manipulate others for their own personal gain. He has lived in Denver since 1991. He is the author of three previous books: The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations; The DNA of Physician Leadership: Creating Dynamic Executives; and M & A Integration: CEOs Field Guide to the Art & Process of Effective Merger Integration; and from Sunstone Press, Santa Fe Deception, a Scott Hunter Mystery.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-636-3
242 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-547-2
242 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-722-2
242 pp.,$4.99

The search for a prehistoric turquoise mine, murder, pueblo ceremonialism, a bookshop, and sheepherders and horsemen form a contemporary novel set in the high country of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico. (SEE MOVIE/TV TREATMENT BELOW)

North of Taos, New Mexico, an unidentified murder victim wearing a belt with a turquoise buckle of rare dendrite quality is discovered on the edge of the Tulona Reservation. Tribal policeman Richard Tafoya takes charge of the investigation to determine the identity and killer. Tafoya meets Forest Service biology specialist Janet Rael as he follows leads from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the Navajo Reservation in the west. Within a social interplay of Puebloan, Hispano, and Anglo cultures, Tafoya searches for the kill site to unravel the strange numbers on the back of the turquoise stones. The Tulona Pueblo’s ceremonies of racing and pole climbing on Feast Day provide a mystical overlay to the chase. With the aid of a Navajo medicine man and a cartographer with the Bureau of Land Management, Tafoya and Janet discover not only the prehistoric turquoise mine, but also the killer. Along the way they brave high mountain altitudes, desert mesas, National Forests, and sharp changes in weather from desert heat to snow and rain. Includes Readers Guide.

Jack Matthews is a former professor of history and anthropology. An outdoorsman and mountaineer, he completed archaeological field school at Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, New Mexico. He conducted field trips to northern New Mexico, climbed the Truchas, Pedernal, and San Mateo Peaks, and wrote about the environmental influence on Georgia O’Keeffe’s art. Currently, he observes forests and mesas and trades “the old way” with his Puebloan friends.

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Website: http://www.jackmatthews.net
Email: jack@jackmatthews.net

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-477-2
244 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-330-0
244 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-623-2
244 pp.,$5.99

Order from Sunstone Press: (800) 243-5644

Despite threats, blackmail, and other travails brought against him chiefly by an underground school gang (The Hellites), instructor Linus Beem refuses to relinquish his hazardous teacher’s job. Meanwhile, he attempts to maintain a home for his invalid mother and retarded brother. He is also determined to provide help he feels his students need in the classroom and elsewhere. His life becomes even more complex when the Hellites leader Al Gonzales is embittered by the loss of his “queen bee,” who falls in love with her teacher and competes with his sweetheart for his affection. Meanwhile, Al harasses Beem’s tubercular friend, Judson Arnold, and vows to seduce his church-devoted wife. Ever surprising Desert Vendetta climaxes with a double murder at the edge of a wolf-roaming desert on emotions-venting Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941.

Clarence W. Dawson, author of numerous magazine articles and Sunday newspaper features, is the author of two other novels, Return of Montezuma and Beebuzzards Atop the Carcass. Born in Louisiana, Dawson has most of his life in Texas, where he taught high school Spanish, English, and journalism. While teaching the latter subject, he was proclaimed Texas’ Journalism Teacher of the Year and was inducted into the Order of the Golden Quill. He holds BA and MA degrees from Hardin-Simmons University.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-205-7
258 pp.,$22.95

It is Easter in the mountain village of San Blas in the territory of New Mexico shortly after the Mexican War. The secret auto-flagellant society of Penitentes is conducting its annual faux crucifixion ceremony. Six armed men, “gringos,” invade the village and the religious ceremony. The Cristo and an old man are killed, a young girl is raped, and the faux Christ’s young wife is kidnapped and violated. Quasi-outcast Severino, brother of the dead Cristo, who returns from scouting for the U.S. Army, alone, chases the outlaws and deals out revenge one by one.

Richard M. Lienau, with a background in electronics and computer technology, holds more than twenty U.S. Patents. He has written several novels, including Night Run, The Maltho-Rose Plot, Holy Ghost, The Truchas Light, Legacy of The Light and Gavilan, the last four from Sunstone Press, along with a number of screen plays, short stories and articles. He lives in San Miguel County, New Mexico.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-177-8
120 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-513-6
120 pp.,$4.99

“...Many of you will return to your loved ones covered with glory. Many of you will not return.” —General Douglas MacArthur, July, 1941

On April 3rd, 1942, the Japanese infantry staged a major offensive against Allied troops in Bataan in the Philippine Islands. The invasion was led by General Masaharu Homma, who had already forced General Douglas MacArthur’s troops from Lingayen. The Japanese began to fire every half hour, increasing in intensity each time, while the defenders crouched down in their foxholes. At the same time the Japanese 22nd Air Brigade started dropping more than sixty tons of bombs. Dive bombers flew low to strafe troops and trenches. USAFFE Artillery and telephone lines were neutralized. Bamboo thickets, banyan trees, sugar cane fields were set ablaze. Then, as the dust cleared on April 9th—the anniversary of the death of legendary Emperor Jimmu, the first ruler to sit on the Japanese imperial throne— General Edward King of the United States Army Forces of the Far East surrendered to General Homma and the infamous Bataan Death March began. In this novel war, an evil wind, rages over a beautiful planet Earth. Like a scythe, it claims all the young men in their teens and twenties. This is the story of five on their journey to the end of the trail in the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.

Atilano Bernardo David was born in Angeles in the Philippines. He graduated from the University of Santo Tomas and then enlisted in the United States Armed Forces of the Far East during World War II. After the war, his various career activities included the founding of a fashion magazine and a home magazine and writing for advertising firms, newspapers and magazines. He was a Scout Executive for the Boy Scouts of America in Union, New Jersey, and he worked as an editorial cartoonist for The Freehold Transcript in Freehold, New Jersey. He also appeared in TV commercials and movies before retiring to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-173-3
150 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-505-1
150 pp.,$4.99

This first volume in The Serpent Trilogy follows Penny Anderson on her journey from East Tennessee to New Mexico to find mystery, adventure and an unusual family.

In this first volume in The Serpent Trilogy, Penny Anderson, a high school junior, escapes an untenable home situation and flees across the country to join her Uncle and Aunt in Serpiente, New Mexico. The Navajo Hidalgo, a detective, tries to warn Penny of the dangers of Serpiente but she persists and in the end wins the confidence and hearts of a unique family. Together they uncover the mysterious creatures that have, throughout history, enjoyed vexing and manipulating humans to evolve into warring creatures for their own evil reasons. Using the tools of science and Indian folklore, the detectives discover the secret to making peace with the serpents. Unfortunately, antiquity thieves discover and attack the serpents, sparking a war. The family conducts historical research that reveals the ultimate goals and truth about the serpents.

Raymond Tolman grew up in the multicultural South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He earned his Master's degree from the University of New Mexico and taught high school and college Science until his retirement. Moving to East Tennessee for family reasons, he built his own home while spending time working for SRA-McGraw-Hill during textbook adoptions. His retirement has afforded him time to paint southwestern art and pursue writing, his lifelong passions.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-172-6
450 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-504-4
450 pp.,$4.99

See Movie/TV Treatment below.

Two men are kidnapped, sent to an African diamond mine to complete an equipment installation, and must find a way to escape. They’ll revive a temple and keep their mouths shut, or be killed. It’s 1994, near the end of the Rwandan war. Robert’s a privileged kid with anger issues. He must reconcile his old life, where everything is easy and nothing matters, with his new one as a forced laborer. It’s easier said than done. He’s plagued by his inner demon—the blackbird—the violent temper he must control. Logos, his mentor, is known as the man who can fix any mining equipment in the field. He’s done things for governments he no longer remembers, and he must conquer a trauma, or it will destroy him. His talent, reputation, and dark past have made him the target of the kidnappers. The mysterious Consortium has stalked him for years. The guide, Mr. K.K., tells them they’ll work to the brink of death. Why? Only one man in the world is capable of the “special installation” to make the owners rich again—Logos. In the nothingness of the bush, they experience a new and dark world. Villagers are forced to work at gunpoint, subjugated by a hierarchy of Masters and Workers, alive since the Belgian Congo. Logos and Robert will play with nothing to lose or die as slaves. The jungle keeps secrets. They’re about to find out why. Includes Readers Guide.

John Katsoulis is a Greek-American writer concerned with world affairs. He has researched government structures and their effects on society, business, and the common man. He travels to enhance the depth of his work. He is a graduate of the University of Miami (MBA).

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Website: https://www.johnkatsoulis.com/

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-397-3
204 pp.,$34.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-354-6
204 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-636-2
204 pp.,$6.99

Order from Sunstone: (505) 988-4418

In the early 1500s, twenty-four year old Spanish Captain Luis Escudero is already a legend in Spain’s professional army, living and fighting in her battles, gambling his life on the slim chance that one day he’ll have enough money to travel to that strange new world Christopher Columbus discovered just twenty five years ago. There he will build a ranch, leave the army and live in peace. Destiny takes a hand and Luis’ gamble might just pay off if he can stay alive long enough. King Carlos offers him command of a top secret expedition with orders to explore Mexico’s Aztec empire and determine whether wild rumors of vast piles of gold and silver are true or just wild delusions of drunken sailors. Spain needs a quick infusion of gold to stave off a financial crisis. “No European has ever set foot in that barbaric empire and crawled back to civilization alive,” King Carlos tells Luis. “It’ll be an enormous challenge. You’ll be outnumbered thousands to one—but if you and your men somehow manage to survive, return and verify there is gold, I’ll dispatch Hernando Cortez and his conquistadors to seize it and ship it back to Spain!” Captain Luis Escudero and his battle hardened mercenaries, the first Europeans to enter Mexico, set sail for the Aztec empire and this strange, mysterious adventure begins. Will the Aztecs allow foreign invaders to peacefully explore their historic land? Not if the Aztec army commander has anything to say about it.

Robert L. Foster is a member of Western Writers of America and has written many western articles for national magazines. He is a retired college professor and also the author of The Mutilators from Sunstone Press.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-081-1
254 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-401-6
254 pp.,$4.99

Includes Readers Guide. See "Praise for this Book" below.

Order from Sunstone Press: (505) 988-4418

Forced to go on a hiking trip with his Uncle Jack, fourteen-year-old Zach Walker heads to the desert near Bluff, Utah to search for an ancient staircase—the same one Zach’s father was looking for when he disappeared three years before. Once in the backcountry, Zach discovers prehistoric ruins, mysterious rock art, and a one-way portal to the past. When he steps through the portal, he finds himself trapped in the land of the Ancestral Puebloans—a place hit hard by severe drought and conflict. Zach soon runs out of food and water, but a native girl named Aqua rescues him and takes him to her village where her family adopts him. But the canyons are full of warfare and Zach wants to go home, despite his growing attachment to Aqua and her family. The problem is, nobody in Aqua’s village seems to know the way back to the twenty-first century. Will Zach spend the rest of his life in a land eight hundred years before his time? How will he ever find his way back to family and friends in Portland, Oregon?

Michael Shay is a former elementary and middle school educator. He travels extensively in the Southwest—hiking, studying archaeology, and learning about the people who came before us. Michael’s favorite places to hike are the canyons near Bluff, Utah, where this story takes place. There, if you listen carefully while walking on canyon rims, you may hear the voices of the Old Ones or songs from their wooden flutes still lingering in the bone-dry air.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-141-2
132 pp.,$16.5

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-483-2
132 pp.,$4.99

A boy’s tutor retells his search for the boy for seven years after he is kidnapped by the Comanches in this historical novel set in the late 1700s.

Arsène, the young son of the governor of French Louisiana, disappears in a blizzard on a trading trip in Comanche territory in 1789. For seven years, Jean-Pierre, the boy’s tutor and guardian at the time of his disappearance, searches for him on trading trips into comanchería. At last he finds him, only to discover that he has become a Comanche warrior now known as Amabate (The One Without A Head). Amabate returns to Fort St. Jean Baptiste de Natchitoches, Louisiana Territory, for a reunion with his father, but cannot be convinced to stay. “I am Comanche!” he exclaims.

Over the years, Amabate makes unannounced visits to his father’s home, sometimes with Comanche friends and relations, always painted and dressed as a warrior. Meanwhile, Amabate has joined a small band of “wolves,” braves who pledge never to back away from a battle as they roam the plains and ranges west into the mountains of New Mexico. Later he takes three wives and eventually he becomes White-Bear, a respected Comanche chieftain.

As an elderly man, Jean-Pierre tells the story of Arsène and his two worlds in a colorful combination of French, Comanche, Spanish, and English. He reflects on the verities of human relationships, his love for Arsène and for Arsène’s father, for the Comanche girl who was for a time Jean-Pierre’s wife, for his French wife, and for his Comanche “brothers.” Set in an authentic historical framework, the narrative explores the mores of two distinct cultures between the 1780s and the 1820s. We learn about the commerce of their days: stolen and traded ponies, war parties, battles with the Osage, love trysts, acts of bravery and revenge, prescient leaders, and prophetic dreams. The French Comanche is grounded in the dramatic sweep of history. The traders’ lives are affected by the French and Indian Wars, the American and French revolutions, Napoleon Bonaparte’s annexation of La Louisiane, and the Louisiana Purchase by the United States. The Comanches, ranging outside of “civilization,” are vulnerable to weather, illness, trade, enemy raids, and, as White-Bear foretells toward the end, the influx of American settlers.

Stanley T. Noyes grew up in California and was a writer, educator, and art’s administrator. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army in the Ruhr campaign in a reconnaissance troop. They crossed the Rhine ahead of U.S. forces and later liberated slave labor camps. He was awarded the Bronze Star. When he returned he attended the University of California, Berkeley where he met and married fellow student Nancy Black in 1949 and earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees. For sport he rode bareback horses and bulls in rodeos in California and Nevada. Later Stan taught college at Cal extension and California College of the Arts. He lived in France with his family for about six years.

They moved to Santa Fe in 1964 and he taught at the College of Santa Fe, and briefly at the University of New Mexico. He later was a program director for the New Mexico Arts Division. Stan was a published author of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, notably Los Comanches, The Horse People, 1751–1845, a history of the Comanche Indians now from Sunstone Press in a new edition. Noyes was an avid hiker in the mountains of New Mexico often accompanied by his wolf hybrids. He spent many summers hiking the Pyrenees with his family and close French and Spanish friends.

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Hardcover:
7 x 10
ISBN: 978-1-63293-506-9
298 pp.,$42.95

Softcover:
7 x 10
ISBN: 978-1-63293-257-0
298 pp.,$28.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-572-3
298 pp.,$4.99

Jesse Landry, son of a murdered Santa Fe store owner, and his friend, Army Lieutenant. Harold Beckner, uncover and thwart an armed plot to subvert the Territory of New Mexico into the Republic of Texas.

Order from Sunstone Press: (800) 243-5644

Middle-aged Evan Landry is murdered in his Santa Fe mercantile. His twenty-something “coyote” son, Jesse, shoots and kills the murderer in self-defense, but the sheriff thinks otherwise. Fleeing the city, Jesse links up with sympathetic friends and holes up with his father's wealthy business partner, Don Nerio de Noriega, in Albuquerque. His friend, Lieutenant Harold Beckner, in the Territory of New Mexico on a secret mission from the War Department, follows. Beckner and the Army are searching for an illicit arms cache, which they had traced to Albuquerque. The smuggled arms, intended for an insurrection, are discovered, as are the plotters. Are they connected to the murder and will they meet their fate? Is Jesse cleared? And what is a Texas Ranger doing in Albuquerque?

Richard M. Lienau, with a background in electronics and computer technology, holds more than twenty U.S. Patents. He has written several novels, including Night Run, The Maltho-Rose Plot, Holy Ghost, The Truchas Light, and Legacy of the Light, the last three from Sunstone Press, along with a number of screen plays, short stories and articles. He lives in San Miguel County, New Mexico.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-138-2
346 pp.,$26.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-474-0
346 pp.,$4.99

“O’Shea and Shurgot illuminate their story with wonderful details of life on the frontier. [T]he characters are well drawn and embellished with significant backstory.... For those looking for a quick read about violence and injustice in the Old West.” —Kirkus Review

Jeremiah Staggart, a Confederate soldier, discovers while on leave in 1863 that Union soldiers have murdered his family and burned his farm in Tennessee. Because he could not save his family, Staggart succumbs to a paralyzing guilt that leads him to the edge of madness. After the horrific battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga he deserts and, after working in Omaha for three years, arrives in Green River, Wyoming in August, 1866. There he meets Sheriff James Talbot, another Civil War veteran, who is trying to maintain peace between cattle baron Brent Tompkin and a band of Southern Cheyenne led by Chief Running Bear. Like many Cheyenne chiefs, Running Bear was infuriated by the terrible slaughter of Indians at Sand Creek, Colorado in 1864, and he has moved his tribe to the canyons northeast of Green River.

Sheriff Talbot employs Johnny Redfeather, of mixed Irish and Cheyenne heritage and also a Civil War veteran, in his efforts to maintain peace in and around Green River. When Jeremiah goes to work for Tompkin’s cattle business, he becomes deeply involved in the ensuing conflict. In his deepening delusion and search for redemption, Jeremiah, believing he is following his Biblical namesake, becomes obsessed with saving an Indian woman and her child whom he comes to believe are his lost wife and child. In the final battle at Greens Canyon the fate of Running Bear’s tribe, Johnny Redfeather, and Jeremiah’s frantic search for redemption and his lost family collide. Includes Readers Guide.

Michael W. Shurgot, PhD, retired as Professor of Humanities from South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington in 2006. His publications include three books on Shakespeare, numerous scholarly and pedagogical essays on Shakespeare and modern fiction, nearly fifty theatre reviews, a memoir and six essays on baseball. He and his wife Gail live in Seattle where he still teaches part-time.

Rick O’ Shea received an Associate of Arts in Humanities from South Puget Sound Community College and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from St. Martin’s University in Olympia, Washington. He completed additional graduate writing classes in Los Angeles. Rick is an accomplished blues guitarist and he and his wife Serafina live in Encino, California, where he writes fiction and music.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-412-3
176 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-292-1
176 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-586-0
178 pp.,$3.99

“There’s a little of the Appo Kid in all of us.”

When Air Force Captain Norm Whitman gets his orders to a remote island off the southern coast of Korea he finds himself working for Major Dubbs, who already hates his guts. But it only takes a day for Whitman to team up with his fellow site mates: An alcoholic chaplain (Father Paul); the irreverent site medic (Sergeant Goldman); a fellow captain (Andy Packer, nickname “Oyster”), made constantly miserable by his Korean “Yobo” girl friend (Adja); and a group of Korean officers dedicated to both their military mission and serious partying. The creed for survival: “It’s your mind or your liver!” Curiously flawed and alcoholic, Whitman carries his Catholic guilt from brothels to brawls. A group of Irish priest missionaries and other assorted characters who fly in and out from bases all over East Asia join in the rice-wine driven mayhem that drives base commander Dubbs up the wall. The good times end when Whitman must deal with the murder of one of his closest site mates, the Korean police, and his own shock at how suddenly life can turn ugly. On the heels of tragedy, Whitman is selected for an assignment just as surreal: Train and accompany his Korean counterparts for a top-secret mission to Vietnam. What happens in the war zone will prove to be his day of reckoning.

William J. Wallisch is a retired professor of English who’s been a life-long collector of military character sketches and tall tales. He’s filled many notebooks with “war stories” penned during his own twenty-three years of active duty service. Typical of his essays on military heroism is “In the Belly of the Whale,” published in War, Literature, and the Arts. His University of Southern California doctoral dissertation was a study of “The Integration of Women into the United States Air Force Academy.” This first novel was originally a collection of short stories, taken from what he refers to as his “dark notebook.” Though set in Korea and Vietnam, it amalgamates a variety of characters and tales, gathered from many assignments around the world. When asked if the story is a memoir, Bill replies, “No, but there’s a little of the Appo Kid in all of us.” He divides his time between Colorado Springs and Leadville, Colorado.

Includes Readers Guide

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-527-4
366 pp.,$39.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-022-4
366 pp.,$26.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-319-4
366 pp.,$3.99

Jeff Corley, DDS, a cosmetic dentist and the eldest sibling of the Corley family was born broken and afraid, lacking what is needed to form a healthy personality. As he grew, family events revealed Jeff’s deadly fear of bees, and he became convinced that honey bees hate him and create his misery. At age seven, he accidentally blinds Emmy Lou, his only childhood friend. That tragedy drives his ill-fated need to overcome shame and to make a new identity. Little Jeff fades away, and a new shadow child takes his place, an obsessed child with a narcissistic personality disorder who grew into a self-centered man filled with damaging spiritual pride. Jeff believes that marrying the perfect woman will solve his problems, but the women he finds do not measure up. Then he meets Elissa Fortuna, a strange medicine woman, who removes his deep pain but sends him away with unrequited love. Heartbroken, he attempts suicide by thrashing into honey bee hives, but spiritual forces work through the bees to keep him alive and to tear away his pride. Jeff’s hopeful transformation arises from both the natural world and his deepest wound, the blinding of Emmy Lou, the sad event where he first mislaid his love and compassion as a child. Includes Readers Guide.

Mark Conkling, PhD, is a former University Professor (Philosophy, Psychology), a retired Methodist minister, a retired General Contractor, and now works as a Medical Practice Manager. Mark Conkling’s “Blues” novels explore ways that spiritual forces found in nature and in other people can transform broken lives. Prairie Dog Blues, Dog Shelter Blues, Killer Whale Blues, and now Honey Bee Blues, all from Sunstone Press, show how hope and love can heal our deepest wounds. In addition to the four novels in the “Blues” series, he is the author of articles in scholarly journals and contemporary short stories.

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Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-469-7
130 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-221-1
130 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-550-1
130 pp.,$4.99

“Kent Jacobs delivers a story with a rapid-fire pace that mixes murder, mystery, and interesting tidbits of New Mexico history that is sure to entertain.” —Michael McGarrity

“Jacobs is first-rate, delivering the reader effortlessly to war-era Fort Stanton and Lincoln, conceiving the perfect setting for suspense, betrayal and murder.” —Andrew J. Wulf, PhD, Executive Director, New Mexico History Museum and the Palace of the Governors

A mysterious murder faces border patrol agent Tracker Dodds as he assumes control of the first Prisoner of War camp in the United States under a mandate from the Department of Justice. It’s a hot summer day in 1942 when he enters Fort Stanton and he is shocked to discover a brutally scalped German inmate floating in its Olympic-sized swimming pool.

A river separates the camp from a state-of-the-art tuberculosis hospital in this alpine back country of southern New Mexico which adjoins the massive Mescalero Apache reservation. Could the scalping have been done by someone from the reservation? Or was the murderer another distressed German seaman? The camp is packed with German sailors. Did a bystander see the chance to silence his blackmailer?

Though the camp is remote and cut off from civilization, every soul involved feels the crushing destruction of a world at war. And the mysterious murder facing Tracker Dodds is just an example.

Includes Readers Guide.

Kent Jacobs is a graduate of Northwestern University College of Medicine with a specialty post-graduate diploma from the University of Colorado College of Medicine. His interest in writing began during his early years as a full-time academician. He is also the author of The Turned Field and Zuni Stew, both from Sunstone Press and he lives with his wife, professional painter Sallie Ritter in southern New Mexico. They received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2014, the state’s highest award in the arts.

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Website: http://kentfjacobs.com/

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-206-8
178 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-534-1
178 pp.,$4.99

A twenty year old telephone switchboard operator, Susie Parks, whose life beyond one fateful night on March 9, 1916 during Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico reveals her true strength.

On March 9, 1916, Susie Parks, age twenty, found herself in the center of battle the night Pancho Villa’s rebel army invaded the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. At the telephone switchboard with her baby in her arms, she made the call that alerted the outside world of the attack. She was celebrated as an American hero but her broader story reveals a tenacity and grit that surpasses the events of that day. We first meet Susie at eleven growing up in the Northwest when a family tragedy prompts the family to move to Columbus, New Mexico. There she grows up unencumbered, free to hunt and roam the desert. At eighteen, she meets Garnet Parks, an intellectual cavalry soldier with dreams of owning a newspaper. They fall in love and together traverse the Great War, the flu pandemic, and a devastating fire. All the while babies come, businesses falter, and illness strikes. Susie must run the paper, care for her family and nurse her dying husband. Against all odds, a chance discovery saves his life but leaves him with an addiction and both of them vulnerable to the treacherous influence of his troublemaking brother. Susie must navigate the challenge of her life for herself and for the sake of her children. Includes Readers Guide.

The author grew up in Southern California then taught for 23 years in the Seattle area where she raised two daughters. Now living on a farm in Western Oregon, she spins sheep wool and alpaca fleece and helps mind the menagerie. Upon an ancestry.com discovery that revealed unknown truths about what had become of her grandfather 88 years before, she began a four-year search to uncover the truth about her grandmother’s remarkable life.

On the Cover: Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus, New Mexico and Front Page of the Taunton Daily Gazette, Massachusetts, March 9, 1916.

Sample Chapter
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Website: https://www.susieparks.com/the-book

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-555-7
240 pp.,$34.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-554-0
240 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-729-1
240 pp.,$4.99

Order from Sunstone Press: (800) 243-5644

Arches National Park is the destination for ten-year-old Jarod, the indigo boy with psychic abilities, along with his friend Omega, and older brother Darrell, the story narrator, as they explore the redrock arches above Moab, Utah. There they learn that an ancient message awaits anyone who stands under a special arch. Just what they need to complete their mission of helping Mother Earth calm down before a big shift occurs. But with 1,100 arches in the park, what a daunting prospect! Not for this trio. They learn that arches are doorways to other dimensions, and yes, they’ll need to try out as many park arches as they can scramble under. So off they go up the trail from their Devil’s Garden Campground. Altogether thirteen different arches grab their attention, and send them off to search for red pictographs, rainbows, and prehistoric animals. Meanwhile, nefarious “baddies” are hot on their trail, trying to steal Omega’s talking Zuni necklace and moldavite stone. By accident they also run into the famous “Moab mastodon” petroglyph. But it is modern day mastodons, the stone Parade of Elephants in the park that finally brings their adventure to a close.

Janice Beaty, Professor Emerita from Elmira College is best known for her college textbooks in the field of Early Childhood Education. The books Skills for Preschool Teachers, Observing Development of the Young Child, and Early Literacy in Preschool and Kindergarten (with Linda Pratt) have educated students around the world. Beaty is a world traveler herself, but closest to her heart are her travels to the national parks of the American Southwest. From her former home in Taos, New Mexico she journeyed many times to these parks, especially pursuing her hobby of finding and interpreting petroglyphs. This is the third in her National Park Adventure Series books. Jarod and the Mystery of the Joshua Trees and Jarod and the Mystery of the Petroglyphs are also from Sunstone Press. Includes Glossary, Bibliography, and Readers Guide. Cover illustration and drawings by Lillian C. Beaty.

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Softcover:
8 1/2 x 8 1/2
ISBN: 978-1-63293-122-1
118 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-467-2
118 pp.,$4.99

A moving van filled with eleven Wassily Kandinsky paintings stolen from Munich’s famous Lenbach House Museum during a violent neo-Nazi demonstration is hijacked in Slovakia. Two rival Kandinsky collectors appear to be involved: Igor Rasputin of Odessa, visiting in Munich, and Boris Zima of Moscow, whose agent Raisa Sokolova is keeping tabs on Rasputin. Puzzlingly, the museum adamantly declares there has been no theft, even though its night watchman has been found murdered.

Also visiting Munich is retired art history professor Megan Crespi, slated to give a lecture she titles, curiously enough, “Double Kandinsky.” In between visits to “mad” King Ludwig’s fantasy castles, Megan comes into contact with possible suspects, ranging from Rasputin to Iris and Laszlo Togarassy, owners of Munich’s new The Blue Rider gallery featuring Kandinsky’s works, to Katrina Keller, associate director of the Lenbach. Manipulating events connected with the theft are a young, careless gambler who owns a building behind the Lenbach, two men from the Ukrainian island of Amiinyi—one a computer wizard, the other a science photographer—and their Munich engineer friend Alyksandr Miesel, neo-Nazi leader Walter Krankenhauer, and Detective Dieter Löser.

Crespi’s lecture, including results of state-of-the-art XRF technology, becomes the revelatory preamble to a thrilling denouement that cracks the Kandinsky conundrum.

Includes a Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, also from Sunstone Press, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, and The Kollwitz Calamities, all published by Sunstone Press.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-444-4
274 pp.,$38.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-213-6
274 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-542-6
274 pp.,$2.99

Two monumental granite statues by famed German artist Käthe Kollwitz—the Grieving Parents—have been stolen from a World War I soldiers’ cemetery in Belgium. What could the motive have been for such an unlikely theft? On a visit to the director of the Kollwitz Museum in Cologne, retired art history professor and Kollwitz scholar Megan Crespi is asked to aid in tracking down the robber or robbers. As she pursues clues and visits possible suspects more Kollwitz statues are stolen in Cologne and Berlin. Crespi’s itinerary takes her to the Berlin Kollwitz Museum, Weimar, the Baltic Sea island of Rügen, Greifswald, and finally to the Kollwitz House in Moritzburg. On the way she interacts with physicians Abraham Rückgabe and Iliana Frankel, the just-married couple Monika von Putbus and Akram al-Aljamie, and unscrupulous CEO of Rügen’s asbestos-contaminated Dorotek factory, Reinhold Fromm, collector of dominatrix drawings. We meet possible suspects, Iranian prince Yusri Pahlavi, greedy Lukas Zamann of the Galerie Zamann, and the mysterious “Marie Schmidt,” of Moritzburg, Kollwitz’s final home. All seem to be connected to the spate of Kollwitz thefts. Can Crespi solve these thefts and will the precious artworks be found? An unexpected denouement involving seven persons and two cats gives us the answer.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, also from Sunstone Press, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, and The Kandinsky Conundrum, all published by Sunstone Press.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-446-8
300 pp.,$38.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-157-3
300 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-497-9
300 pp.,$2.99

A mystery novel, set in Nevada and New Mexico, follows a grandson trying to solve a treasure hunt for ten million dollars worth of Lander Blue turquoise hidden by his grandfather for him to find.

In 1973, Mort Hamilton stops for lunch in Battle Mountain, Nevada. There a stunning Lander Blue turquoise stone set in a silver bracelet and a double homicide, combined with fate, change his life forever. Over the next forty-seven years Mort becomes a successful Santa Fe businessman. Before he dies unexpectedly from the Covid virus, he sets up a treasure hunt for his grandson Michael, a veteran of two tours in Afghanistan and a kindred spirit for magic, puzzles and riddles. The “treasure” is a ten million dollar bag of Lander Blue turquoise. Only 108 pounds were mined. There will be no more. Five treasure hunt clues lead Michael to the Battle Mountain Diner, to a trading post in Gallup, to a deserted mine on Turquoise Hill and through Santa Fe. As Michael and his new love solve the clues, Lester “Cozy” MacFarland, a bitter ex-Albuquerque cop secretly tracks them. Finding the treasure takes a back seat to staying alive. Can you solve the clues with Michael before Cozy does? Includes Readers Guide.

Richard Ryan resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico after retiring from a career in construction and university academia. Gail Douglas resides in Taos, New Mexico after retiring from a career with a major insurance company. Their enthusiasm for New Mexico and a common fascination with Southwest turquoise mines and the stories behind them formed the partnership to write Lander Blue.

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Website: https://turquoisestories.com/

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-475-8
236 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-374-4
236 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-657-7
236 pp.,$4.99

During a performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Vienna State Opera there is an explosion in the foyer just off the auditorium. Auguste Rodin’s famous 1909 bronze bust of composer/conductor Gustav Mahler has been blown up and a hate-filled note has been left at the scene demanding that there be “no more Jews defiling our culture.” Retired art historian/musicologist Megan Crespi, in Vienna to lecture, is at the performance with her former student, the renowned cellist Egga Streicher, and is asked by her friend, Chief of Police Erich Decker, to help in tracking down the culprit. Soon copy-cat vandalism of Jewish monuments around the city breaks out. Things come to a horrendous climax during a performance of Mahler’s great Second Symphony, the “Resurrection” symphony, but is it the only surprise awaiting Megan Crespi’s dangerous investigation? Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, The Kollwitz Calamities, and The Kandinsky Conundrum, all published by Sunstone Press.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-445-1
292 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-247-1
292 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-567-9
292 pp.,$2.99

Order from Sunstone: (505) 988-4418

In 1866, a Chiricahua Apache girl, Dah-zhonne, was eleven years old when a Mexican army unit attacked and decimated her band’s village. The horrible affair changed her life forever and she swore vengeance on the Mexican colonel, Lorenzo Garcia, who led the attack. Orphaned in the massacre, Dah-zhonne was rescued by American troops and adopted by an army surgeon, Jack Morgan. Morgan and his wife, Mary, soon moved to Philadelphia with the Indian girl they renamed Jada Morgan. Jada lived the upscale life of a wealthy young woman; apprenticed in Dr. Morgan’s medical practice; and received her MD degree from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. After two failed love affairs, she returned to the Southwest and became involved in a series of thrilling but sometimes dangerous adventures. Forced into Mexico by tribal dissidents where she was captured by Garcia, the man who killed her parents years earlier, she faces a lifetime as the colonel’s sex slave. But Jada escapes with six other women, and this daring breakout brings more unexpected dangers than they imagined. Includes Readers Guide.

Association with a Chiricahua Apache family for 19 years gives Bud Shapard an exceptional insight into Apache history and culture. His background in Indian history and culture was honed as the Research Services Officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. After his retirement to the North Carolina mountains in 1988, he spent his time writing. His first book, Chief Loco: Apache Peacemaker (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), was the winner of the 2011 New Mexico Book Award for a Multi-cultural Subject.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-097-2
254 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-441-2
254 pp.,$4.99

Milo, a fifteen-year-old boy with a highly developed imagination has fallen through the cracks of his teachers’ expectations and lands in a world of his own fantasies where he becomes a participant in the Magical Scavenger Hunt. Surprised and baffled to find himself in such a strange place, he finds a talking cat who agrees to help him navigate the puzzles and trials of the contest. When he stumbles onto the discovery of a legendary talisman, he attracts the enmity of a powerful, vindictive wizard who pursues Milo as he unravels the mythical secrets and properties of the artifact. Milo gradually discovers that he must trust his own abilities instead of trying to do whatever others expect of him while remaining loyal to the friends he makes as he follows the clues that come his way. When at last the showdown with the wizard comes, it is Milo’s fundamental belief in himself that he must rely on. Includes Readers Guide.

Growing up on the ragged fringe of the Mexican border in the desert Southwest, Robert Jesten Upton always had an affinity for the remote, bare edges of civilization. On leaving his desert home he spent several years traveling back and forth between America and Europe, where he met his wife. After completing his formal education with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, he spent the next decade deformalizing it. With his wife, he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to build a home, raise a daughter, and follow a career as a writer and editor, balancing his professional writing with the pursuit of fiction. Always an avid reader, fiction has been his Grail. Among other publications, he won a first place in an international writing contest with a story that was included in the CrossTIME Science Fiction Anthology. Milo and the Dragon Cross is his first novel.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-177-1
284 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-510-5
284 pp.,$4.99

Includes Readers Guide. See Movie/TV treatment below.

A testament to strength and determination, Maud Hawk Wright recounts the true story of a young American woman who is kidnapped from her ranch in Chihuahua during the Mexican Revolution by Villista raiders. The raiders force her and her husband off their land, leaving their infant child with a hired hand, and shortly afterward, murdering her husband.

Bereft and grieving, Maud is taken to Pancho Villa’s encampment in the mountains, peopled by hundreds of revolutionaries, preparing for action. To her surprise, Maud is chosen to ride with Villa and four hundred of his soldiers to the north. Enduring a brutal nine-day trek through the mountains of northern Mexico with Villa and his small army, Maud witnesses the violent mania of Villa and his officers and learns the stories of people who follow him.

During the ride, Maud learns that she will become a participant in Villa’s grandiose plan to invade the United States. Before dawn of the ninth day of Maud’s captivity, she finds herself riding as a member of Villa’s army as it crosses the border to attack a small border town, Columbus, New Mexico. What happens is surprising.

Includes Readers Guide.

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Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-524-3
134 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-102-3
134 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-463-4
134 pp.,$4.99

Based on the true story of the 1860s New Mexico Territory teenager who was married to serial killer Charles Kennedy.

“…a vivid, pull-no-punches trip to the 1860s ‘Wild West’” —Historical Novel Review, November 1, 2017

It’s 1867 in New Mexico Territory. A log cabin huddles at the base of a lonely mountain pass east of Taos. Travelers who stop to rest and eat here should be careful how they look at the teenager who serves their food. Her husband, Charles Kennedy, is subject to jealous rages. At least, he says that’s why he kills and then robs the unwary. And then a baby is born. How can she raise a child in such circumstances? When Gregoria finally gets up the courage to go for help, she discovers that frontier justice can be as ugly as the actions it seeks to punish. This historical novel is based on the true story of the 1860s New Mexico Territory teenager who was married to serial killer Charles Kennedy. Includes Readers Guide.

Loretta Miles Tollefson grew up in the American West in a mountainside log cabin built by her grandfather. She holds two Master of Arts degrees from the University of New Mexico. She lives in New Mexico’s Rocky Mountains, where she seeks to accurately transform historical data about the region into fiction. She is the author of three poetry collections, two novels, and two collections of historical micro-fiction.

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-184-9
260 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-516-7
260 pp.,$4.99

When Santa Fe musician Danny Ortiz is murdered, Private Investigator Fernando Lopez is hired by Ortiz’s wife to find the killer and his investigation takes him to mysterious Painted Skull Ranch in Taos, a 200-year-old haunted ranch where Lopez uncovers a viper’s nest of greed, treachery, and murder.

Santa Fe musician Danny Ortiz is murdered by two men while walking home from a gig in downtown Santa Fe. Police believe thieves or vagrants attacked Ortiz, but his wife disagrees and hires Private Investigator Fernando Lopez to find the real killers. Lopez learns that Ortiz had been scheduled to perform in an upcoming concert at the Lensic Theater with Dallas Longstreet, a nationally known musician from Austin, Texas. However, Longstreet had bolted from his Lensic commitment and his marital problems and fled to a mysterious ranch outside Taos rented by an old friend and drug dealer, Travis Walker. Lopez goes to Taos to question Longstreet and discovers the ranch––Painted Skull Ranch––is a haunted two hundred-year-old historic property that includes an abandoned penitente morada. Lopez doesn’t know if Longstreet is staying at the ranch by choice or being held there as a prisoner. The plot thickens when Longstreet overdoses in suspicious circumstances orchestrated by his wife and her lover, Travis Walker. Every step of the way Lopez’s investigation takes him deeper into a web of deceit and betrayal, ending in murder. Includes Readers Guide

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of twelve previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History and Santa Fe, City of Refuge, An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture in addition to Peyote Wolf, Smokescreen, Ghost Canyon and The Dead Go Fast in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-532-8
142 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-459-8
142 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-689-8
142 pp.,$4.99

Click on "Movie/TV Treatment" below.

A man in a wolf mask bursts into a teepee in the middle of a sacred ritual, a peyote ceremony, and kills Michael Soto, the owner of Sabado Indian Arts on the Santa Fe Plaza. The next morning Detective Fernando Lopez, a member of an old Santa Fe family, receives a complaint from two Zuni that an important tribal object, a carved wooden war god called an ahayu:da, has been stolen from their pueblo. They show him an anonymous letter sent to the Zuni Tribal Council saying that Michael Soto was trying to sell it for fifty thousand dollars. Shortly after they leave, the police dispatcher reports that Michael Soto has been murdered. Establishing what happened and who was present at the peyote ceremony proves difficult. One witness says three men and one woman from Whitewater near Zuni attended the ceremony. Another says it was four men from Whitewater. One witness blames a skinwalker or a werewolf for Michael Soto’s murder. Detective Lopez’s investigation exposes the cultural and ethnic fractures in Santa Fe, a city of Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo cultures. The investigation also leads into the dangerous underworld of buying and selling stolen Indian artifacts. Along the way he encounters looters and grave robbers, rich gallery owners who buy and sell priceless tribal objects on the black market, and artisans who produce fake replicas of the objects to sell. The search for answers comes to a startling end in a violent confrontation at a trading post just north of Zuni Pueblo, when the truth is finally revealed. Includes Readers Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of seven previous books, including most recently Weather Reports from the Autism Front: A Father’s Memoir of his Autistic Son; Santa Fe, City of Refuge: An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture; and Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-423-9
176 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-307-2
176 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-600-3
176 pp.,$3.99

Reinstated after leaving the U.S. Foreign Service to marry the wrong man, Diana Forrest is sent to counter Soviet propaganda in Cold War Tanzania where graft corrupts the socialist ideal and poachers slaughter elephants for ivory. Toggling between a diffident boss and a hard-to-please Ambassador in a media wasteland, Diana spends weekends in the bush courtesy of a Tanzanian subordinate with a safari business on the side. As that relationship trends from teamwork toward intimacy, Diana wrestles with her conscience and is also troubled by safari companions who aren’t above petty poaching—or worse: one of them may have colluded in the murder of a conservation-minded headman. It’s soon clear that Diana’s job performance will rate an excellent follow-on assignment, but she’s not sure she wants to leave.

As a U.S. foreign service officer, Patricia Lee Sharpe shunned personnel-heavy prestige posts in order to work in challenging (and sometimes dangerous) places: Sierra Leone during the rebel period, violence-prone Karachi and much maligned Kolkata, among others. But even on assignment to the Dominican Republic, her credo was this: get out of the office and into the thick of things. She’s also been an academic with a doctorate in American literature leading to a Fulbright lectureship in Pakistan, as well as a journalist, including a stint in Moscow during the Cold War. These days she lives and writes and hikes in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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Website: http://www.PatriciaLeeSharpe.com
Email: plsharpe@earthlink.net

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-239-6
192 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-563-1
192 pp.,$4.99

During the American Civil War, a young wife does everything in her power to keep close to her husband. (SEE MOVIE/TV TREATMENT BELOW)

By the late summer of 1863, the American Civil War has become entrenched into its third year, the bloody conflict raging far longer than could have been anticipated. The armies remain hungry for recruits in order to replenish their depleted ranks, the pressures being applied to all the corners of Union territory. The state of Iowa is no exception, here dwelling a certain newlywed couple, Susha and Sylvetus Potter. In no way do they wish to become separated. Nevertheless, Sylvetus succumbs to the persuasions and decides to enlist. However, Susha does her husband one better, concocting a scheme which would have her take on a manly pose, so that she might accompany him as a fellow soldier. That she has her arguments in perfect order makes it all the simpler for Sylvetus to acquiesce. Meanwhile, 800 miles to the south in Confederate Texas, Captain John Singleton is recovering from his severe wound under the care of his wife, Henrietta. Yet what she fears most is of his convalescence coming to an end, that he’ll return to the fight of which she and her husband have yet to embrace. John is torn between Henrietta’s gifted insights and intuitions and his own loyalties toward comradeship and duty. The war has too many campaigns waiting to be hatched, making it impossible to predict sure objectives. There is a good chance that Iowa will cross paths with Texas. The circumstances and encounters that may happen remain to be seen. So must trudge a private and her foes. Includes Readers Guide.

A native of the Lone Star state, with a B.S. in wildlife biology from Texas A&M University, Mark Gallik has merged his background with his lifelong passion for history and literature. The foregone conclusion is a penchant for research, to seek even the minutest of details. With that, the letters, journals and reminiscences of both military and civilian participants have been scoured, these discoveries exposing the treasures of regional tongues and varying mindsets. Naturally, the author fell into the trap of historical reenacting, from which not only did he learn the drill and rigors of campaigning, but also how to hand stitch period garments. It all provided invigorating and insightful experiences.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-517-5
384 pp.,$39.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-332-4
384 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-626-3
384 pp.,$4.99

When Coop’s friends, deer hunters Ian McKenna and Wally Stroud, go missing, Coop assumes their disappearance is storm related, until a third hunter of the group is murdered in cold blood.

The evening before the eagerly awaited deer hunt Dr. Lawrence A. Cooper (Coop) and three friends (Tim Slade, Wally Stroud and Ian McKenna) gather at his mountain cabin. Almost immediately Tim and Ian clash over religion, gun laws and Ian’s rather liberal politics and lifestyle. On the first day Tim kills a magnificent buck using an assault rifle, highly illegal in the state of Utah. Not only does Ian witness this carnage, he documents it with photographs and threatens to expose Tim to the authorities. The next day, however, an early fall blizzard blows in and Ian and Wally go missing. Although Coop and Iron County Search and Rescue spend the better part of a week looking for Ian and Wally, they find no trace of them and no bodies are recovered. Coop assumes his friends’ disappearance is a storm-related natural disaster, but still wonders about Tim and Ian’s feud. Then when Tim Slade is murdered, there is not doubt something more sinister is at foot. As the only one of the original hunters left, Coop fears he might be next. Includes Readers Guide.

Warren J. Stucki is a native of southern Utah and enjoys life on a small horse ranch with his wife and chocolate lab. Following graduation from the University of Utah Medical School, Dr. Stucki specialized in urology and now retired is the founding partner of Southern Utah Urology Associates. At Dixie Regional Medical Center he served as Chief of Surgery, Chief of Staff and member of the Hospital Governing Board. The Reluctant Carnivore is the third book in the Doctor Cooper Series and was preceded by Hemorrhage and Mountain Mayhem. The Death of Samantha Rose follows The Reluctant Carnivore. Dr. Stucki is also the author of Boy’s Pond, Hunting for Hippocrates and Sagebrush Sedition and is presently working on a prequel to the highly popular Boy’s Pond.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-188-7
314 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-522-8
314 pp.,$4.99

Order from Sunstone Press: (800) 243-5644

The year is 1934 and drug-addicted Pedro Montoya thinks he is the reincarnation of Montezuma. With this conviction, he sets out to reverse the course of Mexican history. Believing his sister is Marina, the Indian princess who bore the illegitimate son of the Spanish conquerer Cortés, Pedro imprisons her and her lover who he thinks is Cortés and threatens to kill them if they don’t “re-conceive” their son Martín. He is convinced that Martín, sided by the war god Huitzilopochtli, will annihilate the Spaniards this time. This bizarre fantasy of suspense, youthful love, and history is set in the American Southwest, where enchantment and sensuality often prove to be reality.

Clarence W. Dawson, author of numerous magazine articles and Sunday newspaper features, is the author of two other novels, Desert Vendetta and Beebuzzards Atop the Carcass. Born in Louisiana, Dawson spent most of his life in Texas, where he taught high school Spanish, English, and journalism. While teaching the latter subject, he was proclaimed Texas’ Journalism Teacher of the Year and was inducted into the Order of the Golden Quill. He holds BA and MA degrees from Hardin-Simmons University.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-162-3
124 pp.,$18.95

"At its heart, New Mexico is the protagonist of this novel...Eichstaedt's descriptions of the state, and the city of Santa Fe, show a deep familiarity with the Land of Enchantment." --The Santa Fe New Mexican.

“The Ridge” is an enticing story. What makes it so is not just the compelling plot but also the book’s accuracy. Characters are true to life, not cliches, and Eichstaedt’s descriptions of northern New Mexico are vivid. Luke’s reportorial accounts read like the real thing. Eichstaedt is spot-on with his depiction of small-town Hispanics, and the arrogant anti-media lines from the rancher who heads the club might have come out of the mouth of a Washington pol. “The Ridge” is a little gem. --Sandra Dallas, The Denver Post

SEE MOVIE/TV TREATMENT BELOW.

Burned out and world-weary, veteran journalist Luke Jackson longs for a story to put him back on the front page of The New Mexican, Santa Fe’s historic daily newspaper. hat story comes when he ventures north to cover a land grant protest in the state’s pastoral and predominately Hispanic region. The protest leaders want to reclaim grazing rights given to their ancestors by the Spanish and Mexican governments several hundred years earlier, but now lost. Those rights were wrongly ignored, they contend, when the present-day Southwest, including California, became part of the United States in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty ended the war between the United States and Mexico. Rather than remaining with the original grantees, large sections of the land were grabbed by the railroad companies carving their way to the West Coast.The Hispanic community, more hungry and desperate than ever for land to graze their growing flocks, take up arms and occupy the land. A standoff with authorities ensues and Luke finds himself caught in the middle of a fight over land rights with roots deep in the history of the American Southwest that takes all he has to get out alive and write the story of a lifetime. A suspenseful literary thriller set in a remote and exotic corner of the American Southwest, The Ridge will put you on the edge of your seat and keep you there. Includes Readers Guide.

Peter Eichstaedt is a former long-time resident of northern New Mexico. He was a reporter with The New Mexican and The Albuquerque Journal newspapers who covered issues in northern New Mexico and in the New Mexico Legislature. He is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar and he taught journalism in Albania, Slovenia, and Armenia. For two years he was the country director in Kabul, Afghanistan, for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, where he worked with Afghan journalists promoting free speech and good journalism.

On the Cover: The poster in the cover image is by Emanuel Martinez. Use by permission.

Sample Chapter
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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-637-0
208 pp.,$34.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-534-2
208 pp.,$23.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-718-5
208 pp.,$4.99

In this second volume of The Serpent Trilogy, following The Family at Serpiente, the history detectives discover the relationship between serpents and the ancient cultures of the Americas, uncovering the predictable histories of growth and collapse due to the serpents. Sensing imminent danger, Quetzalcoatl and Kulcalcan declare war on the human tribes throughout Aztlan, their ancestral home. Unaware of the ability of the serpents to control the minds of humans, the military plots to exterminate the serpents but soon thousands of modern humans experience the mind altering abilities of the serpents. In a panic to exterminate the serpents, the government releases a biological agent which destroys most of the serpents. Unfortunately, in time the biological agent mutates and exterminates all but the most isolated humans on earth. The Anderson family survives by sealing themselves off from all contact with other humans in Serpiente. Quetzalcoatl and Kulcalcan make a truce with the Anderson family and teach their children how to communicate in the serpent's telepathic hieroglyphic language. Will history repeat itself? Includes Readers Guide.

Raymond Tolman grew up in the multicultural South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He earned his Master's degree from the University of New Mexico and taught high school and college science until his retirement. Moving to East Tennessee for family reasons, he built his own home while spending time working for SRA-McGraw-Hill doing textbook adoptions. His retirement has afforded him time to paint southwestern art and pursue writing, his lifelong passions.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-211-2
270 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-536-5
270 pp.,$4.99

Psychologist Scott Hunter returns to his hometown, Santa Fe, at the request of his ex-wife to help solve the murder of the man for whom she left him, and his agreement to help her leads to surprising changes in his life.

Eleven years ago, psychologist Scott Hunter departed Santa Fe totally humiliated, his life torn asunder by the betrayal of his wife Rebecca. Now, at Rebecca’s request, Scott is unexpectedly returning to the scene of her betrayal to help solve the murder of her current husband Blake Martin, the man with whom she cheated on Scott. In Santa Fe, Scott reconnects with his old friend Miguel Montez, now a detective with the Santa Fe Police Department. With Scott’s understanding of psychopathic behavior and Miguel’s sleuthing abilities, they begin to unravel the complexities of Martin’s life and nefarious business dealings. The investigation of the murder leads to a wide array of suspects, their motives, and even the cause of death. Just as one suspect is eliminated, another surfaces, making the identification of the actual killer elusive and challenging. Scott’s journey takes him face-to-face with his own demons as well as the underbelly of the art world and drug scene. Working the case shakes up Scott’s world and causes him to rethink everything.

Includes Readers Guide.

Psychologist, consultant to executives, and educator, Myron Beard is the product of a family with 100 years history in Santa Fe. He has a particular interest in the psychology of exceptionally successful psychopaths and their ability to effectively manipulate others for their own personal gain. He has lived in Denver since 1991. He is the author of three previous books: The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations; The DNA of Physician Leadership: Creating Dynamic Executives; and M & A Integration: CEOs Field Guide to the Art & Process of Effective Merger Integration.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-476-5
266 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-377-5
266 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-663-8
266 pp.,$4.99

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A prominent city councilmember, Tito Garcia, is assassinated at the beginning of the Santa Fe Fiesta. Known as a peacemaker, he had negotiated an agreement to ban a controversial Fiesta procession known as the Entrada. The procession celebrated the Reconquest of Santa Fe twelve years after the 1680 Pueblo Rebellion drove the Spanish out of Santa Fe. Both Spanish and Native American groups blame each other for Garcia’s murder and vow revenge. The situation explodes in violence when one Hispanic group attempts to march in downtown Santa Fe in violation of the agreement. Fernando Lopez is forced to rethink the case when he discovers Garcia’s involvement with Three-Hills Ranch, a compound suspected of sex-trafficking young women from border towns like Nogales and Juarez. The journey to find answers takes Lopez on a journey into the underbelly of wealthy Santa Fe society where deep cultural and ethnic conflicts have festered for over four hundred years. Smokescreen, the second in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series, concludes in a fiery confrontation at Three-Hills Ranch, where the truth is finally revealed and justice served. Includes Reading Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of eight previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History (2019) and Peyote Wolf (2020), the first of the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

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Hardcover:
ISBN: 978-1-63293-401-7
174 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-315-7
174 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-618-8
174 pp.,$3.99

One man’s hunt for ex-Nazis leads to a shocking revelation and reconciliation with his own troubled past in this 1940s historical novel set in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Los Angeles, 1949. Attorney Andrew Martin, aka Andrés Martinez, is doing what he does best: surviving. His career is stable, he has his pick of women, and his beloved parrot, Emerson, keeps him company. True, he’s still lamenting his rejection from the military, still tormented by memories of his father, and then there’s his leg, which continually feels like an imposter. But he’s learned to live with all of that, too. Until the arrival of Penny, that is, a member of the Salvation Army, a stranger with a secret. Andrew’s meeting with the woman is brief, but what he learns from her upends him. Suddenly nothing makes sense. He desperately needs to get away, and it seems the gods are listening, for he’s soon offered a job in Sacramento. And not just any job. He’s been asked to help confirm a plot that the government is using ex-Nazis to spy on communists in the U.S. The timing seems perfect, and Andrew agrees. What he doesn’t know is that this quest will lead him straight into the heart of that from which he is trying to escape. Includes Readers Guide.

Ona Russell holds a PhD in American literature from UC San Diego, where she also taught for many years. She’s a frequent speaker at literary events, including the famed San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference. Her essays and academic articles have appeared in literary and legal journals nationwide. Sunstone Press published her three previous novels, including The Natural Selection, a California Book Award finalist, and Rule of Capture, an IPPY silver medal winner for regional fiction. Ona lives in Solana Beach, California. Please visit onarussell.com for more information.

Cover design by Lauren Kahn.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-336-2
224 pp.,$29.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-298-3
244 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-588-4
224 pp.,$3.99

Stories of people who live largely on the economic margins of middle class society, in the midst of cultural transformations that changed the world as we knew it, and in the day to day grind of making do.

Order from Sunstone Press: (505) 988-4418

Hank Williams’ song “A Picture From Life’s Other Side” talks about the “gallery of pictures” that stands opposite those of “love and of passion...and of youth and of beauty”: the gambler who’s lost all his money; the old mother home alone, waiting; the heartbroken mother and child. This book extends that gallery to include the stories of those who live largely on the margins of modern day society, be it physically, culturally, or economically. Some of them choose to live there, others live there by default. While they experience the same range of desires and emotions as everyone else in this world, maybe theirs are a little closer to the bone. There’s some mourning of what’s been lost, some soul searching about what to want, but a lot of acceptance of what there is. Kay Matthews is the chronicler, maybe a little bit of an interpreter, but definitely not the judge.

Kay Matthews is a freelance journalist and editor of La Jicarita, an online journal of environmental politics. She and her partner Mark Schiller started La Jicarita in 1996 as the print newspaper of a watershed watchdog group. The paper soon expanded to investigate environmental and social justice issues all over northern New Mexico. She lives on a farm in El Valle where she raised two children, grows fruit, vegetables, and pasture hay, and served as an

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-118-4
148 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-459-7
148 pp.,$4.99

With the Cold War raging and espionage flourishing, a summer of innocent pranks turns deadly.

It seems J.T. and Mickey will never learn. This summer they’ve decided to break the record (for the most original pranks) of the immortal Judd and Howie. They begin their quest by setting off cherry bombs in their sixth-grade classroom, then progress to dropping dummies (mannequins) from overhanging trees in front of California tourists and continue by placing cracker balls under the Sunday school chairs of the senior citizens. Unfortunately, their next prank goes very wrong. During a game of Town Bell, they lock a friend/rival, Weird Willie, in English stocks. Unfortunately, when they return to release him, Willie has vanished. Set during the Cold War of the 1950s, with Soviet espionage looming as an ominous backdrop, this also is an era when society is more tolerant of juvenile pranks. Sheriff Meecham, however, is getting fed up with the boy’s shenanigans and threatens if they don’t produce Willie soon, he’ll charge them with murder. Includes Readers Guide.

Following graduation from the University of Utah Medical School, Dr. Stucki practiced urology in southern Utah for thirty-eight years. At St. George Regional Medical Center, he served as Chief of Surgery, Chief of Staff and as a member of the Hospital Governing Board. Presently, he teaches two classes and is vice president of the Institute of Continued Learning at Utah Tech University. Town Bell is the prequel to his first, and highly popular Boy’s Pond. His Doctor Cooper Series includes: The Death of Samantha Rose, Hemorrhage, Mountain Mayhem and The Reluctant Carnivore. Stucki is the author of a medical mystery, Hunting for Hippocrates and an historical novel, Sagebrush Sedition, chronicling the creation of The Grand Staircase National Monument. All novels are published by Sunstone Press.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-640-0
318 pp.,$42.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-550-2
318 pp.,$28.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-721-5
318 pp.,$4.99

Order from Sunstone: (505) 988-4418

This collection of stories describes events or episodes in the life of a varied group of individuals during the most dramatic period of American history—the settlement of the American West. The reader will witness the hardship and suffering of the Donner-Reed Party; the heroism of Portugee Phillips, the messenger bringing news of the Fetterman Massacre; the tragic events connected to Major John W. Powell's exploration of the Grand Canyon; and the disastrous effort of the Minnesota Sioux to drive the white interlopers from their traditional hunting grounds. There is a glimpse of the rough and tumble life in the gold rush towns of Alaska and Colorado, a failed attempt at a robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, and the violent death of Jack Slade, a former manager of a stage coach station in Julesburg, Colorado, mentioned in Mark Twain's book, Roughing It. Historical notes at the end of the tales provide the reader with actual facts and broader context in which these events took place.

Jiri Cernik was born in Jicin, Czechoslovakia and immigrated to the United States in 1967 where he earned an MA in German language and literature at George Washington University. He has worked at the Foreign Service Institute, Educational Bureau of the U.S. Department of State as the Language Training Supervisor of Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Greek sections. In addition to his work in the field of linguistics and language pedagogy he has pursued his interest in American history, particularly the settlement of the American West. He has traveled extensively throughout all states west of the Mississippi and is the author of several novels, stories and non-fiction works dealing with this area and people who settled it. Two, published in the Czech Republic, are The Wild West and With a Tomahawk Against the Muskets, a two-volume detailed history of the Indian Wars covering the time period 1621–1890. He is retired and lives with his wife in Needmore, Pennsylvania where for many years they have raised and showed Morgan horses.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-082-8
160 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-402-3
160 pp.,$4.99

Little is known about the boyhood of the real Billy the Kid, but this is the way it could have gone for him during his growing-up years, shared here with his fictional best pal, Willie the Kid.

Both born in New York City in 1859, William Tweed Bonnifield acquires the nickname Willie the Kid when he emerges from the womb laughing, but William Henry McCarty won’t be christened Billy the Kid until he becomes notorious many years later. The fatherless boys meet in an Indianapolis classroom when Billy hits Willie with a hard-boiled egg and Willie doesn’t snitch. They become bosom buddies, and their mothers, Charlotte and Catherine, bond as two struggling “widows.” Mischief maker Billy proves popular with boys and girls alike. Well-behaved Willie looks for direction, for better or worse, from Billy. After Indianapolis, the close families stay connected in Wichita, Kansas, and Denver, Colorado, before venturing to New Mexico Territory. In Santa Fe Catherine marries would-be gold prospector Bill Antrim; later, in Silver City, Charlotte weds carpenter Fred Schellschmidt. Willie and Billy must deal with growing pains, worrisome mothers, indifferent stepfathers, Wild West hard cases, teachers, lawmen, and a deadly case of consumption. When his mother dies, teenaged Billy is set adrift, commits a minor crime, escapes jail, and runs off to the Arizona Territory. Of course, his best pal comes along. But how long can they stick together? The bolder of the two is destined to become the infamous Billy the Kid. But will Willie the Kid follow the same outlaw path or will the boyhood amigos live out different lives in New Mexico? Includes Readers Guide.

The author grew up in New York and Ohio, majored in history at the University of New Mexico, and worked for newspapers in Hobbs and Las Cruces, as well as New York City, Missoula, Montana, and Leesburg, Virginia. His previous historical novels include Captured: From the Frontier Diary of Danny Duly (2014), Our Frontier Pastime 1804-–1815 (2019), Man from Montana (2021), The Call of McCall (2022), and Mountain Woman: How She Defied the Odds in the Time of the Mountain Men (2023). Greg lives in Virginia but periodically returns to New Mexico to visit his old haunts and those of the Kid.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-635-6
174 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-737-6
174 pp.,$3.99

The startling and brutal murder of two teens in a rural 1960s community seems to have been committed by another teenager—the brother of one of the victims—who is arrested and put on trial, while some kids at the center of the murder’s circumstances stumble upon remarkable evidence that puts everything in doubt.

On an October Saturday night in the 1960s, a motley group of local kids in a rural community, who call themselves the Watchers’ Club, set out on an innocent lark to their local lovers’ lane. Their mission: sneak up on any parkers who might show up. To their delight, they discover a couple of teens making out, one of whom they recognize after they briefly shine a flashlight into the vehicle’s cab—the butcher’s son in his father’s delivery truck. After gleefully disturbing the couple and then running off into the forest, they gather in full innocence to congratulate themselves: mission accomplished. But one of their group, the hapless outsider, Jacob Slough, does not show up. Over the next few days, news emerges that two persons are missing, which then becomes two persons murdered—and at Lovers’ Lane, that night! The community sorely needs to find someone guilty, and all evidence points to poor Jacob. The other kids can’t believe it, nor, when they find out, can they believe who was with the butcher’s son that night. While a prosecutor presents powerful evidence that points to Jacob, two of the kids stumble upon some unexpected and odd evidence that changes everything—all thanks to a stray cat. This novel, with its quick-moving dialogue, odd local characters, quirky moments, and unforeseeable ending, is a compelling, highly original story of innocence and guilt.

G. Kim Blank has published in many genres, including four non-fiction books, as well as co-authoring two writing manuals. Recently he has written an acclaimed online biography of the poet John Keats. Between and during educational stints, he has lived in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, New York, Wales, Southampton (England), and Namibia. He is Professor of Literature at the University of Victoria. The Fisherman’s Secret, the prequel to The Watchers’ Club, is also published by Sunstone Press.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-530-4
234 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-716-1
2234 pp.,$4.99

From the Ukrainian-Russian front to the horrors of Hamburg’s firestorm, Nick Hrab somehow manages to survive and find love in a world turned upside down with hate.

When It All Comes Around is based on the story of the author’s brother and sister-in-law, who emigrated from the Ukrainian/Romanian border area, during World War II. In this tale of survival during wartime. Nick Hrab had just begun milking his family cow one morning when the invading Russian army sends him racing beneath a hailstorm of bullets. With half their family and half their village murdered, the Hrab family fights with the underground resistance for a short time before seeking shelter in Germany. Meanwhile, Hilda, the daughter of a locomotive engineer, is growing up on the sheltered island of Lindau, Germany, directly below the Swiss, German and Italian Alps. After her father is sent to Paris, she and her mother live in Munich, for a time, but the bombing is so heavy they must return to Lindau for safety, only to be caught up in the vengeance of their French and Turkish captors. After a night of Christmas dancing, where Nick and Hilda fall in love, they decide to go to America. Having given up everything for love, Hilda embraces the challenges of leaving everything behind to start a new life in America, while her mother-in-law secretly seeks to destroy her reputation and friendships abroad.

Steven M. Best grew up in the Great Lakes region, in Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio. After a tour of duty in Vietnam, he married into a Ukrainian family, whose story of survival during World War II seemed somewhat of an epic love tale. After retiring from private practice, Best spent several years researching and writing Nick and Hilda’s special story of finding love in a world turned upside down by hate. His first novel, When Philosophers Were Kings, also from Sunstone Press, told the story of his family's many trials during the Civil War, and was critically acclaimed by Midwest Book Review and many others. After its release in 2004, Best received honorable mention at the Georgia Writer of the Year Awards. This is his second novel.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-528-1
180 pp.,$22,95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-696-6
180 pp.,$4.99