The Grand Summer of Spells & Other Tales, is a collection of short literary fiction stories, written for an adult readership. The book includes ghost stories; drama or a social commentary piece (The River); and an adventure story about the magic in life and living. Each story reflects an important message or lesson about life, and is basically separated from "pulp fiction" by virtue of the rich symbolism and imaginative qualities of the writing-style itself, as well as in the opinions or statements inherent in the stories regarding man's quest toward his greatest ability. There is drama, ghost stories, and an adventure tale, stories to read by the fireplace at night with a warm brandy. The stories include: The Grand Summer of Spells; The Lighthouse; A Creature in the Woods; Silenced Screams Still Screaming (a tale about hypnotism & reincarnation); The Mysterious Guest Part One; and The River. The writer has been commented on as being a "wordsmith." The richness of the imagery is similar to Ray Bradbury, Anne Rice and Hermann Hesse; all comparisons which have been made by previous readers. Great stories to read outloud on Halloween, as well!

The adventure story exposed the unique and outrageous cultures of Nigerians, with more emphasis on the Ibo speaking tribe in the eastren part of the country. Nigeria is known as the giant of Africa. The book also portrays the flambouyant lifestyle of wealthy Nigerians, a lifestyle which has been the major source of evil in this society, and has led our youngsters to the edge of committing all sorts of dubious crimes and atrocities to meet up with the standards, circulating fake business letters abroad with the intent to dupe, ritual killings for sacrifice, demonic cults, child trafficking and many more. These practises have tarnished ruined the image and reputations of Nigerians all over the world. In this country we love money more than we love our God. It's very disgusting and appalling to see our churches turn places of worship into money making entities, contrary to the doctrine of religion brought to our country many years ago by white people. It's been said that "money, power, and sex" are the roots of all evil. Sex crime is at an alarming rate in our higher instituations. Professors have turned female students into their sex slaves to give them a passing grade in their classes. Despite all odds, we still have our unique qualities.

The Silent Generation
Born in the 1930s, coming of age in the James Dean '50s
Danny is a longshot in the horse race of life
Donna is the most beautiful girl in Clear Falls, Wisconsin
Paranoia and disasters abound,
as they marry others and travel disparate decades,
only to become their era's two surviving romantics.

Balbino,"a boy from a village", a "nobody" who writes a notebook about everything that happens to him within the repressed and stifling society of Galicia in the thirties and forties. He tells of the moral and social atmosphere that prevails asking and answering questions and details the most elemental social struggle. There is also however the story of a true but impossible love.

This book was first printed in Argentina in 1961 and became one of the most successful Galician books published. It has a lyrical style that immediately evokes sights and sounds of this part of Spain.

The author Xosé Neira Vilas writes from his experiences of the era and the lifestyle of boys growing up in that society and provides a rich insight to life of the peasant boy "Balbino".

What exactly happened when Romeo and Juliet, the world's most famous lovers, met for the first time? We know that the young couple met one evening in July and declared their love for each other immediately. We know that they married the next day and shortly afterwards proved that they were willing to die for one another. But why Romeo, wherefore Juliet? Juliet found Romeo irresistible, yet he was recently rejected out of hand by her cousin Rosaline. Juliet herself was a beautiful young woman, but 'all the admired beauties of Verona' were also present at the banquet where they met. What made Juliet, rather than any other woman present, so special in Romeo's eyes?

Shakespeare hints at many answers to such questions in the text of the play. In this book those hints are expanded and augmented by comments from some two hundred other writers, poets and the occasional scientist. Justifiable speculation allows more than 160 factors that contributed to their mutual passion to be identified and discussed.

When Romeo Met Juliet is meant to lead to a deeper understanding of Shakespeare's play, but it aims to do more than that. Using the Romeo-Juliet experience as a case study, it attempts to throw light on the mystery of human attraction that we know as 'falling in love.' For a privileged few, it is 'love at first sight.' That, Juliet suggests, is like being struck by lightning, but we suspect that it is how love should be.

---

Time is marching on and a new light is arising...

The Queen of Algernon faces her toughest challenge yet, when an unknown enemy from the past comes seeking vengeance. Decisions the Queen has made come back to haunt her, as a certain Denzelian sorceress casts a Dark Dream over everyone. What is Queen Alice willing to give to save those she loves?

Enter a new source of light. The Princess of Algernon is learning that not all adventures are fun and nothing in her life is simple anymore. If she is to survive, she must find and use her own mystic powers-not rely on those of her mother.

Teamed up with the Princess is a half-fairy lad, an aspiring bard and a young shepherd with a dark past. But in this world of complex motives and emotions, can they fight off their own demons within?

Before his shattering in a battle nearly 15 years earlier, the demon, Ralston Radburn, once said that evil cannot die because of the darkness in everyone's hearts. Could he possibly be right? Everyone is about to find out.

---

What exactly happened when Romeo and Juliet, the world's most famous lovers, met for the first time? We know that the young couple met one evening in July and declared their love for each other immediately. We know that they married the next day and shortly afterwards proved that they were willing to die for one another. But why Romeo, wherefore Juliet? Juliet found Romeo irresistible, yet he was recently rejected out of hand by her cousin Rosaline. Juliet herself was a beautiful young woman, but 'all the admired beauties of Verona' were also present at the banquet where they met. What made Juliet, rather than any other woman present, so special in Romeo's eyes?

Shakespeare hints at many answers to such questions in the text of the play. In this book those hints are expanded and augmented by comments from some two hundred other writers, poets and the occasional scientist. Justifiable speculation allows more than 160 factors that contributed to their mutual passion to be identified and discussed.

When Romeo Met Juliet is meant to lead to a deeper understanding of Shakespeare's play, but it aims to do more than that. Using the Romeo-Juliet experience as a case study, it attempts to throw light on the mystery of human attraction that we know as 'falling in love.' For a privileged few, it is 'love at first sight.' That, Juliet suggests, is like being struck by lightning, but we suspect that it is how love should be.

---

Onto a hidden farm stumbles a golf professional depressed over his lost game. Embraced by strangers... a ballerina, Yogi and cowboy. They, through mystical adventures, save his game, and life.

From a twenty-year old author...

You can only imagine the full plight of other people. You'll never truly be them, you're always you. Some people choose to respect others for who they are inside. Some people choose to stereotype others because of what little they've seen.

But what an individual person does... depending on their race, they have obligations, keeping widespread ignorance in mind. They have to gauge their own actions, measuring them across the Big Picture. If not, any semblance of equality becomes the Big Lie.

But when you're young, this isn't an issue. You're thinking about experiencing life. Doing what's best for you. Doing whatever you want. Doing what the influential people around you participate in. This can be positive in people forming opinions about your ethnicity. Or detrimental.

There's always sharp boundaries drawn across different races. This story is how one young man mires himself in the negative stereotype of his race, discovers the futility of the circumstances surrounding his actions, and ultimately transcends the stereotype which his elders and peers have created. The stereotype that he began to carve out for himself when he was growing up of the violent Arab.

But it's never easy. This young Arabic man grows up in the West and deals with all the negative influences in his life, both blatant and shadowed. It showcases his positive influences, and how he adopts them with a burning passion all of us can strongly feel.

Overwhelming the odds takes more strength than any of us believe we have. Everyone faces indescribable circumstances and tasks. Abolishing stereotypes in the West is just one. Love, caring, acceptance and joy are the goals. A neverending downward spiral into violence and soulless emptiness hold these goals back, taunting you with failure.

Gabriel Yusuf takes it all on.

Paradise is set in the Australian outback and Sydney.

At an earlier age Paradise Stanhope displayed amazing intellectual abilities. She taught herself to read and displayed a photographic memory. More amazing is her empathic ability, which enables her to pick up on others emotions to the extent she can foresee how situations will turn out. Her talents give her the ability to excel at everything she sets her mind to as well as the ability to relate to people on a personal level, offering comforts and security where other have failed. She also has the ability to survive off the land, having been taught by her aboriginal relatives.

During her medical internship Paradise is able to comfort all and make diagnoses where others were unable to. When a hostage situation is created in the ER by a violent mental patient, Paradise is the only one who is able to settle the situation, placing herself in danger and impressing the attending detective, Mitch.

After this Paradise decides her talents could be better used in the police force. Paradise faces many dramas and develops a relationship with Mitch. When her abilities come to light she becomes the perfect candidate to infiltrate a cult, which has already seen one policewoman disappear and left another with sever mental trauma.

Paradise is enmeshed physically and emotionally as she realizes she has family ties in the cult. She is drugged and impregnated without her knowledge and when backup arrives the entire group commits suicide with only a few of Paradises cousins surviving.

Paradise is now committed to finding a place for her cousins and dealing with the knowledge that she is pregnant while trying to continue a relationship with Mitch.

All work out in the end with Paradise settling her young cousins and resolving things with Mitch.

India like the rest of the world has always found lovers drawn passionately to each other in spite of society's customs, preferences, and barriers. Marriage in sixteenth century India was customarily regarded as one of family arrangement, not of lovers' choice or exciting romance. By the 1500's, when Muslims had conquered large areas of the country, love across the lines of the major religions was considered an even greater threat to traditional marriage, Hindu or Muslim. Portugal's colony of Goa and its Christian religion, arriving between 1500 and 1520, raised the obstacles to romance even higher. A young adventurer from a Muslim state, for example from Bijapur on India's broad southern plateau, might find his curiosity aroused by militant Christianity's “Jesuit” missionaries and dare to study under them in Goa. If that young Muslim were to meet a destitute Portuguese Christian girl and fall in love with her – indeed, find himself drawn into an astonishing romance – what would be the risks and penalties? Would the lovers be doomed to ostracism, or worse, by both their religious communities? The author has given the fated pair of lovers the names Aziz Ahmad Khan and Miralindo Bartolomeo, “Aziz” and “Mira”. The Persian Jesuit: A Romance of India in the Age of Akbar is their story.

India like the rest of the world has always found lovers drawn passionately to each other in spite of society's customs, preferences, and barriers. Marriage in sixteenth century India was customarily regarded as one of family arrangement, not of lovers' choice or exciting romance. By the 1500's, when Muslims had conquered large areas of the country, love across the lines of the major religions was considered an even greater threat to traditional marriage, Hindu or Muslim. Portugal's colony of Goa and its Christian religion, arriving between 1500 and 1520, raised the obstacles to romance even higher. A young adventurer from a Muslim state, for example from Bijapur on India's broad southern plateau, might find his curiosity aroused by militant Christianity's “Jesuit” missionaries and dare to study under them in Goa. If that young Muslim were to meet a destitute Portuguese Christian girl and fall in love with her – indeed, find himself drawn into an astonishing romance – what would be the risks and penalties? Would the lovers be doomed to ostracism, or worse, by both their religious communities? The author has given the fated pair of lovers the names Aziz Ahmad Khan and Miralindo Bartolomeo, “Aziz” and “Mira”. The Persian Jesuit: A Romance of India in the Age of Akbar is their story.

There are no second chances for life versus death in the remote hollows of the Appalachian Mountains. Alma Lee Holcomb, a young woman of sixteen and her younger brother, Jacob, discover this when a tragic accident takes the lives of their parents, Winfred and Grace. The children’s lives are turned upside down, far beyond anything imaginable. Setting their grief aside, they immerse themselves in the task of surviving within the isolation of Winder Hollow.

But their triumph over adversity is short-lived. When nineteen-year-old Alma Lee is confronted with a life-threatening illness, they are forced out of the hollow and into a modern world that is completely foreign to them. Courage and an undying bond between brother and sister serve them well in the modern world. Alma Lee and Jacob make their way in this uncharted territory, while never abandoning their humble beginnings and the mountains they love.

Jacob and Alma Lee come full circle when they return to Winder Hollow. The culmination of their dedication to a dream ends in a wave of emotions, as a memory from the past is revealed.

Phoenix is living far away from home and is having a tough time dealing with a stressful job and a cheating boyfriend. She wants to live a good life but she finds herself restless, unhappy and feeling unsettled. There is something missing.

Trey is connected to the wrong woman who almost costs him everything that he has gained in life. Her jealousy and rage have become very difficult and trying. He feels empty even in her company.

Both Phoenix and Trey must go through a deep cleanse to get rid of the clutter and the wrong people in their lives if they ever intend on getting it right.

Jack King is at a crossroads - Things haven't exactly turned out for him the way he imagined...unless, of course, getting dumped by his girlfriend, being a slave to workforce drudgery and living the life of a degenerate pothead were all part of the cosmic plan. Faced with the choice of either surrendering to the realities of this mundane existence or boldly pursuing his own creative passion for peach pie, the blues and the Chicago Cubs, Jack hits the road to live the dream and find friendship, love, money and the Big Time.