Bayou Gris Gris (2023). Collection of original children’s fables starring the same colorful characters introduced in Loup Garou like Boudreaux and Thibodeaux and a host of swamp animals that remind us of important life lessons too easily forgotten. (currently in work)
Blind Watchmaker (2018). Historical fiction novel set in the context of the infamous Scope’s Monkey Trial in rural 1920s Dayton, Tennessee. Hadley is an actual blind watchmaker who agrees to apprentice his wayward nephew Horace during the same summer that the circus trial comes to town. With it, come hundreds of reporters, thousands of curious on-lookers, and a peculiar mix of opportunists including flamboyant lawyers and preachers, boisterous antagonists, street vendors and performers. One visitor in particular, the young helper of the popular traveling entertainer Joe Mendi, The Gentleman Chimpanzee, catches Horace’s eye. As the summer unfolds, Hadley and Horace help one another navigate life and death while the world around them has immersed itself in the science vs. religion battle royale brought center stage in the trial. (draft manuscript complete)
Max’s World (2017): Fiction novel about an autistic young man named Max who is reunited with his truck-driver brother Pax after their mother dies. After rejecting leaving his brother in an institution, and seeing no other options, Pax decides to take Max on as his assistant. Then they embark on a series of unique deliveries that take them across the country where they meet unique people while accidentally solving unique mysteries largely based upon Max’s unique perspectives on things. (draft manuscript complete)
Le Grand Foutoir: The Big Mess (2016). Historical fiction novel that tells the story of a college journalism graduate named Preston that has no idea what he wants to do with his future. He and his girlfriend are back in his hometown of New Orleans under the pretense of him doing research for a novel he’s not really writing. When national forecasters begin to predict that a massive hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico named Katrina will hit The Big Easy head-on, Preston foolishly decides to ride it out so that he can write about the experience. Just like the city, though, he’s quickly overwhelmed by the deadly storm and its horrific aftermath, and his life-altering encounters are not at all what he expected. (draft manuscript complete)
Lemon Drops (2014). Young-adult companion novel to Frank Baum’s timeless classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Zoë and her family move back to Beech Mountain North Carolina after their father gets a job helping to restore the Land of Oz Amusement Park for its grand reopening. Soon after, she becomes completely overwhelmed by insecurity and grief, and decides to run away. Somehow, she ends up at the park with three acquaintances from school who are also part-time characters there – the tinman, scarecrow and lion. Together, they follow the twists and turns of the yellow brick road looking for a lost gold charm that belonged to her mother. After the tornado eventually passes, and dream turns to nightmare then back to dream, Zoë rediscovers that there really is no place like home. (draft manuscript complete)
Another Brick in the Wall (2013). Fiction novel set in the very near future that follows an unsophisticated family of dairy farmers from Wisconsin to an enigmatic gated society in Southern California named Eden. The formidable earthen walls that surround their new community effectively shield its residents from the escalating problems on the outside while inside, Eden and the Mills family thrive. Unfortunately, they soon discover that segregation doesn’t solve problems and that things that seem too good to be true, usually are. (draft manuscript complete)
A Ferry Tale (2012). Fiction trilogy that tells the fanciful tale of a man that operates a boat ferry and an unfinished and secluded motel on a lake in Kansas located near the geographic center of the country. Guests unwittingly arrive in pairs – WWII Vet and Japanese American, Pretentious Socialite and Pregnant Outcast, Hillbilly and Liberal Psychology Student – with burdens that their outside world of distractions encourages them to ignore. The all-encompassing solitude, however, compels interactions between superficially incompatible characters that
Gerred Lee 