Our Books

Nonfiction

If you have a source of independent income that will support you—a job that’s not all-consuming, investments, a working spouse, Social Security—independent writing and publishing can be an interesting and fulfilling enterprise. The Complete Writer brings twenty-five years of writing, publishing, and academic experience to bear on issues that most concern people who want to be writers:

  • How to write better
  • How to write articles, websites, and books
  • How to write nonfiction
  • How to write fiction
  • What to do about writer’s block
  • Whether to self-publish or to seek a traditional publisher
  • How to prepare a book for publication
  • How to market books
  • How to manage a freelance writing business

This is a *FREE READ* Chapters will be published every few days at our blog, or you can order the entire book in PDF ($4.99) or as a print paperback ($19.99 + shipping).To purchase this book, please inquire through our Contact page. Or read the collected chapters, as they accrue, online at The Complete Writer’s dedicated web page.

Sassy, staid, off-the-wall, matronly, bitchy, conservative, liberal: with you I share the wisdom of the ages. The ages of a very long life. Enjoy!

This is a *FREE READ* Chapters will be published every few days at our blog, or you can order the entire book in PDF (4.99) or as a print paperback ($14.99 + shipping).To purchase this book, please inquire through our Contact page. Or read the collected chapters, as they accrue, online at If You’d Asked’s dedicated web page.

 

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For Kindle: click on the images

A doctor put Victoria Hay on blood pressure pills and told her he didn’t believe she could lose an excess twenty-two pounds. She proved him wrong. With a “real food” diet free of artificial and highly processed ingredients plus some mild exercise, in just sixteen weeks she dropped thirty pounds. Her blood pressure returned to the normal range and stayed there.

This book explains her easy-to-follow strategy and offers over 100 tasty recipes, some to use while dieting and some to save for special occasions.

At Amazon, for your Kindle reading pleasure. For a print copy ($14.95), send a message through Contact Page.
IMG_3006College students and their parents face endless tuition increases. Do you know what that tuition is buying—and not buying?

More than 70 percent of American college and university instructors are now part-time contract workers known as “adjunct” or “contingent” faculty. Despite master’s and doctoral degrees in their subject matter, many earn minimum wage or less, by the time course preparation, grading, website management, and in-class meetings are factored in. Few will ever land full-time jobs in higher education.

Quality of higher education plummets as full-time faculty disappear and are replaced by part-timers with no offices, no status, low pay, no benefits, and no representation. This book explains the short- and long-term effects of replacing professors with part-timers and chronicles one adjunct’s semester in America’s largest community college district.

Click on the image to find Slave Labor at Amazon. For the print version ($8.95, plus shipping), please inquire through our Contact Page.

FRONT Eagles framed image blackPete Morrow, an international banking consultant,  traveled the world for his work and his pleasure. In retirement he lived in Ulanbataar, Mongolia, where he, his Mongolian wife, and their daughter split their time between a small farm, a home in the city, and the United States. This book is a travel memoir of Pete’s many adventures around the globe.

Traveler is available only in print (431 pages): $20 plus shipping. To purchase this book, please inquire through our Contact page.

With sadness, we announce that Pete Morrow passed away after a short illness. All proceeds from sale of his book will be donated to one of his favorite causes, the Arts Council of Mongolia.

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Fiction

Ella’s Story
This is a saga about people who live ordinary lives as citizens of a vast interstellar empire. Indeed, a galactic empire. Ella’s Story, a kind of e-telenovela, is very much a work in progress. There’s always more to come…

This is a *FREE READ* Chapters will be published every few days at our blog, or you can order the entire book in PDF (4.99) or as a print paperback ($9.99 + shipping).To purchase this book, please inquire through our Contact page. Or read the collected chapters, as they accrue, online at the Ella’s Story dedicated web pabge

Fire-Rider: The Collections
In Print and eBook

1 FR Hard Copy 1 Take 4 FRONT COVERThe Saga Begins: The first six books of the Fire-Rider collection!
Tavio Ombertín, a war captive rescued from a burning, sacked city, ends up in the hands of the fierce warlord Kaybrel Kubna of Moor Lek. Traveling across a landscape scarred first by climatic warming and then by an ice age, the two develop an uneasy alliance as the younger man struggles to survive and adapt to a foreign people and an alien lifestyle. For the whole saga, $9.99 in Kindle at Amazon, click on the image at left.

Suggested retail price: $14.95. Get the  print book (317 pages) at the SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S PRICE, just $9.99 plus shipping by ordering it through our Contact page.

https://www.amazon.com/Saga-Begins-Fire-Rider-Boxed-Books-ebook/dp/B0172RQ624?ie=UTF8&keywords=hay%20the%20saga%20begins&qid=1462808301&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1Fire and Ice: Six more books!
Kay leapt onto his horse and spurred Demon toward his own band. He heard Lhored give another order: “Fol—put that one out of her misery.” The thunder of Demon’s hooves almost drowned the woman’s scream. He didn’t hear the arrow that whizzed out of the hills and into the young herdsman’s back.

The allied war bands of A’o and Okan are drawn into the fierce Battle of Loma Alda, a fight whose consequences will echo down through several generations. In the trials to come, Kaybrel Kubna of Moor Lek and his cousin, Jag Bova Mayr of Rozbek, will win the titles “Fire-Rider” and “Snow-Killer” through their valor and desperate bravery. For the whole saga, $9.99 in Kindle at Amazon, click on the image at left.

Suggested retail price: $14.95. Get the  print book (221 pages) at the SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S PRICE, just $9.99 plus shipping by ordering it through our Contact page.

https://www.amazon.com/Saga-Begins-Fire-Rider-Boxed-Books-ebook/dp/B0172RQ624?ie=UTF8&keywords=hay%20the%20saga%20begins&qid=1462808301&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1Homeward Bound
A happy shout went up, a great celebratory back-slapping holler that bounced off the roadcuts and rolled downcanyon to reach, far below, the waiting sentries. From them the word raced into town: a good-sized band of foreigners was on its way, loud, road-weary, and ready to party. Dealers in every kind of comfort and treat stirred to make themselves ready: innkeepers and food vendors, barmen and fancy ladies, bathhouse proprietors and livery stablers, candlers and bakers and blacksmiths and tinkers, coopers and wheelwrights, cobblers and haberdashers and curriers, vintners and brewers, hawkers of trinkets and gadgets and snacks sweet and savory. Beggars also came out, and musicians, acrobats, gamblers, tricksters, actors, and the sheriff and his men, all to greet the welcome company from Okan and A’o.

The warrior bands of Okan and A’o, rescued from extermination by the heroics of Kaybrel Kubna of Moor Lek and Jag Bova Mayr of Rozebek, flee into the high mountains bordering the long inland valley where they spend their summers raiding. After a long and difficult march, they approach the ancient and rich trading center of Lek Doe. or the whole saga, $9.99 in Kindle at Amazon, click on the image at left.

Suggested retail price: $14.95. Get the  print book (229 pages) at the SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S PRICE, just $9.99 plus shipping by ordering it through our Contact page.

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Fire-Rider: Collect the Individual Stories
Available Only as eBooks
(Click on the thumbnail to buy)

1 fire-book-1aiBook I: A Gift for the Kubna

The city of Roksan lies burning in ruins after the fierce war bands of A′o and Okan vent their rage on an ancient enemy. This book tells the story of how Kaybrel, a powerful Okan warlord, came  into possession of the orphaned Tavio Ombertín and why, despite his better instincts, he decided to keep the youth as his camp boy.

2 w-fire-book-2aiBook II: The Spoils of War

Tavio, rendered nearly catatonic by the horrors he has endured inside the burning city, believes the ghosts of his slaughtered mother and sisters are coming to take him with them.

3 fire-book-3aiBook III: The Journey Begins

The Okan and A′oan war bands allied under the  Okan chieftain Lhored of Grisham Lekvel move on after sacking their enemy’s largest city. Kaybrel Kubna (“warlord”) of Moor Lek displays his broad knowledge of and foreign peoples and his wily nature.

4 fire-book-4aiBook IV: Ghosts

Tavio, making friends among other Espanyo camp followers, gets into a fight with the rowdy Porfi. Kay is surprised that Tavi manages to hold his own. Kay’s retainer Fallon Mayr of Cheyne Wells takes Tavi for a ride on his war horse; when Raider spooks in a dusky arroyo, Tavi is convinced the animal saw a night ghost. Kay and Tavi exchange sharp words after Kay expresses his impatience with superstition.

5 fire-book-5aiBook V: Kay’s Ghosts

Kay and Tavio quarrel. In the aftermath, Kay tells Tavio of the Socalinerio siege and destruction of Moor Lek.

6 fire-book-6-aiBook VI: Rik Kubna of Puns

Kay loses his temper with his distant cousin, Rik Kubna of Puns. A hostile confrontation ensues, stemmed only by the presence of Rik’s retainer, Jag Bova Mayr of Rozebek. Kay’s sidekick and friend, Fallon Mayr of Cheyne Wells, doesn’t help things by suggesting that Moor Lek should put a lid on it.

7 fire-book-7-aiBook VII: The Battle of Loma Alda

Kaybrel, ever wily, is himself deceived when the bands of warriors encounter a woman who distracts them with claims of an attack on a nearby settlement. An ambush ensues.

8 fire-book-8-aiBook VIII: The Lake of Fire

Fleeing the enemy, the retreating Hengliss allies find their way blocked by a raging brush fire. They’re rescued only through Kaybrel of Moor Lek’s desperate heroics.
9 fire-book-9-aiBook IX: Into the Mountains

The Hengliss and A’oan allies retreat into the Sehrra Mountains, bearing their wounded and dying with them as they bushwhack uphill toward the high Dona Paz trail. Kay’s closest friend, Fallon Mayr of Cheyne Wells, is among the wounded.

10 fire-book-10-aiBook X: Snow-Killer

Kaybrel, along with Binsen Kubna of Oane Lek and Jag Bova Mayr of Rozebek, goes to reconnoiter ahead of the Okan and A’oan war bands that are groaning up a steep ravine toward the Dona Paz road.

11 fire-book-11-aiBook XI: Toward Lek Doe

The Okan and A’oan bands under Lhored Brez (“king”) of Grisham Lekvel labor to haul themselves and their wagons up a long, steep ravine that bears them toward the Dona Paz Road, a trail that leads through a high pass in the Sehrra Muns.

12 fire-book-12-aiBook XII: Faith of Their Fathers

Cold, hungry, and exhausted, the Hengliss war party camps in a dark, rainy night. Kaybrel labors to treat the sick and injured fighters, many of whom are close to death.

13 fire-book-13-aiBook XIII: Lek Doe

At last arrived in the great trading center of Lek Doe, the Okan and A′oan bands settle into lodging of various degrees of luxury. Duarto has a terrifying dream.
14fire-book-14-aiBook XIV: In the Dark of the Day

Disobeying Kaybrel’s direct orders, Duarto discovers Mitchel Kubna of Cham Fos did not return from a night’s carouse on the town. Familiar with all the dives frequented by Lek Doe’s out-of-town guests, Duarto goes in search of the kubna, only to find his worst fears realized.
15 fire-book-15-aiBook XV: The Weaver

Kaybrel and Tavi explore Lek Doe. At a weaver’s shop, they find a cache of fine tapestries and fabric that Tavi recognizes as his uncles’ work, along with one of his own pieces.

16 fire-book-16-aiBook XVI: Thieves of Life

After a disastrous crime befalls them, the Hengliss war bands plan their journey homeward.

17 fire-book-17-aiBook XVII: Through the Desert

The surviving Okan and A’oan bands traverse a parched, hostile desert following the east face of the Sehrra range northward toward their homelands.

18 fire-book-18-aiBook XVIII: Into Okan

Arriving in the large Hengliss cowndee of Okan, the allied northern war bands part company, the A’oans moving east toward Boze and Metet in A’o and the Okan warriors dispersing toward their home villages and farmlands.