Tom Ryan is the oldest of five Irish Catholic children. Through his eyes, the story of his younger brother, Harry, unfolds: "Growing up, Harry was always the shining star of the family. He was the one you'd name if you were trying to think of kids who were holy, and the one I'd list as a brown-nosing little punk who deserved to get beat up on the playground for making it hard on the rest of us. He was the one God, and Grandma Ryan, had called to the priesthood." But Harry took a different path and chose not to enter the seminary, and eventually, not to be a Catholic. When he left for college...

Genre: Humorous fiction, coming of age, nostalgia Age: Appropriate for ages 10 and up King in a Court of Fools begins with a book - The Book of Tom - a journal writing assignment from Tom Ryan's sixth-grade teacher, Sister Jeanne Lorette. That's what she called it. Tom called it punishment. In it, he chronicles the adventures of the Caswell Gang, a group of siblings and friends with two things in common - their love of adventure and their allegiance to Tom, their king. The 1950s book was misplaced a long time ago, and all the children have since grown up, but Harry, Tom's youngest brother,...

It's Christmas Eve in sleepy little Gambier, Ohio, and a massive snowstorm is giving the rural town more than just a white Christmas. Roads are closed, everything is shut down, and the monster outside is angry, rattling the windows and howling in the chimney. Harry Ryan has decided to stay at school over winter break to finish his term paper, but it's not going well, and now he regrets the decision that has left him stranded so far from his family. You see, as well as being Christmas, December 25th is also Harry's birthday. As he looks out his window at the stark and beautiful campus, at the...

2013 Winner Independent Publisher Book Awards (bronze medal) for best eBook fiction. A story of life, love, and a journey of a thousand years... It was Monday, May 19th, 1975. I'll never forget that day. The Vietnam War had ended with the fall of Saigon that April, and the world was mired in one of its worst recessions ever. Unemployment in the United States was nearly nine percent, inflation even higher, and leadership lacking. The Watergate scandal had cast a smear across American politics, resulting in Richard Nixon's resignation in August 1974 to avoid impeachment, and his successor's...

One ordinary man, one extraordinary adventure... Universal Encyclopedia (713th edition, page 32,603, heading - Galactic History) On Sidereal 1031.42, as time came to be measured, our galaxy's five central worlds formed the first Congress of Planets. Headquartered in the city of Jandu on the planet Argon, they were tasked with governing relations between the known worlds. Walter Stickle knows all about this because it happens to be the backstory of his favorite comic strip, "The Galactic Rangers." (entry continued...) On that date, Congress enacted the Articles, a comprehensive system of laws...

Walter Stickle is back in this exciting, alien-packed sequel to Walter Stickle and the Galactic Rangers The parasitic, mind-controlling Goldotti, the most feared creatures in the galaxy, have broken through the containment zone surrounding their home world of Deamus, threatening to spread across the stars like an incurable disease. They will stop at nothing in their mad quest for total domination of all intelligent life. Only two things stand in their way. One is the most powerful force in the galaxy, a group of soldiers from the planet Argon who will journey to the ends of the universe and...

Book 3 in the Adventures of Walter Stickle series. The evil Goldotti are gone. The Earth is saved. Walter is a hero. So why is he not living happily ever after? Because the Galactic Rangers, the most powerful force in the galaxy, have been unwittingly creating holes in the very fabric of the universe as their ships travel through the dark space beneath it. Until now, these holes have been too small to have any effect, but an engine malfunction on Scout Ship Gamma has ripped a massive hole in space and time that threatens to destroy the Earth. So once again, the world needs a hero, but has to...