Current unpublished manuscripts
THE GOOD LUCK FIX
For fans of Pixar’s Up and the The Last Great Adventure of the PB&J Society comes a story of an unlikely friendship with humor, heart, and mystery.
Twelve-year-old Katelyn George trusts in good luck tricks to fix the things in her life that can get scary, like her parents splitting up.
When Katelyn learns that her 86-year-old adopted grandpa, Johnny Barrel, a resident at the nursing home where her mom works, has cancer, she wants to give him his dying wish: one last trip on the outside to a ball game. But with no family to officially sign him out, Katelyn decides to do it herself.
The escape works, thanks to Katelyn’s tried-and-true good luck fixes, but then to Katelyn’s surprise, Johnny ditches her. Now, she has to solve the mystery of where he went and why—and all before her parents find out and things become unfixable. All the luck in the world may not bring her parents back together, or cure Johnny Barrel—but Katelyn learns in an afternoon gone wrong that instead of trusting in luck, she must trust in herself.
THE GIRL WHO RIDES THE WIND
The Fourteenth Goldfish meets Back to the Future in this contemporary fantasy novel. Tidbit Jones not only needs to trust in magic, but also in herself.
Tidbit Jones wants to believe the stories that Arabian horses are magical and can ride the wind to different places and times, but she’s twelve now, too old for tall tales. Besides, if these horses were magical, her parents wouldn’t be selling them. Their farm may be failing, but Saberah is as much a part of Tidbit’s life as her own front teeth.
When a hurricane begins to brew, Tidbit gallops Saberah toward the barn and buries her face in his mane. But when the wind dies down, and Tidbit lifts her face, the view is different. The farm is no longer in disrepair. Horses dot the fields like sprinkles on cupcakes. And somehow, the barn and fencing are freshly painted—brand new like sharpened pencils from the box.
Seems like magic, but that can’t be. Neither can the thirteen-year-old boy, Nash, be a younger version of her dad. If teen Nash is Tidbit’s dad, then Cori, the girl with braids, must be her mom. That would make the nice lady who runs the summer camp Gram. And Colonel, who’s in charge of the breeding business, is the grandpa Tidbit never knew.
Tidbit’s head is spinning as fast as the winds that carried her to…the 80’s. If Grandpa is alive, that means Hurricane Hank of 1985 hasn’t happened yet. It’s up to Tidbit to solve the mystery of what happened to Grandpa in order to change her whole family’s fate. Disguised as a camper, she already detects funny business going on, and a fast-talking farmhand is sabotaging sales.
Tidbit is determined to uncover the truth before Hank makes landfall. Save Grandpa, save the farm, and save Saberah and herself. That’s an awful lot of saving, but Tidbit now believes her Arabian is magical, and it’ll take every little bit of magic to turn everything around.
DIVING GIRL
If history was written from the back of a horse, it would spin the tale of fourteen-year-old Arnette Webster, who captured the spirit of 1930s America with every equestrian dive she dared from Atlantic City’s Steel Pier.
At home around her family’s farmhouse, the only time Arnette feels alive is when she’s sneaking the neighbor’s horses out for a ride. When her older sister, Sonora, a featured attraction in Atlantic City, invites Arnette to spend the summer with her, Arnette jumps at the chance to prove to her dare-devil sister she’s no longer a little girl—especially if it means climbing aboard a horse, diving from a 60-foot tower, and plunging into a tank of water, just like Sonora.
But Sonora and her husband run the show, and Sonora keeps Arnette safely tucked away in the stables, doing nothing more than mucking stalls. That won’t work, and Arnette schemes how to get herself to the top of the tower, ’cause you can bet every clam in her purse that she’s ready to be a star.
When a dive goes wrong, and Sonora is injured, Arnette is presented with an opportunity. It’s a dog-gone shame that opportunity means her sister is holed up in a hospital for a few weeks, but Sonora will be back. And in the meantime, Arnette is eager to slip into her big sister’s sequined diving leotard and climb those seventy-nine ladder rungs up in the sky. The show must go on, even if it means diving horses behind her sister’s back.
But when Sonora’s injury proves to be more serious, and she goes blind, the trial of Arnette’s life no longer involves a tower, a tank of water, and a galloping horse, but taking her sister’s hand to prove to Sonora that there’s more to life than being the star.
DIVING GIRL is based on real-life sisters who performed on horseback in Atlantic City.