In November 1918, the Armistice agreement to end the Great
War or what we now call World War I (because, of course, there was another) was
signed on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th
hour. The following year, President
Woodrow Wilson deemed the day as one to remember. Over the years, 27 states
adopted recognition of Armistice Day and by 1926, the US Government decided to
make it a national observance. In 1938, it become official for each year. In 1954,
President Eisenhower changed the name to Veteran's Day to reflect all those who
served in any war as part of the United States Armed Forces. November 11 is now
well established as Veteran's Day with ceremonies, parades, and observances
throughout the nation. I myself will sell Poppies as part of the local American
Legion Auxiliary.
As an Army sergeant's daughter, the granddaughter of
veterans (both the Great War and World War II), and with a family tree
featuring many veterans, I often write about veterans – and their issues. My
uncles and many cousins also served.
During this month, I invite readers to enjoy my veteran
related stories. The first, At Face Value, is not yet available but the others
can be found in many places, all as Ebooks and several in paperback or even
hardback. All of my fictional heroes are not veterans but to me, all veterans are heroes in real life.
Upcoming from World Castle Publishing, At Face Value….
Blurb:
His little niece calls him “Uncle Beast” after her favorite
fairytale. Marine veteran Nicholas Reilly, severely scarred from surviving a
roadside bomb in Afghanistan, calls his isolated home “Beast’s Lair”. He’s
reclusive, suffers from PTSD, and has a lonely existence until he meets Maribel
Barbier, who goes by Belle. He rescues her after her car slides off the road
during an ice storm and brings her home. Unlike any other woman, Belle sees the
man behind the scars. Their attraction is there from the first night and
deepens as they realize this is something more than either one expected. He
battles PTSD but with Belle at his side, Nicholas learns to live a little more
each day. They have more to overcome together than his PTSD but he comes to
believe what Belle tells him – scarred or not, it’s just a face, it’s not the
man. Together, they seek a future and a life where looks don’t matter at all.
When Iraq war veteran Devlin rides his motorcycle into
Gracie’s life, he’s everything she’s not—wild, wicked, and more than a little
crazy. Opposites attract because good girl, college student Gracie wants more
of this bad boy. She invades his personal space, takes liberties no other woman
has dared, and although he struggles with PTSD, she sticks by her man. He
teaches her to live a little more and she helps him battle his demons. If
there’s any chance the shattered combat veteran can find his way back, Devlin’s
Grace can help him find it.
Excerpt:
His
twisted smile shattered her heart.
“Yeah, pretty much. Ever since I
got back I’ve walked in the fiery pits, burned for my sins, and tormented
myself probably more than any demon ever could.
I’ve hated every day, hated each night, and sometimes wondered why I
bothered to stay alive.”
“Devlin…”
“There
are names for being this fucked up,” he said. “PTSD’s one of them.”
When
he broke off, Gracie opened her mouth to say something, but Devlin quoted what
she thought was the Bible but wasn’t, not quite.
“Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” Devlin intoned, “I
will fear no evil, for I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.”
As he spoke he broke away from her. Devlin
came to his feet and stood, as remote as if he were on an unknown island. He laughed, without mirth, a bitter dry hoot
reminding her of rattling bones. “I don’t remember who quoted it first, but I
understood it. Later on, I adopted it as
my motto. I have to be the meanest –
otherwise, I’ve no doubt the devil will claim me as his own and damn me to
hell, a worse place than the one I’ve made for myself.”
https://www.amazon.com/Devlins-Grace-Lee-Sontheimer-Murphy-ebook/dp/B00JJ5ASF4
Pride – one of the seven deadlies…unless it’s your name.
Living in California, working undercover is still
surreal for Louisiana native Pride Slattery. He stands out – because of
his unusual name, his military service in Iraq, and even his disability.
Although he’s never quite adjusted to Los Angeles, he remains in place because
he’s lost any enthusiasm for the future. One day is just like another and he’s
schooled himself not to care. Things change, however, when he rescues a stolen
purse for a beautiful woman, Sabetha Hill, who turns out to be from back home.
He risks his heart for the first time in years as events propel him closer to
an unexpected future. When he’s billed as a hero at a traffic accident,
Pride is unmasked as a federal agent and danger looms ahead for both him and
his lady. Someone will live, someone will die, and whether or not there
can be a happy ending rests in Pride’s hands.
Excerpt:
Mistake.
Some hot shot political pundits and candidates deemed the Iraq conflict
one. In Slattery’s world, it wasn’t, not
the way the experts deemed. .
Failure. Too many armchair soldiers, the
kind his dad’s generation had called ‘garret troopers’ and wannabees said Iraq
had been a failure, an exercise in futility. It hadn’t been.
If Slattery accepted either as fact,
then his service in the sandbox, his sacrifice meant nothing and he refused to
acknowledge the possibility. Losing his
left leg from the knee down had to matter.
It needed to represent something.
If it didn’t, then it made a difficult thing much harder to deal
with. That, piled on top of his
inability to sleep well and the nightmares reviving his memories in country
became overwhelming. His lingering PTSD
provided frequent struggles and inner combat so Slattery couldn’t bear his
service being labeled either mistake or failure. Just couldn’t.
Bad enough that Southern California
had an abundance of palm trees and sand, both too reminiscent of the Middle
East for his tastes. Or that he was out
of his element here, missing the hardwoods and pine forests of his native
South. His worn boots stood out among
the designer sandals and his button down shirts against the bright colored tee
shirts with sarcastic sayings. His slow
drawl echoed odd among the upscale accents and clipped tones. He refused to eat sushi, wasn’t overly fond
of salad and preferred a good steak to seafood.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FPQMDAI/
When Marine Will Nichols returned from Afghanistan
with some serious scars, he retreated from almost everything and everyone. His
late night radio talk show is the one place no one can judge him by his
appearance but he lives lonely. One of his regular callers, however, Samantha
Callahan, manages to catch both his fancy and affection. No matter how he
feels, though, he refuses to meet her because he fears she’ll reject him. But
stubborn Samantha doesn’t give up easily and cares enough to take a chance
because where there’s Will, there’s a way.
Excerpt:
His guts twisted into knots made from barbed wire. “You don’t know anything, honey.”
“I do,
Will. You’re not the only person in the
world with a few cyber skills. I looked
you up and I know you’re a Marine. You
were stationed in Afghanistan and you were hurt in a roadside bombing.”
Despite her
soft tone, she held him in thrall. Will
listened, trapped and pinned in place. A
flash of pain seared his soul, the agony almost as great as when he’d been
burned. “You can’t know all of it,” he
said, schooling his voice to the same quiet pitch. “I don’t know what you’ve read or who you’ve
talked to but I guarantee you have no idea.”
“Will, I
know you suffered terrible burns,” she said. “I’ve known for awhile now. I knew before I came over and cleaned your
apartment.”
As soon as
she named the Judas who betrayed him, he’d track and kill the bastard. Through numb lips, he asked, “Who told you?”
“I read
about it online, first,” she said. “Then after you wouldn’t meet me, I talked
to people including Sam, your friend who’s the station manager. I called the station trying to get in touch
with you and talked with Taylor. After that, I asked around. I realize you think you’re the invisible man
but more people than you think know you.
You’re kind of a celebrity with your show and all. But a guy who runs around wearing a hood all
year and a ski mask in the winter tends to stand out.”
Each new
sentence stabbed into his consciousness the way a sharp knife gutted a fish or
eviscerated a rabbit or squirrel.
Everything he thought secure hadn’t been. His privacy didn’t exist. It was a farce, a phantom. If he could melt into the pavement, he
would. “Thanks for destroying my
fantasy,” he said. Although he meant to
be calm, his voice cracked with emotion.
“I bet you used to get off telling kids there’s no Santa Claus or Easter
Bunny.”
https://www.amazon.com/Wills-Way-Lee-Sontheimer-Murphy-ebook/dp/B00HPZTU7M
A death in the
family and a divorce brought Caroline Reaburn back to the mountains of West
Virginia, to her hillbilly heritage and Coaltown. Prepared to start over in a
familiar place, Caroline never expected her first love, Neil McCullough, to
come back into her life. Twenty years earlier, Caroline’s family moved away,
breaking the relationship and both their hearts.
From the first time Caroline meets Neil again, it's obvious that they still
have a connection. But Neil has scars, inside and out, and carries a lot of
emotional baggage. There’s no doubt about the love they share but they have
many obstacles to overcome, everything from Neil’s PTSD to a community tragedy.
It’s a long, rocky road but if anyone can manage to find happiness, it’s Neil
and Caroline.
Excerpt:
Beside
her, Neil quivered, eyes focused on the billowing black smoke and orange flames
ahead. She undid her harness to scoot closer, taking his hand in hers without
any response. The acrid smell of burning poured into the car despite the
windows being closed. Caroline dialed nine-one-one on her cell although she
figured other drivers had too, then turned toward Neil, worried.
“Neil?”
she said, remembering what he’d shared, how he had received almost fatal third-degree
burns after the military vehicle he had been riding in, came across a roadside
bomb. He said he suffers from PTSD but
until now I never saw any evidence of it. Caroline wanted to soothe and
calm him, but she had no idea what to do or how to do it. Acting on instinct,
relying on their old bond and her deep feelings for him, she said his name
again. “Neil, Neil, you’re all right. You’re here and I’m here and we’re fine.”
He
made another guttural sound and her heart shattered for his pain. If she could,
Caroline thought she would draw it from him and endure it in his stead. “Neil,
sweetheart, come out of it, please. I need you.”
She did, on many levels, but the
immediate urgency was to reach him, to break through his torment and bring him
to the present.
https://www.amazon.com/Coal-Black-Blues.../dp/B01LWQ72RF/
When Lorraine Ryan decided she wanted to pursue her long
standing dream of flight, she sashayed out onto the local air strip in 1925.
Although most of the fellows heckled her, Guy Richter, a former World War I
flying ace, offers to teach her. He nicknames her "Angel" and before
long she's flying with Guy.
The two are also falling deep in love but Guy is a haunted man. His demons
include his war service, the death of his only brother in an accident the
previous year, and the Valkyries that he evaded in France who trail him in the
hopes that they can complete his destiny.
Set against the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties in St. Joseph, Missouri, Guy
and Angel struggle to enjoy life, each other, and to find a way through his
personal hell for a happily ever after life together
Excerpt:
Guy smiled without mirth. “I’ve got
a few old war wounds that still kick up sometimes. When my plane went down, I
busted my right leg pretty bad, and sometimes when it’s damp or rain’s coming,
it bothers me. I got shot up, too, and sometimes I get a little piece of metal
or glass working up to the surface.”
“That must hurt,” Angel said as she
made a sympathetic face.
He nodded.
“Let me see.”
Across from them, Pop rolled his
eyes behind Guy’s back, but she ignored it. After a moment of hesitation, Guy
pulled off his flight jacket and unbuttoned his blue shirt with red stripes. He
slipped his right arm out of it so she could view his bare shoulder outside of
the A-shirt he wore. She could see the raised, puffy area and touched it with
one finger. Guy winced.
“That’s it.”
“Can I do anything to help it work
on out?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. I’ve heard
some fellas cut it on out, but it would just hurt all the more,” Guy said. “It’ll
do.”
Loath to touch it again because it
would increase the pain, Angel put her hand on the top of his shoulder, away
from the shrapnel. Beneath his A-shirt, she saw the raised white scars from a
terrible burn, some places still almost crimson. Angel touched one, her fingers
caressing the roughened, damaged skin.
“Did this happen when your plane
crashed, too?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Guy said in a sharp tone
warning her to shut up.
Without another word, he put his
shirt back on and then the jacket. She watched as he pulled a flask from his
hip pocket and drank. Angel caught the smell of homemade whiskey, rank and
almost harsh, but she didn’t say a thing. She wanted to fuss over his old hurts,
but she knew he wouldn’t like it. She ached to say something comforting or
soothing, but she couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t seem like pity.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013F5AU2O/
December 7, 1941 changed everything in
high school teacher Bette Sullivan’s small town world. The attack on
Pearl Harbor brought war and a new Army base just outside her community.
Soldiers arrived from everywhere including Private Benjamin (Benny) Levy from
Brooklyn, New York. Their chance meeting creates an instant attraction,
and soon they’re a couple. As their families are touched by war and the
day draws closer for him to ship out to the front, their intense love spirals
to new levels and they can only hope for a happily ever after, someday
Excerpt:
These were hers, personal and
private. Her great-granddaughter’s face
fell flat so she added, “I’ll read you parts of them, though. After I’m gone if you still want them, you can
have them and read them then. For now,
though, these belong to me.”
Bette
unfolded one of the letters, handling the thin paper with care. Her old eyes scanned the familiar
handwriting, still neat and precise although faded. Before she shared anything, she wanted to read
them over herself.
30
October 1942
Dear Bette,
Here I am, on ship with about a
thousand guys somewhere in the North Atlantic.
Still don’t know where we’re going but we got other ships all around us. Some of them got trucks, tanks, all kinds of
stuff with motors so I guess you can figure who they’ll want to fix them when
they break down. I’m no sailor so thank
God I didn’t go in the Navy. I’ve been
so seasick I thought I’d die for awhile, couldn’t even get out of my bunk but I
guess I’ve got my sea legs now cause I’m not so bad. Don’t worry, though, by the time you get
this, I’ll be back on dry land. We’re
all writing letters like crazy but they told us we won’t mail them til we get
wherever it is we’re headed.
I miss you, baby, so much. I think about you all the time and remember
all the good times we had together.
We’ll have more when this war ends, I know. I hope you’re doing all right, doll, I really
do. I can’t wait to get the picture you
said you’d send me but I can conjure you up in my mind anytime I want. I dream about you almost every night.
I guess Ma got pretty upset when
she found out I shipped out but she loves hearing from you so keep writing her,
please. She’s afraid she’ll be a double
Gold Star Mother but me and you know it won’t happen. I plan on coming home from this war.
Light a candle for me at church,
will you? If you get time, light another for David too.
I’ll write more later – all I got
right now is time.
Love,
Benny
https://www.amazon.com/Bettes-Soldier-Patrice-Wayne-ebook/dp/B00VSWVT7M/
Coming December 2023 from The Wild Rose Press:
