Read My Books, Short Stories, and More

Discover the different worlds I’ve created in my books and short stories. My works are available for purchase online. Order your copy today.

The Christmas Reindeer

A woman who hates Christmas moves to Florida to escape it but finds a baby reindeer and gets more than she bargained for. It includes seven original musical numbers and a screenplay summary.

Bergbuchlein: The Look Book on Ores

Bergbuchlein: The Look Book on Ores was the first book on mining ever written, printed sometime between 1505-1518 in Saxony, Germany. Translated into English in 1949 by the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, this charming 16th-century text with its original woodcut illustrations is again available to modern readers.

With references to astronomy and alchemy, the book ends on a promise to explain the exciting smelting process but ends abruptly with the promise unkept. However, the text was sufficiently authoritative that the scholar Georgius Agricola, often considered to be the father of mining, used selections from Bergbuchlein: The Look Book on Ores in his landmark work De Re Metallica, published in 1556.

To Romania, with Love: Saving the World One Child at a Time (Paperback and Kindle)

The December 1989 execution of Romania’s leader Nicolae Ceausescu brought news of his atrocities that caught the world’s attention. One such story was of the over 100,000 children living in overcrowded, underfunded orphanages due to Ceausescu’s mandate that required each family to produce at least five children. Some Americans sought to save some of these children from a life of institutional poverty.

This is the story of several families from Oregon who went to Romania to adopt some of those forgotten children. These are stories of bravery, courage, and daring as these ordinary women and men sought to do something extraordinary – to save the life of a lonely, frightened, homeless child. These are stories of saving the world one child at a time.

The Girl With Ten Names: My Escape from Laos to Freedom

In 1979, eight-year-old Choua Lee, a Hmong girl, was forced to flee from her mountain village in Laos with her family. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, they faced gunfire from guerrilla fighters, starvation, and land mines. Traveling on foot through the jungles and high mountain rainforests, Choua was separated from her sisters and feared she would never see them again. Crossing the Mekong River into Thailand, the family was reunited at the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, funded by the United Nations.

After eight months in the refugee camp, they made their way to the United States to freedom. Here, on the other side of the world, Choua and her family made a brand-new life for themselves. This is a story of the courage and determination of a girl and her family and their love that burned so bright that it guided them through a dangerous time. Written with simple language, the story is suitable for pre-teens as well as young adults and a speedy but satisfying read for adults.

Penumbra

This book is a collection of short stories and poems written in Syracuse, NY, in 1926 by Conrad Richard Edward Kolbe. It also includes selected poetry by Katherine Brown, Word War II poetry by Conrad Kolbe, Jr., and family memories and history by Eunice Ross. This book was compiled and edited by Mary Albanese.

The Patriotic Fly

On October 7th, 2020, during the televised Vice Presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris, a fly entered the stage and sat on top of Mike Pence’s head for a full two minutes and three seconds. As Americans, we want to know — why did the fly do it? He stood up for what was right. What was true. If you were a fly, what would you do? For the first time ever, the fly tells the incredible story behind the story.