Amaia is a sensuous young Jewish woman living with her parents in France in the early 1930’s. Highly educated by her teacher father, she fears the growing threat of fascism and antisemitism in Germany and the far right in France. While most of Europe is tilting toward authoritarians, Spain is leaning left and is on the verge of choosing a liberal republic that promises women’s suffrage and equal rights. She flees France to teach elementary school children in Basque Country on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.
Ganiz, an apolitical Basque sheep farmer, lives on a pristine high-altitude meadow in a cottage called the House of Ganiz. Large for Basques, he is known as a gentle giant. But he is in denial over the imminent civil war in Spain. His isolation and Basque aloofness aid in his avoidance of the threat. An inquisitive self-learner with a love for books and rationalism, he and Amaia bond over shared thoughts and ardent lovemaking. Acknowledging their differences, they call themselves the odd couple.
When civil war threatens to invade their sanctuary, Amaia pleads for Ganiz to abandon his denial and act to protect her and the children. When an escaped political prisoner from Pamplona arrives severely beaten to their meadow, Ganiz is forced to open his eyes and make hard choices that will mean life or death for his family.
The Sins of the Fathers is a gritty mid-century family saga about a hardscrabble, multi-generational, multi-ethnic family set on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies. Glenn Steele is the son of an abusive Indian hating father. When his father launches into a drunken rage and attacks Glenn’s younger brother with a knife, Glenn intervenes to save him. But his action triggers his father’s banishment from the household by the authorities. Twelve-year-old Glenn must now fend for his mother and siblings as head-of-household and is burdened with guilt for his role in his father’s banishment. Years later, Glenn’s granddaughter discovers through DNA that she is part Indian. This sets in motion a road trip to the Mogollon Range in Arizona in an old pickup truck called the McTavish. Glenn, his daughter Molly, and granddaughter Allie set off on a quest to learn the source of the unexpected genes and truths about his father that might set him free from a lifetime of guilt.
Laguna Diary, a Novel
Dark rumors swirl about the disappearance of a boy’s father after he rescues a pretty girl on Coast Highway from a driving rainstorm. For years, the boy struggles to answer why his father left him for a stranger without saying goodbye. Years later, he discovers a diary hidden away in a dusty box in the garage. What he learns from its pages leads him to discover that his father and the young girl died after sliding off a slippery road and crashing off a cliff into a raging sea a hundred feet below. Elsewhere, another girl watches her fisherman father sink beneath storm whipped waves, but only after he saves her with his last breath from the same fate. Their father’s deaths, their shared respect for the sea, and a love that grows with each of their many adventures is set against mid-century Laguna Beach as it hurtles toward the 1970’s.
Anton and Nadia live on opposite coasts of the vast Russian empire. He hails from cultured St. Petersburg, and she resides in Petropavlovsk on the Pacific coast of Siberia as the daughter of a Navy Admiral. Anton, a military intelligence officer, is on assignment to make the six month journey across Siberia to the new Russian territory called Alyeska across the Bering Sea. Nadia is a dreamy young woman with a talent for dance—not on the dance floor—but by the light of the moon in the forest. Her mother will soon send her to St. Petersburg to be gentled from her wilderness ways and be educated in the finer things fitting her class.
When Anton arrives in Petropavlovsk, he meets Nadia during a Slavic ritual held by a lake at midnight. There is a strong attraction, but their kindling love is doomed: he must complete his mission to Alyeska, and she must make the six month journey to St. Petersburg. They part after agreeing to send letters knowing that whatever they write will take six months to reach them.
Connecting the two on their opposite journeys is a Zaporizhian Cossack named Ilya. He seems to know much about Anton who dismisses the odd familiarity Ilya exhibits toward him by noting he is a Zaporizhian—a group known for being seers and shape-shifters.
Three years later, Anton is faced with a moral dilemma—betray a group of Indians he has befriended, or face court-martial. Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, Nadia learns of secrets about herself that force her from noble society. Both are now alone, isolated, and without sure means of survival. The only connection between the two lovers now is the mysterious Ilya who runs a hostel in the middle of Siberia halfway between the opposite ends of the empire. Might they find each other there and thrive in the avant-garde town of Irkutsk?
