Autobiography of the Lower East Side
by Rashidah Ismaili
“This well established poet makes a brilliant debut in fiction with these complex, poetically detailed, interrelated stories of Blacks from Africa, the Caribbean and the USA who converge and form an artistic community in the early 1960s in the most easterly regions of Alphabet City .” — David Henderson, author of ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky
Inhale the exotic spices from tenement hallways, smell the sweat and garbage in the streets, feel the swelter of summer in the City. Taste the African dishes: rice and pepper sauce, stewed fruits, tagine, okra soup, bread and fish.
Walk the alphabet streets in the daytime, weaving among pushcarts, or at night in the biting winds of winter, footsteps too close at your back. Sway to the cool jazz. Groove to the lilt of African voices reciting poetry, intoning prayers. Follow a junkie riding out a Jones, an anarchist handing out pamphlets, a pacifist leading a draft resister on the Underground route to Canada.
Ismaili is an internationally-renowned poet, and her mastery of language shows! Her richly-evoked setting in this collection of linked short stories presents characters learning to survive in the jazz scene, the theater, and the arts while dealing with interracial relationships, abuse, addiction, and the toll of the Vietnam draft.
Available in bookstores and online.
ISBN 978-1-937997-48-9
Ebook Edition, $5.99 U.S. Trade Paper Edition, $17.95 U.S.
Kindle Nook Kobo Paperback Indiebound
Don Juan in Hankey, PA
by Gale Martin
“Packed with comic misadventures, mystery, intrigue and opera lore, the book rollicks along to a satisfying conclusion….readers need not be opera buffs to enjoy this novel.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Gale Martin is an opera fan who writes about opera for fun . . . [A] charming, intelligent and welcome first novel.” — Curled Up With a Good Book
Peek beneath the surface of an extraordinary small-town opera company, and get to know a fabulous cast of characters: determined flirts, a lusty singing gaucho, ingenious manipulators, a bipolar ketchup heiress, devious lovers, and some very determined ghosts. Delve into high society in Hankey, Pennsylvania—a world of simmering seductions, convoluted mysteries and entertaining intrigues. You may laugh out loud. You may cheer for the gang of misfits trying to save their opera house from foreclosure by improbably staging a world-class production of Mozart’s masterpiece. You may feel a tug at your heartstrings as lonely lovers look for new romance. Don Juan in Hankey, PA will delight readers everywhere, opera lovers or not!
New edition has been revised by author and re-edited by Northampton House Press.
ISBN 978-1-937997-71-7
Ebook Edition, $7.99 U.S. Trade Paper Edition, $15.95 U.S.
Nesting Dolls
by Salena Fehnel
“Suspenseful and moving … This author has a talent for telling a story and telling it well.” — Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
Seventeen-year-old Valentine barely gets by, spending her time, energy, and money caring for her younger brother, Jonathon. Her mother lives recklessly and selfishly, occasionally sobering just enough to see her children through glassy eyes. After yet another violent episode involving her mother’s boyfriend, Valentine decides to run away, taking Jonathon with her. Searching for a better life, she gets halfway across the country only to receive shocking news from home.
In a flashback to twenty years before, Valentine’s mother Theresa, privileged daughter of a small-town police chief and a strict, repressive mother, finds herself devoid of options when she lands in Los Angeles, 13 years old, pregnant, and without a clue. Life on the street is ten times meaner than she ever imagined, and as she struggles to get through each day, she holds on to the hope of finally getting back to upper-class suburban bliss … if she can only make it out of LA in one piece.
And in yet another flashback, Theresa’s own mother, Caroline, plays the part of doting wife like a pro. But behind the designer skirts and lipstick smiles lies a married life of severe physical and emotional abuse. After having two children, Caroline settles into the idea of living in home with a man who terrifies her … only to have the love of her life show up on her doorstep, asking her to make a choice that will forever change her path and those of the women who will come after her.
Available in bookstores and online.
ISBN 978-1-937997-42-7
Ebook Edition, $5.99 U.S. Trade Paper Edition, $14.95 U.S.
Kindle Nook Kobo Paperback Indiebound
The Jiu-Jitsu Bum
by Chris Campion
For most, martial arts are a hobby — a way to stay fit or boost one’s ego. For others, they’re a way of life that pulls people from the depths and lets them face their demons. And a very few dedicate their lives to the martial way … becoming a warrior. Sometimes, that devotion can even save a life…
Evan Connor’s just been released from Lackawanna Prison in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His wife refuses to let him come home, so he’s forced to move back in with his mother. As if having no job, no friends, and a wife who’s threatening divorce isn’t challenging enough, he’s struggling with depression and drug addiction.
Evan finds menial temp jobs, but soon falls back into his old ways of getting high with street bud Tyrone and crack whore Ginger. He sells his mother’s antiques and shakes down his son, Tim, a struggling musician with demons of his own.
A martial arts tournament comes to Evan’s attention. He enters it in hopes of winning respect from his family, and the money to replace what he’s stolen. But to win, he must defeat a dojo bully who has it in for him, along with an even more seasoned grappler from a rival Jiu-Jitsu school. Can Evan pull his family back together, or will he sink back into self-destruction?
ISBN 294-0-148652-43-4
Ebook Edition, $4.99 U.S.
