Unintended Consequences
Release date 12/16/2025
Unintended Consequences weaves a tale of three disparate men—a young Black man caught in a violent gang, a struggling first-year teacher disillusioned by his challenging career, and a disturbed, troublemaking student whose recalcitrance lands him in a strict military academy.
One discovers the convoluted tale of an aging Victorian mansion with its dark secrets taking his life on its own twisted journey.
One is nearly killed in a series of brutal hazings at the prestigious military school he is forced to attend.
One must face the victim of his violent crimes as he sits in prison.
All are ultimately thrown together when a young college student lies seriously injured from a life-threatening motorcycle crash.
This is a story of transformation as all three men are forced to find the strength to overcome the consequences of their lives. And all three will ultimately learn that unintended consequences have the power to lead to redemption.
Refiner’s Fire
Refiner’s Fire, a historical novel based in South Carolina, traces the lives of two young men, Rufus Bartholomew and Joe-Joe Daniels. Rufus, the son of a successful peach farmer, befriends Joe-Joe, a young Black man hired by Rufus’ father to work in the orchards. Working side-by-side Rufus and Joe-Joe become friends. Rufus develops an awareness of his own cultural racism as Joe-Joe learns to navigate in a racially charged world biased against him.
Aided by white privilege, Rufus acquires a position within the Office of Solicitor of Orangeburg County, South Carolina. Joe-Joe ascends quickly through the ranks of the United States Air Force becoming a Master Sergeant of counterinsurgency in 1960’s Iran. Returning home after his mother’s death, Joe-Joe receives a covert assignment in Orangeburg.
In their respective positions both Rufus and Joe-Joe are caught in the middle of a brewing firestorm that would ultimately lead to the Orangeburg Massacre on the campus of South Carolina State University. As one dam is constructed, usurping farmland to form a source of hydroelectric power, another dam, one that held back racial equality with bigotry and systemic bias, is burst.
Based on two epochal and historical events, the damming of the Saluda River to form Lake Murray and the series of events leading up to the Orangeburg Massacre, Refiner’s Fire is a tale of racial injustice and the struggle to overcome the cultural racism that marked the mid-twentieth century South.
How I Wonder
In a near-death collision, Jason Bennett meets the unlikely Alex Carlyle. In nursing the seriously-wounded Jason, Alex falls in love. The pair marry and adopt a young child whose father is from Rajasthan, India and holds a shocking secret which will recast the young boy, Ben, and his entire family. It is a story that affirms and celebrates diversity. How I Wonder is more about love, family, and cultural pluralism as expressed through the LGBTQIA community.
Aria: Tales Told in the Key of Life
Aria is a diverse set of short stories including tales dealing with the plight of immigrants, the challenges of growing old, the stresses of being a professional performer, and fresh insights into living gay in an all too frequently hostile society.
Significantly, one story is non-fiction. Entitled, The Bridge to Freedom, it is my own autobiographical years while I attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.
The Road to Golden
Long-distance truck driver, Mac McLemore walked into his house to find the shocking, bloody scene of his brutally murdered sixteen-year-old daughter, Eve. Her assailant’s body lay next to Eve’s. He had taken his own life realizing he had killed Eve, not Mac, his intended target.
In dealing with his overwhelming grief, Mac decides to keep his contract to deliver peaches to Denver.
Weeks after his daughter’s funeral, Mac loads his rig with cases of South Carolina peaches and heads to a giant warehouse in Golden, Colorado. The miles, Mac reasoned, would help heal the pain.
That long, lonesome two-day trip’s solitude would be shattered by Chastity Moore, a friend of Eve who desperately needed to escape an abusive stepfather. Her big brother in Denver promised her shelter, support, and the assistance she’d need with her most urgent need. Chastity Moore was pregnant. Urged by his ex-wife, Rachel, Mac could not refuse their insistence that Chastity be allowed to ride along with him to Denver.
Then there was Trevor, the enigmatic businessman who needed Mac to haul a couple dozen mattresses to Denver from St. Louis.
Once Trevor had his mattresses loaded into Mac’s rig, the story begins unraveling, and it becomes apparent that things aren’t as they seem.
By the time Mac returns home to South Carolina his daughter’s murder can no longer be seen as a random act of violence perpetrated by an enraged jilted lover. Her murder had its roots in Colombia, South America, and a shadowy man known only as Mr. Goodbar.