Drew Wilson is a suburban father struggling to reconnect with his withdrawn and combative teenage daughter. He decides on a canoe trip down a remote stretch of the Suwannee River, a location purposely chosen to take her out of her element.
Most of the residents of Sumatra County are good rural people who take care of their own. Men like J.D. Lovett, the local preacher who forms a hunting party to take out a rogue bear raiding an elderly widow’s farm. A few others are eerily reclusive, escaping civilization in the dense woods that border the Suwannee. And then there’s Thaddeus “Blackjack” Knight, a brutal corrections officer born into generations of resentment; a man who has made it his mission to chase off anyone who doesn’t belong.
Drew’s decision to bring along protection seems prudent, given the hazards of the wilderness and the rural element that await them. But a string of sleepless nights and crazy encounters on the river leave the strung-out father struggling to decipher real threats from false ones. When he misinterprets the local’s intentions, he shoots Lovett’s son, and the battle to rein in his daughter becomes a battle for her survival. Their fate now rests in the hands of a rural southern preacher struggling to balance accountability with forgiveness.
2023 Royal Palms Literary Awards Winner
Gus McKendree has spent his retirement years selectively holding onto the past in his secluded Florida home on the banks of the St. Johns River. But inevitable change has crept into his life, in the form of declining health, intrusive housing developments, and alienation from his adult children. On the morning of his family-mandated move to assisted living, he slips out the front door in search of a life he has lost.
Equipped with only a small backpack and a few highlighted maps, accompanied only by his memories, Gus sets out to cross fictitious Bartram County with the hopes of retracing his boyhood footsteps. As his aging body reluctantly caries him through an overdeveloped world he barely recognizes, his mind returns to the one he does, recounting the discoveries and challenges of a coming-of-age trek to his grandparents’ coastal home.
Five O’Clock Shadows is the recipient of multiple 2024 Royal Palms Literary Awards, including best Short Prose of the Year.
Gavin Satterfield, the youngest son of an esteemed and accomplished 1950’s family, pursues a doctorate in nuclear physics as the path to secure his own legacy. His young wife Beverly leaves behind her blue-collar roots for the opportunity to join him. But the intense pressure to succeed proves too great for Gavin, and their shared dreams begin to crumble, ending with his untimely death. Devastated by her husband’s failures and her own lost opportunity, Beverly buries a tragedy of her own. A generation later, their adult children begin the painful process of piecing together what really happened during their childhood. The devastating realizations go far beyond truths left untold, testing the limits of the siblings' unbreakable bond.
Jimmy DeAngelo is a disillusioned construction manager who retreats to the natural settings of his childhood to search for answers. But his frustrations with life prove to be the least of his concerns when his soul-searching leads him to an abandoned lighthouse used by drug traffickers. His survival now depends on the unwavering dedication of a few close friends, his alienated wife, and an unknown vagabond. Because in the remote barrier islands and wild estuaries of coastal South Carolina, rediscovery of life can sometimes lead to death.