Welcome to Lavender Press

A Collection of Stories from the 

Chesapeake Bay Writers

The holiday season generates so many emotions, from trepidation about facing the holidays alone to sheer delight at rediscovering the love of family. Join the Chesapeake Bay Writers as they bring you a collection of short stories that all take place in and around the Tidewater region of Virginia, including:

A Corduroy Christmas: Will a new boyfriend unite the family or destroy the relationship between sisters?

Christmas Eve Deer: When life becomes difficult, the embrace of home is always welcome.

Christmas Mermaid: A misnamed bookstore and a Christmas to remember.

The Curious Case of the Christmas K9: A search & rescue tale with two dogs. 

Dancing on DoG Street: Was it too much to ask for a partner who would dance with her?

Holiday Haircuts: This holiday haircut was for a very special customer.

Safe at Home: For Angela, being in law enforcement meant more than a job, it meant taking care of people.

Snowflakes: One small kindness at Christmas stays with Katie for a lifetime.

The Greatest Gift: Santa’s job really is the best job.

The Homecoming: Can these siblings find their way back to being a family?

The Stocking: What was the true message that her grandmother wanted her to know?

Will and Trussy: A holiday season shared with a very special visitor. 

Available in hardcover, paperback and ebook. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple and wherever books are sold.

 by E. Compton Lee

People said it wouldn’t happen, 

but it did. 

The election brought in a wave of Nationalism that eroded the foundation of democracy, creating a country that ran on fear and darkness. 

Sloan Raffienne is an adult, working in the city as a chef. But life as she knows it ends in the year 2026, just as it ends for everyone in her family and community and country. She must somehow find her way back to her mother, Clare, and the small town she grew up in, because she is no longer safe in the city. But even at home, surrounded by the expanse of the mountains and people who worked together to stay alive, things are not what they seem. 

Because the soldiers are coming, and they are coming for Sloan and Clare and anyone who might be hiding out with them. 

As the newly elected President’s army gathers to carry out his commands, whispers of invasion spread through the community. A sickness is coming to sweep this small community away, all for one madman’s obsession, as a country reckons with the devastating consequences of an election gone wrong. 

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and wherever books are sold.

 by E. Compton Lee

A bureaucracy with the power to heal or hurt, and a child caught in their storm…

Clare Rafienne and her daughter, Sloan, live a simple life in the mountains of rural Pennsylvania. The last thing Clare expected was to have social services show up on her doorstep and remove her daughter.

As Clare fights the misguided bureaucracy that holds her family’s fate in their reports, Sloan struggles to survive the foster system. And John Avery, newly appointed to the case and the job, is doing everything he can to make things right again.

While Clare, John, and Clare’s friend Annie battle the system meant to protect children, they face consecutive hurdles that could ultimately save Sloan… or destroy her. 

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and wherever books are sold.

 by Patti Gaustad Procopi

From the author of Please… Tell Me More comes the highly anticipated sequel. 

Finally, Rose has found her soulmate, Jack, and is ready to live her best happily-ever-after life. But tragedy strikes in Alaska, where Rose’s brother and family live, and soon her world is turned upside down… again. Rose and Jack do the only thing they can: they take their niece, Fern, who has suffered a tremendous loss, home to Virginia.

Fern is adrift, grieving in a strange place with only her wolf-dog for a companion. Her mother is dead and her father is missing. Nothing will ever be the same again, but Rose is doing the best she can for young Fern, even as the temptation of addiction lingers at the edge of her world. Can Fern find her way in this new environment, moving from the wilds of Alaska to the wilds of suburban middle school? And will Rose and Jack survive too, or will they be casualties of an upheaval neither expected?

A deeply moving novel that speaks of the strength of family and the cycle of life, Patti Gaustad Procopi has managed to weave heartfelt emotion into a sweeping family saga that reminds us all of how much we yearn for home.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and wherever books are sold.

 by John T. Houihan, Jr.

  Book I

In 2095, we worship the wrong god.

Raphael Aronson is not concerned with things like religion and the meaning of life. His work is to create political resumes for people running in bogus elections where the winner is determined in advance of the vote. But when his friend is found dead, and it looks a lot like murder, he no longer cares about work. He cares about finding a murderer. And maybe figuring out what the heck is going on with all the televisions.

With the help of a few others, he pursues the truth. In 2095, the city has no police force, no cars, no cell phones, and is rife with hedonism. Raphael soon finds that those who profess they are trying to “Make the Republic Great” are pawns, unknowingly used by a power that was revealed in the stories of the scriptures and the textbooks of science. 

On a journey led by a mysterious recluse, who calls himself a Watcher, Raphael discovers that the blending of science and religion are not at all what he expected. What will he do with the knowledge he gains… that the FoxP2 gene, the Theory of Relativity and the Parable of the Mustard Seed are the answers to our current existence and the explanation of our future?

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple and wherever books are sold.

 by John T. Houihan, Jr.

What does it mean for our country to have a free press? 

What happens when constraints are inflicted upon the media?

To seven-year-old Kevin O’Connor, the smell of printer’s ink was the most delightful smell in the world. Back then, printer’s ink was the lifeblood of the local newspaper and, in some ways, of the town. 

Kevin began working for his hometown newspaper when he was in his early twenties, just after he returned from the war in Southeast Asia.

It was a job he held for a while, left and came back to. It was a job that meant he had the opportunity to dig for the truth, to highlight positive events in his community while exposing the more unsavory goings on that were always happening. It was a job that allowed him to help people.

After all, that’s what it means to have a free press.

But small-town newspapers were dying. Decisions were made to boost sales by hyping sensationalism.

Kevin had to decide what kind of journalist he wanted to be. Would he continue reporting when the standards shifted? Or would he walk away, leaving readers to wade through inaccuracies and untruths without providing a counterpoint?

As the structure of journalism crumbles, one man fights for what is right, knowing the stakes are high and the odds are against him.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple and wherever books are sold.

 by John T. Houihan, Jr.

Those who were never in war forgot that war is hell. It is not a euphemism. It is actually hell. 

He’d survived elementary school with the nuns. He lived through a year in the southwest, making friends in the barrio. He endured the class warfare of his Massachusetts high school.

So when college did not work out the way he’d thought it would, John did the next best thing: he enlisted.

Nothing could have prepared him for what was about to happen.

In February 1967, I was nineteen years old and had just landed in Saigon. 

He’d never paid attention to the news, and he’d never heard of the small country called Vietnam. But he quickly learned the language, the customs, and the problems that came with being sent into combat. 

It was late January 1968, and all hell was breaking loose in hell.

Our lives went from damn near unbearable to worse.

In this haunting look at an era of American history, readers begin to grasp the moral dilemma of kids sent to fight for something they didn’t know and learn about a culture they had to understand in order to survive.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple and wherever books are sold.

 by E. Compton Lee

Foster kids and best friends Shadaisy and Tristan live in New York City. The problem is, they just shot their social worker, a man who performed heinous acts every week. Now they are fleeing, with a tenuous plan in place for their future. But the clock is ticking, and they need to hide.

Josie Whitt and her dog have escaped to a run-down farmhouse in upstate New York. Josie is despondent, barely able to function. Her twin, Jaylene, is dead. It is all Josie can do to simply get through each day without disappearing into herself.

When Shadaisy and Tristan stumble into Josie Whitt’s life, their journey changes from escape to understanding. The Heartbreak of Josie Whitt examines the complexities of life, family, and love in a haunting novel that will remain in the hearts of readers long after the last page is turned.  

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and wherever books are sold.

 by Patti Gaustad Procopi

Starting over means figuring out where you are, how you got there, and where to go from here.

When Jane’s life falls apart in a most spectacular fashion, she questions how she got to this point. How did she manage to choose a best friend who would do the most clichéd thing ever and run off with her husband? What blinded her to the abuse her husband, Frank, heaped upon her over decades of marriage?

The answers to her life’s questions might be found in the generations before her. From her grandmother, Mamere, who threw away her family heritage to marry a baseball player, to her mother, Evangeline, who knew within moments of meeting John during WWII that he was the love of her life. 

The choices the women in her family made alter Jane’s outlook on love and life, but she learns that ultimately, strong women survive and love is cultivated in unexpected places.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and wherever books are sold.

 by Peter Stipe

A place where families came. Homes were built. Children grew, left for war, and returned. 

Through it all, the river runs, as it always has.

But people change and dreams shift and towns grow, and nothing good ever lasts… 

For years, Jack and Keira Sullivan discussed a future where they escaped the harsh urban realities in Boston. Instead, they would run a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire. When Keira’s mother dies, they use her inheritance to purchase a historically significant old house in Bennett Falls to pursue their dream.

What was once an ideal future soon becomes rife with problems: the isolation Keira experiences as Jack divides his time between Boston and Bennett Falls; the withdrawn attitude of the townspeople who do not want change; and the choices Keira must face in order to move forward with her life.

Can friendship and one small kitten turn things around for Keira and Jack, or will they find that their dreams are not what they once thought them to be?

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and wherever books are sold.

 by John T. Hourihan, Jr.

Moving was a constant, and often necessary, way of life for John. By the age of thirteen, his family had moved ten times. And now, as a freshman in high school, they would move again. To a place called Hopedale, a predominantly white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant town, a place where he was looked at as nothing more than an Irish punk.

He promised his mother he’d try, really try, to make things right with the kids at school. And the teachers. But some promises are harder to keep than others.

When his family loses faith in his ability to turn over a new leaf, John realizes things had to change. The year was 1965 and religion had turned its back on him, his friends suddenly declared themselves mortal enemies of all law enforcement, and Hopedale High School had shown itself to be nothing more than a place that existed in order to determine who would succeed in life, who would succeed in business, and who would work in the inferno known as Draper’s foundry. After graduation, John has one thing left in front of him that might help him find out who he was, where he came from, and where he would be going. 

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and wherever books are sold.

 by John T. Hourihan, Jr.

When readers first met John as a young boy in the book Baltimore Catechism: Clean Slate, he attended Catholic school and spent much of his time trying to discern exactly what the nuns were teaching him and what it really meant to follow the rules.

Now, John and his family face major life obstacles: housing, health and finances. When John’s parents decide their only option is to move West, John has no choice but to go. But the Arizona desert is very different from the Irish-Catholic Massachusetts town he came from, and he soon learns what it means to survive in the barren land he is forced to call home.

At times flippant but always thoughtful, this coming-of-age novel defines a year’s journey that takes John from crime to confirmation.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and wherever books are sold.

 by John T. Hourihan, Jr.

“My entry into concentrated Catholicism, a forced alteration in my DNA, was to take place today.” So begins John’s parochial education in this enchanting, semi-autobiographical tale of a young boy ready to learn the mysteries of the Universe. 

First-grader John has an interesting perspective on life, much to the dismay of the nuns at the Catholic school he attends. To them, boys who ask too many questions are dangerous and poised to enter the ultimate fiery pit. As he struggles to figure out the lessons the nuns are trying to teach him, John does his best to puzzle out the religious teachings and how they apply to his place is in this world.

This tale focuses on John and the complexities of his family, who do what they need to do in order to scrape by in a blue-collar town. Dominating the landscape of his life is his Irish culture, which informs every part of what he knows about family and the world around him. 

At times touching and often very funny, readers will identify with a young boy’s confusion over the contradiction between what he is told is right and what his heart tells him is right.

 by Patti Gaustad Procopi

This heartfelt story about  sisters, family and the tenuous connections we forge in life will stay  with you long after you turn the last page. 

Rose was a child when  the worst possible thing happened-her sister Lily drowned. While Rose  was supposed to be watching her. From that moment, Rose knew it was all  her fault. After all, that's what her mother told her. But life must go  on, no matter what, and Rose and her sister, Ivy, grow up in a family  without their little sister. In a family where alcoholism and arguing  defines their parents. In a family that personifies dysfunction. In a  family where anger forces their brother away. Was it any wonder that  Rose was so excited to get to college? Was it any wonder she sometimes  had a date with Mr. Merlot, the wine bottle she hid to help her get  through life's tougher moments?

At times whimsical, always  genuine, this story looks at the bonds of sisters and how family can  become our foundation even when we don't expect it.

Shop at Barnes & Noble, Amazon or wherever books are sold.

 by Karen Cavalli

What must be in all of time cannot be avoided. 

Dace Banks knows how to read the stars. She knows latitude and longitude, and she knows how to keep from getting lost. But when she encounters a basement lab hidden in a nunnery where she can cross worlds and time, everything shifts. Her abilities bring her into contact with Beatt, who is trying to enter her world from another. But who is he really, and can she trust that he will do no harm?

Faced with a decision that can alter the known reality, Dace must choose. Can she break free from the constraints of this world and become the being she is meant to be? Will she decide to cross into another state of being? Or will she instead explore the option of love with a mysterious business partner?

In this second of the series, connections are made from an era of divine feminine power to another century, where whispered voices carry secrets that unlock hidden truths.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and wherever books are sold.

 by Karen Cavalli  

Life as Mave knew it is over. Her mother, who acted as star counsel, has disappeared. A new race of beings has taken over her home. Everything around her changes as the people known as the Gigante tear apart the goddesses. Girls and women, formerly revered stand-ins for the Goddess and her creator—the cave-dwelling Ssha—either go underground with their beliefs or find a way to fit in with the new culture.

She finds unlikely allies along her journey, like Tear, the semi-divine being and Inna, a former holy prostitute kicked out of her communal home. But can she change what is happening and keep her spirituality a secret? Can she rescue the feminine spirit from the encroaching new order of the Sun God? 

Shop at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo or wherever books are sold. 

 by Peter Stipe

A whimsical story about facing  our deepest fears and greatest loves, and what we all must do to grow  into the life we were meant to experience.

Elizabeth's  secret began when she was five years old, a secret she held close her  entire life. As far as she knew, she was the only person who could see  the fairies living in her grandfather's garden. They play with her and  show her their world, and as she grows older, they guide her through the  important moments of her life. The fairies, and especially Olivia, were  her closest friends.

But where were they when  everything fell apart? Why didn't they save her grandfather when he  needed help, and why didn't they warn her about the things she had to  endure? Surely the fairies, who seemed to have a prescience about the  future, knew what Elizabeth would have to tolerate. 

After the  death of her grandfather, Elizabeth moves into his house to begin the  process of healing. But when her daughter begins to see and play with  the fairies, Elizabeth has a choice to make. Will she accept her  daughter's new friends or will she find a way to banish them from her  life forever? 

Shop at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo or wherever books are sold.

  by Christian Pascale

Within these pages are nineteen stories of a life. Stories of events  such as a first dance, reluctantly, between friends. Of Elliott, a good  friend who lost his way. Travel through Paris and experience the sights  and sounds of the city of love before journeying to a foreign land where  crime is rampant and safety is tenuous.

This collection traverses  time and far-off places and weaves together a life of friendships lost  and found. Within these nineteen stories, we witness the complex pattern  of living in a different era to the present day and the transition  between childhood and adulthood.

Shop at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo or wherever books are sold.

by Peter Stipe 

Finding Our Way is a collection of stories that explores the human spirit in its quest for knowledge, its propensity for endurance and capacity for love. 

Meet the runner who is passionate about the world around him. And the obstetrician who faces the most difficult delivery of his career. Gain insight into the boy whose vision quest illuminated the soul of the world. And race the marathon with the college student who may someday find his way home.

These eight stories contain an in-depth look into the world of the unknown and our ability to navigate the choices we face in order to create a better future. Buy now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play and wherever books are sold.

by Peter Stipe

Patrick drew. He painted. As an artist, he looked at the world around him and translated his feelings onto canvas. 

Mary was a graduate student studying French. She was deeply tied to her faith and everything that entailed being a devout Catholic.

When they meet outside the gates of the Rhode Island School of Design, the chemistry is immediate. But as they fall in love, their differences—and their friends and family’s differences—threaten to consume them.

Can they navigate the complexities of a relationship from such disparate places while sustaining their love for each other?

Buy now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play and wherever books are sold.

 by Christian Pascale

The year is 2050, and the earth does not look the same. Surge Saturday, the day the tsunamis hit, devastated thousands of cities. Governments were toppled and lives were lost. For siblings Tom and Helene, everything changed. They didn't have the luxury of staying in their family home and learning to navigate this strange new world. A new government has taken hold, and people are being forced into intellectual subservience. Anyone who disagrees with the new leadership is sent to their death. 

Tom and Helene know they have to run, but where can they go? There aren't many safe places, and even those are at risk. They decide to find their way to Blacksburg, Virginia, and are soon befriended by others who are on a mission to make things right again. But can this ragtag group of philosophers and healers and everyday people actually save the world, or will the newly formed dark forces triumph?

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and wherever books are sold.

by Narielle Living

Christmas in Virginia…

Where magic happens.

Where angels come to earth to help us 

on our path.

Where even the future has a home in Christmas.

Where people find each other, even if they didn’t know they were looking. 

Buy now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play.