If you have put off your Christmas shopping until the last minute, here are a few ideas from your host (AKA, me) for your quality friends. Books, of course, because books are what I do.

Special Investigative Reporter

This book can be classified as a sarcastic, satirical humorous mystery. It’s a great book for people who like to laugh and who also happen to distrust authority–as my main character Jock Stewart does.  And as I do. Jock is probably my favorite protagonist because he reminds me of me, the kind of guy who’s likely to say anything to anybody, especially people who are really full of themselves.

Fate’s Arrows

This is my most recent novel, the fourth in my Florida Folk Magic Series which began with Conjure Woman’s Cat. I’m partial to the series because it’s set where I grew up, with places and people I knew.

This book is a must for fans of Conjure Woman’s Cat, Eulalie and Washerwoman, and Lena even though the protagonist, Pollyanna, is not a conjure woman but the owner of a fish camp who just happens to hate the KKK and knows multiple ways to cause them trouble. This is a great book for people who hate the KKK. It’s a mystery thriller in which the reader will have to get one step ahead of Pollyanna to figure out what she will do next. She knows a hundred ways to hurt you if you get on her bad side. Folks who live in the Florida Panhandle and want to know about what happened there in the 1950s will also like this novel.

Sarabande

This contemporary fantasy novel that features a protagonist named Sarabande who comes to our universe from an adjacent look-alike-universe seeking help is, I believe, one of my strongest novels. It’s a novel about a survivor that will appeal to women who have gone through the worst of hard times and have found ways to fight back and persevere. The hardest step, as Sarabande discovers, is learning to trust again. I was honored by an early reviewer who said that she had to keep reminding herself that this book with its accurate depiction of a woman’s worst nightmare was written by a man.

These novels are available in e-book, paperback, and hardcover editions. Sarabande is also available as an audiobook.

—Malcolm