This Web site includes beginning chapters from two of my completed manuscripts of middle-grades novels, and from a young adult historical novel I'm currently writing, plus a brief biographical page.

        The Tattletail's Claw: The First Monitor Chronicle, set in the summer of 2001, is reality-based science fiction / animal fantasy. Legally blind Dakota (Dookie) MacDougall thinks she hears whispers from three seemingly ordinary pets: Ferdo, a laid-back word-loving ferret, kit-napped from a pet store; Clawdia, a one-clawed calico cat who helps rescue Ferdo; and Goofer, a scruffy troublemaking mutt. Yet these pets are anything but ordinary--they are Monitors, unintentional eyes and ears for an alien alliance. A rookie alien Observer who keeps track of these three Monitors manages to send an unauthorized message to Clawdia. The Monitors accidentally leak their secret, and a warped version of that secret hits the front page of a tabloid. The repercussions endanger the animals and their humans. Damage control is up to the Monitors and Dookie, who may be more than she realizes. The complete manuscript is about 29,000 words.

        In My Father's Moccasin, Jackson Thomas, as imagined spy persona Agent Double-Oh-Thirteen, dictates mission logs into an air mike and avoids thinking about a fatal accident that has struck his family. When he finds a real mystery to solve, the involvement helps him to deal with his losses. This is a contemporary novel of about 41,000 words, with an intergenerational, multicultural cast. Its primary setting, a nursing home overlooking the Hudson River, breaks dreary stereotypes of life in such institutions.

         The King's Horses (working title) is a currently-in-progress young adult historical novel based on several actual decrees by Henry VIII, who hoped to increase the size of English warhorses by forbidding the use of small stallions for breeding. Gillian Goodway's father, Sir William, has been raising horses for the king. When Gillian's favorite colt, Pippin, a phenomenal jumper, fails to reach the required height, Gillian runs away with him to Wales rather than allow him to be gelded.