The one thing Oscar Metford wished for above all else on his ninety-first birthday was the ability to fulfill his late wife’s last request.  That he be able to take her ashes alone, just the two of them, his last expression of his love for her, and deposit them along the Alpine lake the two of them so cherished in their youth.  But age and infirmity made the trek into the mountains and up to the lake on foot or even on horseback impossible for his arthritic body.  Then a contest drawing for a hot air balloon excursion that would fly over the very location he needed to go in order to honor his late wife’s request gave him an option in fulfilling the obligation.  The contest came to his attention in an ad in the local newspaper.  The event was an advertisement for a local radio station.  But when he made the request to his children that a balloon ride was what he wanted most of all for his ninety-first birthday, they rejected his request as too dangerous for a man of his advanced years and physical condition.  That’s when he entered his name in the radio station's drawing on a whim, and won the trip of a lifetime; a balloon ride that gave him more than he bargained for when it came to friendship and adventure.





Libby's Ashes



Paperback  Amazon:

Libby's Ashes

$2.99

Kindle:

Libby's Ashes - Kindle Edition - Kindle eBook (Mar. 9,

2009) by Melva J. Henderson

Red Sky

The Sequel to Maggie:

Life isn’t the bright future Maggie imagined when she married Justin Bailey on the spur of the moment three years before.  His lack of integrity and ambition, and his frequent infidelities and physical abuse made the marriage impossible.  When Maggie follows her friend’s suggestion that she move onto her friend’s widowed brother’s ranch to work as his cook and housekeeper, Justin tracks her there.  With an infant and toddler she must raise on her own, Maggie finds herself suddenly a widow.  With an unexpected disclosure from her mother, when she goes to Oklahoma to care for her on her mother’s deathbed, she loses a sense of her own identity.  Falling in love with her employer brings its own problems when his loyalty to his lifelong friend, whom he discovers loves Maggie as well, produces a road block as far as a relationship between he and Maggie is concerned.  Her life appears on hold until an escaped convict comes into the picture and Maggie finds herself knocking at death’s door.  Although her life is filled with unexpected twists and turns, she continues to hope that the red sky in the Arizona sunset is an indication that there will be clear sailing ahead for her and her daughters.

Red Sky (Sequel to Maggie) - Kindle Edition - Kindle eBook (Oct. 3, 2010) by Melva Henderson

Return of The Trogon

The Sequel to Red Sky

     Maggie’s life has been filled with adventure and adversity, from nearly losing her husband to a cougar attack, to her hunting the cat down on the desert and killing it. Faced with an empty nest and besieged at an early age in her middle fifties by near blindness, the effects of cataracts, life’s surprises aren’t finished with her yet.  When Maggie witnesses the accident that claims her husband’s life, she is drawn into a self-protective state of hysterical amnesia.  When she regains her memory and eyesight in a cold, inhospitable city, she is unexpectedly reintroduced to her childhood sweetheart, but decides to return to her ranch in the Arizona desert, and takes the homeless woman with Tourettes, who took her under her protective wing throughout her ordeal with blindness and amnesia, home with her.  Once home again, Maggie is reunited with the man who has loved her for decades, her late husband’s best friend.  Her future appears on a brighter course with the planned wedding in the majestic canyons of the Chiricahua Mountains when the mystical bird, the Coppery Tailed Trogon, returns to nest in the month of April.

Return Of The Trogon (Sequel to Red Sky) - Kindle Edition - Kindle eBook (Oct. 3, 2010) by Melva Henderson

          When Lynn Hutchinson realizes her nightmares are in fact reality, she understands the years of mental anguish from night terrors and depression are caused by something horrifying but quite real.  When her ex-husband returns custody of her two young sons to her,  and she begins attending group meetings for individuals abducted by extraterrestrial  beings, she fears for her sons’ safety from the horrors she realizes have been her lot in life since childhood.   Although she doesn’t want to remember the events of her past abductions, the memories are thrust upon her anyway, as well as the knowledge of the purpose for her abductions and the abductions of her sons; a purpose that leaves her in a state of terror.  She becomes aware that there has been a multitude of other inhabitants of the earth over a period of many millennia, that have been abducted and have undergone the same painful, frightening procedures that she has endured at the hands of the strange gray beings that haunt her. 


Starlight, Starbright


$2.99 
Kindle:

Starlight Starbright by Melva J. Henderson (Jul 22, 2012)


Paperback Amazon:


Starlight, Starbright

In The Path Of The Dragon

When Doni Cassidy found herself caught in the path of the dragon, she had no idea what was in store for her, or the love she would find for the small toddler left orphaned by the worst wildfire to hit the prestine forests in recent history.  Left burned, disfigured, and orphaned by the flames, the toddler's experience proves the extent of human strength and perseverance.  Little do the local residents know about what is behind the devastating wildfires, and the hand the government may have played in the disaster.  But not everyone is in the dark.  Valerie Tamarian knows more than she wants to know.  She has a dark secret regarding the origin of the fires that took the life of her best friend; it's a secret that may not only put Valerie’s life at stake, but also the life of her unborn child.  It's a secret she finds necessary to divulge to save her life and to find justice for those whose lives were taken so needlessly.

 In The Path Of The Dragon

Paperback Amazon:

In The Path of The Dragon


$2.99  
Kindle:

In The Path of The Dragon

The Silver Strand Society, the misadventures on Harleys of three older women seeking a change from the mundane lives of the silver haired society.

Forget Me Not, events that turn a young woman’s life upside down, involving murder and the paranormal that keeps her from harm.

Sharon, a woman approaching middle age triumphantly faces the painful reality of an abusive relationship.

Maggie
The Early Years

At the turn of the nineteenth century a broad mix of nationalities had intermingled within the United States, creating a nation of cultures that were unique.  Sometimes the mixtures created personalities that exhibited indifference, coupled with the hardness of granite.  Due to the hardships encountered in an unforgiving environment, harshness of personality became common.  Especially on farms where families were intentionally large in order to insure that there would be enough hands within the household to handle the work involved in tilling the soil and harvesting the crops the fields hopefully would yield.

 In this environment, children were no more than a product and often treated no more humanely than the cattle.  Many times as one group of children was raised and approached adulthood, when they often left the farm, more children were born to take their place.  It wasn’t uncommon for a family to consist of nine to twelve children or more, whether by birth or by procurement through one sort or another.

This was the era of the Orphan Train.  A time when children who were placed in state custody because their parents were unable to support them, were shipped to all parts of the country to be adopted or placed into servitude as foster children.  Children were compelled to grow up fast as a result of the burden of work forced upon them at an early age.  In many families the natural born were treated no better than those procured.  That was the case for Maggie Blackford. 


Maggie:  The Early Years



Paperback Amazon:

Maggie, The Early Years


$2.99
 
Kindle:

Maggie (The Early Years) - Kindle Edition - Kindle eBook (Oct. 2, 2010) by Melva Henderson

Joaquin, Eternally Pakwa
Book One

In the 1880s the United States Government expanded their idea of civilizing the Indians through forcefully removing Indian children and placing them in Indian boarding schools throughout the west, where they intended to educate the children in Christianity and the white man’s way.  In 1887 the government built a boarding school in Keams Canyon Arizona and they began removing Hopi and Navajo children from their homes, sending them away from their families and placing them in the newly built boarding school.

Joaquin, Eternally Pakwa

$2.99
Kindle:

Joaquin Eternally Pakwa


Paperback Amazon:

Joaquin, Eternally Pakwa


 

Joaquin’s story continues as he becomes the guardian of Rudy, once the two men return home from Korea, Joaquin with a plate covering a hole in his skull from shrapnel wounds, and Rudy less than whole, missing one leg.  Even when he finds and marries the perfect woman, his life still has its share of loss and disappointments.   His Hopi grandmother’s teachings guide him along the way, as well as the mental images of the lessons she taught him in his youth.  The desert he loves remains as his solitude when life becomes too complex, and it turns up surprises that even he didn’t expect, surprises that turn his world on end. 

Joaquin, The Test of Fortitude Book Two



$2.99
Kindle

When Jordan Bingham flees from an unknown assassin that took the life of her young husband, her flight leads her to encounters with the paranormal and an assassin of a different type.  Not only does the individual who murdered her husband seem to have followed her to California where she thought she and her unborn child would be safe from harm, but someone she least expects wants to see her dead as well.   The frightening, heart pounding twists and turns she encounters are mind bending, but she manages to hold onto her sanity as well as her life with the help of an elderly woman on the next ranch as well as others, some that are less than huma,  that happen along her path.  Little does she know what the outcome will be when the assassin finally materializes, and the reasons her life and that of her unborn child being held in the balance comes to light.


OPHTHELLO


Paperback  Amazon:

Ophthello


$2.99
Kindle:

Ophthello