Better Angels
by David Floody
“All God’s angels come to us disguised.”
— James Russell Lowell
Seven-year-old David Phelan watched the drama unfold through the wide window of Windsor’s Mulvaney’s Tavern and feared for his mother, Lulu Pearl. Wallace Phelan had broken his Temperance Oath and promise to quit The Loyal Orange Lodge and leave Ireland’s religious “Troubles” behind them.
“Sure, and if you want criticism—marry! Be off home, woman!”
“Home? Oh yes, Wallace, I’ll be off home, alright…but you’ll be coming with me!”
With one swing of his father’s own Ty Cobb bat, loyal wife and Temperance leader, Lulu Pearl Phelan, struck her wayward husband a mighty blow to the head. His father just— disappeared.
And his formidable mother would not be the only unlikely hero to change David’s life.
“Better Angels takes the reader on David Charles Phelan’s quest for a rare 1954 Topps 201 Al Kaline rookie baseball card. The story begins in 1919 with larger-than-life characters like David’s baseball bat-wielding grandmother, Lulu Pearl Phelan, part of the “Famine Irish” community of Windsor, Ontario. Also larger than life is Big Al Greathwaite, car salesman and catalyst in the tense and dramatic competition for the unique baseball card. Packed with baseball lore and historical detail, this book immerses the reader in a time few remember, a story resonant with the lasting impacts our actions have on each other’s lives.”
— Joanna Streetly,
author of Silent Inlet and Wild Fierce Life
Read the first chapter here.
Buy Now: as a print book
Buy Now: as an ebook
Insect Youth
by David Floody
It’s 1970 and Frank Phelan doesn’t see love coming when the mysterious Starr Summers joins his Grade 10 History class and screams in protest when Frank is brutally strapped by the teacher, Michaels. Starr has her own history of abuse.
Laura Phelan is not a mother any teacher wants to cross. She confronts Michaels in the Principal’s office and gets him suspended. Beside himself with anger and humiliation, the disgraced Michaels plans his revenge, unaware that Laura’s friend and former WWII assassin, Gisella Taglio, has plans of her own for the teacher.
Frank is about to declare his love for Starr, when she suddenly becomes silent and withdrawn. He suspects his enemy, Dixie, a vicious older punk. When the law fails him, Frank goes to war with himself and the world.
“Set at the time of the Detroit Race Riots, Insect Youth unfolds in an era surprisingly like our own. It is a gripping teenage story of extremes: persecution, kindness, jealousy, love, cruelty, loss, and ultimately — revenge.”
— Joanna Streetly,
author of Wild Fierce Life:
Dangerous Moments on the Outer Coast
Read the first chapter here.
Buy Now: as a print book
Buy Now: as an ebook
The Colour of Pride
Fourteen-year-old Frank Phelan thought the violence was over.
But when Ellie Fitzgerald, the only girl on an all-black baseball team from Detroit, is deliberately spiked in the face by the steel-shod shoe of a white player, Frank is right there. The chaos that follows stuns him. Frank is white. This is Canada. The 1967 Detroit race riot was last year, a mile away across the river from Frank’s home in Windsor.
That isn’t the end of it. Frank and Ellie are avid fans of Detroit Tigers star, Al Kaline, and they are fated to meet again during a do-or-die game at the 1968 World Series. Here, they discover common bonds and join forces against a brutal racist foe.
It could be the worst day of their lives, or the best . . .
“He’s white. She’s black. Both must cross the divide of race and racism swirling around them. It helps that both are baseball fanatics. Step up to the plate for an exciting and winning read!”
— Shirley Langer, author of Anita’s Revolution
Buy Now: as a print book
Buy Now: as an ebook
Kittenstein and Frankenfur – the gambling cats
Are Kittenstein and Frankenfur mini-monsters from kitten hell or Bruce Dalwhinney’s last hope of salvation?
Doris looked at Bruce, and his eyes went wild.
No! No! No!
He could see it in the determined set of his beloved spouse’s mouth: It was already too late. The tiny tabbies had managed to snatch victory from the paws of defeat! “They’re brother and sister? That’s perfect!” Doris gushed. “We’ll take them both. They’ll be good company for each other.”
But me? What about me? Am I nothing but a clockwork orange?
Bruce wanted to shout it to the dizzying heights of heaven! But didn’t. He would be taking Kittenstein and Frankenfur home, filling their food bowls, rolling their litter, and if fate and the goddess Bastet were not finished cat-toying with him yet, inserting the digital thermometer into their rectums and waiting for the beep.
“Even if you aren’t a Cat Person, you will join the ranks after reading this delightful fable. The self-deprecating narrator does battle with post-retirement depression, fending off the Black Dogs as best he can. But he can only yowl in dismay when Life and his loving, no-nonsense wife, toss his plans into disarray. This reminds us all that pride goeth before a catcall and that an open heart is worth more than all the treasures of Siam. Spoiler alert: it’s cats, not golf, to the rescue.”
— Caroline Woodward, author of Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny
Buy Now: as a print book
Buy Now: as an ebook
