Books

DAUGHTERS OF PARRISH OAKS

A Series of Five Novels
by
Dr. Sue Clifton
(Published by The Wild Rose Press)

“Daughters of Parrish Oaks” is a southern family saga, a series of five novels with roots beginning in a racially turbulent Mississippi in the 1950’s and 60’s. The series follows the lives and loves of Dr. Sue Ann Parish and her daughter Betsy as they move from Mississippi and attempt to carve their identities in Alaska and Montana. Forty years later, the saga concludes in Montana where Sue Ann must make the most important decision of her life—again. Throughout the telling, the impossible becomes possible, truth becomes fiction and fiction becomes truth, and Sue Ann finds herself confronted with choosing between two men / two loves, the “forever” she thought unattainable. But once again tragedy shatters her “forever”, and Sue Ann almost loses her own life only to be saved by a “phantom.”

THE GULLY PATH

Sue Ann Taylor spends her pre-adolescent years protecting her best friend Liz Bess, an African American girl who lives at the end of the gully path, from the prejudice and mistreatment by the white society of Mississippi in the turbulent era of the 1950’s and 60’s. Book 1, WHERE THE GULLY PATH BEGINS, tells Sue Ann’s story from eleven years of age when she fought to maintain her friendship with Liz Bess, until Sue Ann’s entrance in college.

Book II, WHERE THE GULLY PATH ENDS, tells of Sue Ann’s love story with Tate Douglas, a COFO worker from the North, and covers the violent summer of 1964. Liz Bess, now Elizabeth, returns to Mississippi from the North, to become a freedom fighter for her people and comes face to face with racist violence and death. Through the turmoil, Sue Ann is reminded of the words of Nagalee, Elizabeth’s grandmother, on her deathbed:
“Love ain’t black, and love ain’t white; it just is.”

UNDER NORTHERN LIGHTS

Dr. Sue Ann Parrish is hired as principal of the one room school in Moose Springs, Alaska. With her teenage daughter she moves to a community of dog mushers, trappers, gold miners, writers, artists, shady characters running from the law, and rugged individualists in general, each one with a story, whether told or hidden.

With the challenges of living in a remote bush village come additional problems, including falling in love with the elusive artist Shade Dubois, who hides dangerous secrets of his own. Just as things become settled for the new principal and life seems to be all she could ever wish for, the village is torn apart by violence and death. Just who is Raven, and how can Sue Ann and her daughter survive the evil that stalks them?

HEART OF THE BEARTOOTHS

Betsy Wingate travels to Red Lodge, Montana, seeking refuge in her mother’s log cabin high in the Beartooth Mountains while awaiting the finalization of her divorce. In overwhelming pain and bitterness, Betsy swears off men forever.

She has the handsome half-breed from her first look the day he tips his hat to her on the trail, but Betsy is not to be an easy conquest. Hawk must prove he is different from the arrogant, controlling, cheating husband she left. And the lovers have bigger problems to confront. Someone wants Betsy dead, and while she is on a fly-fishing trip to the high country with Hawk, life turns deadly.

In the Big Sky country of Montana, Hawk and Betsy begin their dangerous and emotional quest, their search for a second chance at love.

MOUNTAIN MISTS

Dr. Sue Ann Parish, cherished by two men in her life only to lose both, has remained alone until she admits to loving Custer, the mountain dweller who befriended her in her sorrow and sees her through her greatest challenge, breast cancer. As she fights for her life, her daughter Betsy becomes ghostwriter for her mother’s autobiography and thus learns the truth about her father.

When ghosts from the past arrive and turn her world upside down, Sue Ann must make a life-changing decision: stay with Custer or marry a man she thought lost to her years before. Dressed in an antique lace dress once worn by a pioneer woman, Sue Ann walks down the aisle, her eyes smiling at the two men waiting. Whose hand will she take? The Beartooth Mountains cast shadows of approval as a raven and an eagle dip their wings symbolically overhead.

WINGS ON MOUNTAIN BREEZES

Dr. Sue Ann Parrish, who has battled and won against cancer, has loved and lost enough. She will have her children and grandchildren, but her world is empty without Custer’s Native American wisdom and vitality. The white eagle feather that symbolizes him reminds her of his promise: “When the red sunset comes, happiness will follow.” When Angel unexpectedly arrives, bringing with her the shadow of CIA involvement and secret missions to Costa Rica, she and Sue Ann’s son find instant attraction to each other, and Sue Ann is more than pleased. She is unaware of their clandestine search as they put together clues to the disappearance of Angel’s father, the greatest love of Sue Ann’s life. Is he still alive? If so, will he survive the threat posed by the reward hanging over his head?

Other Books by Dr. Sue Clifton

FREEZE TAG

FREEZE TAG was written by Dr. Sue Clifton wth the help of 72 senior English students, Class of 2014, South Panola High School. Co-author Grace Guntharp was also the Valedictorian of the class.

Anna is a seventeen-year-old girl, weighted down with the responsibility of caring for her eight-year-old sister Lilly and their dying mother. When their mother disappears, Anna must go to the dangerous part of Memphis, Tennessee to locate her homeless Grandmother Tass and bring her back to the broken down shack in Arkansas, home to the sisters all their poverty-filled lives, in order for Tass to act as Lilly’s guardian. After locating Tass, Anna makes a quick getaway in the middle of the night moving what’s left of her family to the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee where an 1890’s Victorian mansion awaits them, property willed to Anna’s mother by a reclusive aunt after her death.

But all is not as it appears as the beautiful Clayton House proves to be filled with paranormal activity. Ghost girl Dilly warns Lilly of sinister entities in the Victorian playhouse behind the mansion. Ashler Walker, hired hand and strong, handsome college man and neighbor, tries to protect Anna and Lilly from the darkness that surrounds the mansion.

Can the dark forces be eliminated in order for Clayton House to become a real home for Anna and Lilly? What mysteries must be solved from the mansion’s past? Only the “ghosts” can answer.

J.K.PUCK, THE SCHOOL THAT DOESN'T SUCK

J.K. Puck, the School That Doesn’t Suck is the story of Luca and Rad, thirteen-year-old twins, who have unique gifts such as being able to fly and read minds. The day after the twins turn thirteen, their mother disappears while on a research trip to Central America. The twins are forced to move to Prince of Wales Island, Alaska and live with an aunt they barely know.

Luca and Rad discover a new life in Alaska, very different from the entertaining basement where they spent most of their life due to sun allergies. The life includes real school, J.K. Puck Middle School, a private school high up Shadow Mountain.

Luca and Rad uncover many secrets in Alaska. Bat ecosystems in Central America, strange red coffee beans, a cave full of bottled eyes that stare and hiss, and a Mayan legend of a lost civilization of half-bloods high in the mountains of Guatemala are all entangled as the twins discover who they are and what their place is in the struggle of good versus evil.

 

FREEZE TAG and J.K. PUCK
Available at www.doubledragonpublishing.com
www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com
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