By late 1643 the English Parliament had suffered so many battlefield disasters that they were forced into a Confederacy with the Scottish Parliament. This was bad news for Charles because the Scots had defeated him just four years ago, so he looked to Ireland and France for help. In order to land French troop ships he needed to control the southern coast, so he sent an army under Prince Maurice to make that so.Maurice thought the taking of the port of Lyme would be a job done before...

In 1079, the Conqueror is critically wounded by Raynar in a skirmish at Gerberoi. With the Conqueror ill, Philip of France encourages rebellions against Norman rule. William placates Philip by choosing different sons to be the heirs of Normandy and of England. His favourite son Richard, is to be the next King of the English.With William ill and rarely in England, Regent Odo and the rest of the Norman ruling class keep to the South. Raynar is in Scotland visiting Margaret when North...

The last week of July 1643 brought disaster to the rebellion against Charles I. On the 25th they lost Bristol, England's second richest industrial port. On the 28th they lost Gainsborough and thus all Lincolnshire was in jeopardy. London's propaganda sheets were scrambling to find any good news in these losses, and so they made heroes out of two unknown militia officers for standing fast when vastly outnumbered by royalist cavalry.Captain Robert Blake in Bristol and Colonel Oliver C...

HAVE WE FOUND OUR BETTER SELVES? is a follow-up to a "survival" book that was written during the first three months of the COVID-19 Pandemic. With over a year and a half of living with the COVID-19 virus and with the probability of COVID-19 finally being under control, this book helps all of us step back and take a look at how we have thought and acted during the months and months of pandemic. Ask yourself, "Am I just trying to forget the whole thing as if it were just a n...

It’s 1934, St. Louis, Missouri. Pamela, outwardly a young, white socialite (but inwardly an unsettled late adolescent), is about to give birth to a first child. To assist in the delivery, she seeks the ‘colored’ midwife, Miss Minnie, who attended her own birth in 1911. Her and her husband’s families won’t allow it. During her pregnancy, Frank, her husband, even recruits relatives to monitor Pamela’s whereabouts. Deviously, Pamela sidesteps them. She pressures her ‘colored’ maid to help. Wh...

The twelfth book in this series.In the early 1080's all of the English, including Raynar, are lulled into a false sense of security by the peace and fat times of the anarchy caused by a power vacuum. False because when the Norman duke of southern Italy unexpectedly dies in 1085, warriors return to Normandy and King William uses them to invade England for the second time.The largest army that William has ever raised sweeps across England like the Black Death. Raynar sets out...

In 1638 two English friends, Daniel Vanderus and Robert Blake, sailed home from the war-torn Dutch Republic. The two had met while riding as pistoleers in the Dutch Militia. The flying squads of pistoleers were skirmishers who targetted the Empire's officers.As their ship rowed up the River Great Ouse towards Ely, a girl's call for help linked their futures to Oliver, the tithe collector of Ely. Together they made history.Skye Smith is my pen name. The Pistoleer is a series ...

NOTE: This is novel four of the "Maya's Aura" series.In this naughty novel of magic and mayhem, our young Maya is on the run and following a quest.Her healing hands have a side effect of creating fatal heart attacks in predator men. Unfortunately her youthful good looks attracts them like tigers to a lamb.Because the police want to question her about heart attack coincidences, she has fled the USA.She must find out more about her powers, and since all answers...

"What news do you bring from London?" Betty Cromwell asked him. "Anything that may prove dangerous to my Ollie?""Shouldn't think so," he said in a calming tone, "so long as he stays clear of Pym and his rabble rousers.""But he is with Pym now, at a political rally in Cambridge."Daniel stood, turned, and threw his hosters over his shoulder as he strode out of the back door and into the sunshine. "I'm borrowing a horse."She dropped to her knees to beseech the Lord...

Cover FlapNo one will ever know what Colonel Lunsford was thinking. Perhaps he was angered that his well trained war horse had stopped still and was nudging playfully at the lass. He drew his sabre from its sheath in a long practiced swoop of his arm, a swoop which would end when the blade slashed flesh and the blood gushed.Daniel could not believe his eyes when he saw the glint of the sabre, the very sabre that Daniel had handed back to this officer on the battlefield once h...

This is the sixth book in the Hoodsman series.In 1070 the Danes and the Anglo-Danes sought vengeance against the Normans for the Harrowing of the North. A gruesome murder turned young Raynar into a Berserker, and he organized the Anglo-Danish bowmen who had nothing left to loose into Wolfpacks. The Wolfpacks grew in number and they hunted down and slaughtered any Norman's they found.This rebellion reaching out from the Fens was not led by lords. It was the monster that the ...

NOTE: This is the fifth novel in the "Maya's Aura" series.This naughty novel of magic and mayhem begins with Maya's visit to her great grandmother who lives on an island in Boston Bay. She gives Maya some family heirlooms, including a crystal pendant and an iron ring.The crystal causes her to dream. Not her dreams, but the dreams of the original owner, a woman from the late 1700's. In order to find out more about these mystical heirlooms, Maya travels to Cambridge, England ...