About Christmas Presents (A Cozy Retirement Mystery)

This cozy mystery includes a popular 1940s butter sauce cake recipe!

When several children lose their parents due to an alleged freak accident, Mary Louise, Pearl, and Opal offer to stay with the family until after Christmas. The sleuthing women soon discover a written threat that the couple kept hidden in their belongings. As they hunt for motive, clues, and suspects, they uncover a century-old vendetta. Soon, their goals shift from crime-solving to crime-stopping as they vow to protect those who were left behind.

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Published for over 19 years, Riley Blake is one pseudonym for a multi-published bestselling author. Riley currently lives in Middle Tennessee where she splits her time between writing and farming. Riley and her husband currently rescue goats and sheep, but also love taking care of any animal that needs love and attention. When Riley isn’t writing, she can be found at bible study, farming, baking, or watching football.

Run With It: A True Story of Parkinson’s, Marathons, the Pandemic, and Love by Joe Drake

COVID-19 disrupted the premier road races known as the World Marathon Majors (WMM) that take place annually in Berlin, London, Chicago, Boston, Tokyo, and New York City. Normally spanning the calendar from March to November, the pandemic forced a rescheduling of the 2021 WMM such that all the races would take place during a six week stretch in the fall. At age 60, with only a single previous marathon under his belt and recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Joe Drake decided to run all six of these races on the compressed schedule.

In Run With It, writing in a style that is charmingly humorous and informative, Joe marks his debut as an author. He tells of his transformation into a marathoner, the physical and logistical challenges of running these races amid a world eager to emerge from a global catastrophe, and how this quest with the help of friends, family, and the running community allowed him to devise a strategy for coping with Parkinson’s.

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Joe Drake was born and raised on Long Island, New York, the seventh of twelve children in a family that was not the largest one in their immediate neighborhood. He attended university at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated in 1984 with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering.

Upon graduation, Joe moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where he met his wife, Lynn, also an engineer. Together they raised their daughter, Kinsey, 26, and their son, Aidan, 24, in Palo Alto.
Joe spent his engineering career making microelectronic devices of various sorts, including semiconductors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), disk drives, lasers, and LIDAR systems.

In 2018, Joe was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease just shy of turning 57. As is common for those afflicted with incurable neurological diseases, his life changed dramatically with his diagnosis though not necessarily for the worse. Shortly afterward, Joe and Lynn retired to Seattle near where Lynn had grown up and where her family still lives. Stress is a well-known trigger for PD. Hence, removing the stress of an engineering career made sense.

Always one to enjoy sports and outdoor activities, Joe embraced the fact that vigorous exercise is the only therapy that has been shown to be effective at slowing the progression of PD. He turned to running as his primary mode of exercise although he still often bicycles, hikes, and plays soccer. Until his diagnosis, Joe’s running workouts had never been longer than about six miles. Post-diagnosis, he doubled down on the sport and in 2019, at age 58, Joe ran his first marathon and has run 12 marathons since.

In his debut as an author of Run With It: A True Story of Parkinson’s, Marathons, the Pandemic, and Love, Joe describes how exercise and Parkinson’s have become dominant forces in his life. His new purpose is to inspire others with PD, or any other disease or medical condition, to cope through a considered and comprehensive regimen of vigorous exercise.

The Black Swan Event by Mikael Carlson

Following a global economic collapse in 2039 that brought governments to their knees, brutal violence and chaos spread across the globe. To fill the power vacuum, giant multinational corporations, backed by wealthy benefactors, seized the reins of power and began governing the masses. Nearly fifty years later, there is no crime, no unemployment, no homelessness, and no war. All that progress came at a cost – individual freedom.

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Mikael Carlson is an award-winning political fiction author, including a silver medal from Readers’ Favorite and National Indie Excellence, American Fiction, Lyra, and Global E-book Awards. He was named one of the ‘50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading’ by The Authors Show in 2018.

About Heart’s Thread

A thread lingering on…every life is distinct, every journey is unique. This one is no different. Through ups and downs, illnesses and recoveries, defeats and triumphs; unfold before you in the style of an autobiographical book-length poem. One life, the never-ending journey of one soul, a fulfillment of a childhood dream: finding his mother, like the baby elephant, Dumbo. Heart’s Thread is a 1,162 line poem consisting of 166 rhyme royal stanzas, a rhyming stanza form introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400). Chaucer is commonly known as the “Father of English Literature.” He invented this 7 line ababbcc rhyme royal stanza which he used to write parts of “The Canterbury Tales” in the 14th century. This ancient rhyme royal scheme forms the backbone for the tale of “Heart’s Thread.”

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As of 2023, Livingston has written and published 19 poetry books. Livingston has also written 2 books of prose and poetry, 1 book of 13 short stories and composed 21 lyrics and melodies collected in 2 DVDs and 1 CD. His poems have appeared in numerous publications: local newspapers, magazines, newsletters and overseas publications. In addition, Livingston’s poems were published in The Lyric, Poetry Quarterly, Ibbetson Street, California Quarterly (California State Poetry Society), Wisconsin Review, Loch Raven Review, Time of Singing poetry journal and Chronogram magazine. Many of his poems were selected as honorable mentions in the following contests: Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition, California State Poetry Society Annual Contest and Nebraska State Poetry Society Open Poetry Contest. One poem was awarded 3rd place in the Annual Poetry Contest for the Dancing Poetry Festival.

Livingston received his MS degree from UC Riverside and MA degree at UC Berkeley. Among his 40-plus year entrepreneur career,* he devoted many decades to publishing. Livingston oversaw the production of 12 printed consumer magazines and formerly served as the editorial director of the journal Nourish-Poetry. He is currently an associate member of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the California State Poetry Society.

Livingston resides in California with his dear wife. He has 3 children and 8 grandchildren.

*Livingston worked two jobs for 15 years to launch and build his various ventures; he was the founder, Chairman and CEO of four corporations at different stages of his business career in four fields: Radiopharmaceutical manufacture, real estate, software (SaaS) and publishing.