Set in post-WWII Africa, Polynesia, and Hollywood, the three novellas that make up Based on a True Story reveal the roots of contemporary life in a world at war with itself. These novellas are reminiscent of work by Steve Stern and Philip Roth. Hesh Kestin is a recovering foreign correspondent who reported on local wars, global business, and exotic mayhem in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for publications such as Forbes, Newsday, and The Jerusalem...

Seven-year-old Chellamuthu's life--and his destiny--is forever changed when he is kidnapped from his village in Southern India and sold to the Lincoln Home for Homeless Children. His family is desperate to find him, and Chellamuthu anxiously tells the Indian orphanage that he is not an orphan, he has a mother who loves him. But he is told not to worry, he will soon be adopted by a loving family in America. Chellamuthu is suddenly surrounded by a foreign...

"The author of the award-winning Sally Hemings now brings to life Hannah Elias, one of the richest black women in America in the early 1900s, in this mesmerizing novel swirling with atmosphere and steeped in history. A murder and a case of mistaken identity brings the police to Hannah Elias' glitzy, five-story, twenty-room mansion on Central Park West. This is the beginning of an odyssey that moves back and forth in time and reveals the dangerous...

"In the wake of the 1900 Galveston hurricane, three lives converge despite persecution from the Ku Klux Klan, a bare-knuckle boxing match gone wrong, and the recovery efforts of the American Red Cross. Based on a true story. The hurricane of 1900, America's worst natural disaster, left the island city of Galveston in ruins. Thousands perished, including all ninety-three children at the Sisters of the Incarnate Word orphanage--except six-year-old Hester,...

This story unfolds on campus during an autumn university sojourn. An interesting array of characters unveil the barricades that need dismantling when students face a culture clash, specifically socio-religious-cultural barriers encountered by Muslim and non-Muslim communities. An in-house dormitory assault results in Muslims becoming the prime suspects. This contemporary and evocative piece of writing is based on true characters and a real-life experience...

"A World War II novel about a Dutch family who is separated during the war when the Japanese occupy the Dutch East Indies"-- "Based on a true story, this gripping WWII novel captures the resilience, hope, and courage of a Dutch family who is separated during the war when the Japanese occupy the Dutch East Indies, Java Island, 1941. Six-year-old Rita Vischer cowers in her family's dug-out bomb shelter, listening to the sirens and waiting for a bomb...

"I threw in a coin and I closed my eyes and I thought, I hope I've got enough Valium to see me through the week. One of the other mums chucked her coin in, and turned to me. She said, 'Do you think there will ever come a day when we'll make a wish that's about ourselves, and not about our kids?'" A celebrity who's more notorious for her excesses than her famous roles. Her former lover, who's threatening to reveal the truth behind her bestselling autobiography....