Since Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus, more and more Americans have been expressing their rights to freedom of speech and action. All too few announce their opinions on the everyday happenings taking place in their world. Allen R. Remaley is neither a journalist nor talking head commentator nor political pundit. He is an American who, over the years, has witnessed events, changing mores, and the earth on which he lives. His focus and thoughts on such things are brought to light in Reflections of a Disgruntled American Gargoyle. Among topics covered are Black Lives Matter; Racism Redux and the Oscars; cell phones and selfies; blood, sweat, and human evolution; Roe v. Wade and infanticide; Sharia law; Nellie Bly, columbine, and deinstitutionalization; a wall or Ellis Island, Southwest; and retirement, socialization, and happy hours. The chances are good that opinions expressed here mirror those of many Americans.

The Marilyn Chronicles was written for one single person, the love of my life. She, this woman whom I married sixty-three years ago, is now suffering from late-stage dementia, and I am her care giver. In an effort to better understand the disease and what it is doing to my wife, I have researched, documented and built in advice to anyone who might become involved in the preservation of dignity and passion which remains in the mind of the person afflicted with the disease. The portrayal of the inevitable march toward finality is a literary approach done as a tender tribute to a remarkable woman, and its message serves as a beacon to those who want to understand and care for the person afflicted with the insidious disease called dementia. This book is my love story.

Every so often, one picks up and treasures a lucky charm, a talisman which, for the holder, works a magic spell. Neither science, common sense nor religious conviction deters that person from sticking to the notion that the trinket they possess might have some inexplicable power. The Dream Catcher is a story about a young, attractive, combat-trained hospital nurse who, while looking for love, receives a gift from an old American Indian seller of jewelry and relics. The gift, she is told, can bring about healing in a very mysterious way. Rachel Collins, the nurse, can blow you a kiss and say, “Sweet dreams!” If you have been good, wonders can take place. If you have been bad, a different blend of the medicine could result in a nightmare.

In the act of climbing a tree, a young boy is witness to a disturbing criminal act involving a teenage girl. The boy in the tree comes to the girl’s aid and unknowingly becomes infatuated with, falls in love with and eventually marries the girl who captured his heart. War, relocation and professional advancement bring the girl and her savior in contact with the perpetrator of the long-past crime. In what takes place between these seemingly predestined people, “The Tree Climber” offers and array of action, adventure and drama to the reader.

The COVID-19 virus, more serious than the Spanish flu of 1917, will perhaps be remembered by Americans along with Pearl Harbor and 9/11. In the early months of the outbreak of the disease, the author, an observer of the confusion reigning on all continents about the nature of the beast, began to document its daily progress. Also recorded were the efforts made by elected officials, health-care providers, scientists and economists to thwart the death march of the contagion throughout the United States. Along the way, another ugliness, racism, had to be addressed. A virtual war against these stealth-like adversaries is presented in chronicle form in what Allen R. Remaley entitles, “19”. Sidebars caused by the stress of the pandemic are exposed. Insights, personal thoughts and daily updates, sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, give us a record of this harbinger of death and hope.

Both his family and his city are crumbling when thirteen-year-old Griffin Watts stumbles headlong into his estranged father’s illicit architectural salvage business in 1970s Manhattan. Griffin clambers up the façades of tenements and skyscrapers to steal their nineteenth-century architectural sculptures—gargoyles and sea monsters, goddesses and kings. As his father sees it, these evocative creatures, crafted by immigrant artisans, are an endangered species in an age of sweeping urban renewal. Desperate for money to help his artist mother keep their home, and yearning to connect with his father, Griffin fails to see that his father’s deepening obsession with preserving the treasures of Gilded Age New York endangers them all. As he struggles to hold his family together and build a first love with his girlfriend on a sturdier foundation than his parents’ marriage, Griffin must learn to develop himself into the man he wants to become, and discern which parts of his life may be salvaged—and which parts must be let go. Hilarious and poignant, this critically acclaimed debut is both a vivid love letter to a vanishing city and an intimate portrait of father and son. And it solves the mystery of a stunningly brazen architectural heist—the theft of an entire landmark building—that made the front page of The New York Times in 1974. With writing both tender and powerful, The Gargoyle Hunters brings a remarkable new voice to the canon of New York fiction.

Read and discover the march of a former marine as he changes direction and becomes a teacher of a second language. Look in on his students’ and colleagues’ adventures as innovative learning activities take shape and inspire, motivate, and amuse those in his school and community. Enjoy a visual trip in time, and mentally be there when interesting things happen. In the end, the reader might just say, “I should’a been there!”