Books by Clifton

Cayce McCallister and sister Harri Wellington, fifty-year-old "magnets for trouble," live by the philosophy of their father, giver of their gift of seeing into the past. Through a bloodstained cookbook in Natchez, Mississippi, restless spirits channel Cayce and Harri, beckoning them to follow the path leading to Spanish Oaks Inn in south Mississippi. Here the sisters come face to face with spirits of slaves related to the current owner and his distant cousin, the resident fortuneteller. Joshua Devaux, present owner of Spanish Oaks, is smitten with one of the sisters and becomes ghost-hunter-in-training as he joins Cayce and Harri in solving the mysteries haunting the plantation since the 1840s. But can they unravel the disappearances, murder, and thefts in time to save Joshua's daughter from a terrifying death in the swamp at the hands of a modern-day monster?

"Keep an open mind and an open path, and the Way will find you." This philosophy of Cayce McCallister and Harri Wellington leads the sisters to Bar None, a ghost town high in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. The locale is home to many spirits from the gold rush era and to lingering human relics from the town's early days-all playing havoc on town renovation efforts. The sisters, along with friends both living and dead, hope to uncover the secrets of Bar None's past and send its resident spirits to rest. In the present is the pressing matter of missing young women-all pregnant. Can the sisters solve the mysteries of the past and of the present before time runs out? Or will they find themselves trapped by the "Keeper of the Lambs"?

Mississippi. The 1950s and '60s. Two friends, one white and the other black. Sue Ann spends her pre-adolescent years protecting her best friend, Liz Bess, from prejudice and mistreatment, but she can't protect her from the untimely death of her mother and their resulting separation as Liz Bess is sent north to school.

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."

Dr. Sue Ann Parrish, 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 learns the truth about her father.

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.

Dr. Sue Ann Parish 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.