Books by Mark Conkling

Ida Corley, a troubled thirty-six year old nurse from Albuquerque is searching for her unknown half-brother, a sibling she discovered by reading an old letter in her deceased mother's personal effects. On her deathbed, Ida's mother had confessed a teenage abortion, but the letter reveals a different past, a secret that unhinged Ida and drove her on a quest to find him. Her journey takes her to Victoria, Canada where she goes on a whale watching tour and becomes bewildered by a close encounter with a killer whale. He captures her eye with his own eerie whale eye, luring Ida into new spiritual territory and the mystery of interspecies communication. Ida searches the Inside Passage where killer whales act as guides, save her life, open windows into the natural world, and reach deep into her soul. It is as if these powerful mammals carried Ida up to the heart of Mother Nature, showed her the stars, and then returned her to a new life. Ida had set out to find her half-brother, but ended up finding herself. Ida Corley first appeared as a character in Prairie Dog Blues, and surfaced again as Danny Sandoval's lover in Dog Shelter Blues, both from Sunstone Press. Along with Killer Whale Blues, the three novels explore the power of nature and living creatures to transform broken peoples' lives.

Meet the Corleys: Mom and Pop and their three grown kids--Jeff, Ida, and Junior--a zany but lovable family living in a changing neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mom wants to fix each of her children's problems--Jeff's gambling, Ida's promiscuity, Junior's drinking--and to create a normal family. She convinces Pop to sell the family land and give $500,000 to each of their children, believing the money will solve their woes. However, hundreds of prairie dogs and the City Council's animal ordinance stop the sale. blowing them up, rounding them up and trucking them away--but they all fail. Immersed in conflict, humor, and irony, the prairie dogs come up out of their holes and into each of the Corleys' hearts, mysteriously softening their hard edges, helping them to find healing deep in Mother Nature. As disease befalls the prairie dogs, and just as it seems the Corleys will get rich, they discover that it is love, not money that is the true wealth of their family. MARK CONKLING--teacher, homebuilder, realtor, finance manager, retired Methodist pastor--returns to his writing career with this first novel. Mark lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, works with his wife Patricia (Meadowlark Family Healthcare), walks his dog in the Bosque near the Rio Grande, frequents the recovery community (AA), writes fiction, and seeks daily peace of mind. His short fiction was published in the "e;Minnetonka Review and Diverse Voices Quarterly."e; Years ago, as a university professor (PhD, philosophy and psychology), Mark published several academic articles in existential philosophy and psychology, including "e;Consciousness and the Unconscious in William James' "e;Principles of Psychology,"e; (Human Inquiries),"e; "e;Sartre's Refutation of the Freudian Unconscious,"e; ("e;Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry"e;), and "e;Ryle's Mistake About Consciousness"e; ("e;Philosophy Today"e;).