Books by Nancy Hughes

Imagine savoring three delicious, satisfying meals every day without worrying about counting calories or calculating fat grams. Now you can enjoy hundreds of combinations of tempting, flavorful breakfasts, lunches, dinners--even desserts--all for only 1200 calories a day.Every dinner contains no more than 400 calories per serving. Each breakfast and lunch contains only 350 calories per serving, and every delicious dessert contains just 100 calories per serving. All you have to do is select the meals you want to combine for any particular day.Choose from such low-calorie offerings as:Buttermilk pancakes with blueberry sauce, canadian bacon, and sliced orangesRoast beef salad with blue cheese in pitas and fresh apple slicesSliced turkey with mushroom gravy, whipped potatoes, peppered peas, and apricot halvesRaspberry-kissed pears in phyllo nestsEach low-calorie, low-fat recipe includes easy-tofollow instruction and fat grams per serving. Many recipes can be prepared in 15 minutes or less.

            Vietnam veteran Charlie Alderfer, having defied the odds and regained his health in the VA’s hospice, goes home to resume his well-earned retirement. He hires Ben, an 18-year-old high school senior, to help with heavier chores. The poor, shy kid is a hard-working athlete whom teachers, coaches, classmates, and their parents adore.            Until—Ben’s adoptive parents accuse him of assaulting their ten-year-old bio-daughter. The police and DA, pressured to close 90% of their cases without a trial, lie and terrorize Ben to plead guilty to something. In return, they’ll make the charges go away. Otherwise, he’d go to a super-max prison, labeled a sexual predator. Honest Ben believes them and makes something up about his early childhood.            Charlie, shocked to read the guilty plea in the newspaper, extracts the story from Ben, who has no idea why his parents, and the police, would do this to him. Outraged, Charlie takes Ben to a leading polygraph expert who verifies what Charlie knows of his character. But his family, police and DA refuse to back down. And the test isn’t admissible in court.            Charlie hires a criminal lawyer who withdraws the guilty plea. But Ben’s only defense is his word against a sweet little girl’s, which no jury would buy. Outraged by the impending miscarriage of justice, Charlie digs into the case, researching the players, their motives, and holes in the prosecution’s case. He’s appalled that everyone lies—except Ben. Charlie could not anticipate that his digging would expose Ben and himself to mortal danger from a much larger criminal enterprise in progress.