Books in the Docksteder Tales series

It’s 1995. When famous author Barron Docksteder moves to the Carolina foothills, the locals don’t know what to make of it. Why did this hotshot writer, whose works have been made into Hollywood films, move to the middle of nowhere? Despite living in North Carolina, Docksteder regularly drives across the border to South Carolina for a late breakfast at a comfortable small-town café. The young café owner, who is a frustrated writer, is befriended by Docksteder, and the two initiate a mentor-mentee relationship that extends well beyond the page. The young man has no idea what he’s getting into. While under the tutelage of Docksteder, the café owner—still a novice to life—encounters some startling things, including a vicious security dog, unexpected violence, and sexually charged confrontations. An electrifying beginning to the series, book 1 of Docksteder Tales is a funny, irreverent story with a fascinating cast of characters—each with his or her own secrets, agendas, and desires. Behind the adventure is a complex mystery filled with questions about Docksteder. What does he see in this young café owner? Is his complicated past about to catch up with him?

It is the late 1990s, and world-famous author Barron Docksteder has been murdered in the small rural town of Tryon, NC. His protégé knows the police are blaming the wrong person, but how can he prove it? Is the answer in one of the celebrated writer’s numerous notebooks? Accompanied by Docksteder’s highly trained guard dog, Doc—a menace to men yet docile to women—the former café owner embarks on an adventure to the heart of Carnival and Mardi Gras in the notorious French Quarter. There, fate and Docksteder’s notes bring him to the home of Desirée, the mysterious and alluring former Queen of Carnival. What is Docksteder’s connection to Desirée? And what does her tragic past have to do with the newly minted writer, his next book, and his quest to solve his famous mentor’s murder?