Books published by Piscataqua Press

In this book, you are introduced to Mark Blenchard who teaches in Bailey T. S. Memorial High School. Bailey High is located in the fictional, Gorham, Massachusetts. This is Mr. M's story about the teachers he has worked with and the students he has taught. Blenchard's "notebook" enlightens educators and the general public about education issues that are still relevant today. If you are a teacher, a prospective teacher, a parent, a school administrator, or any member of the public, then Mark Blenchard's story informs readers about the kinds of things that happen every day in schools and society. Mr. M's Notebook inspires us to think about what could be changed.

We Escaped is frightening and captivating-frightening for the terror of war that engulfs an otherwise ordinary family; captivating for the day-to-day antics of children loved by parents who protect them. Anyone who picks up this book will laugh with Jan, Alex, and their two little sisters, at their exuberance, imagination, and fondness for one another even as war explodes around them. They will applaud the two parents who undertook a perilous journey behind enemy lines to save themselves and their children. And they may wonder if they would have dared to take such risks, if they would have had the will and grit to survive.

Hands touch, chills race, glances stolen, and all from a gorgeous teaching assistant placing a syllabus in her hand. In mere seconds, Tess Ryan is once again in love, but this time is different. It's senior year of college and, well, she's running out of time. Smart and confident yet hopelessly romantic, Tess believes she has found her soul mate. The very strict no dating professors or their hot TAs policy is only a slight problem compared to the fact that no one else in her life seems to support her endeavors to make him love her. Do they know something she doesn't? Determined to prove that happily ever does still exist, Tess battles the pull to follow the rules against her mission to make her fairytale fantasy come true.

A horrible crime committed against a young girl and her mother in the 1800's begins a life-long hatred towards an entire population of people. Magdalena will stop at nothing to make sure they are wiped from the earth forever, even if that means using her own strange child as a weapon. In the present, Greta is a mother desperate to find an answer that will explain her son's behavior. At three years old, Bastian cannot speak, preferring to babble instead, and is prone to violence and seclusion. Kelly, a foreign language major working as an interventionist, is called in to help. She discovers that Bastian is not babbling, but speaking in an ancient forgotten language. When the past meets up with the present it will be up to Kelly to try and stop a force she never knew existed.

Twenty-eight centuries separate the birth of the Roman republic from the United States of America in the twenty-first century. To many it would seem that advances in technology and centuries of human experience would insulate our current society from the mistakes of the past.The Echoes of Babylon examines the historical and social tendencies within the world's three great republics. Perhaps not immediately recognized by many, the three republics have a shared experience, as the United States was a former British colony, and Great Britain was once subordinate to the Roman Empire.Whereas history is sometimes considered a dull, dry affair or as an amalgamation of names and dates, in The Echoes of Babylon, history is presented in the context of sequential events, highlighting similar attempts in the direction of human affairs, which have led to similar fates within the world's three greatest republics.

The Scout's Account tells the story of a young Wampanoag warrior named Squeteague who is sent by his sachem to observe the landing of the Mayflower at Cape Cod in 1620. From the age of 16 until his death, Squeteague takes part in many key events in colonial American history.Paul Brodeur was a staff writer for the New Yorker for nearly forty years.

Tom Carnicelli taught English in various colleges for 53 years, 46 of them at the University of New Hampshire. He retired in 2013. He wrote poetry in his own college days and started writing it again after he retired. He tries to make his poems accessible to everyone, not just English majors.

New York City in 1847 is a boiling stew of ethnic gangs, foul living conditions, and runaway crime. Police Captain Alvord Rawn effectively meets violence with violence until one bloody night he goes too far. Forced to resign, Alvord agrees to help a wealthy society woman locate her missing son, the rising artist Charles Deas, who has been painting and exploring the frontier areas west of St. Louis. Deas has fallen under the spell of the mysterious Count Abendroth, a practitioner of mesmerism. Under the Count's sinister occult guidance, Deas's paintings have grown darker and more intense, verging on madness. When Alvord arrives in St. Louis, he finds that Abendroth is much more than a charlatan, and that he is massing his dark powers for nefarious ends. Abendroth is unwilling to let Deas leave without a fight, which is just fine with former Police Captain Alvord Rawn, because fighting is what he does best. As each side gathers soldiers for a final showdown, author Edward Swanson blends exacting period detail, old time story telling, and non-stop action into a satisfying climax of good versus evil. Thoughtful and action-packed, with a final showdown that is both exciting and gratifying-a fine first novel. History, action, the supernatural and intelligent discourse; this novel holds something for everyone. --Kirkus Reviews

Moon Over Cabarete is a travel memoir of the Dominican Republic and a personal journey of discovery, written with a sense of romance and filled with dramatic incidents, colorful stories, laughter and tears. Julie and Bill Veazey first vacationed in Cabarete, a small fishing village in the Dominican Republic, in 1987. The breathtaking natural beauty of the country and their affection for the people they met there brought them back time and again over the next 20 years, during which Cabarete transitioned from a rural economy into a world-class water sports and vacation destination. This memoir recounts a series of events and adventures that run the gamut from funny to achingly sad and captures the Veazeys' attempts to live harmoniously in a new environment, along with observations of the unpretentious Dominican people and their country.

Amanda Turner has returned to Monticello, FL to visit her three favorite angels who continue to operate the Heavenly Grille Café. She and the angels meet a young man named Tyler Foster who has gone undercover to help bust an illegal dog fighting ring in Thomaston, GA. Tyler helps Spartacus, a black pit who has been a champion fighter for Little John Abbott, escape. Spartacus lost his last fight, and Tyler has been instructed to dispose of the dog. After finding his way to the Heavenly Grille Café, Spartacus' healing begins. He knows that he will have to return to the Abbott ranch to fight one last fight, but he will not be alone. The angels welcome a new addition; his name is Sam, and he is a beautiful black lab-pit mix. Sam was Amanda's faithful and beloved pet for 10 years, and he has been dead for 6 years when he and Amanda are reunited. His assignment is to infiltrate the dog fighting ring and to save the bait and fighter dogs; however, Sam is not convinced that even an angel dog can save them in time. Book 2 in the Heavenly Grille Cafe series.

His name is Mark Allen Royce, but he is known at the Peterson Prison Pychiatric Unit as Guard 978. After returning from a forced leave of absence, 978 begins his night shift to find that everything is not as it seems. There are new people he doesn't recognize, and even the people he thought he knew are acting very, very strangely. What unfolds in a single night is a paranoia fueled action adventure that will remind readers of such classics as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, early Doctor Who, and the novels of Philip K. Dick. Strap in, keep your weapon handy, and trust no one. The madness is just beginning... Michael Jameson was born Mike Bearce in Acton, Massachusetts. He enjoys reading, writing, acting, and music. Most important, however, is caring for his dog, Lady Jane Spitz.

George Antheil was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the modern sounds - musical, industrial, mechanical - of the early 20th century. This minimalist, beautifully designed picture book tells of the premier of one of Antheil's most famous works.Robert Lockwood lives and works in Maine. He studied painting and design at the Philadelphia College of Art, and painting, drawing, and classical guitar in Madrid, Spain. He received a BFA and MFA at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. He taught drawing and design at the Philadelphia College of Art and has shown his paintings and drawings at the former Marian Locks Gallery in Philadelphia and the O.K. Harris Hundred Acres Gallery in New York City. His work is in several museum and private collections. In addition, Lockwood has redesigned hundreds of newspapers. He started the first international information graphics news service "News Graphics." He created the information graphics news service for the Associated Press and for 18 years worked as a consultant for AP's executive editor and president. He led a series of seminars for the Centre de Perfectionnement des Journalistes et des Cadres de la Presse in Paris, France. With wife Nancy he operated a news design and editorial consultancy with clients in the U.S., Canada, South America, Europe and Southeast Asia. Lockwood was co-founder and first president of the Society for News Design, an international news organization.

The first thing Claude and Ray tell each other is that they are running away, grown men running away from home. The two New Englanders meet on the Savannah waterfront in 2007. They quickly form a bond of reliance, although neither knows much about the other. Claude, the hitchhiker, doesn't reveal his secret. Since he was a boy, he has known when evil is lurking around the corner. He's caught the glint of sheer malevolence, more than once aimed at him, in the eye of a killer. Ray, the principal of a junior high who's been closeted all his life, starts frequenting rest areas where gay men hang out. His world crashes when he is apprehended in a police sting operation. That very night, he packs his bags and hits the Interstate, leaving career and family behind. Both men are headed south for the winter and when in Savannah a few days before Christmas, they acknowledge their loneliness. They embark on a coalition of purpose, not unlike a set of railroad tracks: parallel, never connecting. In South Florida, their lives become intertwined with panhandlers, drag queens, dumpster divers, church ladies on a mission, and squatters in a hurricane-devastated trailer park. Road Kill is the ultimate trek into the unknown, with several seriously dark twists and scarce amounts of hope and redemption.

The Betrayal brings together the conflicting loyalties, passions and greed of an emerging colonial America. The characters are vividly portrayed and the plot lines follow the course of developments in the infant Republic - its heroes, its villains and its enemies. All come to life in a lively recreation of the age of Benedict Arnold and his contemporaries. The year is 1777. The fighting takes place in the Hudson River Valley - Lake Champlain campaign intended to split the colonies and bring an early end to the War of Independence. The play captures a remarkable time in the nation's history, brought vividly to life in this depiction of those who paid the price to create a new nation. Robert Crotty, a gifted writer and the author of The Teacher (2014), captures the moment. The brutality of the warfare, the everyday lives of soldiers, the jealousy and bitter competition among leaders, the seeming hopelessness of a war fought by conscripts and volunteers, George Washington holed up at Valley Forge, a Congress quarrelsome and bankrupt and a set of independent colonies attempting to band together long enough to support a campaign few understood or appreciated are all in the mix. It makes for rich and dramatic storytelling. The colonials through perseverance and fighting skill would stop the English advance and end the threat. The victory opened the way for the French to enter the conflict, decisively changing the balance of power. The end result would come later at Yorktown with Lord Cornwallis' surrender, the colonials triumphant. A new nation was born. It is all brought together by a creative and skillful author in this insightful and entertaining play capturing a critical period in the birth of America.

Th is volume collects two previously unpublished works by Russell Buker. Both Old Burn, New Burn and Spontaneous Gambol overflow with Buker's love of words and usual connections.

The song and dance of The Sound of Music... seasoned with the terror of war. We Escaped plunges the reader into the extraordinary World War II escapades of an ordinary couple and their children as they first escape from Nazi-occupied Holland; and then deal with the war years by leavening danger and stress with the joy and love of everyday family life. It is the song and dance of The Sound of Music seasoned with the terror of guns and blood. The story begins in the Netherlands, a peaceful nation protected by a treaty of neutrality and kinship with Hitler's Germany. The calm is shattered by the cacophony and confusion of battle as, under the guns of panzers, German troops overrun Holland's lines. The ter Weele family's subsequent exodus from their home is told from the points of view of the father, Lieutenant Carl ter Weele, a Dutch reservist called up to defend the Grebbeberg; his wife Margery, an American citizen raised in Boston, who delivers her third child in a hospital not far from the Grebbeberg as war threatens; their oldest son, six-year-old Jan, whose dark eyes and hair lead Nazis to suspect he is Jewish; and their second son, Alex, a blond and fair-skinned imp, who at the age of two charms a German border guard into allowing the family to cross into Switzerland. Within weeks of Germany's conquest of Holland, the family has to flee the dragnet of the Gestapo, which is arresting all Dutch military officers. As far as Carl can see, the only way out is through Germany, and from there it's a tortuous and terrifying journey through Switzerland, Vichy France, Spain, and Portugal, with the Gestapo a threat at every turn.