“Jessica Lost Her Wobble” is psychological in nature. At mid-life, Jessie, the main character, after many upsets, moves to an island for contemplation of her life and to make a new start. While there she reflects back on her beginnings in the early 20th century in England, her move to New York City, and marriage at a young age, while making friends with a girl half her age. This friendship opens up a new world for her and helps her explore her own soul. Jessie becomes a part of the island otherwise known as a local as she reinvents her life there and finds love. But all is not as it seems.
Sybil has dreams; the prophetic kind, although interpreting them correctly is another matter. Her latest dream involves her sister Emerald, who wants to pursue her art once more and move on with her life after losing her husband. John, once felt he was making a difference as an ER doctor, but finds himself slipping away in his Manhattan practice as well as in his marriage. Allison, John’s wife wants to change her ho hum existence with John into something spectacular. Mark, Allison’s brother, a struggling musician, wants to quit rambling in life and find his purpose.
The cold changes everything.
Sometimes life is absurd. Sometimes life is serious. Sometimes life is sad. Mostly, life is a mystery. This collection of short stories, along with the author’s whimsical art work, humorously explores the absurdness, the seriousness, the sadness and the mysteries of life, or at the very least causes us to pause and think, and maybe even laugh at ourselves. Each story has at least one illustration. Illustrations are by the author.
Books are available through the usual outlets: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords, etc. Or you can ask your local bookstore to order.
Michelle, a white woman stumbles upon her grandmother’s journals that have lain dormant in the attic for fifty years. There is a picture of her grandmother alongside an African-American woman. It is inscribed: Sally, born into slavery—my ancestor. The journals relating Sally’s story end abruptly. Michelle makes it her mission to find out more about Sally. The quest brings up more questions than answers. Just when she thinks she has come to a dead end, she uncovers the most startling fact of all.
Based on the life of Sally Ann Barnes 1858 to 1969
What if all animals got along?
Miss Ethel Peacock, who lives at a nature preserve, has the brilliant idea of starting a school for all animals. She musters up her courage to take her idea to Mr. Densworth Lion, principal at Cub Academy, who thinks the idea is preposterous. He roars, “Animals have a pecking order. Getting along isn’t in an animal’s nature.”
Ethel is disheartened until her friend, Luce Pigeon, tells her about a tiger, hyena, orangutan and polar bear who live together in the tunnels under the city after escaping from the zoo, and about the badger who helps them.
The two set out to meet the animals. What Ethel finds when they arrive is beyond her imagination. Animals with distinct personalities are working together but barely surviving. She and Luce must help them escape their underground prison.
The night of the escape is chaotic. The animals scatter amid the blare of police sirens. What happens next motivates Ethel even more to open the school. Her plan gets a big boost when the owls, keepers of the sacred knowledge of the forest, give Ethel their blessing.
But, the owls are hiding something about the nature preserve that could change everything.
At eighteen, Alice escapes the grip of her clinging mother and leaves Queens with a Columbia law student and four others to live primitively in rural West Virginia. Called back home by her ailing mother, she seeks answers to why her father disappeared. Her mother takes the secret to her grave. Alice is ready to move on until a visit from a plain clothes detective and cryptic messages from fortune cookies appear.
After living in conflict about following her heart versus staying in her comfort zone for three years following her divorce, Isa Muir announces to the shock of family and colleagues she is quitting her job as elementary school librarian and buying a one way ticket to France. She is drawn to a centuries-old inn on the outskirts of Paris. She never expects her stay there will lead to a ghost, reincarnation, and love, not with a Frenchman, but a Scotsman named Daniel. The innkeeper, Claire, calls it destiny.
J. Schlenker 
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