Alumni Bookshelf

Alumni Bookshelf

Elaine Kiesling Whitehouse ’68
Psoline
Solstice Publishing, 2021.

The author’s third historical fiction tells the story of Frances Furbisher who leaves her home in London in May 1911 to live with her cousin, Psoline, and Psoline’s widowed father. Frances hopes to escape her depression and shame after a humiliating, failed engagement, but her problems only multiply when she falls in love with the estate’s arborist, Jack, whom she believes is married. Frances learns that no one can control their destiny, and that falling in love is a trajectory that cannot be stopped.

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Robert Lawrence ’69
What’s With Those Adirondack Mountain Names?
Troy Book Makers, 2021.

What do Mount Marcy and Mars have in common? What is a Dippikill? Was Lyon Mountain named for the French city, the king of the jungle or a person? What mountain receives its name from an early Adirondack ornithologist? The book, arranged alphabetically, lists the hundred highest Adirondack, Saranac Six, Tupper Lake Triad and personal choice mountain place names. It provides pertinent information such as elevation, location and name origin for hikers, tourists, day-trippers, Adirondackers and Adirondacker wannabes.

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Maija Lahti DeRoche ’70
Forever Chrysalis
The Wild Rose Press Inc., 2022.

Years after high school, Christine, Crystal, Alice and Lisa return to perform as Chrysalis, their schooldays quartet. They are still bound together by not only their music but also their problematic mothers. While the daughters are rediscovering harmony in their singing and their friendships, the mothers are forming their own bonds that bring the mothers and daughters to a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationships to each other.

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Anthony F. Gero ’70
Black Soldiers of North America 1774-1954: A Sketchbook
Jacobs Press, 2021.

This sketchbook shows a selected sampling of the men and women of African descent who served in the military from 1774 until 1954 when the dream of full integration in the military was achieved. Some of these illustrations have never been illustrated or documented before. Their story is one that all people in North America can take pride in.

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Thomas Stapleton ’71
Eng. Lit. 400 Grad. Sem.
Riverrun Publishing, 2022.

During the pandemic, a class of graduate students meet to discuss a novella in progress, led by their Professor Bismuth. The novella charts the lives of five classmates now in their late 30s as they juggle family, jobs and COVID-19. As the graduate seminar continues, the students are visited by the novella’s author, T.P. Byrne, to discuss writing and their take on his novella, while each character grapples with living in a rapidly changing America.

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Mike Brown ’77
Painting a Purple Picture
Mike Brown, 2021.

After doing radio play-by-play fill-in work for the University of Washington baseball team, Mike Brown found himself at the beginning of an unlikely but long journey with the school’s nationally ranked softball team, one that included several near misses for a national title, a drug scandal, a pandemic, tornadoes, multiple changes in rights holders and technology, and a national championship.

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David Chill ’77
Swim Move (Burnside Series)
R.R. Bowker, 2019.

An old friend from high school shows up in P.I. Burnside’s office for help. Neither of them knows that this case will spiral into fraud, kidnapping and murder. Burnside looks into his friend’s celebrity daughter and finds others who have a dispute with her. Helped by some pro-football players and detectives from multiple police departments, he works to solve the case, as he and his wife must make an important decision about their future. Set in Los Angeles, this is the 10th book in the Burnside Mystery series.

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Vincent Palmieri ’77
Ruthie Deeply
Newman Springs Publishing Inc., 2021.

Ruthie Deeply is the life story of Ruth Morgan from her abandonment at age of four months in Utica, N.Y., through her 24 years as a resident of the NYS foster care system, right up to today at 86 years old, alive and well, in Herkimer County, N.Y. After leaving the foster care system functionally illiterate, she taught herself to read and write, balance a checkbook and run a household as a single mother all the while raising three children.

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Peggy Brady-Amoon ’78 and Marie S. Hammond
Building Your Career in Psychology
The History Press, 2022.

The book is designed to help readers make informed decisions about their college, career and life success. Themed around the idea that psychological knowledge makes a difference in people’s lives, the book provides an empowered process for making the most of college and other career preparation experience, helping the reader to set the stage for academic, career and life success. This book emphasizes academic skills, unwritten rules, career planning and developing professional and personal relationships.

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Mark Allen Baker ’79
A Guide to Hemingway’s Key West
The History Press, 2022.

This book traces the footsteps of a literary legend, Ernest Hemingway, during his 12 years in Key West. Arguably, these were the most important years of his life; the Hemingway Myth was born, refined and polished in Key West. The well-sourced book, including first-person interviews and thousands of hours of research, seeks to uncover what made this juncture in Hemingway’s life so meaningful.

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Mark Allen Baker ’79
Connecticut Boxing: The Fights, The Fighters and The Fight Game
The History Press, 2021.

Sandwiched between New York and Boston, Connecticut has produced some of the fight game’s most prominent pugilists, including Jack Delany, Lous “Kid” Kaplan, Christopher “Bat” Battalino, Willie Pep and Marlon Starling. And, it has also hosted a long list of legendary fighters and memorable boxing matches.

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Mark Allen Baker ’79
Lou Ambers: A Biography of the World Lightweight Champion and Hall of Famer
McFarland & Company, 2021.

Born Luigi d’Ambrosio, Lou Ambers grew up in Herkimer, N.Y., during the Great Depression. Becoming a “bootleg” boxer to support his family, the “Herkimer Hurricane” soon became an undefeated contender, losing only one of more than 50 fights in his first three years as a professional.

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Steven Smith ’82
Strongman Contest
Kelsay Books, 2021.

This collection of poems shines a light on disenfranchised and desperate parents, the ghost of nonage and layers of one family’s coming apart. Smith attempts to address “the sins of the father” by becoming a parent with understanding and remembrance. He shares what human beings rarely are bold enough to say, leaving a trail of poems that ache with truth.

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Michael Marino ’83
Transform Yourself—Transform Your Organization: Why Leaders Always Go First
Michael Marino, 2020.

A person needs to be their best self to be a leader in their organization and to build a stronger team. Marino shares his unique insights and approaches based on his 30-plus years of experience from his corporate leadership time with PepsiCo and to his ownership and management of organizational development consulting firms.

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Robert Hoffman ’86
Blind Spot
Independently published, 2021.

Doug Kaplan seemed to be doing about as well as one could hope. He had a beautiful and loving wife, three healthy boys and a successful career. When an accident occurs, he realizes an annoying elderly neighbor might hold the key to any chance of normalcy and happiness in his life.

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Robert Ruane Jr. ’86
An Aspie’s Journey
Mira Digital Publishing, 2021.

This book uses first-person journal entries to depict the life of Robert as a young person with Asperger’s Syndrome. The book features Robert’s original journal writings from 1976 to 1989, years before his diagnosis in 1995.

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Barbara Horton O’Rourke ’87, writing as Barb Shadow
Invitation to Darkness
Shadows Publishing, 2020.

Joe Paine, a deceased caretaker of apartments, is lost and alone trying to escape the demon called Black. He finds himself at the gravestone of James Borden. Meanwhile, Amanda Harper, seeking a fresh start away from thinking of the murder of her brother, moves into a house with the Borden family cemetery behind it. When Black’s Ouija board that Joe used, lands in Amanda’s hands, she knows she must find a way to send the demon back to his realm.

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Dolores “Lori” Duffy Foster ’88
A Dead Man’s Eyes: A Lisa Jamison Mystery
Level Best Books, 2021.

Lisa has given her daughter the kind of life she never had, but that all changes when she sees her daughter in the eyes of a dead man. The cops call it a drug killing but Lisa doesn’t believe it. She risks her life and the lives of her daughters and their closest friends on a dangerous quest for answers. The investigation leaves Lisa fighting for her family in a morbid, black market world she never knew existed.

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Jennifer Thompson Jackson ’94, Nomar Perez and Miry Whitehill
Our World Is a Family
Sourcebooks Explore, 2022.

From the creators of Miry’s List, the nonprofit that has helped thousands of refugees, Our World Is a Family is an all-ages picture book exploring the complicated topic of human migration in a gentle, loving and affirming way. It lightly touches on the reason people might leave their homes, like climate change or lack of safety, and inspires children to welcome their new neighbors into their communities with love.

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John Rucynski ’94
A Passion for Japan: A Collection of Personal Narratives
BlueSky Publishing, 2022.

This book brings together 30 long-term residents who have done different things that they are passionate about or have discovered in Japan that have enriched their lives. The book overflows with struggles and joy, wisdom, warmth and glimpses into worlds that few people have experienced.

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Daniel Herson ’06 ’09 M’10
Dragon’s Breath
Daniel Herson, 2022.

Dragon’s Breath is a one hour non-violent children’s play. It can be put on with as few as eight actors of any gender. It can expand to a cast of 18. Dragon’s Breath is sent on a quest for the Sacred Breath Mint. Along his quest he meets the tongue-twisting trolls, butterfly royalty and the prince who is always jumping.

(See more by this author )

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Daniel Herson ’06 
Stars’ Gazing
Daniel Herson, 2022.

We often gaze at the stars but what if the stars daze at us? In this full-length children’s play we follow Sun and his friends as they ponder if there is life on those little rocks. Four actors can create an amazing show. This play was reviewed by an astrophysicist, so while fun is the center of the play, it is also accurate.

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Julia Whitehead and Daniel Herson ’06
The Utopians
Magpie and Hunny, 2021.

At Isabella Abbott Intermediate School, seventh graders Jiro, Mike, Talia, Joe and Bailey are bound together in ways none of them understand. The book is set in greater Honolulu and features local voices, from the characters to the authors. Whether you are Kama’aina or just love science fiction, you will be drawn into this tween narrative.

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Joseph Sigurdson ’18
Buffalo Dope
Thirty West Publishing House, 2021.

Bobby Washburn, a weed dealer who lives with his alcoholic, spiraling mother, are native to Buffalo, N.Y. Bobby and his associates discover a way to pry them away from poverty: selling Xanax acquired from the dark web. Their small-time business becomes more spontaneous and sinister as they encroach on a rival syndicate. Crime and substance abuse entraps Bobby as he morphs into a reflection of his estranged, incarcerated father. Is there a way out of the slush, other than a pine box below the frost line?

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Jazmyn Marie Bowman Eberts ’20
Battle of the Plastics: The Animals Story
Dorrance Publishing Co. Inc., 2021.

This children’s book describes the less than perfect habitat of animals on sea and on land. The book takes the reader through how man-made pollution is jeopardizing a host of animals—from a sea turtle munching a green plastic straw to an elephant slipping on a plastic tarp. The book has the animals pleading with the readers to help them by changing their polluting ways.

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