John R. Zeller

After being driven from his home in Vermont by a mother perched on the edge of insanity and a money-grubbing old woman who won’t let him marry the woman he loves, Sheridan Baird seeks his fortune in the steel mills in Pittsburgh. But when his worst fears come true and his love marries another, he wonders if it wouldn’t have been better to have perished in the Civil War like his brothers.

Kell Crawford lives alone with his mother, who has a bizarre fascination with light. When she is murdered by a mysterious stranger, Kell goes on the run to escape the murderer and find the father who abandoned him as a baby. Chasing his mother’s last cryptic message, Kell finds his way into an underground tomb, which transports him to a strange temple where skeletal priests worship the Light and think he is their Promised One.

Brion never meant to start a war. But when they murdered his parents and enslaved his sister and his sweetheart, they left him no choice. Brion of Wexford is the son of a crippled trapper living a quiet life on the edge of the vast and unruly heathland. But when Salassani raiders destroy his world, he must venture into the heathland to attempt the impossible task of finding the girls, rescuing them, and conveying them safely home across hundreds of miles of enemy territory. Now Brion finds himself pursued by men bent on his destruction....

Bernie LeBaron is already a scrawny 13-year-old magnet for misfortune. But when his father pawns him off on relatives after his mother dies and he accidentally takes a picture of a man carrying a dead body through the woods, Bernie’s life becomes truly miserable. Now he must discover who the murderer is while staying out of trouble so that his father doesn’t take him away. Will the fates decide to salvage the miserable life of Bernie LeBaron?