Murray Pura

Since 1941 Marines have fought the Japanese. They met them first on Guadalcanal, a maelstrom of death and fury. Tarawa, Saipan, Okinawa-their friends died beside them, their youth disappeared in a baptism of fire, but they kept on. Johnny, Bud, and Billy went ashore on bloodstained Okinawa hungry for the end of the war. But they knew when the battle ended, they would face their Armageddon on the sacred beaches of Japan.Then, in a blinding flash of light, everything changed. The bomb fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese laid down their arms, and the Marines arrived to occupy the homeland of their bitter enemy. Now they walked the streets and cities of the Japanese, at their shrines, underneath their cherry blossom trees, gazing on the white slopes of Mount Fujiyama. They came face-to-face with a different Japan, one that did not want war but only peace.This new Japan affected each of the friends in its own way. Bud found life, Johnny found strength. But Billy gazed upon the face of a young Japanese woman, a samurai. Her life was so beautiful, her heart so lovely, that his own war faded in the peace of her arms, and she brought him to the place of love.

"A Gathering of Suns" is Murray Pura's passionate oracle of poetry focused on the Ukraine-Russia War of 2022. His writing is spare, elegiac, and emotive. These poems are personal, and were inspired by real life, front line, firsthand accounts and photos. From his immersion in these stories came this book. About the Author: Murray Andrew Pura was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, of Ukrainian descent. He has previously published several novels set in Ukraine dealing with their history under Stalin and Hitler. His book of poetry, "Petals," was also Ukraine inspired. Mr. Pura is a First-Place winner of the 2021 Hemingway War Time Fiction Award for his novel "Far on the Ringing Plains." He was also a finalist for The Paraclete Fiction Award, The Dartmouth Book Award, and The John Spencer Hill Literary Award, and has been shortlisted for the prestigious 2010 Kobzar Literary Award of Canada. Mr. Pura has over 140 titles to his credit. "A Gathering of Suns" further adds to the luster of his catalogue.

It did not end with Guadalcanal. It did not end with one island. There were more islands... an island with snow-capped peaks, friendly people, blue seas, where Bud found love with his Tongan princess. Where Billy breathed the clean air of mountains where no danger lurked. Where Johnny found a way to drain the hate that drove him mad. They found life again after the death-filled frenzy of GuadalcanalBut the God of war was not done with them. More islands sent their siren call from beyond distant horizons and they were cast upon dark shores. Islands with coconut palms, dense green jungle and death. Islands that took more life than they ever gave back. Islands where women killed like men, islands filled with the most brutal soldiers the Japanese Empire could offer. Tarawa. Saipan. Islands that had to be endured. Islands they had to survive. There was no other way to bring the war to an end. There was no other way to get home again.

I am Solina Cheng. I led protests against the Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong. The police wanted me in a maximum security prison. They began to hunt me down. I was granted refugee status in the United States. My sponsors were an Amish church. I knew nothing about the Amish. The only connection I found between me and them is that I was a refugee and so were they. They'd fled religious persecution in Europe back in the 1700s and I'd fled the persecution of my humanity and my liberty in the 2020s. Other than that? Was the US State Department kidding me? No electricity? No cars? No planes? No TV? No electric guitars or amplifiers? No jeans or miniskirts? Really? So, they'd fled from a 1700s Europe but never left that 1700s Europe behind? I rolled my eyes about a dozen plus one times for no one's benefit but my own. And maybe God's.They put me on a plane in NYC. They put me on a bus after I landed. I wanted bright lights, big city, like I was used to. I wanted LA or San Francisco or Seattle. When the bus stopped, and I woke up, I saw mountains.Tall and capped in white with flanks of indigo and the purest mauve. They looked like cutouts, their edges and definition were so sharp. I did not think about picking up what little bit of luggage I had. Just stared at mountain, after mountain, after mountain. Then I saw the dark brown horse. I didn't even like horses but it was beautiful. I saw the buggy it was harnessed to. I saw the tall man in his weird clothes from a hundred years before. More than a hundred years. I knew who he was from my books. Fiction and nonfiction. The Amish Man. With his long black beard, wide-brimmed hat and black suspenders over a light blue shirt. Right next to him in a long dark dress with a black Kapp on her head? The Amish Woman.The Amish Man lifted his hand in greeting. "Miss Solina Cheng? I am Bishop Miller. This is my wife, Mrs. Miller. Welcome to Idaho."They were so ready to embrace me. I didn't think I'd ever be able to embrace them or their ways. Not if I was there all year. Not if I was there till Christmas.

I am the man Morah. I have a story to tell.It is a story of history, a story of faith, a story of love.Five hundred years after the birth of Christ, a fledgling faith is on the verge of extinction. Visigoths, Vikings and Picts have destroyed a way of life brought to these northern lands by the Romans.Except...on a small island off the British coast, faith in a God who walked the earth still thrives. Here, a young man named Hawk takes up a quest to find the deeper truths of God and bring them home. He is prepared to stand against the forces of darkness unyielding and overcome them.This quest could cost Hawk everything - his life, his love, his faith.The story begins...

For some it's all myth or fantasy. Ouija boards, fortunetelling, voodoo, Satan, devil worshipers, black magic, spells and curses - none of it is real. Even for many churchgoers, it's a topic that has nothing to do with faith or worship and is best left alone.Reverend Jude Aaron Blackstone knows better. Under the guise of suits and smiles and peace, under the exterior of normal everyday life, evil incarnate is at work eroding and destroying all that is good and right and holy. So, he fights back. From the pulpit by day. And with weapons natural and supernatural by night. Even when those who do not believe cannot see what they cannot understand.It is not easy work. It is not clean work. It is not quick work. But it is God's work. And Jude Aaron Blackstone has been called upon to do what millions of believers cannot do.Stand in the gap and push back the darkness.

Abigail and her Grandfather have always enjoyed a special relationship. Especially at Christmas time on their farm in Ohio.Until this year.This year, something is wrong with Abigail's beloved Grandpa. He will not eat, he will not drink, he will not rise from his bed. He only wants to die. Abigail and her family and the doctors are unable to do anything to bring him around.It will take a miracle. A miracle Abigail sees no signs of happening no matter how hard she prays.

Michal Troyer and Milwaukee Bachman were still in Rumspringa. Which meant they had not been baptized into the Amish faith. And after biking across America to rescue Michal's sister, they weren't sure if they did want to become Amish. They had seen so much of the big world outside of Lancaster County. And they weren't sure about each other anymore either. Were they still in love? Did they still want to marry? Everything is up in the air. It will take another road trip across America and America's deserts, through all seasons, and all kinds of hard weather, and over thousands of miles of blacktop, before they rediscover what they believe, who they have become and whether or not their love for each other has endured. It won't be easy, it won't come together overnight, and the price may be more than they can pay. They will need all the help they can get.

Yura's total existence has had a rough start. His mother's breakdown, his brother's chronic illness and his father's physical abuse have turned his 24/7 into a quest for healing on every level imaginable - mental, emotional, spiritual.But where will the healing come from? Choi Jeans, the tattooed CrossFit Goth who believes his destiny lies in the zodiac? Zoryana, the six-two goddess and jazz dancer who thinks her love and a condo in Europe should do the trick? Or what about his Uncle Nazar, who detests assimilation, and crams Yura's Eastern European bloodlines into him over beer, homemade dill pickles and Russian Orthodox icons?Miraculously, it all begins to come together with Zoryana. Until a family secret and a revolution in the streets of Kiev threaten to break Yura's beautiful new world into bright shiny pieces and make life more impossible than it has ever been before.Or, depending on the constellations and the summer equinox and an offbeat eternal point of view, offer more of life, love, romance and a star-spangled universe than he's ever dreamed possible.

When the Chornavka family emigrate to Ukraine and return to their family's roots, they are expecting to experience a Communist utopia of peace and prosperity. But Stalin's ruthless purge of the Ukrainian people shatters their lives. Unable to return to Canada or America, the Chornavkas can only try to survive what millions of others cannot. Rising above the carnage and death, they find life, faith and hope once more. But their courage is tested yet again when Nazi Germany invades Russia and Ukraine. Amidst the horrors of total war, with their family scattered over thousands of miles of blazing fields and burning villages, they still must find a way to fight back, to believe again, and to hang onto the one thing they refuse to allow human conflict to tear out of their hearts. Love.

David Lapp had been courting Tabitha Reimer for over a year before he finally decided to take her out to a special place and ask her to be his wife. That Saturday had started out in a special way -- Tabitha had dreamed once again of vast open ranges bordering impossibly tall mountains topped with snow. She had never seen a mountain, which made this vividly real dream even more perplexing. That afternoon, David came by, and the two traveled in his buggy along back roads leading to a pathway that seemed as though it had been forgotten by the world. They passed through a wonderland of Colorado blue spruce, hardy transplanted survivors in Pennsylvania soil, finally stopping at a still and frozen pond. David and Tabitha carefully walked out on its surface, and then he asked her to become his wife. As they began their journey home again, the two excitedly started planning their marriage and wondering if they could convince the bishop to allow them a spring wedding date rather than waiting until a traditional fall date. Ride the Sky is a grand and glorious tale about an Amish community that emulates the Amish pioneers of old and moves to ranch lands in Montana. The reader shares in the adventure as Tabitha and her community travel west, and Tabitha sees first-hand those mountains of her dreams. Tabitha is a marvelous character and seeing as the nineteen-year-old blossoms into a strong and independent woman and cowgirl is grand fun indeed. Pura's story is beautifully told, his eloquent descriptions of the Millenia mountain range that becomes their homeland made me seriously thinking of relocation despite what seem to be harsh winters indeed. Pura adroitly handles the cultural issues facing the Amish, and one can't help but cheer as Tabitha and the other aspiring Amish cowgirls finally get their chance to ride the range. This was my first Amish novel, but it won't be my last. I had a grand time getting to know the peace-loving families who came to life in Ride the Sky. It's most highly recommended. -reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Andrew Chornavka took on the Trappist's cowl and disappeared from the 21st century in order to forget the century before.Yet even at the secluded monastery in America the past finds him. A delegation from the Vatican arrives with questions about his youngest sister, Zoya, who is, to Andrew's shock, a candidate for sainthood. Reluctant, hostile, wanting only to be left alone to his dairy herd and gardens and prayers, Andrew eventually begins to talk.The talk takes him where he does not wish to go, makes alive again what he had hoped was dead and buried, and makes real what had long ago been lost. He knows what he has to tell is no more than a story about a family that tried to stay together, and keep love strong, when everything on earth tried to rip that love apart. Yet he also knows the archbishop wants a story about an angel who walked with God.But Andrew did not experience a world of angels and miracles and fairy tales. And neither did his sister Zo.Or did she?

She wanted to be Amish more than anything else. Kirsten found herself in a unique position. She stood on the precipice of another world. She watched that world of peace and simplicity from the edge of her hectic life. Kirsten worked at Zook's Amish Diner in the day and she helped the Schrock family with their wheelchair-bound son Malachi each evening. In her mind, she was Amish. The Bishop did not agree and he questioned her intentions, as well as her past. Kirsten was once engaged to a soldier who died on deployment. She came from a military family and she was currently seeing another soldier named Brandon. The Bishop could not allow her in their church. Things become more complicated when Kirsten meets Joshua, the Amish blacksmith. Does choosing between Brandon and Joshua mean giving up her dreams of becoming Amish? What does tomorrow hold for Kirsten?

This is the story of a war. But it is also a story of human love and beauty and faith that the sun will rise again over a nation torn by terrible conflict.If a novel is like live streaming or Netflix, then poetry is a gallery of HD images taken with your iPhone or Nikon DSLR, each picture sharp and crystalline and rich with color and meaning, etched in your mind forever thanks to its precision and brilliance.This is a small book of such high definition images, vivid snaps of one man's journey through the recent military conflict in Ukraine. People's faces are here, fields of flowers are here, impossibly blue skies and sharp suns, roads and streets and windows that remain perfectly intact even though the rest of the house has been blown to pieces. Love is here, and peace sits in the same room as pain, while hope has more strength than killing or death. The man's words are beautiful and true and, as real as the war he fights is, dawn and tomorrow are more real.Parts of it will tell your story. Parts of it will become your story. Parts of it will take you on a journey you never expected to take. That is the power of poetry in motion.Begin at this man's beginning.