Patrick E Craig

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.

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.

The Gettysburg LetterIt is July of1863 and the terrible Battle of Gettysburg is raging in the little Pennsylvania town. John Wesley Culp has come back to his childhood home, but he is fighting in the Army of Northern Virginia and his friends and family look upon him as a traitor. In his pocket he carries a letter from his best friend, Jack Skelly, a wounded Union soldier who is a prisoner in Virginia. The letter is for Jack's sweetheart, Ginnie Wade, but Culp and Ginnie both die in the battle and the letter never gets delivered. 150 years later, Randy Culpepper, the great-great grandson of Wesley's best friend returns to Gettysburg for the anniversary of the great battle, and through a strange twist of fate he becomes a player in the unresolved story of Wesley Culp, Jack Skelly, Ginnie Wade and the long-missing letter. A Gettysburg ghost story.

With this book, Craig takes us into deep green forests, beside fast silver waters where trout rise, on long hikes over hills flamed by autumn and along slopes of tall, sharp mountains. He takes us into his youth. Everything in the Pacific Northwest of another century comes to life--the people, the animals that make their way along wide or narrow trails, a thriving wilderness of woods and brush and alpine flower. Even the trucks, cabins, fishing gear and rutted roads of a long-gone era fill our imaginations as Craig's rich and evocative writing takes hold. His thoughts, his contemplations and his regrets weave seamlessly in and out of a golden time when the sun shone bright, the rain fell true and the seasons rolled over the shoulders of a young man bursting into life like the leaves on a spring poplar. Think Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, Ernest Hemingway's Big Two-Hearted River, Faulkner's The Bear and Sigurd Olson's The Singing Wilderness. Nature writing and the writing of the heart at its very best.Murray Pura author of Majestic and Wild (Baker), The Zoya Septet (MillerWords), A Road Called Love (HarperCollins)

Willard Carpenter has published the well-received Secrets of the Son Series, --Amish romance that features the novels Prodigal and Unveiling. His current WIP, Fall of Crimson Leaves, is based on that series. He lives in Pennsylvania where he has many Amish friends within and surrounding the Amish community of Honeybrook, Pa. Patrick Craig has published Amish fiction with Harvest House, Harlequin, and his own imprint, P&J Publishing. He is contracted with Elk Lake Publishing for a multi-book Amish cozy mystery series and a YA mystery series. His Amish titles include A Quilt for Jenna, The Road Home, Jenny's Choice, The Amish Heiress, The Amish Princess, and The Mennonite Queen. Jerry S. Eicher has published over thirty titles of both fiction and nonfiction related to Amish life through Harvest House publishers. Thomas Nye has published Amish fiction with CrossLink, Celebrate Lit, and Dove Christian Publishers. His writing focuses on Amish daily life inspired by forty years of close connections with his Amish neighbors. He is the author of the Amish Horses Series (Under the Heavens, Catbird Singing, and English River). Other titles include Whispering to Horses, Amish Park, Samson and Amish Delilah. Murray Pura has three Amish novels releasing with Harlequin in 2020. His Amish titles with Harvest House include The Wings of Morning, The Face of Heaven and An Amish Family Christmas. With MillerWords, Ride the Sky, The Bride from Virginia City and Grace Rider. He lives near the Amish communities of Rexford, Libby, and St. Ignatius in Montana. Amos Wyse is the indie author of The Meek, the first novel in an Amish fiction series, as well as seven novellas set in the fictional town of Barnville, Pa. His works echo his small-town Midwest upbringing.

Willard Carpenter has published the well-received Secrets of the Son Series, --Amish romance that features the novels Prodigal and Unveiling. His current WIP, Fall of Crimson Leaves, is based on that series. He lives in Pennsylvania where he has many Amish friends within and surrounding the Amish community of Honeybrook, Pa. Patrick Craig has published Amish fiction with Harvest House, Harlequin, and his own imprint, P&J Publishing. He is contracted with Elk Lake Publishing for a multi-book Amish cozy mystery series and a YA mystery series. His Amish titles include A Quilt for Jenna, The Road Home, Jenny's Choice, The Amish Heiress, The Amish Princess, and The Mennonite Queen. Jerry S. Eicher has published over thirty titles of both fiction and nonfiction related to Amish life through Harvest House publishers. Thomas Nye has published Amish fiction with CrossLink, Celebrate Lit, and Dove Christian Publishers. His writing focuses on Amish daily life inspired by forty years of close connections with his Amish neighbors. He is the author of the Amish Horses Series (Under the Heavens, Catbird Singing, and English River). Other titles include Whispering to Horses, Amish Park, Samson and Amish Delilah. Murray Pura has three Amish novels releasing with Harlequin in 2020. His Amish titles with Harvest House include The Wings of Morning, The Face of Heaven and An Amish Family Christmas. With MillerWords, Ride the Sky, The Bride from Virginia City and Grace Rider. He lives near the Amish communities of Rexford, Libby, and St. Ignatius in Montana. Amos Wyse is the indie author of The Meek, the first novel in an Amish fiction series, as well as seven novellas set in the fictional town of Barnville, Pa. His works echo his small-town Midwest upbringing.