Our Books
Fourteen titles across two series and seven standalone works
Our authors write about people who have run out of the ordinary way forward. A woman ruined by a carriage ride she never agreed to take. A farmer who sees the accident before it happens. A principal sent to work inside a prison. Each book follows what a person does once the usual options close.
Action Romance · Women’s Historical Literature · Reality Show · Farm Life · Spiritual Help · Prison Reform
Voices of Victorian Women
Four books by Kate L. Hart
Victorian England was strictly gendered as men dominated, their wives “Angels in the home.” As John Ruskin wrote, “The woman’s power is for rule, not for battle – and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision… she must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise… wise, not that she may set herself above her husband but that she may never fail from his side.”
Yet in the 1840s, clever women found ways to rise above the stereotype.
Reading order note: Each book stands on its own. Readers who want the series in order should begin with The Lark.
The Lark
Book 1 · $14.99
When the witty granddaughter of a philosopher debuts in the London Marriage Mart, will her clever mind be squashed by the ideals of the Bon Ton, the titled aristocracy?
Obscured in the shadow of her beautiful and noble cousin, saucy Eva is still eager to spend the social season in London, where the struggles of Victorian women are often overshadowed by their male counterparts. Despite her titled aunt daily assuring her she will end a spinster, her uncle’s political aspirations and her cousin’s relentless pursuits for her property through marriage, Eva is in heaven. The Theater Royal is performing Shakespeare all season. However, there is no enjoying it when the duke meant for her cousin shows Eva too much attention. What can she do when her aunt goes on the attack? Suddenly a whole lifescape Eva knows nothing about comes to light. What is this Lark being played against her? Who used her future as an ante in this elaborate game?
High-Bred Rose
Book 2 · $14.99
What can a maiden aunt do in 1840 England when she comes home to find her niece being courted by a madman?
She is debilitated by the deep love she feels for her previous employer, Lawrence, a nobleman whose loyalty to his late wife insists mourning is a lifelong endeavor. She feels the best thing for her is to retire to her brother’s house in hopes of healing and never seeing Lawrence again. But Myra’s own misery must be set aside when she must foil the plans of an entitled, wealthy young man who tries to run away with her niece. Can she humble herself enough to ask Lawrence for help? Will he reel her in and throw her back? Again? Can Myra protect her niece and her poor heart?
The Basra Pearls
Book 3 · $14.99
A carriage ride with the wrong man ends Millie’s prospects. Her childhood friend marries her to spare her the scandal.
In Victorian England, Millie’s reputation and life are devastated when a simple carriage ride with the wrong man turns into an assault and ruins her prospects at marriage. Frank, an older childhood friend, steps in and marries her. When Frank, a brilliant investigator, is hired to help the most arrogant and incompetent barrister in London, Millie steps up as his equal to keep an innocent man from being hung. Will Millie heal enough to value her childhood-friendship-turned-marriage-of-convenience as more than just a way to free herself from scandal?
Tattered Silk
Book 4 · $14.99
Poverty in the Victorian Era is not for the faint of heart. It is even worse for a woman whose pretty face attracts unscrupulous men wherever she goes.
When Anna is betrayed to the workhouse by her jealous wealthy lover, she feels her world has ended. Here, she meets a sweet grandmotherly woman whose kindness saves her. What Anna doesn’t know is that this woman is a manipulator of vast intrigue far beyond the workhouse, drawing Anna into a future of capture and rescue she cannot escape. Later freed to become a domestic servant, she is sure her luck is finally turning until her mistress, who is savagely jealous of Anna’s pretty face, accuses her of stealing. From there she falls into a web woven by her former lover and finds herself the linchpin in a street war. Why does it appear that anyone who gets close to Anna either meets a tragic fate or finds themselves in dire circumstances? Is it merely fate’s cruelty, or are there mortal hands manipulating every step she takes?
The Reality Show
Three books by Kate L. Hart
Reality television emerged in the 1990s to compete in the cut-throat market of viewer attraction. In this genre, normal people are placed in situations of extreme stress as they pursue incredible amounts of prize money. Contestants are eliminated one by one. These shows are criticized for exploiting, rigging the results and unfairly humiliating ordinary people.
This series portrays a totally fictional contest where young women who have overcome hardships seek to be chosen as “The Whole Package” by a handsome judge and win the million-dollar prize.
Reading order note: The Whole Package is the name of the televised contest inside the story. Book 1 introduces it. Book 2 takes its name from it.
The Reality Show
Book 1 · $14.99
The Whole Package is a classy reality show centered on the woman who overcame hardship and is most worthy of million-dollar prize money. One of the contestants, Carrie Carnegie, an emotionally distant socialite, doesn’t believe she’ll give into the catty behavior of a reality show contestant. Despite the show’s altruistic premise, Carrie is cruelly manipulated into performing for the crowd. She realizes this manipulation isn’t new. She’s been shoved one way or another most of her life; her existence feels like a puppet on strings. Taunting her is the money she desperately needs and the strong affection she feels for the show’s handsome judge. How can she keep her head above it all when the longer she’s on the show, the more she realizes she’s morphed into a Reality TV Star?
The Whole Package
Book 2 · $14.99
Carrie Carnegie finds herself in a quandary; she yearns for empowerment, but her affection for the reality show judge, Ethan, leads her to question: Was any of her time on television genuine? Can she trust that Ethan’s feelings are mutual, especially now that she has new opportunities for love all around her? Enlightened to see the manipulation she’s lived in for years, Carrie realizes how much of her life is contrived by others. Her doubts and insecurities force her to face her own reality, which means tossing out the cold, impenetrable front she has hidden behind for so long. When the genuine, vulnerable yet shrewd Carrie emerges, where will her life lead?
Relevé
Book 3 · $14.99
Deep within those who succeed lies a fight that cannot be lost. No matter how many times they fall, they rise again. Erin, a professional dancer who combated scoliosis in her youth, embodies this spirit. Hot-tempered at times, she believes she can and will get up no matter how hard she is slammed down. However, after being utterly humiliated on a rigged television reality show – in front of her vast army of followers – she must draw on new strength to rise up against all odds. In her journey, she aims to become Prima Ballerina, overcoming her love struggles along the way.
Standalone Titles
Seven books that stand entirely on their own, from a beach in Cabo San Lucas to a prison classroom in Gunnison, Utah.
· Action Romance ·
Treacherous Secrets
Ryviera Shayne · $15.95
Bursting with happiness she couldn’t hide, Trissity imagined the coming scene: They’d be gently splashing in the waves of the Cabo San Lucas beach at twilight where she would tell him the secret – after seven years of trying, hoping, even fervently praying, she was finally pregnant. A passionate, exuberant kiss would surely follow – she could hardly wait.
But that very evening on the beach, just as the scene grew perfect, her husband’s secret past caught up and exploded around them. Horrid, deadly bullets ripped into the waves at their feet, shattering her perfect moment.
· Farm Life ·
This Our Faith
John Leslie Hart
After a terrible farm wreck, his young brother lies in the wheat chaff, still and bloody. This scene is all too familiar to Sydney; he has seen it obsessively, over and over in his mind, weeks before it happened. Amid the family’s struggles to pay doctor bills and save the farm, Sydney grapples with his faith conflicts. He sees another future he must change, though it means testing his faith by risking his life in the worst storm in years.
· An amusing mental counseling allegory ·
Marry Up!
John Leslie Hart
Ever talk to your inner self? Farmer Og, deathly afraid of intimate relationships, cannot bring himself to court the woman he loves. When Og admits the hallucination of seeing an elf to a passing psychiatrist, he tells him it is his inner child and to listen to it. After the psychiatrist leaves, townspeople twist the psychiatrist’s printed advice, posted on the store door, for their own entertainment. That is, until he turns the tables on them. Og’s sincerity at wanting to change propels him through many misadventures.
· Spiritual Help ·
Brady’s Journey: Touching on Pridefulness
John Leslie Hart
Everyone suffers from pridefulness, yet few truly love themselves. Genuine love of the deepest self – the opposite of the surface love of narcissism – is one of the most profound, important goals of life. It is this self-love that pridefulness counterfeits. Self-love is open where pridefulness is closed. Self-love tries to better the self where pridefulness tries to be better than anyone else. Self-love is forgiving where pridefulness is condemning. Self-love is healing, where pridefulness festers. Self-love welcomes others into the circle, where pridefulness is exclusive. Self-love is a spiritual relationship with self, where pridefulness is a carnal relationship with self.
Spritual Help
· Spiritual Help ·
John Waterbury · $9.99
Well-known mental health therapist John Waterbury shares lifetime wisdom of basic but obscure truths about finding lasting happiness in this tear-filled world.
Helpful answers for when life becomes too overwhelming, when details are too numerous to deal with, when people become too demanding, when family expectations seem impossible, when life seems just too much. There are answers, spiritual answers that mean everything.
When the distance seems too great for us to bridge the gap, when we feel lost with no hope of finding our way home, Jesus consistently finds a way to come to us. Not just sometimes, and not just for the “good” guys, but for all of us.
He comes whenever we’re ready. Jesus will always be here.
Prison Reform
· Prison Reform ·
Mark Hugentobler
After his long and successful career as a coach and high school administrator, Mark Hugentobler was “sentenced” to prison by his local school board. He became academy principal within the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison, Utah. Arriving at the “Island of Misfit Toys,” he changed everything by recognizing the true potential of many of the inmates. And realizing the current system is broken.
A 1970s Flower Child Book
Into the Seed
Sherman Hart
Growing bigger, bigger and bigger, to fit inside a dandelion seed? John discovers a world where nothing is as it seems, from cookies that scream when bitten, ice cream cones hanging in the sky that are quite something else, to an uppity turtle who invites others inside her shell for tea. A zany new adventure awaits at every corner.
“From here, it looks like I went from the inside to the outside, when all the time I thought I was on the outside going to the inside.” The pert turtle patted John’s curly locks. “There’s still hope for you, boy,” she sighed, but with a hopeless look in her beady eyes.
More Titles on the Way
At Jacob Marley Publications, we are regularly publishing exciting new books that will be added as soon as copyrighted. If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to get in touch!