Amazon #1 Bestseller for Women's Literary Fiction2019 Readers' Favorite

2019 Readers' Favorite International Book Award Winner - Honorable Mention - Southern Ficton

Jonathan “Buddy” Cordova is a small time criminal defense lawyer living paycheck to paycheck and practicing law out of his house in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Shy, painfully awkward around pretty women, and carrying his own dark secret, Buddy falls for the daily jogger - Julie Saint, a part time Kindergarten teacher and Army widow with a little girl named Molly.

Consumed with love for his ready-made family, Buddy is the epitome of a husband, father and stepfather. Bonded over their mutual childhood losses, Molly and Buddy are not just stepfather and stepdaughter, but they are the best of pals.

When tragedy strikes, and the past at last comes back for its day of reckoning, the question becomes…what really makes a father? What kind of love resides in the heart of a man who takes on the raising of another man’s child, having all the responsibilities…but under the law, none of the rights? 

From the award-winning author of Scout's Honor, EJD Press presents this heart warming tale of fatherhood, family, secrets, loss...and most importantly...love.     

★ 2016 Readers Favorite International Book Award - Bronze, Southern Fiction
★ 2017 Eric Hoffer Award Finalist - Fiction

In Haddleboro, North Carolina, Scout Webb is a 14 year old kind and spirited small town southern girl and a tomboy much like her namesake, the young narrator from her mother’s favorite book. With both her name and her Christian faith deeply woven into the fabric of her identity, Scout always felt like she had a lot to live up to and was the kind of girl who made her parents proud. 

It's August 1983, and Scout is playing on a summer baseball team with Charlie Porter, her best friend since Kindergarten. More than anything, she is looking forward to her last few weeks at Camp Judah, a Christian camp near the Catawba River. She can’t wait to see her big crush “Brother Doug,” the thirty-two year old camp lifeguard who has watched her grow up each summer since she was seven years old. But after a fateful few days and one catastrophic event during her last day at the camp, Scout was changed forever.

Written through multiple narrators over the course of twenty years, this story follows Scout’s personal struggles as a freshman away at college in Raleigh and later as an overworked single mother approaching middle age, where she is forced to confront the causes of her own quiet suffering, the consequences of her actions and why even the eternal love and devotion of just one true friend can’t save her.

From debut novelist, Dori Ann Dupre, EJD Press brings you the two-time award winning story of a self, lost…a self, loathed…and a self, rediscovered...examining the harsh and cruel ways in which otherwise well-intentioned and decent people treat each other…even those they claim to love, but even more so…ultimately, how we treat our own selves.         

This special anthology is the first one created to deliver that special magic to adults struggling with memory loss, their families, friends and caregivers.

Step into 60 original flash fiction stories that are short enough, between 500 and 750 words, to recall. Get carried along a path of unexpected plots that warm the heart, give chills, stir laughter and surprise.

Meet memorable characters who despite life circumstances reach higher and set their own course; characters who influence opinions about people and situations; characters who inspire.

“Peer through the window into a world of emotions. From the aching loss on a one-lane bridge to the tangled memories that fill an empty box, each story in this collection leads you step by step through heartache and hope, until you realize that you’re not looking through a window at all, but into a mirror.”

—Monica Sanchez, PhD, Co-editor, Storytelling: Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Perspectives.

Read flash fiction by established and emerging writers from the United States and the United Kingdom who come with a rainbow of backgrounds — organic farmers and backyard chicken farmers, a retired judge, university professors, visual artists, poets, actors and screenwriters, musicians, dog lovers, pastry chefs, a handful of bartenders, a former morgue attendant, obituary writer— each one with a compelling story to tell.

Enjoy the evocative photographs that accompany several stories. Images touch the heart in a way that words and the mind cannot reach.

So, dive in, read to your loved one, and share with family and friends.

Connect, converse and share the magic of storytelling!