The Shady Park Chronicles
Labeling immigrants as terrorists, arming teachers, destroying the environment—all the nationwide fiascos threaten the lives of people in Shady Park. This series of novels set in a small suburban town dramatizes their fight for sanity and justice.
Book 1
When Emma uncovers a conspiracy of real estate developers to get Charles away from her and get her friend’s property away from him, it is up to her to stop it.
Her naïve, idealistic husband Charles is no help. A crumbling ceiling, rusting cars, bills—these things don’t concern him. His only concern is seeing that there are no preservatives, pesticides, or growth hormones in his food.
Their friend Andre, an unmarried, eccentric intellectual, is even less concerned with what he calls Emma’s first world problems. He’s content to live on pizza and donuts in his shack by the river.
Book 2
A school shooting and groundswell of demand to arm teachers challenges a young reporter for the Shady Park Ledger to find out and report what really happened.
Anthony, a minor character who helps Emma in the first novel, becomes the focus of this one.
Everyone is sure the shooter was a terrorist. A woman who wears a hejab is arrested, but Anthony believes she’s not guilty and works to find out who is. Luckily he has the help of the beautiful Pari, who encourages him to keep reporting the facts despite the publisher’s threats to fire both of them.
Book 3
A timid high school teacher in danger of being fired for objecting to the new alt-right textbooks required in her school, steps up to defend a student who’s been receiving unwanted nude pictures on his phone from a girl he hardly knows—and then she starts receiving nude pictures herself.
Nicole, a minor character in the previous novels, is the focus of this one. She loses her job but meets Ralph, the editor of the Shady Park newspaper, who suspects that a member of the board of education has been confiscating nude pictures from students for his own pleasure and profit. Nicole falls in love with Ralph, and their happiness seems secured, but then the police call her in for questioning.