Sophia had not thought twice about taking up her friend's offer to move to Oregon to help her run the successful general store she had started some years before when faced with a spinster's lot in life. Levi Kirtman was more than irate at being denied his birthright. When his paternal uncle gave him the ultimatum to find a wife in order to get the deeds to the ranch which should by all rights be his after his father's passing, he dug his heels in and refused. He would live without the ranch rather than be pushed into marrying. Then he met the woman his uncle had in mind after reading her advertisement, and he saw her as a pretty enough solution to his many problems. Can a man cure his greed and addiction through deception and cruelty? Was this the life the Lord had intended for a widow and her young son in a strange town? Would Eli find a loving family to finally call his own?

    And whether you were there by choice or circumstance, there were lessons to be learned as well as taught. Nobody knew The Bricks better than the women who lived between them. These are their stories of lessons, blessings, love, and loss, brought to you brick by brick. Ladies, and fellas too, you ever invested time in somebody that you knew was no good for you, holding on and waiting for them to change because you thought that you were special? Well I have, and I’m here to tell you that there’s a one percent chance of that change ever taking place, a two percent chance of them becoming a better person than they were before you found them, and a staggering ninety-seven percent chance of someone more deserving coming along if you’ll open your eyes, stop being stupid, and sit down with a common-sense calculator to tally up your worth. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to waste a little time, because contrary to popular belief, there can be a happy ending on the other side of stupidity. And to prove it, I’m gonna take you for a walk through my own experience. I’m Camille, by the way, a resident here at The Rose Palms, aka The Bricks, apartment B17. Glad you stopped by.

    Disappearances, deaths, drug deals in broad daylight, arrests but no convictions, and residents’ distrust of their new police officers have turned life in the idyllic lake town into a nightmare.While the nation is focused on the southern border, Tony, his partner, Don Hanson, and receptionist-turned-investigator, Denise Richardson, learn first-hand how Mexican cartel drug trafficking has infiltrated the northern border. Quiet little Grand Rock Lake could become a hub to supply illegal drugs to the surrounding states! If dirty cops and drug dealers are in collusion, it would put his team into an explosive situation. Can they untangle the truth in time, before more victims fall?

    

    This historical tale has been unread for three millennia and so shakes the rabbi's faith that he kills to keep the object and the tale it tells to himself. So begins a quest to find the real Mount Sinai and a treasure buried within the Mountain of God. The treasure hunt engages the skills of a charming, beautiful but conniving Los Angeles realtor; her lover, an LAPD detective; a young and adventurous Silicon Valley billionaire; and a Harvard Egyptologist. SEEKING SINAI tests the limits of more than one man’s faith and becomes entangled in Middle East turmoil and political intrigue. Uncovering Sinai’s treasures also a presents a conundrum. Finding them would be the greatest archeological discovery of all time; revealing them to the world could jeopardize the moral foundation of the world’s greatest religions. Author Barry Pollack weaves an adventure story that takes you from ancient Egypt to California to the modern Middle East and back again. It’s a journey that weaves Jewish philosophy with the politics of oil and water and the meaning and value of faith.