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Posted by G.G.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Family News: We are thrilled to announce that we are acquiring a new daughter on January 7, 2012! Jessi Judd will be marrying our son, Morgan, in Provo. Jessi is the perfect fit for Morgan, and he for her. We are preparing to attend many concerts, as she is a professional bassoonist! An added bonus is that daughter Buffy (who engineered the match) will be here for the wedding, etc., with our grandchildren, Jack and Micah two days after Christmas.

What Would You Do with a Month in Italy?

After watching a romantic Italian movie together, four women in a therapy group discuss the question, “If Italy is so wonderful and therapeutic, what are we doing in Ohio?” Dubbing themselves “The Crazy Ladies of Oakwood,” they all take off for Florence, packing their worries with them. Their lives will change forever in this seat of the Renaissance, but not at all in the ways they expected. Possessed of more than artistic treasures, the Italians have the unique gifts of agape (unconditional love) and phillia (sisterly and brotherly love). It is this balm that is applied gently into their weary souls. The Crazy Ladies slowly transform while embracing these Italian virtues. They discover buds of romance, as well as a healing that binds them together and puts them on the road to recovery, “The Only Way to Paradise.”

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The Last Waltz
It is December of 1913 in Vienna and Amalia Faulhaber is surrounded by the whirlwind that is the life of a nineteen-year-old socialite. She is comfortable and confident in her wealth, her heritage, and most of all, in her engagement to the Prussian baron, Eberhard von Waldburg. All this comes crashing to a halt the day that her fiance informs her that their engagement is off since he is returning to Prussia to fight in what he is sure will be a glorious war.

Thus begins the tale of a heroine of extraordinary background and resource who develops into a woman who would be extraordinary in any age.

The men in her life—a German officer in World War I, a patriotic Polish doctor, and an Austrian Baron, all shape her, but more remarkably she shapes them. Her utopian socialist uncle has raised her with ideas outside those of the upper classes, imparting to her a more complete picture of the day than possessed by the other men in her life. This quality causes her to champion the Austrian Democratic Experiment and to especially mourn its demise.

The Last Waltz is full of little known history of a land that was, in 1913, the apex of the worlds of science, medicine, art, and music. The speed with which the five-hundred year old empire fell, and the reasons behind that failure carry many warnings for the world we live in today.

Read an excerpt here
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What Was King Arthur’s True Identity?

When Maren Southcott’s sister, a noted Welsh Scholar, is murdered immediately after she has discovered news of a relic that would prove King Arthur’s identity, dangerous event are put in motion. As Maren hunts for her sister’s killer, she knows the best way to find him is to go after the manuscript herself. Soon she has not only the police, but MI5, and two rival Celtic scholars joining her search. Unbeknownst to her, among them is an Arthur-obsessed psychopath who needs the fifth-century manuscript as the “magic” token necessary to incite a Welsh revolution, overthrowing the Windsor Dynasty and restoring the Britain of Arthur’s time.

G.G. Vandagriff weaves a tale psychological suspense as Maren and her unwanted fellow travelers follow a trail winding through Welsh castles and monasteries. When her daughter is kidnapped and the manuscript specified as ransom, her chase grows desperate as she must outwit her followers and be first to discover Arthur’s omen. With her own life threatened by Rachel’s killer, the unknown psychopath, and even her estranged husband, Maren needs all her knowledge of Welsh and Arthurian lore, as well as her acquaintance with self-defense techniques to save not only herself, but her beloved child.

Read an excerpt here

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Cankered Roots
Book One of the Alex and Briggie Series
Alexandra Campbell, a spunky young widow, partnered with Brighamina Poulson, an even spunkier, rifle-toting grandmother thinks that as they have begun a genealogy business (RootSearch, Inc.), it is high time she finds out her family secret. Something went wrong in her family during her adolescence, changing her mother from a Chicago North Shore matron into an alcoholic and a doting father into a workaholic. The moment she graduated from High School, she was sent to the Sorbonne in Paris with a generous bank account and instructions not to return. It is now fifteen years since she has seen her parents, and she intends to lay the ghost that has separated her family for good. However, as usual in Alex’s unpredictable life, things do not go as planned. After an acrimonious fight with her once beloved father, she leaves with only a wallet-sized photograph of a woman she knows nothing about.That night, Alex’s father is killed. Bewildered and grieved that her family can never be whole again, she soon finds out that she is the chief suspect in the murder. With the unflappable Briggie at her side, she uses all her new genealogical skills, and (with the help of Briggie’s deer rifle) discovers a secret so bizarre that she finally understands why her parents wanted her far away and safe.