Books with author Charles Ray

Garden of the Bear by C. R. West is a fictional tale of young siblings Billy and Katie, ages eleven and eight, respectively. They live in the small town of Normanville, not far from the idyllic Lake Pumpkin where Will, Aunt Lucy's fiancé, owns a farm, including the lake and the woods surrounding it.The story begins with Billy dreaming, as usual; little did he know that day he would soon learn things he never could have expected and find himself in the middle of an investigation. Much of this information would come from an old man with long white hair that would come to be known as Uncle Noble and believed to be Will's uncle, and of Cherokee ancestry. He would share with them the secrets of the woods…of creatures, both seen and unseen…and how they work together to protect the tranquility of the land.While this story is fiction, the author has woven a tapestry which depicts what can happen when unscrupulous people propose development projects…the results of which may not necessarily benefit the residents of the community.About the Author:C. R. West is a native of Lakeland, Florida, and an alumnus of the University of Florida. He spent time as a U.S. Air Force flier, is a retired newspaper journalist, and has traced his ancestry back to the Jamestown settlement in the early 1600s.When not writing from his lakefront home in Lakeland, he enjoys reading, traveling, sports, entertaining his cat Katie, and walking along the lakeshore while watching birds and other wildlife, and feeding many of the birds. The author also has a great interest in history and Native American folklore, due to pioneer and Cherokee heritage.

Eighteen-year-old white-boy suburbanite Jay Charles receives a crash course on culture in the New Jersey jail system that high school didnt prepare him for. Jays fast money and notoriety land him in the hands of the police, opening up to him a world that starkly contrasts the difference between the urban and suburban, the good and the bad, and the black and the white. With no way out Jay has to quickly figure out who to associate with and how to survive and defend himself in a world so different than the affluent suburbs he hailed from. Drawing from his trials and tribulations, unique interactions, and a near-death experience, Jays stripping of the soul testament helps explain the reasons we treat each other the way we do, the misconceptions of the urban youth, and why he believes the suburbs display an emptiness of spirit that supports conformity, control, and a fear of reality, a fear that pillars the unspoken race war still going on today.

Starting a new life after the death of her mother, Nora learns how to be strong. Are there wounds too deep to heal, pains too sharp to share? And if a family survives by cutting the ties that bind them, can they ever be whole again? After losing her mother to illness and her father to his work, Nora Mackenzie must leave her home in the interior of B.C. for a North Vancouver school. Estranged from her classmates, her family, and the life she’s lost, Nora walls herself off from the people around her. At the same time, her young cousin Lizzie is facing an uncertain future as one of the first children to undergo open-heart surgery. As the operation approaches, Nora discovers that she is not the only person in her family isolated by fear and grief.

When you go to sleep, what do you dream about? Do you have adventures? Do you have nightmares? Or do your dreams mainly consist of the average everyday events that make up your normal life? Thirteen year-old Liana Savard used to have every type of dream imaginable, until one night when her dreams became a little bit too real.After moving to a new city in a new country, Liana tries to make the best of it. Only a night after her arrival into the new city, Liana falls asleep and then awakens on a completely differnt planet, Echo -- where she soon finds out shes in charge of a kingdom, as their queen. To make matters more interesting, every time she goes to sleep on Echo, she awakens on Earth, where shes just a normal teenage girl that still has to go to school! On Earth, she also meets Conner Rivers, who recently moved into the house next door only a few months before her own arrival. And as shell soon discover, hes not your average teenage boy.In his first book in The Echo Kingdom Chronicles series, C.D. Charles has crafted an adventure that will satisfy your imaginative thirst, capture your heart, and tickle your funny bone.