Books published by publisher Martin Laredo Publishers

“A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t'attain to! If thou wert the lion, the fox wouldbeguile thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox wouldeat three: if thou wert the fox, the lion wouldsuspect thee, when peradventure thou wert accused bythe ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dulness wouldtorment thee, and still thou livedst but as abreakfast to the wolf: if thou wert the wolf, thygreediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldsthazard thy life for thy dinner: wert thou theunicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee andmake thine own self the conquest of thy fury: wertthou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse:wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by theleopard: wert thou a leopard, thou wert german tothe lion and the spots of thy kindred were jurors onthy life: all thy safety were remotion and thydefence absence. What beast couldst thou be, thatwere not subject to a beast? and what a beast artthou already, that seest not thy loss intransformation!” ― William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

“To die, is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her, Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection.Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.” ― William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

“Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.Katherine: In his tongue.Petruchio: Whose tongue?Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.” ― William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

When sixteen-year-old Eva Bontrager wakes up in an operating room seconds before a procedure to harvest her organs begins, she’s proclaimed a medical miracle. As she begins the uncertain path to recovery from the brain hemorrhage she suffered after a riding accident, her family is thrilled and Eva is happy to be alive. However, it quickly becomes apparent that something is different. Eva is different, and now Peggy Bontrager, Eva’s mother, struggles to adapt to the child she has now versus the one who fit seamlessly into their happy lives before her daughter was pronounced brain dead. Reese Connelly is dead. She, along with a handful of others, including a child named Jilly who is too young to have words, are trapped in the cemetery in which they were laid to rest. Unable to cross over, the inhabitants of the graveyard spend their restless lives speculating about why they are stuck while others who arrive at the graveyard continue on to an unknown fate. They pick at each other’s wounds, digging into their personal failures and closely guarded secrets until one day their shadowy world is invaded by a road construction project. As Jilly wails, the oblivious road crew unearths the skeleton of a child in a ditch, and a stranger’s final terrifying act will set the worlds of the living and the dead on a collision course that could release or destroy them all. What Keeps You is a story about living, dying, and the difficult journey toward acceptance and letting go.