Books published by publisher Saint John Press

Every Legend Has A BeginningThe year is A.D. 299. Diocletian rules the Roman Empire. And the gods have suddenly fallen silent.17-year-old Jurian doesn’t have time for the gods. He’s trying to hold his family together after his father died in disgrace, and piety -- even to the Christ -- just isn’t practical. But then a ruthless enemy targets his family, forcing Jurian to make a choice: will he pursue the glory he’s always wanted, or will he sacrifice everything to protect a faith that was never really his own?On the other side of the Empire, the young priestess Sabra shields her people from the terrible vengeance of the old god she serves. But even as she offers the dark and bloody sacrifices the god demands, visions of desolation haunt her dreams. As suspicion tightens its stranglehold on her city, Sabra must unravel the mystery of the god’s portents before everything she’s ever loved is destroyed.Fear of the gods’ silence sparks a bloody persecution that will soon consume the Empire. As the fires of suspicion and hatred ignite around them, Jurian and Sabra are drawn together by a mysterious prophecy...one that will set them on a journey to battle an evil beyond imagining.Saints aren’t born. They are forged.

Not all battles are won by the sword. Jurian’s victory against the dark power in Cyrene has earned him renown throughout the Empire, but fame means nothing to him if he can’t save the friend he lost. When Jurian’s search for Menas leads him to Alexandria, he finds an unlikely ally in the Roman governor’s brilliant and precocious daughter, Aikaterina. Together they are swept into the glittering intrigue of Diocletian’s court in Nicomedia, where no one and nothing is what it seems. Then Sabra arrives in the city, and Jurian proves to the Emperor that he is more than just a legend, and finally everything he ever hoped for seems within his reach. But Marcus Valerius Casca is also vying for Diocletian’s favor, and his hatred for Jurian knows no limits. As Casca’s devious plotting snares each of Jurian’s friends in turn, Jurian must discover a way to beat his enemy at his own game and rescue Menas before he destroys them all. From the exotic Alexandria to the imperial court of Nicomedia and the bloody sands of the Roman Colosseum, this sweeping second installment of the Sword and Serpent series will pull you into a riveting adventure through a world of deadly intrigue, where nothing is what it seems and the price of freedom can be greater than life itself.Saints aren’t born. They are forged.

Every Legend Has A BeginningThe year is A.D. 299. Diocletian rules the Roman Empire. And the gods have suddenly fallen silent.17-year-old Jurian doesn’t have time for the gods. He’s trying to hold his family together after his father died in disgrace, and piety -- even to the Christ -- just isn’t practical. But then a ruthless enemy targets his family, forcing Jurian to make a choice: will he pursue the glory he’s always wanted, or will he sacrifice everything to protect a faith that was never really his own?On the other side of the Empire, the young priestess Sabra shields her people from the terrible vengeance of the old god she serves. But even as she offers the dark and bloody sacrifices the god demands, visions of desolation haunt her dreams. As suspicion tightens its stranglehold on her city, Sabra must unravel the mystery of the god’s portents before everything she’s ever loved is destroyed.Fear of the gods’ silence sparks a bloody persecution that will soon consume the Empire. As the fires of suspicion and hatred ignite around them, Jurian and Sabra are drawn together by a mysterious prophecy...one that will set them on a journey to battle an evil beyond imagining.Saints aren’t born. They are forged.

Not all battles are won by the sword. Jurian’s victory against the dark power in Cyrene has earned him renown throughout the Empire, but fame means nothing to him if he can’t save the friend he lost. When Jurian’s search for Menas leads him to Alexandria, he finds an unlikely ally in the Roman governor’s brilliant and precocious daughter, Aikaterina. Together they are swept into the glittering intrigue of Diocletian’s court in Nicomedia, where no one and nothing is what it seems. Then Sabra arrives in the city, and Jurian proves to the Emperor that he is more than just a legend, and finally everything he ever hoped for seems within his reach. But Marcus Valerius Casca is also vying for Diocletian’s favor, and his hatred for Jurian knows no limits. As Casca’s devious plotting snares each of Jurian’s friends in turn, Jurian must discover a way to beat his enemy at his own game and rescue Menas before he destroys them all. From the exotic Alexandria to the imperial court of Nicomedia and the bloody sands of the Roman Colosseum, this sweeping second installment of the Sword and Serpent series will pull you into a riveting adventure through a world of deadly intrigue, where nothing is what it seems and the price of freedom can be greater than life itself.Saints aren’t born. They are forged.

Where there is fire, there will be blood. Tossed on a ship bearing him to the icy northern reaches of Britannia, Jurian dreams of a mysterious woman and a sword driven into a stone. Kneeling in the candlelight in Cyrene, Sabra hears the whisper of the dragon in the depths of the earth. Taking the mantle from her gravely ill father, Aikaterina rules her fragile city under the threat of imperial disfavor.As the fourth century dawns over Rome, Jurian seeks to regain his honor along the Empire’s brutal northern frontier. When Casca brings back word from the oracle of Apollo, the Emperor decides that the only way to save the Empire is to solve the “Christian problem” once and for all. He needs only one spark to set the world ablaze.As the storm of fire and blood sweeps across the Empire, Jurian relinquishes his sword and the honor he most desires to fulfill the prophecy along with his destiny.Saints aren’t born. They are forged.

Where there is fire, there will be blood. Tossed on a ship bearing him to the icy northern reaches of Britannia, Jurian dreams of a mysterious woman and a sword driven into a stone. Kneeling in the candlelight in Cyrene, Sabra hears the whisper of the dragon in the depths of the earth. Taking the mantle from her gravely ill father, Aikaterina rules her fragile city under the threat of imperial disfavor.As the fourth century dawns over Rome, Jurian seeks to regain his honor along the Empire’s brutal northern frontier. When Casca brings back word from the oracle of Apollo, the Emperor decides that the only way to save the Empire is to solve the “Christian problem” once and for all. He needs only one spark to set the world ablaze.As the storm of fire and blood sweeps across the Empire, Jurian relinquishes his sword and the honor he most desires to fulfill the prophecy along with his destiny.Saints aren’t born. They are forged.

Fresh out of Infantry OCS, 2nd Lieutenant Dennis Riley gets a reality check when he joins his platoon in the Hobo Woods, south of Cui Chi, home of the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam. It was a blistering hot August in 1967 when he met the men of the Third Platoon, Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry. By nightfall they are in contact with elements of the 272nd NVA and the blood letting seldom takes a break for the next twelve months. Dennis and his men are frequently ambushed, mortared and booby trapped, but by New Year’s 1967/68 they are ready for the fight of their life at Fire Support Base Burt, north of Tay Ninh, astride the Cambodian border. The 2nd Battalion (Mech) and the 3rd Battalion hold off the combined assaults of four North Vietnamese regiments killing over 600 of the enemy by daybreak. Absolution vividly describes the carnage and American heroism of that battlefield using the eyewitness accounts of helicopter gunship and medivac pilots, platoon leaders, sergeants and the fighting men.Now a First Lieutenant, Dennis Riley is selected to command Charlie Company, badly demoralized after losing twelve killed and dozens wounded at Burt. At the onset of the Tet Offensive, ten more gallant Americans die as Riley and his company slug it out during sixteen days of frontal assaults against an entrenched enemy at the village of Ap Cho, south of Cui Chi. The description of this battle is as close to combat as you can get without having been there. And if you were there... anywhere in Vietnam, thank you and God Bless you!April 12, 1968 was Good Friday, but the 3rd Battalion saw nothing good about a regiment of NVA screaming across their positions in the middle of the night. They paid dearly for it, losing hundreds of their Communists attackers to the 22nd Infantry. It fell to hand to hand combat, bayonet for bayonet... all night long. One hundred, fifty three NVA died within the perimeter. In the aftermath of that carnage and the loss of so many lives, Dennis Riley grows disenchanted with the war. He is quietly reassigned to administrative duties, eventually retuning to America in late 1968. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder steals his mind and his soul as he wanders the country aimlessly, grieving the loss of so many of his men. We find Dennis astride a Texas railroad track as a fast moving Western Pacific freight train bears down on his car. Few books can get you as close to combat and the men who sacrificed so much in Vietnam as “Absolution” does. It is action packed and factual. You’ll shed a tear or two as you travel those deadly battlefields with Dennis Riley, Charlie Company, and the 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry. If you want to know what PTSD is all about, how it effects all fighting men, and how to resolve it; this book may be a very big help to you.

As the years have fallen away, the memories still remain vivid among the players, coaches and fans who loved and cheered the Central Pennsylvania Whitetail Bucks in the mid-70s. Author Mark Speck tells the story through the eyes of the players themselves. The Bucks were a colorful group with varied personalities and backgrounds, but all with a deep love for the game. The team was composed of some of the area's most outstanding and well-known players who had carved out record-setting performances during their earlier playing days. Some had gone on to NFL tryouts, to military tours in Vietnam, to the steel mills of Johnston, the railroad shops of Altoona and the coal mines in Philipsburg, but they all returned to their one love--semipro football and the Whitetail Bucks.

The Vietnam War opens the door for countless volumes of personal memoirs from the fighting men who waged it. Most are well crafted by the men who never thought they would write a book, especially one about Vietnam. Absolution is an exceptional work of one man’s journey across those Asian battlefields in 1967 and 1968. Author Charles J. Boyle, takes you smack into the fighting from the first page of this authentic history and leaves you breathless all the way to the end. His descriptions of battle, how they were won or lost, and the men who fought them are spine chilling. Absolution is not just a story of the horror of war in Vietnam, but it is also one of love... love and admiration for the men who fought it. Thousands of young men, most of them teenagers, were thrust into the barbarity of that Asian civil war inadequately trained and initially armed with a defective weapon. In Vietnam, the foot soldier honed his “killing skills” by instinct and imagination. Out of Vietnam emerged a legion of men, struggling with an even greater battle, personal and private. They suffered a moral conflict that only those who have taken another life can comprehend. Then, undermining their gallant service in Vietnam, a powerful and biased news media created a myth that quickly spread across America. They said that the Vietnam-era soldier was a misfit; a perverse example of a military machine gone awry, wreaking havoc upon innocent civilians. Soon after the fighting was done in Vietnam, prominent news broadcasters coined a new phrase: “They only war we ever lost,” they said. They want you to believe that the soldier lost the war, when, in fact, he lost only his youth, his innocence and sadly, many of his friends. Absolution will take you through that aftermath, offer solutions for the Post Traumatic Stress that these soldiers suffered, and will prove to you that these Vietnam Veterans were some of the finest soldiers that ever served America. Absolution is a remarkable resurrection of the Vietnam battlefield, told by an author who has “been there.” It is an extraordinary and moving story, accurately portrayed, with all the valor, pain, and sacrifice that distinguished Vietnam from other wars. It is superb history and great reading. It will tear at your heart and make you want to cry.

Culturism is the opposite of multiculturalism. Rather than stress our diversity, culturism asks that we stress our unity. To do so we must protect and promote our traditional majority western culture. Outside of the West, all nations have always had culturist policies. China, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico are current practitioners of culturism. Unlike multiculturalists, culturists take cultural diversity seriously. If we were to take culture seriously we would: avoid wars designed to make Islamic nations progressive, have rational border laws, understand that racial profiling is really culturist profiling, know that the achievement gap reflects cultural results rather than society’s racism, and be able to discuss the importance of diversity without multiculturalists easily smearing us as racist. Racism is irrational and evil. But because cultural diversity is real, culturism is rational and necessary. The book Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future, explores the many dynamics of traditional culturism in an entertaining fashion. A chapter shows that the U.S. has traditionally been a culturist nation. One chapter shows the difference between the West and the rest. The anthropology chapter explodes the myth of universal human nature. In a chapter on nature, we see that animals are culturist. The psychology chapter shows our natural propensity for group joining and the philosophy chapter reminds us that philosophers have traditionally worked on discussions of political and cultural survival. Culturism should be a unifying theme for our schools’ curriculum. Above all, Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future argues that we need to use and spread the words 'culturism' and 'culturist' to challenge multiculturalists' current dominance over public discourse.

The Legend of Mystic Mountain tells how a wicked wizard turned all the songbirds, crickets, frogs, and the friendly villagers into singing rocks. Jeremy, a lost forest boy meets Fawn, whose parents have been turned into such rocks by the evil wizard. Together with all the animals of the forest, including a fire breathing dragon, journey to the top of Mystic Mountain to confront the wizard.Along the way they overcome many obstacles: An impassable river; a hungry alligator; ferocious wolves, and angry bees, until finally they face the sorcerer. With the help of a handsome prince and princess, they overcome the wizard and restore all the animals and villagers to their former selves.

“What is your name, girl? And why have they condemned you to die?” Meet Princess Caecilia, who, after being framed for the murder of her father, is blinded and left to die in the forest, but there receives help from unexpected quarters. Leap into a fantasy world complete with a wicked step-mother, giant wolves, a Knight in shining armor, shadows and ghosts, and a girl-eating monster, all encountered on a quest to seek out the mysterious Fairy of the Mountain, who may just offer the solution to all of Princess Caecilia’s woes. The Girl with the Golden Eyes, by Margaret Erickson, is a fresh and original story told in the traditional style, brought to vivid life by the whimsical illustrations of Virginia Griswold. Filled with just the right amount of sorrow, joy, horror, and wonder, it would make a wonderful gift for any imaginative and adventurous-minded boy or girl.