A Girl from Sellwood, a brief memoir, provides insights into Marjorie Wright's childhood in Portland between 1921 and 1939. Taught by her grandmother to respect the endeavors and fruits of her ancestors, Marjorie Wright recorded portions of the family history, to be discovered later by family members who had in turn been taught to preserve family stories. Besides details of day-to-day life in that era, A Girl from Sellwood also includes an appendix with extensive genealogy of the historic Brewster and Barrell families of New England, as well as the author's Wright and Tozier ancestry.

In 1849, Ralph Buckingham, a younger son of a youngest son of New England Pilgrim stock, went to California from his small-town Connecticut home. Landless, with no inheritance or trade of his own, Ralph sailed around the Horn, then traveled overland from San Francisco to gold country in the Trinity Mountains. He spent four years in northern California, struggling daily to earn enough to build a future. Sixty years later, back home in Connecticut, Ralph writes his story at the behest of the Newtown Bee newspaper man. Well-schooled in spite of his relative poverty, Ralph Buckingham quotes Boswell, Shakespeare, Dickens, Byron, and Sir Walter Scott as he describes the agonies and antics of men sluicing for gold amidst rattlesnakes and mosquitoes where Western civilization had not yet asserted itself. Recounting his adventures and the colorful-and later, famous-characters he met, Ralph describes in lively detail the geography and natural history of the lands where he traveled and worked. The newspaper columns from 1910-originally titled "Memories of a Forty-Niner"-were preserved by family members for a century, handed down through generations. These Newtown Bee articles, now transcribed and edited, tell the story of a young man who went into the wilds with a sharp eye and a sharp mind, and returned to tell those who stayed safely at home how it was to dig for gold when the West was still untamed.

Can you find true love without a non-disclosure agreement after your picture is on the cover of Rolling Stone? Two musicians meet by accident in Seattle: Jason, the now infamous singer-songwriter, is at odds with the world because of falsehoods spread on the Internet. Susi, a classical musician whose previous life came off the rails, is building a new career as a music teacher, focusing on early Americana. Their separate worlds and professional yearnings quickly become entwined in unexpected ways. Jason wants Susi to sing the haunting songs he's written for her-if he can just get his ex-wife out of his recording contracts. Susi doesn't want to sing in public-and complains that Jason disturbs her hard-won serenity. Each tries to hide deep secrets from the other. Yet in love-and on the Internet-who really has secrets? Passion, mistaken identities, and a menacing stalker twist a love-at-first-sight story into a roller-coaster ride through the backstreets of Seattle, where tourists never go. Where both karma and sunshine can be so unpredictable in April. Nine Volt Heart, a light-suspense romantic serio-comedy, contains explicit sex scenes and the undeleted expletives you'd expect at rock recording sessions in Seattle. Annie Pearson's "Rain City Comedy of Manners" series explores misadventures in contemporary Seattle among people whose work drives their hearts' desires, often in conflict with other love affairs. When bad things happen to quirky people, can they survive the wretched comedy of romance under grey skies? Reviewers say: Get some sleep aids before you start reading Nine Volt Heart, Annie Pearson's rock music romance AND thriller. You'll find yourself rooting for a pair of unlikely lovers who must navigate Seattle's tangled indie music scene to stay together. Then there's the anonymous cyber-stalker who becomes oh too real. Pearson masterfully mixes suspense and love into a riveting read. - Emily Warn, "Shadow Architect"

A second chance at love? Or a soggy motorcycle journey from Tumalo to Denio to Winnemucca to Zion, while the White-Bone Demon seeks to destroy hope? Sean Frederick Wentworth, the manga artist, has the artistic career he dreamed of. He's producing a new mini-series that tells his mythic story backwards: the journey through the U.S. West that was the creative genesis of his infamous steampunk characters. The only catch: a demonic ex-partner who seeks to destroy Sean's new project. Eliot Arden is a Seattle artisan and handywoman. Her put-together life worked well until she met Destiny, a teenage orphan who needs stability and mentoring as an artist. Eliot needs cash, right now, to secure Destiny's future. A short-term job slams Eliot back a decade, riding her rebuilt BMW R100RS down the path not taken. Ten years ago, Eliot and Sean enjoyed a brief affair of the heart. But they couldn't conquer the contradictions: artist versus artisan, East Coast versus West Coast, fame versus solitude. On the new journey to the West, it seems there's still too much to overcome, including Sean Wentworth's penchant for living inside his own myths. But this time, dreams and desires might heat up like red slickrock in the sun. Or is that fire sparked by a 900cc bike sliding sideways down a backcountry highway? Artemis in the Desert is a workplace adventure story-where the workplace is a motorcycle journey across the Great Basin. This story includes colorful language and sexual situations, plus as few motorcycles dropped by the riders. A He Said/She Said story, Artemis in the Desert is recommended for readers 18+. Rain City Comedy of Manners Series: #1. The Grrrl of Limberlost (Sam and Matt: cyber-thriller on Puget Sound) #2. Artemis in the Desert (Eliot and Sean: adventure on two wheels) #3. Nine Volt Heart (Jason and Susi: musical ride through Seattle's backstreets) Each book can be read as a standalone story, with no cliffhangers. Later books do not reveal the stories of earlier books.

True stories of the real Norwegian bachelor farmers and their Danish neighbors. A Boy from Wannaska shines light on a northern Minnesota farming community, where first-generation Scandinavian immigrants built new lives in modern America at the turn of the century. This memoir includes details of farming and household practices, plus hilarious stories of backwoods farmers in a new environment: learning to drive, hunting moose, building new social institutions-and competitive potlucks at the local Lutheran Church, made up of "37 souls and 7 Danes." Marjorie Wright Mortensen collected the heritage of tales told among the children and grandchildren of Scandinavian immigrants in Roseau County. The text includes historic photos, recipes, and an appendix with genealogy of the Danish forebears and American descendants of Jens and Ellen Mortensen, who immigrated from Odense County, Denmark in 1889.

Samsara Byron is back in Seattle, working to save the...