SEX, DRUGS, & FASHION is a highly entertaining novel of the Apparel industry during the frenzied days of the 1970's & 1980's. To some it will be just an enjoyable story. To others it will be a trip down memory lane. Charlie Barron, growing up in New York's 7th Avenue Fashion District, moves to Los Angeles and its embryonic environment. He finds it difficult to keep his pants zipped as he builds first one company, then another, always at odds with his business partners. He marries, divorces, marries a second and a third time. We meet Jennifer, Ruby, and Lorena. We meet Sharon, Windy, and Adrienne. The novel also deals with the underbelly of the industry...the New York mob, Vegas gamblers, and cocaine dealers. We see kickbacks and scams. You'll meet Will Duval who has competed with Charlie for decades, always preferring shortcuts to success. Their competition often leads to violence. Many of the events in the book are true and are based on the authors more than thirty years in the industry.

This is a non-fiction book that details a dozen major events in American history that were resolved by a single vote...the action of a single individual that changed the direction of our country. It occasionally moved our nation into the dark but more often it moved us in the direction of curing inequities that had evolved through decades of history. We live in a period of economic and political unrest and we believe it to be worse than at any time in our history...but it may not be America's two hundred plus years of existence has been one of turmoil, dissension, and war. It has been a time of alternating economic growth and stagnation. Each decade has found stalwarts and dissenters convinced that they, alone, have the best solution for the country's ills. A surprising number of events that altered the country's direction resulted from the vote of a single individual either in support of a change or opposed to it. Names such as James Bayard, Edmund Ross, and Joseph Bradley are unknown, but during their lifetimes they altered the fabric or our nation as significantly as Americans whose names are more famous. This book, By One Vote, tells these stories. The events are factual; the dramatizations surrounding them are the studied imagination of the author.

The love that Thaddeus and Amy feel for one another can get them both killed. He is colored, an ex-slave, and she is white. In 19th century Louisiana mixed race relationships are both illegal and unacceptable.

Moss Grove, a large Mississippi River cotton plantation has thrived from the use of slave labor while its owners lived lives of comfort and privilege. Thaddeus, born more than a decade earlier from the rape of a young field slave by the heir to the plantation, is raised as a Moss Grove house servant. His presence remains a thorn in the side of the man who sired him.

Deepening divisiveness between North and South launches the Civil War and changes Moss Grove in ways no one could have anticipated. With the war swirling we see the battles and carnage through Thaddeus' eyes. The war ends and he returns to Moss Grove and to Amy, hoping to enjoy their newly won freedoms. With the help of Union soldiers, schools are established to educate those who were formerly prohibited from learning to read. Medical clinics are opened and businesses begun. Black legislators are elected and help to pass new laws. Hope flourishes. Perhaps the stars will now finally align for the young lovers.

In 1876, however, the ex-Confederate states barter the selection of President Rutherford B. Hayes for removal of all Union troops from their soil in the most contested election in American history. Within a decade hopes are dashed as Jim Crow laws are passed, the Ku Klux Klan launches new violence, and black progress is crushed.

"'When Stars Align'" is a soaring novel of memorable white, Negro and colored men and women set against actual historic events.

The love that Thaddeus and Amy feel for one another can get them both killed. He is colored, an ex-slave, and she is white. In 19th century Louisiana mixed race relationships are both illegal and unacceptable.

Moss Grove, a large Mississippi River cotton plantation has thrived from the use of slave labor while its owners lived lives of comfort and privilege. Thaddeus, born more than a decade earlier from the rape of a young field slave by the heir to the plantation, is raised as a Moss Grove house servant. His presence remains a thorn in the side of the man who sired him.

Deepening divisiveness between North and South launches the Civil War and changes Moss Grove in ways no one could have anticipated. With the war swirling we see the battles and carnage through Thaddeus' eyes. The war ends and he returns to Moss Grove and to Amy, hoping to enjoy their newly won freedoms. With the help of Union soldiers, schools are established to educate those who were formerly prohibited from learning to read. Medical clinics are opened and businesses begun. Black legislators are elected and help to pass new laws. Hope flourishes. Perhaps the stars will now finally align for the young lovers.

In 1876, however, the ex-Confederate states barter the selection of President Rutherford B. Hayes for removal of all Union troops from their soil in the most contested election in American history. Within a decade hopes are dashed as Jim Crow laws are passed, the Ku Klux Klan launches new violence, and black progress is crushed.

"'When Stars Align'" is a soaring novel of memorable white, Negro and colored men and women set against actual historic events.

Apartheid in South Africa has now been gone more than fifteen years but the heroes of their struggle to achieve a Black majority-run democracy are still being revealed. Some individuals toiled publicly, but most worked tirelessly in the shadows to improve the welfare of the Black and Coloured populations that had been so neglected. Nelson Mandela was still in prison; clean water and sanitation barely existed; AIDS was beginning to orphan an entire generation. Meanwhile a white, Jewish, middle class woman, joined with Tutu, Millie, Ivy, Zora and other concerned Black women, respectfully called Mamas, to help those most in need, often being beaten and arrested by white security police. This book tells the story of these women and others who have spent their adult lives making South Africa a better place for those who were the country's most disadvantaged.

Winds of Change is a whirlwind novel of bi-racial love set against those forgotten decades that include the Spanish-American War, the San Francisco earthquake, and World War I. It deals with segregation and injustices to Southern black and white communities during the post Civil War period when old attitudes persisted and interracial love led to disastrous consequences. The racially charged love and conflict of the critically acclaimed When Stars Align have become more entrenched. Josiah, Bess, and Stephen discover facts about themselves that refute everything they believed regarding both their parents and their racial background. Loves are thwarted as they each struggle with echoes of their past. It is a tumultuous time in American history that includes the inventions of airplanes, automobiles, telephones and movies, amidst decades of lynchings and economic turmoil. Racial biases complicate lives and relationships as newly arrived immigrants vie with white and Negro workers all trying to gain a piece of the American dream. It is a socially relevant, historically accurate, saga of decades often overlooked in American history. Winds of Change follows the next generation from those we came to know in When Stars Align. Carole Eglash-Kosoff lives and writes in Valley Village, California. She graduated from UCLA and spent her career teaching, writing, and traveling to more than seventy countries. An avid student of history, she researched the decades preceding and following the Civil War for nearly two years, including time in Louisiana, the setting for Winds of Change and When Stars Align. It is a story of bi-racial love during a period of terrible injustice. It is a story of war, reconstruction, and racism, but most of all; it is a story of hope. This is her third book. In 2006, following the death of her husband, she spent several months teaching in the black townships of South Africa. Her first book, The Human Spirit - Apartheid's Unheralded Heroes, tells the true life stories of an amazing array of men and women who have devoted their lives during the worst years of apartheid to help the children, the elderly, and the disabled of the townships. These people cared when no one else did and their efforts continue to this day.

Apartheid in South Africa has now been gone more than fifteen years but the heroes of their struggle to achieve a Black majority-run democracy are still being revealed. Some individuals toiled publicly, but most worked tirelessly in the shadows to improve the welfare of the Black and Coloured populations that had been so neglected. Nelson Mandela was still in prison; clean water and sanitation barely existed; AIDS was beginning to orphan an entire generation. Meanwhile a white, Jewish, middle class woman, joined with Tutu, Millie, Ivy, Zora and other concerned Black women, respectfully called Mamas, to help those most in need, often being beaten and arrested by white security police. This book tells the story of these women and others who have spent their adult lives making South Africa a better place for those who were the country's most disadvantaged.