I only care about my sons, how they are fruita garden fullof misunderstood leaves Lyrical and reflective and painfully honest, David LaBounty's debut collection is an exploration of faith, love, fatherhood, and fidelity all weaved around a series of poems dealing with life, parenting, and the wake of a changing family.

Charles Dash has everything a young insurance executive rising through the ranks of Midwestern Accident and Life can hope for-a beautiful wife, a white Mustang, a townhouse, a tape deck, satin sheets, and contemporary leather furniture. As Dash climbs the corporate ladder, his superiors soon recognize his brutal skill set: denying customer claims with a ruthlessness they had seldom seen. Midwestern rewards Dash with promotions. Banks reward him with credit cards. Soon Dash finds his spending spiraling out of control. He lives paycheck to paycheck to support his suburban lifestyle of golf on weekends, owning the first SUV in his neighborhood of luxurious McMansions, and a growing penchant for prostitutes. He applies for-and banks are more than willing to give him-more credit cards. Ensnared in the vicious cycle of spending, he finally has to remortgage his house, but soon, even that isn't enough. Broke and desperate, Dash decides to wage a violent one-man war against the credit card companies. His spree of destruction leads him to a financial solvency that comes with a very heavy price-but it is a price he is more than willing to pay. He will do anything to keep his lifestyle intact. Affluenza, the third novel by Michigan author David LaBounty, is a scathing critique of credit card culture, a tale of consumerism, vanity, debt, and sexual addiction torn from today's headlines. Relevant to these troubled times, Affluenza is a dire warning to those who choose to spend their way to the American Dream.

Chris Fairbanks is a lonely young man who joins the Navy in search of travel, adventure, and women-but mostly to escape his lower middle-class existence, his loveless family, and to find some meaning in his otherwise meaningless life. The Navy sends Chris to a small communications base in Scotland, where he is befriended by a disillusioned Catholic chaplain, Father Alexander Crowley. Crowley joined the Navy for his own sinister reasons-including his desire to incite a race war that will consume the world. Blinded by his search for friendship and acceptance, Chris reluctantly finds himself drawn into Crowley's white supremacist group and his alcohol-fueled plans for genocide. After realizing the depths of Crowley's madness and struggling with his own complicity in this reign of terror, Chris appeals to his chain of command. Met with indifference and disbelief, he takes matters into his own hands, leading The Trinity to an apocalyptic and fiery end. Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Cold War and the pastoral beauty of eastern Scotland, The Trinity is a contemplative exploration of the complexity of human evil.