Quarry Grove is a small community sat just on the edge of the Known Universe, where Hicky the Caterpillar has applied to the B.A.U.C. (Butterflies Association of Unwinged Caterpillars) for his permanent Wings many, many times. Although he has successfully obtained his training Wings on a couple of occasions, so far Hicky has been lucky if he has managed to keep his learner wings for more than a day. The reason for Hicky's constant failure to achieve his full Wings is his terrible safety record - he tends to spend more time landing on his neighbours than he does in the clouds.
With the Butterfly Association meeting at Log Hall already arranged, Hicky is feeling confident that he will get his full Wings. This time, he has enlisted the help of Snirell Snail, (who is convinced his granddad is a wizard) plus with the aid of an invention by Percy Verence, (the only scientist worm in the Grove). With the support of his friends, Hicky is feeling a little more optimistic that his meeting with the B.A.U.C will finally achieve his dream of becoming a butterfly!
However there is a sinister plot taking shape! Crooked cockroach Eddy Kray and his confused sidekick Boris the Spider have other plans for Hicky the Caterpillar and Percy's fabled new flying invention. Will the Temporary Winged Party go ahead at the Slug and Sucker? Will Snirell Snail and Berty Beetle be able to hide their fear of the dark when the lights go out at Log Hall? Will PC Bluebottle be able to stop Eddy Kray and Boris the Spider in time for his Fly-kovsky recital night?
Read the story and find out the answers to all these questions.
Hicky Gets His Wings is the first tale in the fully illustrated Quarry Groveseries.

California Sabers is the story of the California Battalion and Hundred, a group of 500 select men who were the only organized group of Californians to fight in the East during the Civil War. They volunteered their enlistment bounty to pay their passage across Panama and on to
Massachusetts, where they became the cadre of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry.

From mid-1863 to July 1864, the Second Massachusetts fought a bloody guerilla war in northern Virginia against John S. Mosby, the confederacy s "Gray Ghost." In July 1864 the regiment became part of Sheridan s Army of the Shenandoah, and that fall it played a major role in the decisive battles of Winchester, Toms Run, and Cedar Creek.

In early 1865 the regiment was in the column that marched across Virginia destroying the vital railroad and canal that carried supplies from the Shenandoah Valley to the besieged Army of Northern Virginia. In late March, the Second Massachusetts was in the forefront of the battles at Dinwiddie Courthouse and Five Forks, the two actions that finally broke the stalemate at Petersburg and forced Lee to retreat to the west. In the ensuing chase, the regiment was the part of the cavalry spearhead that finally blocked Lee s army at Appomattox Courthouse.

This work, based on extensive research, is the first comprehensive history of this relatively unknown group and will be of great interest to Civil War enthusiasts and historians."