Samantha Rose Johnson Series

Samantha Rose Johnson is a tough, cynical, but law-school educated, licensed private detective working in Elgin, Illinois. From growing up biracial in the tough South Sangamon neighborhood of Chicago in the seventies, to a tour with the United States Army Military Police Corps where she completed Air Assault training, Sam knows what life can throw at you.

Coming Soon

Spirit Warrior: Path of the White Wolf Trilogy (Young Adult Fiction)

In "Spirit Warrior: Path of the White Wolf," Taela, a young Lakota girl destined to be a Spirit Warrior, navigates her mystical calling amid familial and global turmoil. Guided by her late grandfather's spirit and mystical allies, she faces threats both spiritual and earthly. This Young Adult series melds rich Lakota traditions with a fantastical narrative, exploring heroism in challenging times.

Book One: Taela Finds Her Path
Book Two: Battle For Ina Maka
Book Three: Hope is a Fading Sunset

Children’s Books:

Taela Makes a New Friend
Taela, Michelle and Sister Dragonfly
Taela, Michelle and the Two Fires
Taela and Michelle Ride the Bus
Taela, Michelle and the Ancestors

Latest Blog Posts

Occupied

Edward J. Herdrich

Decency, humanity, equality not just denied

But along with civility, equity and justice, decried

the truth of what the nation has become

working harder and harder for just plain dumb.

Don’t color outside the lines,

don’t you dare speak your mind

if you aren’t angry, hateful and white

Well, you just ain’t right!

So in their especially sadistic delight,

call in the military might.

And well, if the clown’s economy

got you down on your luck,

frankly they don’t give a fuck.

Cuz after all, they will say

black, brown, liberal or gay

y’all just need to be put away.

From Maya Angelou to Kurt Vonnegut too

ban those books that in any way

might diverge from anything we say

telling the truth of our people just won’t do.

Don’t stop with fiction or the arts

no that is just where it starts,

history and science must be scrubbed clean as well

only white-washed versions can we tell.

From Dakota warriors to Navajo women more so,

From forty acres to the truth of Jim Crowe,

Trail of Tears, deny it

Japanese concentration camps, belie it

McCarthy’s red scare, enshrine it;

so many peoples’ dignity we’ve stolen

must be buried lest our pride can’t be swollen

and protect our children from the truth we must,

God forbid they know our gold and other lust.

If Manifest Destiny is all that they know

their false pride and patriotism we can grow,

and they’ll know who they are

because we told them so

no room for doubt if we punish it so.

Capitalism and patriarchy intertwined

the better to keep a woman defined

they’re men who are men after all

Never let a woman make the call.

Not even their own bodies can they tend

unless they will to the Trump and Epstein end.

Marching backward in time,

take their vote if they can

unless they profess, Pete the cheat is a real man.

1st, 4th, 14th a start for sure

Under their boots, like mud on the floor.

Rights – voting, speech and so many more,

Due process, like liberty, out the door

Executive and Congress not a big surprise

The con man in charge yelling louder, larger lies

All his life, duck, dodge and hide

So his minions never by truth occupied.

But, John Roberts and his black-robed cabal

so many thought would put to this, a stall

instead, like so many with power

before the blowhard who never worked a day in his life

they cower.

The Supreme Court, their sworn duty after all,

in neutrality and to the Constitution their call

without a doubt to all this should give pause

but it’s clear, that idea, a lost cause.

Enlisted to lie as loud and large as they can

Giving their heart, soul and worship to the orange man

Conservative Christians still ain’t realized

It’s the same date that Jesus cried,

January 20th, 2025

the day the Constitution, and democracy, died.