Joe J: Stories

Joey was Andrea's dirty little secret, she thought he was absolutely the best and positively the worst thing ever to happen to her. My take on the rich girl/poor boy story.

A Story in the El Paso Universe
Tyler McGuinn was a washed up rodeo bull rider when he boarded a plane in Phoenix one day in 1977. The next thing he knew, he was a no account cowboy on a cattle drive headed for El Paso in 1877. To make matters worse, he was the cowboy destined to die by the back door of Rosa's Cantina. Fate had dealt Ty an ugly hand...or maybe not.

A Story in the Jake's C&W Invitational Universe
A coming of age story with a twist. Addle-brained Tommy works down at the feed store, stacking Purina and sweeping the floor. A Vietcong rocket scrambled his brains so thoroughly that was all he was capable of... or was it?

Jericho Donavan lived a difficult life. Fatherless at 16 he dropped out of school to work at a coal mine to support his family. Drafted when he turned 18, he spent his 19th birthday in Vietnam. Three tours in Vietnam put him in a VA mental ward. The VA called him cured after four and a half years. They released him just in time to miss the funerals of his mother and sisters who allegedly died in a car wreck. Jerry was living under a bridge when he decided things needed to change.

'Johnny Goes to War' covers the almost four years after Johnny graduated from high school. One early reader of the book raved: "'Johnny Goes to War' is that perfect melding of heart pounding military action and scalding hot, yet tastefully presented, sex. It is 'Saving Private Ryan' meets 'Debbie Does Dallas,' yet it is as sensitively written as 'Doctor Zhivago' with characters as complex as those in 'From Here to Eternity.' (Thanks, Mom)

Johnny Pulaski was a late bloomer. He was short and scrawny until the summer after ninth grade. He was small enough that even his older sister called him runt. Then puberty struck, he hit a growth spurt and he discovered the real reason that people – especially girls – liked him. Johnny's young life had all the usual ups and downs, he was just a normal teenage boy after all … or was he?

Johnny took a summer job as a medic for an archeological dig at the Karnak Temple Complex in Egypt. It was just another job until the archeologists discovered a set of stairs leading down to a massive tunnel system under the temple. The tunnels were occupied by the spirit of an ancient priest from the Cult of Amun-Ra. The old man needed Johnny's help to avoid a disaster in 1250BC, during the reign of the Pharaoh Ramses the Great.

Someone gave my wife one of those lame talking dolls that says all the inane things I would never say. So, I wrote her this story.

Historical fiction and time travel with a twist. Jeremiah Brock was a violin playing muleskinner, a veteran of the War Between the States and a man who had trouble staying in one place - or one time.

Warthog pilot Nick Pappas is shot down over the Syrian Desert in Western Iraq. Injured, he is taken prisoner by the four widows of an Iraqi farmer. The widows need labor on their desert farm and Allah has just dropped one from the sky. But their plans for Nick soon change, as the lonely widows and their teenage daughters become captivated with their handsome captive. NEW EDIT