Jules Kincaid is a child writing prodigy of only fourteen when the novelist Arthur Brolin takes him from the slums of Chicago to a primitive, free lifestyle beach village in Indonesia late in WWI on a one-year writing sabbatical. Brolin says Jules has the necessary talent, but his writing does not yet have passion in it. Brolin isn't the only one who helps Jules to experiences that feed his passion and hone his writing.
The lives of two fugitive brothers of successive Phoenician kings become entwined in the villa of the Greek philosopher exile Phaedo, where one fugitive is Phaedo's fourteen-year-old catamite, Hiero, and the other, Prince Xander, brother of the current Phoenician king, is a hidden guest. Hiero and Xander's lives as sometimes lovers continue to intersect over the years of trying to gain the throne.
Following the Klan bombing of a church that killed several girls, a few black men decided to take revenge by abducting the daughters of Klan leaders, torturing and raping them. However in time they became reconciled with the girls and even had babies with them.
During the 2008 Summer Olympics, eight athletes enact a daring stunt for human rights. They are challenged by the communist Chinese government and then rescued by heroes from the nation's past.
Spreading the word of God in the more rural parts of the Empire is a tedious and thankless task. The Rector has found a way to have a happy ending in his labors in the field and has cast his seed in all directions like it is described in the books of the old testament.
In the mystical warring Greek city states era in the prerecorded mists of time, princes schemed for kingdoms and kings schemed for consolidation of kingdoms in a convoluted maze in maze activity of epic proportions. Fourteen-year-old Nikon is a minor prince faced with scheming to stay alive no less than in becoming king. In epic style this is his story of journeying through this labyrinth.
Annie wasn't naïve when she followed Tom to Serbia, but perhaps a little innocent. It was 1997, Communism had collapsed, and the Balkan Wars appeared over. It seemed the perfect time for a young couple to make their fortune, explore the world, and leave past disappointments behind. But Belgrade could be cruel to foreigners, and in the end, Annie's innocence would fall as its victim. Yet, she learned, the city had gifts had to offer too - gifts that could prove just as intense as its dangers...