Consequences, second edition, the Criminal Case of David Parker Ray by J.E. Sparks.
This book is NOW available for purchase from various outlets including this website. Retail price $14.95 plus tax and S&H. To receive an autographed copy, purchase it directly from this website. ORDER NOW!

The author is available for speaking engagements. Contact Us

Coming Soon

1. BILLY BONNEY IS MY NAME, by Jan Girand
Billy "the Kid" Bonney is perhaps the best internationally known character in USA history. Surrounding his aura is the intriguing hundred-year mystery about his origin and source of the name Bonney he adopted in the last years of his life. This non-fiction book will offer possible answers to both questions with considerable documentation and additional historical information and documents never previously published. Author hopes to complete this project and publish the book within the next year.

2. TITLE PENDING, by Jan Girand with Charles O. Sanders. This book will have genealogical information--taken from census records and other early permanent records--about: Billy the Kid and his origins, the New Mexico Bonney families, and various other genealogies of those associated with Billy, his history and his era. It will also include genealogical information of some early Billy authors. Target publication date: late 2009.

3. Enchanted Lands, New Mexico by Jan Girand.
This is a coffee table book that showcases New Mexico with poetry illustrated by photography from around this Land of Enchantment. A work in progress. Expected date of publication: mid-2009.

4. The Year of the Adobe by Jan Girand.
This book has two parts.
Part One, The Year of the Adobe, is based upon the muddy saga of newly-weds who, about 23 years ago, embarked upon an adventure. Totally ignorant about constructing anything, they built their own home with bricks of adobe (sun-dried mud) and mud mortar. It is written with a lot of humor and how-to and how-not-to-do thrown into the muddy mix.
Part Two, Another Year of the Adobe, is based upon the author's saga of assisting in the effort of constructing another adobe home, this time for an elderly California couple. The couple, in their eighties, wanted theirs built completely of natural products, no man-made or industrial products, including no varnishes or paints, no glue, no plywood, no plastics, etc. Even their chemist from California, who'd never been in New Mexico and knew nothing of adobe construction, dictated how the project was to be done. The brick floors were sealed with natural bee's wax and the interior adobe walls were sealed with milk. Both adobe construction projects had happy endings despite the major players' ignorance.
In early July 2007, the author's adobe home suffered a major fire but the adobe walls were undamaged. If constructed of conventional materials, the house and contents--and occupants!--would have been destroyed. A work in progress.

5. My Book of Ruth (tenative title) by Jan Girand.
This book is based upon the author's first-hand experience (because of her aunt) inside a local dismal nursing home, sadly too typical of nursing homes. As baby-boomers come of age, entering and passing into the last stages of their lives, conditions of nursing homes will, and should, become a major interest to millions of Americans. And that should become a focal point of legislators and congress to bring about much needed changes. The baby-boomers' coming of age will create a heightened concern for America's eldest generation. A work in progress.

6. Roswell Incidents by Jan Girand.
Fiction, mystery. A local newspaper reporter gets caught up in a crime with possible international repercussions. The murder victim is a senior law enforcement official from UAE--United Arab Emerites--attending International Law Enforcement Academy classes at Roswell. His body was mysteriously found in Peppermint Park and Zoo. An ILEA instructor adds further intrigue and love interest. A work in progress.

7. Bibiana by Jan Girand. Fiction.
Based upon the life of Bibiana Martin, the lovely and spoiled daughter of a Mora Land Grantee. Her life spanned most of the 1800s. Her story involved and was directly touched by many historical events and principal historic characters of early New Mexico while the territory belonged to Spain and then to Mexico. She had three passionate loves with wealthy and influential men that produced children. All three relationships ultimately ended in tragedy, even involved legal courtroom battles. A work in progress.

8. The Adobe Series by Jan Girand.
Fiction, mystery. Each book of this series has the same primary characters: a crime writer and her husband, a federal special agent. Each book features settings somewhere in New Mexico; each of those areas' early histories, characters and geographical characteristics are woven into the contemporary mystery. The first three of this series, already in progress, are:

a. Adobe Acres -- set in the oil fields of southeastern New Mexico. People in the oil patch and nearby areas begin dying, the first one was believed to be by natural causes, but subsequent deaths begin showing signs that all have common links.

b. Adobe Bluffs is set in the high mountain adobe Hispanic villages of northern New Mexico. It features the relatively unknown faith-- Penitenties, Los Hemanos de Luz--a centuries-old offshoot faith of the Catholic Church. Its members had been excommunicated by the parent church more than a century ago because it's followers practiced self-flagellation and crucifixion at Easter. The book begins with the discovery, by a modern-day shepherd, of the naked body of a man nailed to a cross that had been flung over a cliff into a remote canyon. It also involves decendents of early land grantees, and modern disputes over ownership of land that has had no clear title for more than 150 years.

c. Adobe Cliffs is set at Acoma, the Sky City, an Indian pueblo built centuries ago upon the top of a high mesa 7,000 feet above sea level. The army of Francisco Vaquez de Coronado visited Acoma in 1540. Coronado and his army became the first white men to enter the Sky City, with its adobe pueblos three and four stories high, regarded by many at the time as one of the fabled seven cities of Cibola. The San del Rey Mission at Acoma was begun in 1629 under the direction of Friar Juan Ramirez, and completed in 1640. Building the mission was a symbol of peace between the Acomas and Vicenti de Zaldivar's Spanish troops. All building materials were hand-carried or hauled up the steep slopes of the mesa. The book's modern mystery involves the historic church and some of its earliest records, recently discovered behind adobe bricks during church renovation. Those records tell of a rich golden treasure left behind by Spanish Conquistadores.

d. Adobe Dobbers is set in Santa Fe.