Books

Synopsis

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill sends environmental writer Caroline Carlisle on a journey reporting about oiled wildlife and nesting sea turtles. Her reporting leads to an assignment covering the efforts to save sea turtles nests as oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time her husband Simon is grieving the death of his cousin and best friend Jason who was one of the miners killed in the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion in West Virginia weeks before the oil spill.

While covering the story of the endangered sea turtles, Caroline uncovers mysteries, secrets, and lies going back two generations. Lost journals, a fake tablecloth, and nesting sea turtles lead her to discover why her uncle committed suicide, why her sister developed anorexia, and why her mother only wanted to be loved.

Caroline and Simon discover love lasts despite decades of separation, but when reunited they must overcome the wounds inflicted when Simon first married Caroline’s sister. Caroline’s niece Jodi, caught in the crossfire of family tensions and lies, struggles to find a way to forgive her father and her aunt so she can move into the future.

Trails in the Sand explores the struggles to replenish and restore destruction, in nature and in a family, as both head to the brink of disaster. Through it all, sea turtles serve as a constant reminder that life moves forward despite the best efforts to destroy it.

Trails in the Sand – Behind the Scenes with the Author

loggerhead hatchling
Photo by P.C. Zick (2006)

I was embroiled in the real-life drama of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as a public relations director for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. I handled the media for the sea turtle nest relocation project that took place during the summer of 2010. At the same time, I was beginning a new relationship with a lost love from thirty-five years ago. We married in August 2010. During the environmental disaster, I was in the process of moving to Pittsburgh to be with my new husband. Two weeks prior to the oil spill, twenty-nine miners were killed in a coal mine explosion in West Virginia, just a few hours from where I was moving. It all fell into place to write about the oil spill and the coal mine disaster and our quest for profit and fossil fuels at any cost. I made the environmental disasters the backdrop for the love story of two people who must overcome many obstacles to restore lost love.

Available in paperback and ebook

Live from the Road is available on Kindle and in print on amazon.

Live from the Road takes the reader on an often humorous, yet harrowing, journey as Meg Newton and Sally Sutton seek a change in the mundane routine of their lives. “Is this all there is?” Sally asks Meg after visiting a dying friend in the hospital. That’s when Meg suggests they take a journey to discover the answer. Joined by their daughters, they set off on a journey of salvation enhanced by the glories of the Mother Road. Along the way, they are joined by a Chicago bluesman, a Pakistani liquor storeowner from Illinois, a Marine from Missouri, a gun-toting momma from Oklahoma, and a motel clerk from New Mexico. Meg, mourning for her dead son, learns to share her pain with her daughter CC. When Sally’s husband of almost thirty years leaves a voice mail telling her he’s leaving, both Sally and her daughter Ramona discover some truths about love and independence.

Death, divorce and deception help to reveal the inner journey taking place under the blazing desert sun as a Route 66 motel owner reads the Bhagavad-Gita and an eagle provides the sign they’ve all been seeking. Enlightenment comes tiptoeing in at dawn in a Tucumcari laundromat, while singing karaoke at a bar in Gallup, New Mexico, and during dinner at the Roadkill Café in Seligman, Arizona. The four women’s lives will never be the same after the road leads them to their hearts – the true destination for these road warriors.

Read the first chapter on Angie’s Diary.

Interviews: Indies Unlimited and Rachelle Ayala on her blog Rachelle’s Window.

Tortoise Stew available in paperback and eBook

Tortoise Stew (novel 2006) – Small town Florida politics are depicted in this story about the development of Florida at any cost. Kelly Sands is a reporter covering some of the more controversial and contentious issues in the north Florida town of Calloway. Dead armadillos and gopher tortoise carcasses are left as calling cards to those opposing the development as commission meetings erupt into all-out warfare. With the murder of one commissioner and the suicide of his wife, Kelly begins an investigation that threatens to topple the carefully laid plans of the developers and politicians to bring a movie studio and landing strip within the city limits of the small town. When a young girl is killed by a semi-truck from Monster Mart, the environmentalists become even more vocal against the developers’ plans.

Other Books available at www.pczick.com.

Please visit my e-shop on my website for autographed copies of A Lethal Legacy and Two Moons in Africa. Prior to 2010, I wrote under the name of Patricia C. Behnke .

A Lethal Legacy (novel 2003) – This book follows the life of Ed Townsend who yearns for acceptance by helping those around him. This psychological thriller takes the reader on a journey through Ed’s discovery of why his family can’t find the acceptance they all seek. It takes divorce, disease and death for Ed to finally realize that acceptance only comes from within once he’s willing to face his own true feelings.

Two Moons in Africa (nonfiction book 2009) – On October 19, 1990, Brent Swan, of Chiefland, Florida, was kidnapped in Angolo by members of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda in Angola. When he was finally released 61 days later,  Brent provided the FBI with complete descriptions of his kidnappers and their camps, but it took until 2003 for just one of those kidnappers to be brought to trial, with outstanding warrants still on file with the U.S. Justice Department for three others.  The U.S. government contacts the Swans and gives them information when they might need Brent as a witness, and each time they receive a call, they are thrown back to 1990 and forced to relieve the nightmare once again. There are days when they aren’t sure who the real terrorists are. Two Moons in Africa: Barbara and Brent Swan’s Story of Terrorism brings Brent out of the jungle with Barbara at his side. It is the story of Brent’s literal journey into a dark and dank jungle at the hands of rebels. It is the story of Barbara’s journey as well as she awaited first his release and then his recovery. It is the story of the love between two people who suffered and survived. But it is also the story of a country crammed with deadly land mines and embroiled in decades-long civil wars. It tells of a people destroyed by hopeless poverty while oil fields and diamond mines sit within view but beyond reach. It shows the true meaning of Africa as the Dark Continent. It is the story of rebels so intent upon their cause that the troubles of one American family have no bearing upon their fight. In fact, these fighters for Cabinda’s liberation felt they were so right in their cause, they made Brent Swan an honorary citizen of a country that does not exist except in their minds. It is also the story of how victims of terrorism are treated in the aftermath of the terrorist act as justice is sought but not always achieved. Two Moons in Africa represents their desire to tell the story. It is Barbara’s and Brent’s attempt to take control of a situation that has been out of their hands since 1990. But it has never been out of their minds or hearts or souls.