Ballads of Paradise

Literary Americana fiction filled with humor and heart When his wife, Angel, is killed in a head-on collision, Gomez Gomez feels he can't go on-so he doesn't. He spends his days in the bushes next to the crash site drinking Thunderbird wine, and his nights cradling a coffee can full of Angel's ashes. Slow, sure suicide, with no one for company but the snakes, Elvis's ghost, and a strange kid named Bones. Across town, Father Jake Morales plays it safe, haunted by memories of the woman he left behind, hiding his guilt, loss, and love behind a thick wall of cassock and ritual. Then a shady business deal threatens the town-and his good friend Gomez Gomez-and Father Jake can't just stand by and watch. But what happens when the rescuer is the one in need of saving? The Beautiful Ashes of Gomez Gomez is quirky, heartfelt, and deeply human. Lives and hopes collide in the town of Paradise, stretching across decades and continents in this epic story of forgiveness, redemption, and love.

To say Bones isn't thrilled with his dead-end job at the Venus Motel would be an understatement. But when you're fifteen years old with no family, expecting any prospects for your future feels pretty pointless. You just roll with the whims of the powers that be. And the motel owner, Calico Foster, can barely keep herself afloat, much less rescue a lost kid. A job is all she can offer. Why blues-playing magician Jimmy La Roux comes to this downtrodden motel full of weary souls is more than anyone knows. But with a rattle of Harley pipes and a cloud of dissipating dust, he roars out of the desert straight to the Venus, fresh from blasting through the cosmos, ready to change every life he encounters. And he's wielding a magic box that makes anything that goes into it disappear forever … Welcome to the Venus Motel, where a million stars dance above the neon and things are almost never what they seem.