Ginger

Life couldn’t be happier for Ginger, a small puppy living with eleven-year-old Olivia and her grandmother. While her family is on vacation and she’s staying at the posh Bennington Boarding House for dogs, Ginger is devastated to learn she’s not really a purebred dog but a mixed breed. She’s convinced by a snooty grand champion poodle that her family will no longer want her once they learn the truth, so she decides to run away.

After leaving the boarding house, Ginger starts an amazing adventure that includes spending time on a farm herding sheep, performing for a local circus, and eventually hitching a ride on a train into the city, where she meets a pack of stray dogs. When Ginger comes to realize there is no shame in being a mixed breed, she decides it’s time to go home. But getting back to her family proves more difficult than she thought.

Ginger is available on both Ingram and Amazon. Visit Stazbooks.com

The Burning Tree

The Burning Tree is a Christian young adult novel. Sixteen-year-old Hannah Sawyer has never used a cell phone and only vaguely remembers watching television. She’s spent most of her life growing up in a religious community in rural Wyoming, enduring harsh work and severe punishments. As Hannah and her friends begin the rituals that will prepare them for adulthood, they begin to question the teachings of the elders and what it really means to follow God.

The elders believe that a group of practicing witches have recently built a commune near the Community and warn their followers not to come under their evil influence. After a girl in the Community fights off unwanted advances from an elder’s son, she is put on trial and found guilty of rebellion and witchcraft. A single tree that has survived a mysterious fire becomes known as the Burning Tree when the first girl accused of witchcraft is put to death there.

When Hannah discovers a wounded man hiding in a cabin near the Community, she learns his terrible secret and agrees to keep him hidden. Through the help of this unlikely stranger, Hannah comes to a genuine faith in Jesus Christ and finally realizes she’s trapped in a cult. She decides to take a chance on a man she barely knows in the hopes of finally escaping the Community before she becomes the next victim of the Burning Tree.

Staz is also the author of several children’s books currently available through Amazon and Ingram.

Mrs. Mercutrode

Mrs. Mercutrode is a middle grade novel about a substitute teacher known for her unique teaching methods and creative discipline. The students are in for the education of a lifetime when Mrs. Mercutrode arrives with a magic disappearing wand, an antique collection of jazz records, and a tank full of exotic insects and rodents from all of her world travels.
When the parents try to have her fired, she convinces them she should stay after delivering a rousing speech and preparing an extraordinary feast of culinary delights. The next day, however, the children notice that some of the insects and rodents are missing from the tank.
Mrs. Mercutrode introduces the children to the joys of literature by dressing up and playing the part when studying everything from pioneers to the Roaring Twenties. When the annual essay contest begins, Mrs. Mercutrode works the students until their fingers are limp and they think their brains will melt, but the results are incredible. The students are disappointed when they don’t win the contest, but a strange turn of events results in Mercutrode’s class winning first prize.

Mrs. Mercutrode is available on both Ingram and Amazon.

Genre: Juvenile Fiction: Middle Grade, Humor

Price: Paperback $10.99, eBook $2.99 (eBook only available on Amazon)

Paperback: 132 pages on Amazon, 119 pages on Ingram, Both have trim that is 5×8

Amazon eBook ISBN: 979-8-9894655-1-4 Published November 2023

Amazon Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9894655-0-7 Published November 2023

Ingram Paperback ISBN: 979-8-8693-9405-7  Published May 2024

Almost Normal

Almost Normal is an upper middle grade novel that deals with the loss of a parent. Betsy Kimmel’s idyllic life is shattered when her mother dies in a car accident. Without her mom’s income, Betsy must leave her private school and finish her freshman year in a large urban district. At her new school, Betsy encounters large classes, indifferent teachers, and finds herself the target of a treacherous bully. She also develops several interesting friendships with an array of quirky individuals, including a runaway foster girl and a handsome exchange student. When Dad relieves his own grief with excessive drinking and a not-so-nice girlfriend, Betsy’s home life begins to deteriorate. She eventually becomes the caregiver for her younger brother. After Dad blurts out in a drunken rage that her mom suffered from clinical depression and that the car accident might have been a suicide, Betsy begins to make dangerous choices of her own. When Dad finally hits bottom, Betsy’s grandmother gains temporary custody and takes Betsy and her brother to live in a retirement community. After Dad is sober and the family is reunited, Betsy confronts the one year anniversary of her mother’s death and ultimately finds out the truth about the accident.

Almost Normal is available on Ingram and Amazon.

Genre: Juvenile Fiction: Upper Middle Grade

Price: Paperback $10.99, eBook $2.99 (eBook only available on Amazon)

Paperback: 174 pages on Amazon, 208 pages on Ingram, Both have trim that is 6×9

Amazon eBook ISBN: 978-1-7345634-1-2   Published February 2020

Amazon Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7345634-0-5   Published February 2020

Ingram Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9894655-2-1   Published November 2024

The Last Drop

The Last Drop is a middle grade novel about a boy trying to survive after an attack on the water supply. After Americans endure years of drought, a scientific breakthrough promises the ability to live longer and healthier with a new water additive. Just as fluoridation was put in the water supply years earlier, “enhanced water” is added to dozens of municipal water supplies throughout the United States. When thousands die after drinking the new water, a series of events follow that nearly destroys the country. In the aftermath, eleven-year-old Jake Reynolds and his family struggle to survive under conditions that include martial law, weekly rations of food and water, and outbreaks of violence.

The Last Drop is available on Ingram and Amazon.

Genre: Juvenile Fiction: Middle Grade, Adventure, Dystopian

Price: Paperback $10.99, eBook $2.99 (eBook only available on Amazon)

Paperback: 155 pages on Amazon, 178 pages on Ingram, Both have trim that is 6×9

Amazon eBook ISBN: 978-1-7345634-3-6   Published February 2020

Amazon Paperback ISBN: 978-17345634-2-9   Published February 2020

Ingram Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7345634-2-9   Published July 2024

Back in the Day

Back in the Day is an adult nonfiction book about life in the 1970s and 80s. It can be purchased on Amazon.

Genre: Nonfiction, Humor

Price: Paperback $8.99, eBook $2.99

Paperback: 159 pages, Trim 6×9

Amazon eBook ISBN: 978-1-7345634-6-7   Published November 2020

Amazon Paperback ISBN: 978-17345634-7-4   Published November 2020