California's Girl is the story of a young girl growing up on the beach in Southern California during the 1960s and '70s. It is told through journal entries, short stories, poetry, and associated recollections. It begins with an idyllic childhood in a small beach town on the California coast. It details the lifestyle unique to the beach culture. A timeless span of innocence, bursting with the joy of life, surrounded by sand and sea. Adolescence arrives during an era of rebellion and social upheaval. Through the high school years, lessons are learned, and the complexity of life is examined. Reality begins to erode the fantasies of childhood. The first kiss, the first heartbreak, the loss of innocence, and the emergence of personal identity are seen through the eyes of a young girl. The beginning of one life's journey, when choices are made that will ultimately affect the unforeseeable future. A young girl does the best she can, makes mistakes, and savors the triumphsa microcosm of the human experience.

California’s Girl, Book Two is the continuing saga of a young woman growing up on the beach during the early 1970s. It is told through journal entries, short stories, poetry, and associated recollections. It offers a deeply personal glimpse into the female experience within the unique beach culture of Southern California. On the cusp of womanhood, amid the hot sand and cool ocean, she searches for personal identity, lasting love, and the meaning of life. As she struggles to reconcile her childhood fantasies with the bittersweet reality of life and human entanglements, she discovers a deep connection to the natural world. Nature becomes her sanctuary, inspiring and nourishing her soul while teaching valuable lessons of self-worth and independence.

The Orange County, California, that the Becker brothers knew as boys is no more—unrecognizably altered since the afternoon in 1954 when Nick, Clay, David, and Andy rumbled with the lowlife Vonns, while five-year-old Janelle Vonn watched from the sidelines. The new decade has ushered in the era of Johnson, hippies, John Birchers, and LSD. Clay becomes a casualty of a far-off jungle war. Nick becomes a cop, Andy a reporter, David a minister. And a terrible crime touches them all in ways they could never have anticipated when the mutilated corpse of teenage beauty queen Janelle Vonn is discovered in an abandoned warehouse.

A RICH DISPLAY OF SOME OF THE BEST PROSE WRITTEN TODAY IN THE USA.

He was a New Yorker transported to an alien land of suntans and surfboards in the middle of his senior year. She was the quintessential California Girl grooving on beach music and convertibles. No two people could have been so different. And no two people could have fallen so blindly, so deeply, and so totally in love. Jekel is the award-winning author of Columbia and Sea Star.

The Orange County, California, that the Becker brothers knew as boys is no more—unrecognizably altered since the afternoon in 1954 when Nick, Clay, David, and Andy rumbled with the lowlife Vonns, while five-year-old Janelle Vonn watched from the sidelines. The new decade has ushered in the era of Johnson, hippies, John Birchers, and LSD. Clay becomes a casualty of a far-off jungle war. Nick becomes a cop, Andy a reporter, David a minister. And a terrible crime touches them all in ways they could never have anticipated when the mutilated corpse of teenage beauty queen Janelle Vonn is discovered in an abandoned warehouse.