Takes the reader on an 80 year journey through sexual and mental child abuse, dysfunctional families and remorse, telling the true inter-generational story of drug and alcohol addiction that led to the writer's son becoming "the man behind the cardboard sign."

Have you really looked at the faces of the men and women standing on street corners, with their signs held out in front of them, asking for help? Did you wonder what could bring them to such an end - homeless and hungry? Many are in need of food or shelter - or fighting the scourge of alcohol and drugs. There is a story behind each and every person. This book offers the readers an in-depth look at one of them. The struggles Curtis faced all of his life are the same ones faced by so many others. "The Man Behind the Cardboard Sign" takes you on an 80 year journey through sexual and mental child abuse, dysfunctional families, and remorse. It also has great love, and true-life miracles that make the journey so worthwhile.

Today’s inflammatory headlines come to satiric life in this convoluted tale of self-serving hustlers as Detective Lawrence Striker and FBI Special Agent Cassandra Cassidy put their heads (and other things) together to weave their way through the violent eruptions of racial animosities and the rabble-rousing buzzards who feast on those divisions. There are crimes to solve but as the story evolves the layers of the fetid onion are peeled away to expose the maggots of deception and double-dealing. In an early morning shootout on the mean streets of River City two African-American teenagers are gunned down by the cops and that heralds the emergence of the devious and race-baiting Reverend Abraham Castille to media-driven, national prominence as he, with incendiary rhetoric, escalates civil protest into open warfare. As flames threaten to consume the city a kindly old lady who was witness to the shootout is murdered, the city’s police commissioner is assassinated, and the rioting spins inexorably out of control and spreads with lethal effect to other parts of the country. Striker and Cassidy are sucked into a cesspool of evil doings that include a drug trafficking network that reaches from River City all the way to Russian mobsters in Chicago. In this miasma of duplicity everyone is sworn to different agendas and Striker’s resolve is put to yet another cruel and life-changing test. With a comedic and jaundiced eye, Branon depicts how today’s warped self-righteousness and avaricious self-aggrandizement have squandered the nonviolent legacies of those who led the civil rights movement of the 60s, a movement that wanted an equal opportunity for a seat at the table but didn’t intend to burn the house down while they courageously pursued the invitation. All this wrapped inside a page-turning thriller, a jigsaw puzzle of nefarious motives and end games.

Now a major motion picture starring Alfre Woodard, Jessica Collins, John Heard, Jacinda Barrett, Cloris Leachman, and Talitha Bateman—in theaters October 2017! From acclaimed author Sarah Weeks comes a touching coming-of-age story about a young girl who goes on a cross-country journey to discover the truth about her parents, which the New York Times called "a remarkable novel." Perfect for fans of Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me and Ali Benjamin's The Thing About Jellyfish. She doesn't know when her birthday is or who her father is. In fact, everything about Heidi and her mentally disabled mother's past is a mystery. When a strange word in her mother's vocabulary begins to haunt her, Heidi sets out on a cross-country journey in search of the secrets of her past. Far away from home, pieces of her puzzling history come together. But it isn't until she learns to accept not knowing that Heidi truly arrives.