The year is 1911. After attending college for two years, Margaret Chambers returns home to teach in the one-room school house of her youth. Trouble brews quickly. The God-fearing citizens of his small, weather-beaten town feel threatened by the bright-eyed, full-figured Margaret. She's too smart by half and she needs to be put in her place. The men devise a plan to chase Margaret from the county forever. But fueled by whiskey and the shame of their own desires, their plan soon spins out of control. In one night of violence, they ambush Margaret and tar and feather her naked body. After the men are arrested, a long, painful trial begins - a trial that will thrust this proud, private Kansas town into the national spotlight, splitting families apart and exposing the dark secrets of one hideous night. "Esther's Pillow" is based on a true story. About the Author Marlin Fitzwater was born and raised in Kansas. He has written a memoir about his years of service to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, "Call the Briefing"; two novels, "Esther's Pillow," and "Death in the Polka Dot Shoes"; and a collection of short stories called, "Sunflowers." He is married and lives in Deale, Maryland.

In a startling debut novel based on real events in 1911, a courageous young woman forces her small Kansas town to acknowledge the dark secrets of one violent night and the ugly prejudice that will tear it apart.

A frightening collection of true ghost stories, which will turn skeptics and nonbelievers into people who sleep with one eye open! Ancient philosophers suggested that the appearance of spirits is evidence that we are part of a larger community of intelligences, a universe of interrelated species, both physical and nonphysical. Master ghost hunter and best-selling author Brad Steiger invites you to join him as he explores the many dark and nightmarish pathways leading to this shadowy world of spirits and hauntings. Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places is the defining work on spirit phenomena. It is a comprehensive classification of the spirit world touching on every possibility from time travel to parallel universes, presenting the full range of ghostly manifestations and haunted locations. A major work sure to be heralded by paranormal enthusiasts (whatever their corporeal state). Do you know the difference between poltergeists and spirits of the dead? The differences between spirits residue, spirit parasites and spirit masqueraders? With its 30 topical chapters, Real Ghosts, covers those differences and many more: Spirits Seen at Death Beds and Funerals Haunted Churches, Cemeteries, and Burial Grounds Phantoms on Roads and Highways Battlefields Where Phantom Armies Eternally Wage War Speaking to Spirits: The Mystery of Mediumship Animal Ghosts—Domesticated and Wild Spirit Parasites That Possessed Apparitions of Religious Figures Haunted Hotels, Motels, and Inns Did you know that ghosts still haunt Ohio’s State Reformatory, otherwise known as Shawshank? Or that the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is home to some of the most famous ghosts in the world? With Real Ghosts, you’ll discover that Abe Lincoln regularly consulted “spooks” and mediums, Rudolph Valentino haunts his old mansion, and the ghosts of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, Katharine Howard, Jane Seymour, Elizabeth I, and King George III all still haunt some of England’s most famous castles. You’ll also learn how to perform a cleansing ritual to rid your home of unwanted spectral visitors. More than a collection of true ghost stories, this book plunks you square into the middle of the eerie action with captivating stories that would be at home at any midnight campfire. The only difference is these stories aren't urban legends employing hooks, needles, or long, metal fingernails for their scare. These stories exist outside of the mind and live right next door to every one of us. Real Ghosts shouldn't be read when you are home alone and the lights begin to flicker!

Nasty ghosts. Family curses. A fateful bogey man. Shrieks, howls, and cries of terror. Those and more dark tales of sinister creatures await you in this latest Real Nightmares compilation. Explore the strange world of the unknown with paranormal researcher extraordinaire Brad Steiger, an author of thousands of books and articles on mysterious secrets and unexplained phenomena. These tales will bring a chill regardless of the heat outside. Come armed when you confront the world of Real Nightmares: Dark and Deadly Demons.

What if an empire of Jewish warriors that really existed in the Middle Ages had never fallen—and was the only thing standing between Hitler and his conquest of Russia? Eastern Europe, August 1942. The Khazar kaganate, an isolated nation of Turkic warrior Jews, lies between the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea) and the Khazar Sea (the Caspian). It also happens to lie between a belligerent nation to the west that the Khazars call Germania—and a city the rest of the world calls Stalingrad. After years of Jewish refugees streaming across the border from Europa, fleeing the war, Germania launches its siege of Khazaria. Only Esther, the daughter of the nation’s chief policy adviser, sees the ominous implications of Germania's disregard for Jewish lives. Only she realizes that this isn’t just another war but an existential threat. After witnessing the enemy warplanes’ first foray into sovereign Khazar territory, Esther knows she must fight for her country. But as the elder daughter in a traditional home, her urgent question is how. Before daybreak one fateful morning, she embarks on a perilous journey across the open steppe. She seeks a fabled village of Kabbalists who may hold the key to her destiny: their rumored ability to change her into a man so that she may convince her entire nation to join in the fight for its very existence against an enemy like none Khazaria has ever faced before. The Book of Esther is a profound saga of war, technology, mysticism, power, and faith. This novel—simultaneously a steampunk Joan of Arc and a genre-bending tale of a counterfactual Jewish state by a writer who invents worlds “out of Calvino or Borges” (The New Yorker)—is a stunning achievement. Reminiscent of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, The Book of Esther reaffirms Barton’s place as one of her generation’s most gifted storytellers.