Read on.

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One Thousand Miles: Following My Father's WWII Footsteps (Avenida Books/2017)

World War Two shaped me even though I was born twenty years after it ended. As a kid, I was afraid I'd have to do what my dad did in the 106th Infantry during the Battle of the Bulge; as a young man, I was afraid I wouldn't. 

In the summer of 2011 my family and I followed Dad's WWII footsteps from Belgium--where he became a POW--to Glasgow where he and 10,000 other seasick GIs arrived on the RMS Aquitania. Sixty seven years after Dad's journey I make my own discoveries about fatherhood, loss, and overlooked graces of daily life.

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Mercy Creek (Hub City Press/ 2011)

On his first day of summer vacation, 16 year-old Isaac doesn't feel that events of June in a town on Virginia's Eastern Shore could threaten his life or even change it. But there are signs. His girlfriend just gave him a geranium for his birthday. His mom, who died the year before, is fading into catch phrases. His dad is romancing a woman Isaac likes but doesn't want to like. And a clutch of self-righteous vigilantes offers a $5,000 reward for the conviction of the felon or felons vandalizing expensive homes.

Isaac will discover that small towns often hide the most vicious secrets. By solving mysteries of a twisted communal past, laying bare the stains of a history that includes the Klan, Isaac resolves where he belongs in the world.

But it comes with a price.

* Winner of the South Carolina Arts Commission First Novel Prize, an 'Ippy' Bronze Medal for best regional fiction, and an honorable mention in the 15th annual Literary Awards of the Virginia State Library.


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Fritz & Christine and Their Very Nervous Parents (Avenida Books/2010)

What parent hasn't worried about how their children will turn out? In an age of helicopter parenting comes a story that encourages children to reach and dream as much as it invites parents not to fret. This book is a parable about vocation, serving others, and living life prayerfully with gratitude.


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Send an email: Matt@MattMatthewsCreative.Com

864.386.9138