Stealing Home
A Father, a Son, and the Road to the Perfect Game
“Part baseball, part fatherhood, and all boyhood, Stealing Home plays out the mystery of love and family. The magic lies in the storytelling that travels the road to something perfect.” — Donna Johnson, author of Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir
The rarest outcome in sports is baseball’s perfect game. One team does everything right, forcing the other to accomplish nothing. In 150 years of baseball, there have only been 23. Perfect is nearly impossible. As a divorced dad, Ron was trying to redeem his fatherhood with a baseball road trip with his Little League son Nicky. Their odyssey of nine games in eleven days, crossing eight states in a rented convertible, was supposed to salvage his life as an unsure father. Custody fatherhood demoted him to the second team — he was certain of that. One sign of salvation came unbidden. He found it in an unscheduled tenth ballgame.
Stealing Home is the story of an 11-day, nine-game trip with a Little Leaguer — and how plans for perfection delivered things deeper than scores, miles, and smiles. You don’t have to drive 3,147 miles to find your way to fatherhood. When Ron did, something magical and rare appeared at the end, inside his heart as well as on a diamond.
The adventures and revelations of the road led to a deeper reckoning of how Ron’s dad had failed enough at his fatherhood to take his own life. Thousands of miles and dozens of innings delivered a discovery: a drive toward perfect fatherhood has a destination that cannot be found on any map.
“Authentic, emotional, and brave, Ron Seybold’s memoir is a timeless journey of the universal struggle to rise above the past. Stealing Home is a beautiful testament to the power of a father’s love.” — Claire Ashby, author of the NY Times bestselling romance When You Make It Home
“Five Stars. It’s so much more than a memoir. It’s a grand road trip story as well as a real-life family saga. At its heart, Stealing Home is the consummate baseball story. An enthralling memoir, most highly recommended.” Jack Magnus, Reader’s Favorite
Viral Times
After millions die in an HIVE V pandemic, new SimSuits on a network give the world the technology to experience SafeSex’s passions in simulations as real as any now-deadly embrace. But love takes a beating in Viral Times. Casualties of loved ones mount in a pandemic that spreads through touch. Dayton’s lost wife haunts his heart and drives his work through a losing battle.
Although SimSuits keep the virus at bay, they also open the door for attack. Nobel-winner Jenny Nation’s evangelistic faith sparks the Nobel geneticist’s mission to erase the SexNet, the Suits’ lure, plus any sinner who wears one. On the seventh day after her ultimatum, Nation’s engineered virus Mighty Hand will sweep through the net and into the Suits to infect the millions who believe they are safe.
Humiliated and broken by a counter-attack against his investigation, Dayton meets Angie, a naturopath with her own losses in love to bear. Spreading the medicine of natural immunity through timeless practices and cures, she finds herself on a head-on course with Mighty Hand’s death and Dayton’s love. The new virus threatens to change their world forever — unless they can find and forestall the first biological virus to attack through a network. Only faith in discovering our power of immunity can recover love during Viral Times.
“Viral Times is a highly original work unlike anything I’ve recently read in the dystopian genre. It will certainly leave its audience with many questions about the speculative potential of its terrifying plot becoming a reality someday. If you’re looking for high-concept, thought-provoking and detailed, complex fiction, I’d highly recommend it. It leaves you with a new perspective on science, belief, and the human condition.” — K.C. Finn, Readers Favorite
“It’s Andromeda Strain meets 1984, a world where Big Pharma invokes divine influence and deadly viruses spread via machines. In Viral Times, Ron makes Armageddon look desirable by comparison.” — Guy Smith, author of Afterlife
“It creates a mesmerizing and horrific future world that blooms like a deadly plant from the seeds we sow today. It’s a tale full of danger and love and hope. And infused with a weird steampunk glamour. Think William Gibson meets Raymond Chandler—better yet, experience this world of fear and faith for yourself.” — Donna Johnson, author of Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir.
“Very Michael Crichton-like and certainly a cautionary tale for the future of public health. I used to scare people in my field by telling them the implications for a pandemic, and how easy it would be to get it started.” — Laurel Sharmer, Emeritus Professor of Public Health, State University of New York
9780985006716 / ebook / $3.99