A Life of Impact: A Biography of Samuel L. Kountz, MD is a powerful and deeply human portrait of one of the most influential pioneers in transplant surgery. Spanning from the segregated cotton fields of rural Arkansas to the forefront of global medical innovation, this biography captures not only a scientific journey, but a story of resilience, courage, and transformation.

Born into a world shaped by racial inequality and limited opportunity, Samuel L. Kountz refused to be defined by circumstance. Through determination, intellect, and an unwavering commitment to healing, he rose to become a groundbreaking surgeon whose work helped reshape the future of kidney transplantation.

This book traces his early life in the American South, his education under systemic barriers, and the mentors and communities that shaped his path. It explores his entry into medicine during a period of scientific uncertainty, when transplant surgery was still experimental, risky, and often controversial. Against this backdrop, Kountz emerged as a leader who pushed the boundaries of what medicine could achieve.

More than a clinical biography, this work also examines the human dimensions of his journey. It delves into the emotional and ethical challenges of early transplantation, the realities of discrimination in medical institutions, and the burden of responsibility carried by those who pioneer life-saving procedures. It highlights his advocacy for equity in healthcare, his dedication to underserved communities, and his lasting influence on medical education and transplant ethics.

Through detailed narrative and historical depth, A Life of Impact presents a vivid account of a man whose legacy continues to shape modern medicine. It is a story of ambition forged through adversity, of science driven by compassion, and of a life devoted to expanding the limits of what is possible.

This book will appeal to readers interested in medical history, biographies of influential figures, healthcare ethics, and stories of perseverance against systemic barriers.

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All of us must navigate two oceans throughout our lives. The first is the ocean inside of us — which includes our mental health, emotional regulation, and the times and stages of our life. The second is the ocean outside of us — money, work, business, insurances, taxes, and our obligations, roles, and relationships when we are among human society.

In The Two Oceans, the author draws on his lived experience to recount tales of empathy, kindness, suffering, resourcefulness, contentment, and happiness, reflecting on them through the lens of philosophical principles. These tenets are intended to guide us toward integrating the two halves of ourselves — the conscious Self and the unconscious Shadow.

This collection of twenty-five short stories explores philosophies such as Zen, Stoicism, and Jungian psychology, and proffers practical applications of their central concepts such as detachment, impermanence, resilience, virtue, response, individuation, and introspection. These simple lessons can be useful tools in both vast, equally turbulent oceans, helping us cross unfathomable depths as we sail through life’s treacherous waters, and guiding us safely back to shore.

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Continuing his quest, Aris has to confront the deadliest forces yet. Friends and foes all lay in ambush. Will Aris survive? Will his belief in true love beyond Eros stand or fall?
In his final quest, simultaneously finding love beyond eros, and the Love Secret, Aris and Angelica have to endure immense pain and sacrifices. Having succumbed to the power of forbidden love, will they endure the physical and psychological tortures awaiting them?

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Aris is a successful businessman with marriage on the rocks, when a young powerful woman falls in love with him. Rejected she vows to win or destroy him. Embarking on a global search for true love, Aris ventures out with two friends, risking his life in pursuit of the ancient love secret. Just as he has given up on finding true love, another woman appears. Will this love secret help Aris find his dream woman? Is such true love beyond eros possible? Multiple evil forces await Aris. Will he even survive to find out? Who will win Aris’s heart?

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In 2019, 11 missionaries went missing in Santiago.

After the death of his fiancée—three months pregnant—Mark Crosby lost sight of the life he once knew. He performs his 9-to-5 job and returns home to his elderly grandmother, occasionally attending a nearby church, if only just. But the invitation of an old presbyter changes everything: a mission trip to the breakaway territory of Santiago—the last place on Earth he wanted to go.

Joining a team of eight volunteers—alongside three missionaries, a bus conductor, the driver, and his family—he embarks on a journey through a country caught between escalating civil unrest and a strained dictatorship.

When their trip to the remote village of Puerto Palermo takes a wrong turn, the tour bus crashes off the road near a deep precipice, and Crosby makes a troubling discovery—the accident wasn’t an accident.

2025 North American Book Awards Gold Winner Top 100 Notable Books of 2025 for Shelf Media Group

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The Climb is the author's debut novel. This novel was released with Midday Press.

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Ceylon Moon is divided into five thematically unified sections — Moods and Musings, What the Night Brings, With[in] Sanity, The Voices, and All That Is Worn and Torn. Childhod is one of the major themes and is introduced in the first section (Moods and Musings) with poems such as I Am Becoming (that describes a brief moment when a toddler's joy erased the poet's bleak mood), and Trois Gymnopédies (based on the first theme of Eric Satie's three-part piano composition). Satie's fragile, gentle theme inspired Gedaliah to study the composer's tragic life. Having lost his mother at age 6, and his grandmother at age 12, Gedaliah creates in words what Satie expressed in melody.

What the Night Brings are a series of poems delving into the nature and vagaries of our dreams. The many unsettled aspects of dreaming is extended into the next section "With Insanity" (or "Within Sanity") explores" the near thin edge" that separates our uncomfortable ideas about what actually constitutes sanity, insanity, and what lies in between.

The Voices are six Rilkean poems in which Gedaliah assumes the personas of non-sentient nature (eg. clouds, mountains, trees, etc.) to explore what it is that resonates within us that draws us to them. The collection closes with All That is Worn and Torn (from the last poem in Rilke's The Sonnets to Orpheus) explores the inevitable decline and closing of our own life and what solace and wisdom we might take away at the end.

The series of poems rises above the fear and despair it describes to reach for a higher position or acceptance, gratitude and love for the journey we've taken. Even for those who believe (like the author himself) that there is nothing more than what we hold no longer. The poetry of Ceylon Moon is consistent with his previous books in that they confront the darkness and chaos but do not wallow in despair, but shines a light upon all that makes life worthwhile that is found in the closing poems Because My Time is Limited and What is Life?

When the most exquisite being in all creation finds Itself fraught with jealousy of the new humans who have seemingly usurped the Creator's attention and adoration, It devises a plan to steal their unborn offspring, and get them expelled from heaven. When the humans are cast into terrestrial exile for their sin, the beautiful Jinn did not expect to be punished along with them, and It plots a litany of evil vengeance against humanity while holding their offspring captive.

"The Numbers Six" is a sprawling supernatural saga, beginning in the primordial home of two mythical trees and branching into a grand chronicle of magical races and mystical beings, witches, enchanted jewels and dark prophecy, while exploring unsettling themes of love, loss, betrayal and evil, and the possibility of redemption, on an extraordinary multi-dimensional journey through space and time.

Step into the innocent corners of vulnerability in Part One, with Atom, Lilly and Eve, the Prisca Feminique, as they mature and learn to navigate the complexities of 'Free Will', while unwittingly hurtling toward the foretold evils awaiting them, all on a path to where the only hope for human salvation has just turned SEVEN.

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Southampton, 1912.

Thomas Bennett has spent most of his life just getting by. After years of hiding who he is and carefully navigating a world that allows little room for people like him, he receives an unexpected gift: a third-class ticket aboard the RMS Titanic and a chance to start anew in America under his chosen name.

For the first time, no one on the great ship knows his past. To his fellow passengers, he is simply Tom. As the Titanic takes him farther from England and closer to the future he has always dreamed of, he begins to discover something he never thought possible: friendship, belonging, and the chance for a life that feels like his own.

Among the crowded decks and lively third-class gatherings, Tom is drawn to Nora, a sharp-witted young woman whose confidence pushes him and whose kindness slowly earns his trust. What starts as chance meetings soon becomes something neither of them expected. But love is hard enough without secrets, and Tom must decide if he is willing to risk the life he has built for the chance to be truly known.

Set against the backdrop of the Titanic's maiden voyage, Ink & Saltwater is a sweeping historical romance about identity, bravery, found family, and the people who show us how to take up space in the world. Heartfelt, hopeful, and ultimately heartbreaking, it is a story of survival, love, and the lives forever changed aboard the most famous ship in history.

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Jory Turner's greatest wish is to become the most famous knight in all of Terros. But when the kingdom is plunged into political turmoil after the death of a king with no heir, Jory’s world shifts from tournaments and chivalry to battles, deception, and danger.

As the kingdom moves toward civil war, Jory and his knight are sent on a mission where Jory finds friends and enemies, and discovers that magic, long believed to be extinct, is far from dead. But will magic and friendship be enough to save the kingdom?

The Knight's Squire is an epic fantasy that follows Jory, his knight, Sir Cley Woods, the apprentice girl, Emily, and the heir to the throne, Prince James, in a medieval world where kings and lords rule, and knights and squires serve.

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The Cuba We Lost: 1959-1962
Voices from Cuba's Golden Exile
Can you imagine what it must have been like to watch your country disappear?
Between 1959 and 1962 hundreds of thousands of Cuban families were forced to make heart wrenching decisions that would forever alter their lives and the lives of their families. Families were separated. Homes, businesses ,schools and religious institutions were transformed overnight. Childhoods were interrupted and ended too soon. Uncertainty, fear and hope became part of everyday life.
The Cuba We Lost preserves those memories before they are lost to the world forever. Through many testimonies, men and women who lived these events as children and young adults recount what they saw and how they felt and more than that, how they survived one of the most dramatic periods in Cuban history. As they tell their stories, they weave in the memories and experiences of their parents and grandparents creating an intimate portrait of a country im transition and families force dto flee to exile.
The stories told are not political statements nor are they historical arguments. They are deeply personal memories of schools, friendships, parks and dolls being yanked from their hands. Some left via Operation Pedro Pan and others escaped via different personal routes. All carried with them memories of a homeland they would never see in the same way again.
Interwoven throughout the book are historical notes that place each testimony within the unfolding events of the Cuban revolution, so as to give the reader a context to the date of departure.
Whether you are Cuban, a descendant of Cuban exiles, a student of history , or a person that values memories of human interest, The Cuba We Lost offers you a window into a world that vanished.
For the generations of the future, this is more than a collection of memories, it is the story of Cuba's Golden Exile.

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