Ranked #1 in the World
The Emerald Amulet
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Amid the mystery of Colombia’s dense forest, two boys find that life can be far more challenging than it seems. Eduardo is the son of a maid working on the estate of a wealthy Irish immigrant. The estate owner’s son and Eduardo often play together. One day, playing in the forest, they discover a cave where an old woman presents an emerald amulet and explains its mystical powers. After an unfortunate accident, Eduardo survives the other boy and learns that the protective powers of the amulet are both his birthright and his shield. Throughout his young life, Eduardo struggles to discover what he is meant to be and do. Supported by the owner of the estate, he attends a university and prepares for a life of success and wealth. Later he decides that his love of learning is more important than pursuit of money and power. More than once, he faces life-threatening situations where the protective power of the amulet saves his life. Along the way, he learns how difficult some decisions can be, especially when one person’s life must be weighed against another’s. The author J.P. Cunningham weaves a tale where magic and reality blend, leaving the reader to wonder where one world begins and the other ends. The Emerald Amulet is, above all, a love story…a story about the unswerving loyalty of one young man to those he loves most.
Title: The Emerald Amulet
Author: J.P. Cunningham ‘82, originally from a small town in Northeastern Arkansas, (where his father’s family had lived since 1873, and his mother’s family had lived since the 1840’s),is fluent in Spanish and worked for years in the field of international sales, traveling widely throughout Latin America. Prior to that, he worked as an aide for the United States Congress specializing in foreign affairs. With one graduate degree in political science and another in international business, he now lives in northwestern Georgia where he works writing fiction.
Publisher: CreateSpace (December 20, 2011)
Price: $16.00
Description: Paperback, 184 pages
ISBN: 978-1466392786
Information: www.amazon.com
“Somerset” is a novel about an extraordinary family. Set initially in northeastern Arkansas, it builds upon the loss of a husband and father to suicide and the effect that this has on his wife Emily and daughter Amanda. Judge Emily Somerset has raised a family, practiced law, and served as a respected member of the judiciary. Her daughter Amanda, living in the shadow of her mother’s accomplishments, feeling inadequate and without any sense of direction, has nevertheless completed law school, survived divorce, and established herself in a professional career on Capitol Hill. Amanda’s older brother, Bogan, has lost touch with the family. After a divorce, he has traveled to South America– to Peru in the midst of civil war kept alive by a revolutionary group called Sendero Luminoso. Stunned by her husband’s suicide, Emily re-examines her life and decides to retire, to search for her son, and to recruit her daughter to join her. Together, striving to find Bogan, both mother and daughter begin to understand more about themselves. Bogan becomes entangled within a more treacherous situation than expected, while discovering the chance to achieve something far more significant than he could ever have imagined. “Somerset” is a story about a quest: a search for a particular person but then also a search for purpose. It involves a quest for redemption: with different characters struggling in their own ways to correct what each sees as a life of misplaced priorities.