She hoped winning the lottery would solve her problems. Her problems have just begun.... 

Complex characters ... Jeter s coming-of-age novel considers the problems that might follow a sudden windfall. ~ Publishers Weekly

4 Stars! One would be hard-pressed not to root for the likable protagonist and hope that her story eventually ends with a happy ending. ~ RT Book Reviews

1975 -- Volkswagen introduces the Golf, John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up, the Weather Underground bombs the U.S. State Department, and Bill Gates founds Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As Communist forces take Saigon and the Vietnam War winds down, Tray Dunaway, an ordinary teenager from a poor Southern family, longs to become part of the popular clique at school. 

Tray’s mother, Evelyn, lies in bed most days with her bipolar tendency toward extreme highs or desperate lows. Meanwhile, Tray’s grandmother Ginny, still grieving over the loss of her husband, would love to move out and find a place of her own. Maybe even a bit of romance to replace the loss she feels. But given the sorry state of the family’s finances that’s not possible. 

Then the Dunaways’ luck changes. Or so it seems.

Tray’s father drives a down-and-out friend of the family, Pee Wee Johnson, to Hazard, Illinois, so Johnson can buy lottery tickets. As a gesture of thanks, Johnson gives a ticket to Tray’s father. And what do you know? The Dunaways’ are suddenly rich.

When Johnson demands his cut of the winnings, Tray’s dad refuses. As Evelyn’s illness spirals toward madness, Johnson threatens the family. Out of time, Tray makes one poor decision after another until what initially seemed like a stroke of good fortune quickly becomes a dangerous game of life and death for the Dunaways.

Winner of the Selah Award for Young Adult Fiction
Winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Best Religious Fiction
Winner of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award for Best Young Adult Religious Fiction

In the early months of 1775, war is brewing in the American colonies. Although frightened, eighteen-year-old Betsy Russell (an ancestor to actor Kurt Russell) of Menotomy Village, Massachusetts, wants to be prepared in case of attack by British troops. Her father, prosperous farmer Jason, is the fourth generation of Russells on this land yet their very rights as British Colonials are being stripped away one by one. Will the King of England take their land as well? Tensions are growing here in the countryside west of Boston and the outbreak of battle seems a certainty. Jason desperately wants to protect his family his wife, children and grandchildren and their future. Betsy makes every attempt to be prepared for the worst. But not even the American militia could have predicted the bloody massacre that was about to occur right on the Russells' doorstep. If Betsy loses everything she holds dear, are the rights of all the Colonists endangered? 

Fields of the Fatherless is based on a true story.

2014 Selah Award Finalist in YA Fiction

2014 Selah Award Finalist in Debut Novel

​

Selena's life isn't turning out to be the fairy tale she imagined as a kid. 

That hope seemed to vanish long ago when her dad kicked her and her mom out of the house. This summer might finally hold the chance of a new beginning for Selena ... but having to live with her snobby cousin in Lake Lure, NC while waiting for her mom to get out of rehab wasn't how Selena was planning on spending her summer. She soon begins to wonder why she committed to give up her "bad habits" for this.

Things don't seem too bad, though. Especially when Selena gains the attention of the cute neighbor next door. But when her best friend back home in Brooklyn desperately needs her, a secret that's been hidden from Selena for years is revealed, and when she becomes a target for one of her cousin's nasty pranks, she finds herself having to face the scars from her past and the memories that come along with them. Will she follow her mom's example in running away, or trust that God still has a fairy tale life written just for her?

Just as Ricky is about to reach Port Charles where he'll be tried for piracy, an ill wind blows a wretched soul into the ship's brig. A mysterious seaman, William Shakespeare, tells of fleeing the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship sailed by the dead, demons and worse. Before Ricky can learn more about this outlandish tale, he's sentenced to hang. As the noose slips over his head, he bolts from the gallows and jumps into the sea. 

With his soul at stake, and the lives of a crew of misfit orphans, Ricky faces a battle with pirates - both dead and alive - where the souls of the living and those yet-to-be born hang in the balance. 

With the eternal future of Ricky's dead dad on the line, a man who traded the temporal freedom of earthly pressures for eternal damnation, Ricky must face his greatest fear. But will he reach his dad before it s too late?

While chaos reigns over WW II Berlin, seventeen-year-old Liddy returns to her family's bakery only to be confronted by a new customer -- Keppler, a Nazi officer. Marek, a young man with a secretive past, labors just a few paces away in the kitchen, but where do his loyalties lie? With the Nazis? With Liddy? 

Liddy's father, Klaus, secures a night job as a prison guard where anti-Nazi dissident, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is being held. Klaus smuggles out the pastor's letters, but tensions rise as Keppler establishes a tenuous relationship with Liddy's young brother, Willy. Does the Nazi officer wish to recruit Willy, or is Keppler there to spy on Liddy's family? 

From air raids to the Hitler Youth, Liddy becomes enmeshed in a world of spies intent on betrayal. When Liddy makes a critical mistake that endangers a loved one, she faces a decision that puts her own faith on the line and her family's safety in jeopardy.

It is 1777. The Battle of Saratoga, a turning point of the Revolutionary War, encourages the American Continental Army with their first great victory. But there seems little to celebrate for one patriotic woman forced to nurse wounded British soldiers right in their war camp. Thrust into deception by a cruel Loyalist uncle, Abigail lies in order to survive, all the while dealing with doubts that challenge her faith.

Then … 

Two hundred years later, on the anniversary of the Battle of Saratoga, thousands arrive from Europe and the United States to celebrate the event -- including descendants from the war. One young American, Abby, meets the offspring of a British soldier. When she is threatened, Abby turns to the only person she knows at the event -- her British ally. Can she trust him with her life? Or will he betray her in the same way loyalist spies betrayed her ancestors? Perhaps letters from long ago will reveal the truth.

When Guzman Guferntible, aka 10-year-old Guzzy Goofball, finds himself drafted into the role of Prince Charming in a summer production of Sleeping Beauty, he longs to avoid any major blunders. Now Guzzy must overcome not only stage fright, but his mom's enthusiasm, the torment of his 3-year-old twin brothers, and the possibility of kissing Sleeping Beauty. This he manages by bringing the house down on his co-stars heads and learning how to star as himself.

A word from Guzzy:
I like summer. What kid doesn't? But inevitably my mom gets some crazy idea that I need to be doing something constructive.

That's what destroyed a perfectly good week in July. My mom and Mrs. Bartle ganged up on Shriek and me and convinced us we'd love some time with kids our age and away from our homeschools. We’d be in a drama co-op, no less, with other fourth to sixth graders. 

OK, that was bad enough. But when I show up to discover I’m one of two guys amid a bunch of cackling girls… And they decide to put on a production of Sleeping Beauty and draft yours truly, Guzzy Guferntible, into the role of Prince Charming. Me, on stage, armed with a plastic sword? If that's not a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is. 


Susan A. J. Lyttek, award-winning writer, wife and homeschool mother of two sons, writes early mornings in the shadow of our nation’s capital. She also enjoys training up the next generation of writers through Write At Home by coaching middle and high school students. You can contact her and find out more about her other books and projects at sajlyttek.com.