Any Good Thing

by Joy E. Rancatore, Mea Smith (Editor)

Overview

Witness a young man’s battles of mind, heart and soul and follow his coming-of-age journey from selfishness to true sacrifice and from recklessness toward redemption in this contemporary southern fiction novel meant to reside on your heart’s bookshelves.

Jack Calhoun recovers from one tragedy and its consequential addiction enough to glimpse a shimmer of hope for his future—until the day of the second accident. Instead of heading to college with his childhood sweetheart, Rachael, Jack flees the rural southern town that blames him for every bad thing and leaves his loved ones behind.

His journey for purpose, if not peace, brings Jack face-to-face with war in Iraq’s desert, with his past’s nightmares and with a deeper battle on a mountain peak. Along the way, he both finds and loses parts of himself.

Perhaps it was never purpose he required but the ability to discern selfishness from sacrifice. Will he cast off a lifetime of crippling guilt to rest in redemption, or will peace remain as elusive as any good thing for Jack?

This book lends itself to a lively book club discussion or shared read between couples and friends. While readers who remember 9-11 will have an instant bond with the story, anyone who enjoys a well-paced tale full of larger-than-life characters—with a dash of southern charm and a whole batch of tasty food—may just discover a new favorite book in Any Good Thing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781733138703
Publisher:	Logos & Mythos Press LLC
Publication date:	09/24/2019
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

JOY E. RANCATORE writes fiction, nonfiction and everything in between. When she's not doing horrible things to her characters or dreaming up faery creatures and fantastic weapons, she beats her husband at card games, homeschools her two children, snuggles her two stinky dogs and lets her cat, Tolkien, do whatever he wants. They'd prefer to live in Middle-earth or Narnia or Hogwarts or in a galaxy far, far away; but, for now, they live across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. Her biggest writing accomplishment to date remains penning the cover story for the August 2003 issue of Leatherneck, Magazine of the Marines. It featured her brother.

Meagan (Mea) Smith lives in a wooden house on a hill and trips over a multitude of cats while parenting her two rambunctious boys. When she mentally floats too far from home, her cherished husband ushers her back and then grills her chicken for dinner. She has a Master's in English and sometimes scares college students with her passion for semicolons; she fell for their cunning in high school.

Mea believes love doesn't deter hateful things from happening, but it always conquers them. Because of this, she creates fictional content tinted with hope set in contemporary and/or fantastical places. Her nonfiction focuses on writing craft for authors delivered with kindness and honesty. Her poetry is based on a true story. Always.

Rachael Ritchey is a dreamer who believes in the resilience of the human spirit. She never wants to forget we are not what has happened to us or what we've done. She believes we are deep wells of compassion and strength, and when unleashed, these subtle superpowers can change the world, even if only just one person at a time. She writes with an eye toward exemplifying these attributes. Her YA fiction reflects these qualities with daring adventure and sweet romance that almost anyone can enjoy. Rachael lives in Spokane, WA with her husband, kids, and their dog named Hashtag.

Table of Contents

ACT I: IMPETUS

I Grief & Capital Letters

II Empty Bottles & An Open Door

III Accept the Gift

IV Straight & Narrow

V The Weight of Guilt

VI A Ticket to Anywhere

VII Start to Look Up

ACT II: INTENTION

VIII Something Good Might Finally Happen

IX Far From Home

X A Growing Sense of Restlessness

XI The Darkness Inside You

XII Pride in Something

XIII One Final Sentence

XIV These Guys Could Move Iwo Jima

ACT III: IMPLOSION

XV Prepare Like Hell to Go …

XVI … Pray to Heaven We Don’t

XVII Five Seconds

XVIII In the Midst of the Urban Jungle

XIX Heart … Soul … Purpose

XX A Hide in the Midst of Raging Battles

XXI Family Portrait

ACT IV: INSTAURATION

XXII Running Toward Something

XXIII Searching

XXIV Life Won’t Ever Be the Same

XXV Be Worthy

XXVI Not Going Anywhere Without You

XXVII The Man He’d Become

XXVIII More Than Worth the Wait

ACT V: INQUEST

XXIX We’ve Got This … Together

XXX You Don’t Have to Fight Alone

XXXI All I Want or Need

XXXII Accept My Gift

XXXIII Your Turn

XXXIV Gone

XXXV Sacrifice