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"What the Owl Saw," the second volume in the Buenaventura Series and the sequel to "The Brujo's Way," opens in December 1705 with a terrifying nightmare that fills Don Carlos Buenaventura, a powerful brujo in his sixth life, with dread. Feeling the need to strengthen his brujo powers, always weakened by town life, he rides out into the wild mountain landscapes around Santa Fe in order to practice his sorcerer's technique of transforming himself into hawks and owls. Transformations are exhilarating, but they do not dispel his sense of an impending menace. In addition, as he tells his friend Inéz de Recalde, whom he has rescued from a difficult past and to whom he has declared his love, he is impatient to move forward in his quest for wisdom on what he calls the Unknown Way. Into this picture comes a trio of itinerant entertainers, a magician and two women dancers, who offer an ambiguous promise. Can they lead him to deeper realms of consciousness, or are they agents of his enemy, the evil sorcerer Don Malvolio? The magician and his alluring companions introduce Carlos to dances that transport him into ecstatic mind states, but he remains uncertain about what master they serve. Despite the risk of exposing his secret brujo identity and of being disloyal to Inéz, Carlos allows himself to be drawn ever farther into their web of dark and dangerous enchantments. Includes Readers Guide.

In 1951, when Sister of Charity Mary Joaquin Bitler was called to Santa Fe, New Mexico to be the Supervisor of Nursing at Santa Fe's antiquated St. Vincent Hospital, she remarked that the 1910 Catholic hospital was surviving on "e;nerve and hope."e; Later, as Administrator (1960 - 1976), she was lauded locally and nationally for her achievements in health care and for bringing that care to the poor of New Mexico. Considered by many a brilliant businesswoman, she turned St. Vincent's into a state-of-the art facility in its time, managed by a community corporation. Sister Mary Joaquin's story tells of a very complex personality. A tough hospital administrator, she had many admirers as well as some enemies; a devout nun, she drew strength from her religion to open her heart to the poor and the sick, while she herself suffered a chronic and debilitating illness. In 1977, after succeeding in her goal to build Santa Fe a new and greatly expanded community-owned hospital, Sister Joaquin retreated to a life of contemplation and prayer in a little hermitage in central Mexico. Appalled by the poverty and sickness around her-the distended stomachs of hungry children, the heart-breaking number of infant deaths from dysentery and other parasitic diseases-she opened a small clinic in her hermitage to treat the villagers, most of whom had never seen a doctor or had any access to health care. Her last years were spent living as a hermit in New Mexico's Christ in the Desert Benedictine Monastery until her death in 2003. "e;Charity's Sister"e; is a book that will appeal to students of medicine, Southwest history and women's history, as well as being a testament to one woman's profound strength of will, to one who always sought divine guidance in dealing with adversities in her own life and in the many lives she touched.

It's the autumn of discontent for David Berger--a season of mixed emotions. Retired after a lucrative but unfulfilling career, he lives alone by choice in a modest, sparsely furnished cottage in affluent Fairfield, Connecticut. True, he's proud of finally becoming a published author--a lifelong dream--although he will admit good-naturedly that fame has eluded him. True, he still loves his wife, Mandy--but a decade ago, a tragic loss drove them apart. And now he watches with regret as their married son, Philip, is manipulated by a possessive, mercenary wife. Still, David hasn't lost his sense of humor or his humanity. And he is determined to transform his autumn into spring--to reignite his romance with Mandy and rebuild their relationship with Philip. Surprisingly, the key to this transformation is a new friend, a fascinating, audacious, unpredictable lesbian author who insists on being the Muse for his latest novel. With her prodding encouragement, David's book leads him on an intense, emotional journey through the sometimes funny, sometimes sad memories of his life and loves toward a better new day. After a thirty-five-year career in public relations, MELVYN CHASE Chase retired from corporate life, but continued to work as a consultant. He also began to write fiction. In 2005, Sunstone Press published his first collection of short stories, THE TERMINAL PROJECT AND OTHER VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY--a finalist in the 2007 New Mexico Book Awards--and in 2008, his first novel, THE WINGTHORN ROSE. Chase was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a B.A. in English Literature at Brooklyn College and an M.A. at New York University. He and his wife, a retired editor and publicist, live in suburban Connecticut, only a short drive from their son and daughter and four grandchildren.

Love: Tender. Spiritual. Lustful. Liberating. Suffocating. A different truth, a different quest for each of these lovers, dreamers and schemers. Katherine McKenzie, a young woman living in Boston in 1918, yearns for love but is afraid of it. When tragedy sets her adrift, she returns to her rural Kansas roots where she rediscovers her past and confronts her fears. In a second story, a lonely and discouraged man finds new hope in the mystical message of an inspired dreamer who reached for the heavens. Is music truly the food of love? A pair of cautionary tales warns that no matter how sweet the song, one must always ask, "e;Who is the singer?"e; The dark side of love lurks here too-in those who love only themselves and pay the price for their wicked dreams. And there is a bittersweet tale of love remembered on the threshold of death. The final pages, sadder still, speak of love forgotten when remembrance of things past has faded. These are eternal tales of Love-its many faces, its many meanings. Includes Readers Guide

In her large body of work that spanned more than half a century, Alice Marriott gave a wide audience fresh and lively accounts of the complex cultures of the Southwestern American Indian. Trained as an anthropologist/ethnologist, the first woman to graduate with a degree in that field from the University of Oklahoma, she coupled her scientific and creative writing skills to produce books that have become classics. Maria: The Potter of San Ildefonso, a definitive study of Pueblo Indian pottery making, has remained in print for sixty years. The memoirs that comprise this volume were written by Alice Marriott four years before her death in 1992, at the age of 82. They were her response to a request from Still Point Press for a full autobiography. Her frail health at the time-she was ill with Bell's Palsy, blind in one eye, recovering from multiple fractures from falls-prevented her from writing more. Nevertheless, the pieces she did complete are delightful personal stories, told in that unique Marriott style, still engaging and humorous today.

A summer on the California coast calls to Mattox Williams, a writer wanting quiet days to do the finishing work on his novel. He leases his Santa Fe house for three months and finds an ocean-facing room at Glitter Bay. While meeting the other people of the beach community, a love affair develops as well as the surrounding strife. He makes a deep emotional mark on the neighbors, particularly on Hayden Danning and his sister, Sylvan. A surprise offer from a film producer opens his horizons and requires trips south to Hollywood and Laguna Beach. At the end of summer, Mattox tries to find a way to keep alive the love he has found.

From 1950 until just before his death in 1963, Pulitzer Prize winner (for Laughing Boy) Oliver La Farge wrote weekly columns for The Santa Fe New Mexican-a total of some 350,000 words. A collection of these writings was edited in 1966 by his friend, Winfield Townley Scott and published as "e;The Man With the Calabash Pipe."e; As Scott says in his introduction, "e;Though often in the background, and with much said relevant to anywhere in America, a strong sense of place permeates these essays, whatever their matter. The Southwest in general, Santa Fe in particular, became his locus classicus-or his pulpit."e; Sometimes the "e;observations"e; that take place in some of the pieces in this collection are between La Farge and his alter ego, the "e;Man With the Calabash Pipe,"e; thus the title of the book, and they are marvels of rueful humor. In others the author enjoys his talks with his imaginary friend, Horned Husband Kachina Chief from Awatovi. In writing about Santa Fe, La Farge scolded, reprimanded, corrected, reminded, berated, bemoaned, rejoiced in, and urged on the town in a dozen moods, always out of a fierce devotion. His comments on "e;Writing the Language"e; are salutatory as well as amusing. Then, in and out of these essays wanders that Man With the Calabash Pipe-a sardonic bachelor who refuses to light his heater since a likeable mouse is in residence underneath it. Scott continues, "e;...I think any reader who never had to the luck to know Oliver La Farge will touch the man as nowhere else in his work save perhaps that revealing autobiography, Raw Material; and will be touched and will come to feel the overtones of a unique, complex individual."e;

The enormous effort-called the Manhattan Project-that produced the world's first atomic bomb was supposed to be the best kept secret of World War II. And the Project's Los Alamos, New Mexico site where the bomb was perfected was supposed to have the tightest security of the project's other 37 installations across the United States. Even the vice president, Harry S. Truman, was kept in the dark initially until fate propelled him into the fray. But this was an illusion. Evidence from Soviet and American sources have proven that at least three-and as many as six-Communist spies penetrated the security system at Los Alamos and shared the secret of the atomic bomb with the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union before the end of World War II. Historian Richard Melzer now sheds new light on how security at Los Alamos broke down-not by examining this isolated site in New Mexico from the outside as many other authors have-but from within Los Alamos itself. Using interviews, memoirs, and formerly confidential files Melzer shows that spies quite easily obtained security clearances, gained access to top secret information, and carried this information to their Soviet contacts without a hitch. What Melzer tells us about the flaws of security in the past might well help those in charge of security today as the United States grapples with these problems in the aftermath of the Chinese espionage scandal that rocked Los Alamos and the American intelligence. Photographs, index, bibliography.

While living in Denver in the early 1890s, Francis Schlatter, a poor immigrant cobbler from Alsace-Lorraine, heard a voice inside his head that told him to put down his tools and go outside and walk east. For several years Schlatter, a deeply pious man, had been aware that he possessed the potential to cure people of their afflictions if he could only muster enough faith; the time to test that faith had arrived. So began a grueling two-year journey on foot that took him as far east as Hot Springs, Arkansas, then back across the Southwest to San Diego, north to San Francisco, then east to Arizona and New Mexico. In the summer and fall of 1895, first in Albuquerque then in Denver, he began to treat hundreds of people a day. Word of his miraculous power ran like wildfire all over the Southwest. Appalled by the carnival atmosphere he encountered in Denver, Schlatter slipped away into the wilds of New Mexico, finally into Old Mexico, where he died under mysterious circumstances in the spring of 1897. Charlatan or saint? Healer or fraud? The question remains. Even his detractors acknowledged the genuine compassion that people felt in his presence. Most telling was the fact that he never took a dime for the therapies he performed. A hundred years ago Francis Schlatter was one of the best-known figures in the Southwest; since then he has literally fallen off the map. In this gripping and powerful narrative, based on contemporary newspaper accounts and a memoir that Schlatter dictated to a friend before he died in Mexico, Conger Beasley, Jr. reconstructs the life and times of this remarkable man.