The Second Time Around: When Love is Lovelier

BRONZE STAR: Marine vet Matt Hayes returns to teach at his old middle school and enters a romantic alliance with the principal's secretary. When he discovers her ingrained racial prejudice, he ends the relationship. She retaliates by accusing him of unbecoming conduct with a student. Though faultless, Matt is compelled to resign. But in the midst of the darkness, someone else will bring him back to the light.

TWO TWO TANGO: Having lost his job as an airborne courier, Vic is desperate to find a way to keep his private airplane with its extended cabin. He resorts to advertising Mile High Club rides, and his new business thrives. But as his business soars, Vic's own love life takes a nosedive-until someone else intervenes to bring him back to cloud nine.

SECOND TIME AROUND: Jay, a newly-divorced romance novelist, has fallen in love with his former sister-in-law Casey. Seeing her as forbidden fruit, he sublimates his feelings into the plot of his latest novel. Casey reads the book and admits she loves him too. But the reality of their love can't live up to their mutual expectations, and Casey must leave. Jay finds solace with Casey's best friend, an African-American college professor, whose loyalty to Casey is tested as her interest in Jay becomes more personal than professional.

LAST DANCE: On their wedding day, a drunk driver kills Donald Greene's bride and leaves him alive but wounded, both physically and emotionally. Eleven years later, as a college instructor, he still carries the wounds-until, in one of his adult classes, he meets an exotic-looking woman who may have the potential to heal them. Like Donald, Hannah Soong has wounds of her own, and sharing them only brings the couple closer. But Hannah harbors a secret, one she fears she must withhold to keep their relationship alive-a secret which, when ultimately revealed, leads to acts of unspeakable violence.

Stephen M. DeBock's first writing award came at age 17, when a 25-word essay, written in blank verse, earned him a fishing trip to Alaska. Entering the Marine Corps a month later, he was assigned to Washington, DC, where he served in the Presidential Honor Guard. An article on his experiences appeared in American Heritage Magazine.Following his discharge, Steve worked days, went to college nights, and spent weekends earning a private pilot's license. His writing has been published twice in AOPA Pilot Magazine.A career teacher, Steve was honored by the State of New Jersey for his work in consumer/media education and had a curriculum he devised published in a manual distributed to school libraries throughout the state.For three years, Steve and his wife Joy lived aboard a 42-foot trawler yacht. An article on their final summer cruise appeared in Living Aboard Magazine. (A photo of their home afloat is on his Facebook Author Page.)Steve is a member of the International Thriller Writers Organization and the Central Pennsylvania Writers Organization. He and his wife live in Hershey.