Joe's New Historical Novel

Yellow Rose of Texas 

Freedom fighter, 1836-1865

by Joe B. Hewitt 

Yellow Rose of Texas is an adventure story, a love story, a spy thriller, but it is also a lesson in Texas history, abolition of slavery, and conflict between the whites and Comanches. The book also expresses the deep-set convictions of Southern gentry and clergy that rationalized slavery and justified treating people as property.

Yellow Rose of Texas is the historical fiction account of Rose, a quadroon slave born in 1814 on a Louisiana cotton plantation, sold to a representative of the Republic of Texas, trained as a spy, and placed into Santa Anna’s headquarters. She is recognized as a hero of the Texas Republic and continues to serve into the Civil War. There is romance, treachery, and ties with actual historical events. The story ends in 1865. It meshes with “My Love, My Enemy,” and can be considered a prequel.

Yellow Rose of Texas, Freedom Fighter, 1836-1865, by Joe B. Hewitt, Historical Fiction. Paperback, 6X9 inches, 65,000 words, 240 pages, ISBN 9781523648214. E-book available everywhere e-books are sold.

Order on line at Amazon.com; BarnesandNoble.com; or Joebhewitt.net.

Joe B. Hewitt's Books

Joe B. Hewitt’s Books

I Was Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, Non-Fiction.

This is the personal story of Joe B. Hewitt who escaped from the Watchtower Cult. The first half of the book is a narrative of how the author came to the realization that he had been lied to and had repeated lies to others, how, after he left the Jehovah’s Witnesses his mother was forced to declare him dead and to shun him.                                        

He tells of his call into the ministry and experiences dealing with Jehovah’s Witnesses. The book refutes the peculiar doctrines of the Watchtower Society such as: denial of the deity of Jesus Christ; denial of his literal and physical resurrection; denial of the Christian’s hope of heaven; denial of the existence of hell; and many others.                                                                      

Hewitt also refutes the Watchtower’s peculiar rules that Jehovah’s Witnesses are required to live by, including prohibiting them from celebrating Christmas. A section: “Why Celebrate Christmas?” gives Biblical reasons for celebrating Christmas.

1st Edition, 1979, Accent Books, Denver, sold 40,000 copies; 2nd Edition 1983, translated into Chinese, China Sunday School Association, Taiwan; 3rd Edition, Kregel Books, Grand Rapids, sales with 1st Edition totaled 45,000 copies. After the book went out of print, the 1st and 3rd Editions continued to sell as Kindle books on Amazon. The latest edition, 2013: I Was Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, 4^th Edition, Revised and Updated 6X9 Paperback 224 Pages or e-book. ISBN-13:978-1492909156. See www.joebhewitt.net

Rescuing Slaves of the Watchtower, Non-Fiction

Almost every family has a member, friend, or co-worker who is under complete control of the Watchtower Society. This book shows: how to rescue them and restore Jehovah’s Witnesses to normal society, how to protect your children from being taken in by this cult, and how to set free guilt-ridden and despondent Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses and restore them back into normal society.

The book contains endorsements from Dr. Bob Dean, Executive Director of Dallas Baptist Association; Dr. Rudy Gonzalez, Dean, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; and Dr. Jimmy Draper, President Emeritus of LifeWay publishing.

Rescuing Prisoners of the Watchtower (Hannibal Books, Garland, Texas 2011, ISBN 978-1-61315-006-1.) 6X9 Paperback, or e-book, 262 Pages. See www.joebhewitt.net

Rescatando a los Prisioneros de los Atalaya, Non-fiction

Por Joe B. Hewitt, traduccion por Glen Jolley.

Una gran mayoría de las familias en los EE.UU., Canadá, y Méjico tienen un miembro de su familia, un amigo o un colega del trabajo bajo el control de la Sociedad Watchtower. Los Testigos de Jehová están buscando convertir especialmente al hispano parlante.

Este libro demuestra

Como rescatarlos y como reestablecer al Testigo de Jehová a la sociedad normal.

Como proteger y evitar que  sus niños  sean engañados por esta secta, y

Como librar y reestablecer a los Testigos de Jehová que están llenos de culpa y sin esperanza a una sociedad y vida normal.

Rescatando a los Prisioneros de los Atalaya,6X9 258 Pages and e-book, ISBN 978-1-48129-686-1. See www.joebhewitt.net

Trivia for Adults, Non-fiction

This little book contains rules for playing trivia, 620 new and original questions and answers. None were copied from other sources. These questions are for adults. There are no questions that only a teenager would know. The book is to furnish educated, thinking people some brain exercise. There is no board, tokens, or dice to roll, just questions and answers. One person has to be in charge, to read the questions and help grade the teams. Players form teams, quietly discuss the question among themselves and come up with a consensus answer. 6X9, 152 Pages, and e-book, ISBN 13:978-148813419. See www.joebhewitt.net

A Pastor’s Adventures, the Good, the Bad, and the Sad.

Pastor Joe B. Hewitt tells of his adventures, including the call to ministry, seminary humor, the pulpit, the baptistery, the Texas congregations, and missions to Mexico, England, Russia, and Brazil. Hewitt could find humor most places and from most people. He also records events that touch the heart and others that show some people’s evil ingenuity to be stranger than fiction.

Nonfiction, autobiography/memoir, 6x9, 228 Pages, paperback or e-book. ISBN-13: 973-1499277098. See www.joebhewitt.net

Mediation Preparation

         "Joe Hewitt's book, Mediation Preparation, should be helpful to anyone going to mediation. It contains the basics for the layperson, negotiating tools for the lawyers, strategy for mediators, and guidance for clients to cooperate with their attorneys." Hon. Dale B. Tillery, Judge, 134th District Court, Dallas, Texas.

Mediation Preparation, nonfiction, 6x9, 100 pages, ISBN 9781514863763, paperback or e-book.See www.joebhewitt.net

Fiction Books

Note: These works of fiction include murder, mayhem and treachery, along with some clever detective work, but no bad language. You could give one to your mother without embarrassment.

(The bad guys cuss, as usual, but it’s not spelled out in the books.)

Murder on the Sky Ride Fiction/Mystery

This novel is full of action and good detective work. It also gives a picture of the diverse ethnic and cultural makeup of Texas. It gives a private view of two Texas families, one whose members range from dope smuggler to successful attorney-politician, and the other ranging from a hot-head Chicano activist to a Texas Ranger.

Some of the characters: Gar Garcia, Texas Ranger under special orders of the governor; Steve Pearce, 21, ex-convict, trying to stay out of trouble but not succeeding; Johnny Diaz, almost, but not quite, bad to the bone; Burke Masters, big man with big money; and Hawknose, career criminal.

The story is set in San Marcos, Texas, at an amusement park located where the San Marcos River, as a giant spring, wells up out of the ground cool and clear. San Marcos is a real city but events and characters portrayed there are fictional. Real people are mentioned, such as Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, but are not characters.

Historical notes about the Texas Rangers are accurate. The mammalian diving reflex described in the novel is accurate, as well as the homicide exclusion in insurance policies, and oil field technicalities, but events surrounding them are fictional.

The story takes place in 1978 when detectives had to work harder than now. They had two-way radios, telephone beepers, but no cell phones or personal computers. Most police departments had no computers at all. Police reports were laboriously typed out by hand over several carbon copies, the last of which were barely legible. Police work was real work.  Go along with Texas Ranger Gar Garcia as he works through clues, diversions, and deception.

Murder on the Sky Ride, 6X9, 300 Pages, ISBN 978 098 4989 706, paperback or e-book.

See www.joebhewitt.net

Mystery of the Vanished Gold, Fiction/Mystery

Three robbers wearing Alfred E. Newman rubber masks rob a Dallas bank of $20 million and several safe deposit boxes containing gold. During the robbery a killer handcuffs two men together to a barred gate and executes them with a .22 bullet to the head.he invasion robbers move with military precision and vanish with the money and gold.

A newly-commissioned Texas Ranger, Hank Garcia, chases the gold and money to Spain, South Africa, and Panama. Not only is the vanished gold a mystery, but also the motive for murder.

             

FBI Agent Naomi Robertson works with Hank and becomes a love interest.

Some of the other characters that lend color to the story include, Emo Etto a Nigerian  soldier of fortune; Wan Ol Key, a 130-pound martial arts expert using a Mongolian passport; Sheikha Eisha ben Ali, wife of a mysterious Arab of questionable existence, who can charm the gold out of men’s pockets; Handsome Jòrge Sanchez, a Panamanian lover of women and gold; Nurse Alberta Shehzad whom Hank covets; Emile Deutchmann, South African soldier of fortune; and two beautiful young women, Gayle and Katie, who are involved more than they know.

Regardless of numerous suspects and possibilities, Hank’s excellent detective work triumphs.

If you like mysteries, action, interesting characters, frequent changes of scenes, an adventure story with romance, but no gutter language, you will like this novel.

6X9, 236 Pages, ISBN 13:9781491063705, Paperback or e-book. See www.joebhewitt.net

My Love, My Enemy Fiction/Historical

An anomaly for her time, Cassandra although a Virginian, hates slavery and is an avowed abolitionist, an unpopular view in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1858. Fairfax and Cassandra become intimate at an early age.  They marry after Fairfax’s graduation from West Point. When the Civil War breaks out, Fairfax resigns his US Army commission and joins the Confederacy. He is ordered on detached duty as a Confederate spy. He assumes the identity of a Union officer named William Wiley and establishes himself in the War Department in Washington. William Wiley looks exactly like Fairfax.

Cassandra volunteers to spy for the Union. She takes advantage of her position as the wife of a Confederate Army major to attend social functions and gather intelligence.

Fairfax and Cassandra are totally in love, and long for each other, but are separated ideologically and geographically, and unaware of the other's wartime activities.

Both go through narrow escapes in action scenes. Both are totally convinced of the rightness of their cause, and use the same slogan, "Our cause is just. Continue we must."

Fairfax gets caught, escapes Washington, and twice more gets into traps, which he escapes by assuming the identity of William Wiley, Captain, US Army. Eventually he is found out and sent to the notorious Camp Douglas in Chicago where one out of four Confederate prisoners died.

After the War Between the States ends the war between Fairfax and Cassandra begins as they learn one another’s secrets. Cassandra learns that Fairfax had been unfaithful and fathered a child. In an armed truce, with love and hate, they stay together but only in a physical sense.

Complicating things further, Union occupation forces arrest Fairfax, thinking he is Captain William Wiley, U.S. Army, and charge him with desertion. The real William Wiley’s wife shows up and claims Fairfax is her husband.

You’ll be surprised at the ending.

“WOW!  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book.  It is right up my alley!  I hope to be finished with it by weeks end.  I have found some little things but nothing too major.  I am hoping I have not missed anything in my greed to get to the next sentence and the next paragraph.” —-Literary Critic Nancy Riddick.

“Joe Hewitt weaves an intriguing and tragic story of the cataclysm that rocked the United States in the 1860s and likewise ripped apart many American families. Part historical novel, part thriller, and part romance, this book will both entertain and sadden. Especially descriptive is Hewitt’s account of the terrors experienced by prisoners of war in the Union version of the notorious Confederate camp at Andersonville, the equally brutal Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois.” —Dr. Mike Williams, History Professor at Dallas Baptist University.

My Love, My Enemy, by Joe B. Hewitt, Historical Fiction, 75,000 Words See www.joebhewitt.net

6X9 Paperback 284 pages, or E-book, ISBN 978-1494326029; LCCN 2014902417