The West Side Kid: A Novel
by Valentine Cardinale

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Description

Lorne Bennett, a movie star known as "The West Side Kid" to his fans, is a wanted man.When his thirty-one-year-old wife Aurora was found murdered in their elegant Manhattan apartment twenty-two years earlier, he came under suspicion and fled, leaving his four-month-old daughter Laura behind. Now, twenty-two years later, he's still on the run, the prime suspect in the notorious cold case. When a freak car accident throws him into the spotlight, he feels forced to take off again after enjoying five relatively peaceful years under the radarArizona.

Meanwhile, Laura, a copywriter now living in New York City, has become obsessed with learning as much as she can about her parents and what happened the night her mother was murdered. Against the advice of police and relatives, and threats from mysterious sources, she launches her own investigation into the crime, opening up a hornet's nest.

In his own words
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The Terranovas: A War Family
by Valentine Cardinale

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Description

It's the height of World War II, but Italian immigrants Anna and Arturo Terranova and their four children have high hopes as they settle into their new apartment in a colorful, working-class section of Manhattan's West Side. They are finally coming together as a family. Then suddenly the war, which seemed so far away, comes crashing into their lives and changes them in a tragic and profound way. It won't be the last time this warm, loving family is tested by armed conflict.

Follow the Terranovas from 1944 right up to the present as they struggle to make their dreams come true in a country caught up in war time and time again. Can they overcome the terrible emotional toll that several different wars take on them and their loved ones?

Inspired in part by the author's life growing up in Hell's Kitchen, this is more than a story about war and what it does to people on the home front. It's also a story about the power of family and togetherness in the face of the destructive and divisive force of war and terrorism. It's a story of hope for our times.

The Terranovas: A War Family received both Editor's Choice and Reader's Choice designations from iUniverse and won First Prize, Published Fiction, in the Arizona Authors Association's 2005 Literary Contest.

In the 15th annual Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Awards competition, The Terranovas was described as "exceptionally well written" and
"a model for telling a family historical (saga) story in different viewpoints."

Kirkus Reviews found that "the strength of the narrative lies in the well-drawn characters and their personal struggles with the sweeping cultural and historical changes surrounding them."