My Biography
My philosophy as an author is to promote that dreams are to be lived. No matter what life has to throw at you, never give up on your dream to be whomever you wish to be. It is never too late to be the painter, author, singer, musician, or whatever you have always felt was the one thing which would make you whole.
I am a self-taught artist with a thirty-year career painting large commission pieces for hospitals, banks, and office buildings. My paintings are collected in over fifty corporate collections. I also have a degree in Journalism, have written and produced over twenty educational films for childhood education, published a regional publication on gardening, and worked in New York for one of the biggest advertising agencies as an account executive.
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Fellow readers. I'm excited to have the opportunity to include you in my world of adventure.
I have written and published twelve books so far, which if you read the reviews posted on Amazon you will find have received excellent reviews.
By clicking on the number of reviews shown above the book description at Amazon, you will access those reviews. Also, note that the Kindle Unlimited versions are FREE now, the regular Kindle versions are $3.99, and the paperbacks are $8.00. At times, Amazon will discount the books so you may just get a bargain when you visit.
The Bronze Bear
This book is about Fred Warrenton, born in a village in Ohio in 1898. He becomes a soldier in World War I and, while on a rest behind the lines, is gifted a bronze statuette of a prowling bear by an old French woman who tests him to see if qualifies to be protected by the bear spirit living in the charm. He passes the test and goes through the war protected by the spirit bear who also becomes his alter ego. After the war, the bear continues to protect Fred throughout his life and is passed down to his son after Fred’s death.
Sample Reviews for The Bronze Bear
--Uplifting story
--Like a classic family story
--Great read
The Bronze Bear Continues
This book takes us further on the journey of the Bronze Bear via Larry Warrenton, Fred’s son, who has inherited the bear statuette from his father. Larry is allowed to play with the bear as a child, and by the time he enters the army in World War II, they are like brothers. The reader experiences Larry’s wartime exploits protected by the bear and after the war loans the statuette to his son, Randy, who follows in the same footsteps as his father. Randy, drafted into the Army during Vietnam, has the bear to protect him. Randy’s exploits are as a journalist, even though he does experience several incidents where the bear protects him from danger. The Bear is old as time immemorial and will continue protecting and being a part of the Warrenton family.
Sample Reviews for The Bronze Bear Continues
--This one goes in the must-read stack
--The generational tale of a family of soldiers
--Entertaining and imaginative
Filling Up a Hole
This novel is about the ‘hole’ everyone has, which, if filled, would make us the person we aspire to be. Addressing who you feel you are, living your life in ways that fulfill your true identity, and even if it means sacrificing something in the process, you should forge ahead. Each character is dealing with his or her ‘hole’ with both success and failure. Boyce Phillips is a father/husband and is a waste-of-space individual. Two principal characters, Clarence Dawson, a successful black author writing under a white man’s name is hiding from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and Dodie Phillips, while trying to deal with a collapsing family is introduced to the Women’s Rights movement in which she becomes fulfilled.
Sample Reviews Filling Up a Hole
--Maneuvering relationship complexities
--Profound Drama
--Great Read About Small Town America
Surviving Life As An Actor
Marnie Goldin goes through the difficult process of becoming a successful actress. The road from college to success is very bumpy and sometimes seems impossible. She is part of a group of five wannabe actors who share this journey with varying degrees of accomplishment. Her parents are along for the ride and fret over whether she is chasing an impossible dream or should just get a job or get married. Marnie shows both her strengths and the toll the difficult trip costs her, but in the end, the reader finds out what happens to her and her friends.
Sample Reviews for Surviving Life as an Actor
--Chase the dream
--The struggles and rewards
--People should know how tough acting/writing are
Dreams Are to Be Lived
Never let go of your dreams and follow your own path. Even though it is fictionalized, a lot of this book is based on my struggle to become a successful artist. See my website, www.Greenbergstudio.com. Ever since Bobby Leveret was eight-years-old, his only dream was to be an artist. He shows tremendous talent but is in a life-long battle with his father over going to college to study art. His father, Al Leveret, never got to follow his dream of becoming an architect and refuses to allow his son to do what he wants.
Cindy Leveret, Bobby’s mother, is a submissive housewife trying to avoid rocking the boat of an already drowning family. Her husband’s youth was a nightmare and he is mentally ill due to damage done to him by his evil, vicious, criminal father. Bobby investigates his genealogy and uncovers the horrible truth of what caused his father’s issues. In a tragic ending, Bobby and his mother are set free from his father’s out of control life.
Sample Reviews for Dreams Are to Be Lived
--Fast moving mystery with a surprise ending
--Life isn't always as it seems
--Greenberg hit the nail on the head with this one
Living Your Dream
This is the second book of the three-book Dream series. After Bobby’s father dies via suicide-by-police, mother, Cindy, and he moved to Austin, TX. Bobby enrolls in the art department of the University of Texas. Cindy buys a house and finds employment as an events coordinator. Bobby and some intellectual friends start a group called ‘The Think Tank’ in which Bobby grows scholastically to keep up with his friends. Cindy marries Tom Danley, a famous author, and life is the best for both Bobby and Cindy.
Bobby’s experiences are broadened by Dean John Howard of the art department, who has taken him on as a surrogate son. Carol Lander and he have a torrid love affair, a homosexual’s love for Bobby is rebuffed, and finally, he and several other students, after graduating, moved into an ideal living/working studio space to begin their careers as artists. The book has a very happy ending.
Sample Reviews for Living Your Dream
--Definitely worth a read
--Finding your path
--An imaginative page turner
The Price of Dreams
This is the third book of the dream series. Bobby has been replaced with John Dolan, an artist so focused on fulfilling his life’s dream of being an artist; he fails to recognize the impact his focus has on anything else which relates to him. His lack of prioritizing the most important things in his life caused him to sacrifice the real world of his marriage to Amy.
After twenty-five years of a bad marriage, he realizes he made a mistake by acquiescing to her neediness rather than being truthful about his true feelings for her. She dies in an unfortunate accident and he becomes reacquainted with his pre-Amy, college girlfriend. She explains that the reason they broke up was his total dedication to art versus a relationship with her. Events take place where she sees he has changed and is now able to have a caring relationship away from his obsession with art.
Sample Reviews for The Price of Dreams
--Upholding true love
--A great read
Free Thinker’s Day
This novel concerns a writer, Jeff Lauter, who is convinced he is one of the few true free thinkers in that he rejects all societal rules and goes his own way. He rails against any organization which promulgates rules to follow, such as organized religion, political parties, and social mores. He thinks of himself as superior to others but has built walls around himself that isolate him from the real world.
Free Thinkers’ Day is a day set aside by his city to allow the citizens to vent their frustrations and break all the rules of law and order, other than murder. While being chaotic, it is rather tame, which spurs Jeff to scorn the people for their lack of convictions. While watching the Free Thinkers’ Day parade from the roof of his apartment building, he is joined by a woman, Fiona Marshall, who unbeknownst to him, is researching him for a book she is writing. She fascinates him with her intelligence and the fact she had read some of his books. They are also exposed to the strange appearance of a man named Al, who turns out to be from a parallel universe and plays a pivotal role in the complete changeover of Jeff’s premise and life.
Sample Reviews for Free Thinker's Day
--Philosophically interesting
--Funny and Unique
--Existential crises hits hard
Chasing The Rabbit
Everyone faces what their life will be like after retirement from work. Robert Granger, 55, the top executive at his firm, is seriously injured in a car accident and is in the hospital for an extended period. He reviews his life trying to determine whether he will be able to go back to work. The analogy of chasing the rabbit is that the rabbit’s goal in life is to escape being eaten by a vicious wolf. The wolf represents Robert and the rabbit represents what he might become if he retires from the chase. Which would he rather be? Does he have a choice? In a dog race, the dogs spend their lives chasing a metal cutout of a rabbit but never are allowed to catch it. Has Bob already caught it or does he need to stay in the race?
Sample Reviews for Chasing the Rabbit
--Fast moving, thoughtful read
--An interesting slice of life and ,and makes you think
--A fascinating book to think about life
Working At The Warehouse
This novel is about simplifying religion down to one man one God with no conflicts over interpretation of beliefs. The story promotes eliminating the financial burdens of huge houses of worship, rituals, rules and control of a person’s communication with his deity and with no conflicts between different belief systems.
The book uses fantasy and humor to present a complicated story that includes religious terrorists, Interpol, intrigue, and adventure.
Sample Reviews for Working at the Warehouse
--Excellent book and I highly recommend it to others
--Think about your religion
At Day’s End, I’ll Always Be Me
Ralph Bentwater is a successful artist whose market for his paintings has disappeared. He is determined to remain creative by switching to writing. He moves to New York and rents a bohemian apartment near Washington Square. He meets his neighbor, Harvey Panettone, accidentally by talking with each other through their thin bedroom walls.
They become friends and writing partners since they are both struggling authors. They decide to write a fiction novel together, which they hope will launch their careers. The irony is that there are story ideas in abundance all around them but they don’t recognize them. They wind up writing one book together with a story where the line between reality and fiction is obscured. Not only are they writing a book, but they are winding up being a part of it.
Everyone Needs A Companion
Ben Follensbey, now in his seventies, considers himself a capable, a self-sustaining individual without the need for companionship after his wife of thirty-five years dies. In past arguments, he had complained to her that men want to control their choices in their daily needs without the interference of a woman.
After five years of being alone, he begins to realize just how much the right woman could change his perspective and his life.
An eight-year-old acquaintance named Shirley is so mature she can diagnose what his problem is by making him aware that his problems stem from loneliness. This revelation opens him up to find a companion.
When his daughter introduces him to an intelligent, successful woman his age, he no longer rejects the idea of letting someone else into his domain. The story has a lot of twists, turns, and surprises stemming from Ben’s release from solitude.
An older man feels he has lost his community through old age and death. He reminisces about his deceased relatives and wonders if his life has been original or controlled by the actions of his ancestors. Visiting his hometown cemetery brings to life the images of his relatives and reminds him of a lost connection. He is caught in a horrendous rainstorm driving back home and doesn't remember arriving. When asleep, an angel visits him with the challenge of reconnecting him to his lost community and educating him on his ancestors. He meets a special woman who introduces him to a whole new community and he grows more comfortable being himself instead of what he feels his family would have wanted him to be. After several visits with the angel, he reconnects with his life, past and present
Hank Boucher, after 35 years of service being a U.S. Navy Seal, is beginning to feel the cumulative effects of the action on his body. He loves what he does, but realizes he needs to surrender the job to a younger guy. Not wanting a desk job, and still wanting to use his training as a man of action, he becomes a CIA agent. His assignments take him all over the world tracking down criminals whose crimes will affect America.
In this first book, he is assigned to go to San Antonio, Texas to stop the theft of high-tech military equipment from the U.S. airforce. This adventure brings him into the middle of a complicated scheme involving a large garbage disposal company, the Mafia, and Hispanic gangs. The perpetrators are the executives of the company, the daughter of a Mafia chief, and airforce personnel in need of money.
Hank is assigned to rescue two hostages being held by a drug cartel in Honduras. He is to free the hostages and destroy the drug manufacturer's laboratory to prevent the drugs from being shipped to the U.S. He is joined by a freelance mercenary who lives in Honduras. He finds out one of the hostages is a chemist searching for an orchid with tremendous potential for the pharmaceutical industry. He agrees to make a second trip back to Honduras with a trained botanist to bring back some of the plants for research. He winds up in major firefights during both trips with the cartel's men, and the leader swears revenge.
He develops a plot to kidnap the love of Hank's life, which causes him to return a third time to rescue her and destroy the drug cartel's leader which causes an all-out war while attempting to rescue his girlfriend.
Hank Boucher, the ex-navy seal, becomes a CIA agent and is recuperating on the beach in Norfolk, Virginia after his successful mission to San Antonio, Texas, as told about in the book Murder in the Garbage. This time he is assigned to fly to Stockholm to meet with the leader of a Belarusian group called Svoboda. Before leaving, he is approached by, Aleksei Andreyev, a Russian Secret Service agent who is assigned the same job as him and convinces Hank to act as a team. Behind the scenes, Secretly, Aleksei and his sister Emmelie, have plotted to murder the Belarusian immigration minister for crimes he committed toward their family. The plot thickens and many mysteries and information come to the surface regarding the Russian threat to invade Ukraine and Hank winds up in the middle of it
Leonard Bennetto, a wandering soul with a trust fund, has spent his youth trying to be an author. In the pursuit of a winning story, he stumbles into a relationship with a gorgeous drug enforcement agent on assignment to arrest a notorious drug lord. He winds up in the middle of a dangerous and complicated case of intrigue which ultimately involves, romance, danger, drugs, a thrilling chase, violence, and double-cross. He inadvertently is sucked into the action and winds up a hero.
The story is fast-paced, unique, and modern with a traditional ending.
Fulfilling a dream that is more than a passing fancy is the most important goal any of us can have. Most dreams have complicated roots and are tied to successes and failures we all have incurred in our struggles to become adults. The protagonist in this story is focused on proving himself as worthy as those who always seem to be winners. His method is to be creative and attempt to succeed at something unique he created.