Books
Fission (2026)
A Novel of Atomic Heartbreak
Oppenheimer meets The Rose Code: Based on the author’s parents’ stories of the secret city of Oak Ridge, and on recent revelations of atomic spies there, Fission is about a love triangle during the Manhattan Project.
Nineteen-year-old Doris Friedman gives up her dreams of being a concert pianist or a lawyer when she marries Rob in 1941 and has a sickly, premature baby. Within months, Rob and Doris move to the secret city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee for the Manhattan Project.
At times, Doris’s marriage splits her heart in two, like fission splits an atom’s nucleus. Both spouses are told about the bomb from the outset, living in fear that the Nazis will invent it first. While Rob works around the clock, Doris struggles to nurture her daughter. Her new friend, Betty, a Richmond debutante, initially believes that Jews have horns. However, they sustain each other through Betty’s miscarriage, Rob’s radiation exposure, and his attempt to enlist to fight at the front.
Doris falls for an army engineer, only to realize that he may be a Soviet spy. Should she turn him in, revealing her own infidelity?
TO BE PUBLISHED BY SHEWRITES PRESS, JANUARY 27, 2026
Praise and Reviews
“I am glad to have helped a bit with your book. I found it enjoyable to read and very believable as it describes life in Oak Ridge well.”
D. Ray Smith, City of Oak Ridge Historian
Preordering information soon
Boundaries
A Novel
A psychologist is supposed to keep her private life—private. But what if her new patient knows all too much about her?
Dr. Rina Ostrov is burned out, despite her professional success. She ended her long-distance relationship with a narcissistic psychiatrist, Philippe, only to find that he has moved nearby and is hawking a self-help book, The Paleo Dyad, with his current wife. To add to Rina’s worries, she cannot figure out why her new patient, Lilah, is so hostile. Lilah is a volatile incest survivor but has qualities that Rina envies: unusual beauty, a baby on the way, and a tech mogul husband. After in-session tensions climax, Lilah confesses that she has been testing Rina before enlisting her help in exposing Philippe’s malpractice. Philippe had sex with Lilah during therapy in the guise of “treating” her sexual problems. Can these two women work together despite jealousy and distrust in order to protect others from an unethical doctor?
Rina reluctantly continues to treat Lilah, consulting with a colleague. They file a case to revoke Philippe’s medical license. When Philippe is called to testify before the medical board, he devises a plan to silence his accusers for good.
FINAL DRAFT IN PROGRESS, BETA READERS WANTED!
Golden Pearls
A Novel
One in eight American women will have breast cancer and one in forty-three will die from it. Julia’s story is not about “fighting cancer,” but about living with grace and humor, and finding meaning until the last minute.
Julia was successfully treated for breast cancer seven years ago, but as a physician, she knows that cancer cells can lurk, floating around the bloodstream until a napping immune system allows them to take root. During a Hawaiian vacation to celebrate retirement with her lover, she discovers new lumps. Determined to stay vital, she splurges on a necklace of golden pearls.
Julia endures a string of tests and treatments. She is not fooled by TV ads that mask drug side effects with gauzy scenes of women living their best lives. Her boyfriend ghosts her but she finds solace with a fellow cancer survivor who has desired her since their residency years. She explores the black hole of her astrophysicist son’s mind and bonds with her prickly daughter-in-law, who is going through IVF.
Metastasis by metastasis, cancer dims Julia’s hopes. Her self-centered sister nags her to try an endless stream of bogus remedies. She gets a hospice counselor fired after he claims that an atheist cannot have a good death. In the end, Julia learns what is most important in life and what she hopes to leave behind for the people she loves.
FIRST DRAFT IN PROGRESS