Books by John Carenen

Keeping to Himself

Deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, Whit Coombs seeks peace, quiet, and healing. Scarred spiritually by the death of his wife, who died cursing him for not euthanizing her, and physically from an IED in Iraq, he just wants a simple life in his cabin by a lake, miles from a hard road. Then, on a nighttime hike, he witnesses a grisly murder and finds himself with a dilemma: report the crime and lose his privacy-and maybe his life-or let the killers get away with it. As the killers and the attractive female county sheriff get closer to discovering what he saw, he realizes that maybe Keeping to Himself won’t give him the peace he needs.

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John Carenen is a writer with a keen eye for both serious and humorous work. His by-line columns in the Morganton (North Carolina) News-Herald and the Clinton (South Carolina) Chronicle established his reputation for self-effacing humor, with one column reprinted in Reader's Digest. Other RD credits include "Shagger!" which won a First Person Award. The National Institute of Mental Health published Son-up, Son-down, his novelized treatment of a successful group home approach, the Teaching-Family Model. He has been a key presenter at a number of Teaching-Family Model national conferences and, more recently, a panelist several times over in Killer Nashville Conferences, including a Claymore Award at the 2019 conference. He has also published pieces in The Sign, McCall's, and Dynamic Years, and his Thomas O'Shea trilogy (Signs of Struggle, A Far Gone Night, and The Face on the Other Side) drew accolades from established authors. Ron Rash, Wendy Tyson, and William Kent Kreuger, among others, have praised his work.