The Broken World: second revised edition (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781539167518)

Brent Hightower's first novel, The Broken World, is the story of twelve year old Byrd Keane, growing up in a world that is everywhere in crisis, as his own family is torn apart by differing values, mental illness and the War in Vietnam. From the last of the old outlaws to hippies in psychedelic school buses, from Hispanic rebellion to apocalyptic physicists who embrace the bomb, everyone is in conflict and the world is literally on the verge of burning down. Through it all Byrd must not only survive but find his way to a lasting freedom. His second novel Ode to Belladonna is the story of Simplicious, the last surviving scholar of the Academy at Athens, whose attraction to philosophy and whose one moral failing lead him into deadly conflict with Theodora, empress of Byzantium. It is a tale of love and hatred, of freedom and an all-consuming desire for power and domination. Set 1,500 years ago the events in Ode to Belladonna bear a startling resemblance to those of our own time, revealing the tenuous nature of freedom and the consequences of its loss.