Welcome to Leslie Rider’s original novels! You can buy the paperbacks, or the Amazon Kindle versions, at www.amazon.com/author/leslierider.

Fallen, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

Charlie Khalifa, freshly dead after a longish stint in a hospital, finds himself in a prison in Hell with a devil named Cain in the neighboring cell. The creature, who looks like Satan himself with horns and red glowing eyes, insists on telling a story about 16-year-old human boy he used to know with the same name as Charlie, back when Cain was a simple fallen angel. Eventually, the fiend’s tale sounds eerily familiar.  Was Charlie the Charlie, the one from Cain’s story?

In this sequel to Summer of 1984, we find out how Charlie and Frances handle their teen years and meet their ethereal guides. While these angels and demons and fallens have their own reality, we learn how they fit into the human world and how much influence they have over people, especially those who don’t fit into humanity’s neat little boxes. And we discover what happens when humans choose not to obey their otherworldly companions.

Summer of 1984, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

It's the summer of 1984, and Frances Gomez and her family are going on vacation to Eden, USA, the home of the Kingdom of God Channel. Frances struggles with a dysfunctional family and speaking up for herself. But when she meets a friend who teaches Frances she can do more than she realizes, she sees she's more powerful than she thought.

Voice, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

Jesús de los Ángeles Santos insists all the teachers at the GED center on Staten Island call him Jesse. But in his mind, he calls himself Hades. He is Lord of his Underworld, or his truth, which is something he shares with absolutely no one. When he tries sharing some things with Penelope, one of the new teachers at the center, she does not respond like he expected. Instead, she pushes him away. Is she just that heartless? Does she doubt him? Maybe she already knows how he truly feels. Perhaps she has a secret of her own.

 The Things We Don't Talk About, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

There are things in the life of Laura Ryan that don’t make sense to her. For example, she can’t understand why her family would have a wake and funeral for her grandfather, a man who abused her mother for years. It’s not like no one knew. And it was obvious that it ruined her mother’s life. Yet Laura’s father not only insisted that she go to the wake, but doubted the abuse even happened. Why didn’t he believe her mother?
Laura’s son, Felix, has an almost obsessive interest in Thomas the Tank Engine and struggles with social rules. Don’t all kids fall in love with some children’s program or other? Aren’t social interactions challenging for all kids? Laura had these same quirks growing up, too. But their doctor thinks there’s a bigger issue.
And what’s with that website that provides peer critiques for artists and their work? The other users seem one dimensional and odd. One minute they’re friendly and welcoming. The next they behave irrationally, and their messages are unreadable. Are they even real people?

Written in a modern epistolary style, which includes emails, texts and other messaging formats, The Things We Don't Talk About explores the ways humans communicate things they would rather not discuss and how challenging it is for autistic people to understand these kinds of messages.

A Simple Act, Full of Grace, and Other Short Stories, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

A girl moves out of her abusive mother's home and moves into her neglectful father's house.
A senior in high school attends the prom with a boy she doesn't like.
A teacher at a secondary school meets an instructor, who causes an incident in class, just before the end of the school year.
A woman buries her son and comes to terms with the mess he had made of his life.
A woman searches for her grandfather during a snowstorm.
A woman visits her abusive mother in the nursing home and tries to make things better for her.

Flock of Bastards, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

Honesto Cochino lies in a hospital bed, awaiting his frightening fate. Such a future never seemed like it would become his. He always believed that, as a watch repairman, he would always have the power to control time. At the time, such influence seemed incredible to Honesto, even magical. It never occurred to him that his behavior, and not his manipulation of time, would determine who, or what, he and his family would become. Through the actions of Honesto and his future generations, each spiraling out of control just a little further than their parents, the worst comes out of the shadows and into the light. Secrets about odd body parts like snouts or tails, closets that house entire communities of fantasy animals, and talking ashes hidden away in cardboard boxes are kept away from the public eye, but eventually become legends. A desperate desire to fly higher than anyone else while using someone else’s feathers leads to a path of total loss. And a stubborn tradition that requires a mountain of spices and a human-sized roasting tray becomes a feared evil that may never truly disappear. Ultimately, we learn that one’s shame does not determine what one becomes. Instead, it is what one does with it that makes all the difference.

Invertebrates, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

After a near-death experience and a dangerous brush with a child abuser, Ernesto Sandoval realizes he has a call to help the less fortunate. A vocation to serve. In order to follow his call, he decides to leave his position at a top university in Mexico City to become a Roman Catholic priest. When he finally makes it to the seminary, he believes that the supposed holiness and celibacy of his instructors and fellow seminarians will make it easier to follow his call. However, he is mistaken. Once in the seminary, the challenges to his vocation have only just begun. The more successful he becomes within the Church, the greater the temptation Ernesto feels in abandoning his call. This is because sometimes those with the greatest responsibilities to do what is right must first overcome the their greatest weaknesses. Sometimes, the most difficult thing we could ever hope to accomplish in our lives is to simply do the right thing. Invertebrates tackles the challenging theme of child abuse within the Church through the eyes of a witness caught up in the politics of the hierarchy. It examines why a priest might not be able to see the signs of a predator in action, even in his own parish, and why he might hesitate to bring the perpetrator to justice once he sees the truth for himself. The novel does not excuse these silent witnesses. Instead, it honestly examines how a culture of silence is cultivated within organizations like the Roman Catholic Church and how that culture affects the reactions of its members toward such abuse. It illustrates that the predator is not the only guilty party within the act of abuse. Ultimately, Invertebrates shows that those who cover up abuse, along with those who have witnessed it and said nothing, are also guilty because of their criminal silence.

Evening Prayer, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

Imagine that your family forced you to follow a dishonest lifestyle. Imagine that your friends could never tell you the truth. And imagine that your lover was someone you could never really love. All of these people helped you survive. But would you leave them all behind in order to try to achieve the life you want? Follow one man, befriending monks and drug addicts and cross-dressers alike, as he slowly makes that decision to take the plunge and risk everything for a better life.

Destined for Greatness and Other Stories, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

“You people have a thing for secrecy. Like you don’t want to talk about anything, you know, real. Like you’re afraid of your own shadow. Most of you are running from something, and you’ve turned love into a villain, into lust in your mind. And when you turn a friend like love into an enemy, you become confused. [Now the] ... conflict’s come to the surface. That inner struggle, beyond the well-brushed hair and the collar. And that’s tough to witness when you’re used to thinking that what you see on the outside is what’s inside.” A bartender, one of the characters in Destined for Greatness and Other Stories, shares her observations of the Roman Catholic seminarians that visit her tavern one winter evening. She fills their cups each time they ask, watching them drink to excess and act in ways that are unbecoming of priests-in-training. When one of the men blames her alcohol for the behavior of his fellow seminarians, she tells him the truth he does not want to understand. She explains that the behavior was there all along. “Alcohol,” she says, “only brings reality to the surface.” In Destined for Greatness and Other Stories, we see this secretive behavior, symptomatic of bigger issues, in the reprisal of characters we met in L.M. Gil’s first novel Fragile Creatures. Even though each story stands on its own (which readers new to L.M. Gil’s writing will appreciate), these stories (ten short stories and one novella) examine questions left answered in the first novel. We find out what happened to Stanley Gonzalez that left him temporarily paralyzed, how Rafael’s and Sister Tere’s relationship transformed itself from a hateful one into one of love, and why Juan Maria had to travel all the way to Spain to find Lorca. In revisiting these moments, all readers see how one person’s choice can profoundly affect others involved and how different one situation can appear, depending on perspective.

Fragile Creatures, by Leslie Rider [buy this book at Amazon.com]

“…I came here to become ordained. Not to become someone else’s gossip. I don’t think that…what we do is appropriate. I mean…I just don’t. I do not want to be sent back. I will not go back to being one of too, too many priests in Spain. There is no future there. Here, a priest can advance in his profession. I only have a few years more. It’s my plan. It’s what I want. And I plan to follow the rules to do so.” Juan Maria Echevarria Moore, the protagonist from the novel entitled Fragile Creatures, utters these words when confronted by a threat to his plans for ordination in the United States. The novel is about Juan Maria, a Roman Catholic seminarian from Spain, continuing his studies in a seminary in New York. Even though he plans to become a priest in the United States, there is a bump in the road when he meets a quirky Mexican seminarian nicknamed ‘Lorca’. They quickly become close friends, but eventually Juan Maria cuts off relations with Lorca for fear he’ll be sent home when the friendship becomes something more. Will Juan Maria become ordained and find happiness in his chosen career, or will he need to abandon the priesthood to obtain true joy?

This story challenges the traditional notions of religious commandments, sacrifice and the very nature of God and love. After reading this book, you may never see your priest or your creator the same way again!