Hope for better times ahead! Our country needs change! The American Dream is still possible! Destiny is ours!

If these phrases sound hauntingly familiar, it's because we just wrapped up another big election season. These lame platitudes are the hallmark of every political campaign, in which no lie is too big and no slight too petty. That said, it is unlikely that any election season will ever come close to the false promise and utter absurdity of the California Recall of 2006, an unorganized and virtually lawless two-month, three-ring circus that featured 165 candidates vying for the Governorship (and control of the world's 7th largest economy), including such notorious notables as child actor Gary Coleman (R.I.P.), prop comic Gallagher, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, porn star Mary Carey, L.A. billboard icon Angelyne, Arianna Huffington, and the biggest star of them all, former Mr. Universe turned larger-than-life action hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold won that election, basically by announcing his candidacy on The Tonight Show, trotting out his Kennedy connections, and using famous tag lines from his movies to belittle his rivals. Doing so, he proved two things: 1) politics is a lot harder than starring in action movies, and 2) hope springs eternal. 

This is the backdrop of my debut novel, GOLDEN STATE, where the story's characters, based in the California capital city of Sacramento, have their own hopes and dreams fueled by Arnold's easy-seeming, feel-good success, and pursue them to the very end of the line, even if those dreams are far-fetched at best and utterly delusional at worst. It is the story of America, in microcosm, told through the eyes of four people just like us, with hopes and struggles just like ours. 

To learn more about the book critics call "a maverick novel, skillfully and wisely written," which is "studded with laugh-out-loud comic situations and touching self-revelations that will keep readers breathless," continue onto the pages listed above.