A novel about friendship, buried secrets, and the price of uncovering the truth.
Welcome
Every town has stories beneath its streets.
Some are buried beneath abandoned mines.
Others beneath baseball fields, family tables, and memories that refuse to disappear.
Bespoke is where I share those stories.
Featured Book
Seven Hills
A novel by Brent Taylor
Seven towering hills of chat ring the town—waste rock from the mines, pale and glassy in the sun. In 1954, twelve-year-old Grace Ryan arrives and quickly learns that Jasper is not a quiet place, and that danger lingers just beneath its surface.
Drawn by an old survey map, a brass tag marked B6, and questions the adults refuse to answer, Grace, Percy, and Clay uncover hidden tunnels, poisoned water, buried records, and a silence that has protected powerful men for years.
Seven Hills will be Available to purchase October 2026
Stories
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When my eldest daughter was five years old, she told a story to her younger siblings that is false, yet absolutely true. She informed her brother and sister that her lentil-sized ear tag was Cherokee Indian…and that the rest of her was pilgrim. While this is not correct in a biological sense, it is nevertheless…
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As I showered next to a field of corn in Wisconsin I realized that this is no Hampton Inn. The rustic wood shower provides moderate screening from the house and barns south and west, but the view is entirely uninhibited north and east where dry corn stalks curve along the hill, the rustling ghosts of…
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Last night I sat on the visitor side of Custer Stadium. The only other time I sat on the visitor side was when I was 12 years old and Tinker Owens played for Miami and they played Col-Hi. There wasn’t enough room on the home grandstand that night. But last night, I watched from there…
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A good friend of mine, Steve Osborn, once referred to me as his summertime friend. He attended Oklahoma University and I attended Harding University. As college undergraduates, we mostly saw each other in the summer. We were connected by our faith, growing up together on the basketball court, at the church house, and graduating from…
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These are the salad days of my son and daughters, my nephews and nieces, not that they are cold and green, rather that it’s their heyday, their walk in the sun, although salad, like the heyday of the young, can quickly go from crisp and cool to limp and warm, in an East of Eden…
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A few nights ago storms drifted up from the central plains of Oklahoma, but they mostly missed us, so Karen and I relaxed on the back deck and stared east at a wall cloud, savoring a cool night in August. Although the rain missed us, we sat together and watched a light show like children…
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What is astounding is not that I remember any of that, but that Mary Brock remembers. Would Mrs. Brock be surprised that the kid who was good at math is now an amateur poet? Or did she already know, because that is what teachers do, help us become who we are? It’s the reason why…
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I was holding Jude when I realized why I steal babies. We were at Jace and Carly Davis’ wedding and Jude looked like he wanted me to hold him so I held out my arms and he held out his and we sashayed about the dance floor doing the Baby locomotion. More about baby stealing…
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Mushroom consomme’ with asparagus dumpling, watermelon radish, baby greens and chili oil…Spring pea & Carrot Salad with shaved rainbow carrot, pickled cucumber, hijiki seaweed, Parmesan, nori cashews & orange-mustard vinaigrette…Alaskan Day Boat Halibut with Chanterelle mushroom, fava beans, cherry tomatoes, quinoa tabbouleh, cinnamon, ginger beer gastrique & smoked fumet…Espresso alongside dessert of whipped chocolate ganache,…
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Having fun in Colorado At 11,000 feet as a cool breeze drifted off the snow and the sweat from our climb dried as we enjoyed breezy and 60 degrees on Saint Mary’s glacier. To my right Karen used a ConocoPhillips vinyl covered blanket to sled the glacier as a young man dived into the mountain…
Bespoke 