DJolley Writes
THE BOOKS
RUNNING BACK HOME
Seventeen-year-old Dusty Slaughter is a poor kid who has been fighting uphill his entire life. With his daddy in prison and a mama that’s pretty much no good either, Slaughter is stuck in nowhere, North Carolina and knows that as the number one running back in the region football is his only chance to escape. When given the chance to impress scouts from the University of North Carolina, he rises to the challenge. But once he gets back home to Flatbush, Dusty finds the world he knows has collapsed around him.
Life has never been kind to Slaughter, but now he is in for the worst year of his life. His family is in turmoil, his relationship with his girlfriend is tenuous at best, and his dreams seem to be vanishing all around him. His greatest fear is failure, because he knows that it means he'll have to go to work at the local factory just like everybody else in his town who ever dreamed of escape. It isn't until tragedy strikes and he meets Anderson and Collins Thacker that he realizes there is more to life than football. That there is more to him than he ever dreamed possible.
Collins and Andy show Slaughter that there is so much more in life if he’s willing to find a new path and another dream. Through adversity, Slaughter discovers a talent within himself that he never knew existed, and it’s this epiphany that becomes the catalyst he needs to do whatever it takes to make Andy proud of him and keep Collins forever.
Rifters
Thirteen year-old Alex is the key to saving a world threatened by another race in need of new resources. Alex, Sirrah, and Eri have been chosen by Myra, a woman from Earth 2118 to be one of three “rifters” who travel through time and space to make sure Cyrus, a being from another planet, doesn’t find the Harbinger that will allow him to take over Earth. It’s up to Alex and his new friends to jump back through time via Rifts to figure out how Achilles, Odysseus, and the Trojan Horse are crucial to the survival of the human race. Through clues and cunning, the trio keeps the Harbinger safe and saves the world...this time.
This Quantum Leap styled sci-fi adventure takes Alex, Sirrah, and Eri on the first of many journeys where they bounce around in literature, keeping one step ahead of Cyrus. That is if Cyrus doesn’t find Alex first, because Alex is the only one with the power to destroy him.
Angel of Death
Elizabeth Anderson is a young girl left reeling after the tragic death of her mother. Worse still, she's forced to leave her home in Colorado to live with her father in Atlanta, whom she hasn't seen in years.
After accepting the fact that she's going to have to make a new life for herself, she befriends a boy named J.J. who guides her through her first few weeks of school. The problem is that J.J. doesn't have the skills to prepare her for Devonte Jenkins once he joins their drama class.
Devonte Jenkins finds himself on the wrong side of the law. Because he's a first-time offender and is a two-sport athelete, an area prep school offers him a scholarship to play for them if he can stay out of trouble. Knowing this is his only chance out of the 'hood and into college, Devonte takes their offer.
Lizzie and Devonte find themselves hovering on the brink of an interracial relationship, until tragedy strikes them both. One ends up in a coma, and the other in jail. Harsh circumstances brought them together, but love will help them endure.
Neurals
Ali Geary’s world is blown to smithereens. Literally.
Ali and her brother, Bice, are just two of many kids from all over the country who've been gathered together by a group called Circulus9 because of their intellectual promise . Circulus9 has invested heavily in these children and will do anything in their power to maintain control over them.
The last thing Ali remembered before the bomb hit was walking through the dorm, checking on the children. Living in the year 2021, Ali is a seventeen year old girl who doesn’t realize that when her school, known as The Loop is blown up—she and her brother Bice are the intended targets. She heads into Nor-At (North Atlanta), with the help of Dante, a member of the Resistance, to locate her captured brother before Circulus9 realizes that Ali and Bice have discovered the truth, that they are Neurals.
Ali races to uncover the secret behind her parents’ murder that holds the key to stopping Circulus9’s hideous experiments on innocent children and destroy what is left of true humans.
The Stone
Talon is a typical sixteen year old girl trying to make it through high school in Charleston, South Carolina. That is...until she meets Saxon, a shy boy who recently started at her school.
By a seemingly chance encounter at Talon's favorite park, Saxon forces a Ducis, a powerful stone from his home planet, into Talon's hand for safe keeping and tells her to run. It's during this encounter that Talon realizes that Saxon isn't from Earth, and the acceptance of his Ducis forces her to help him as he tries to escape the Militis, sworn enemies of Saxon's planet, who are persuing him and join the rest of his people from the planet Trokston.
If Talon helps Saxon he will be able to join his family and return to his home planet, but the problem for her is that if Saxon leaves Talon will lose the only boy she's ever loved.
Impact
If you had the chance to do it all again, would you seize the opportunity or continue down the same destructive path you were on? What if the power to save or destroy the lives of others was firmly within your control?
Alex and Kaleigh are on the fast track to a cataclysmic run-in with fate, and the result of their choices will reverberate through future generations. Impact is a fast-paced, young adult thriller that utilizes multiple perspectives to detail the lives of two high school students and their separate journeys that culminate in a fatal encounter. While Alex is living it up during his junior year of high school, Kaleigh is trying to “fit in” and deviates from the traditional values she has always embraced. What begins as a typical, Saturday night party ends with Alex’s car wrapped around a tree, his best friend dead in the seat next to him, and his own life frozen in the space between life and death. As he struggles to survive, the future, past, and present converge to show the tragic impact of one person’s choice on the world. Will Alex learn from his mistakes, or is he destined to live them?