Mary Vigliante Szydlowski

CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Published by Operation Outreach-USA July 2007

Six-year old Keesha has a problem. There's a duck stuck in a hole in her front yard. She needs to find a way to get it out. Keesha comes up with several ideas, but none of them work. She needs to act quickly, before the neighbor's dog and cat can harm the duck. Can she save it? She must use all her problem-solving skills to find a way to set it free.

Published by Greene Bark Press, December 1995

    Edward Beachum takes good care of his teeth. He brushes and flosses everyday to keep them sparkling white. He's never had a problem with his mouth until he wakes up one morning and finds a family of Farbles living there. Workmen fixing the old bandstand in the park across the street have dug up the pebble path where the Farbles lived, destroying their home. They've taken up residence in James' mouth and intend to stay there until the pebble paths are repaired and they can go home again. James is horrified. He wants them to leave. Though he tries everything he can think of to evict them, they refuse to go. When the city decides to replace the pebble paths with cement sidewalks, leaving the Farbles permanently homeless, James must come up with a plan to save their home and rid himself of the Farbles once and for all.

HORROR

Authors Guild Backinprint. com Edition published in 2000

ENSLAVED BY DEMONIC PASSION!
    Her mother's death freed Lea from a lifetime of repression and frigidity, only to make her the helpless prey of wild fantasies and nightmare terror. Alone in her mountain cabin retreat, Lea's body and her very soul are subjugated by a phantom from the depths of Hell, who demands that she worship at his evil shrine. To transform the demon into the flesh-and-blood lover she craves. Lea is forced to commit crime after hideous crime, until she realizes that only the ultimate sacrifice will satisfy her Master's lust!

FICTION

Authors Guild Backinprint. com Edition published in 2000

   As a young child, Philomena Rienzi was considered bright and precocious. There was only one problem, she did not speak. Her Italian immigrant parents, believing in Old World concepts of shame, bad blood, and divine retribution for parental sins, think she's retarded. Denying her help and compassion, they try to hide her from the world, keeping her tied to a tree in the yard like an animal.

   As she grows into her adolescence, however, Philomena finds kindness from a middleaged bachelor neighbor, Tony Giordano, and the elderly Signora Mancuso. Under their care, Philomena's world expands a little, and she and Tony begin to care deeply for each other.

    But tensions at home worsen. Philomena's mother begins to slip into insanity and takes her hatred out on Philomena. Her father deserts the family. Finally, when Philomena's mother discovers that her child is not retarded but only mute, her guilt drives her to suicide.

    At first, Philomena's prospects brighten. Tony and the Signora take her into their home and she is treated like a human being for the first time in her life. But, being without parents or a guardian, she is made a ward of the State of New York and placed in an institution for the retarded. Given no diagnostic tests to identify the true nature of her handicap, she is injected with sedatives, condemned to be a human vegetable.

    But Tony has other plans. Determined to give her a chance for as normal a life as possible, he takes her from the asylum and is charged with abduction.

    What happens during the trial will astonish you, anger you, and touch your heart.

SCIENCE FICTION/​FANTASY

Published by Manor Books in 1980 under the pseudonym Mary Vigliante

   "They were a proud race, these beings, convinced that they were the living form that should reign supreme above all things. It was not unusual that thoughts of supremacy had manifested themselves. When all life forms were in their most primative state, they tended to think themselves the sole creation of God. It was only when beings progressed to a point where they realized that they were not alone, that their actual place in the universe made itself evident. When there was contact among living beings, the realization of their insignificance to the scheme of things became apparent. The knowledge served to humble them, all, that is, except the Empireans. Somehow, in some way, they perceived the covenant their creator had made with them. They were fearful of nothing, arrogant, and in many respects lacking the gentle kindness that was part and parcel of other living things. Like a parent who loves too well and spoils the child, so had the creator been to them. To him his special children could do no wrong. No matter what manner of thing they did, no matter how self-centered, how egotistical, how unfeeling and unkind; they were not impeded. Being mortal, they were allowed certain mistakes, temporary wanderings from the path of right. Like all experiences, they would learn even from their errings. Eventually, as it had been preordained by their maker, they would reach perfection, be perfection. The life form whose achievements dwarfed all others.

   At this point in time they had strayed far from what their creator intended. Like willful children, they did as they pleased. The acme of their mortal creation, the pride of their Starfleet, the Logo, was starting on her maiden voyage. They were reaching out into the worlds that lay around them, but they were doing it in their fashion, not as their creator had decreed. It watched the ship closely as it sped through the blackness. Their intentions were not for the good, it had sensed that long ago. Was it possible for perfection to have within it the seeds of imperfection, a faint touch of malevolence? No, that could not be. Those formed by the supreme builder of life could be nothing less than what he decreed and yet there seemed something wrong, as if the power of their brains had suddenly gone awry. They were bent on brutal conquest. Perhaps it should not spend so much time ruminating about these strange creatures. They were changeable, perhaps the course of action they'd set for themselves would be modified. It would be sometime before they would begin their plan, maybe they'd abandon it in pursuit of another that more appropriately demonstrated the benign logic of their brains. Still, the very idea that they had conceived of such an evil undertaking troubled it greatly."

Published by Manor Books in 1979 using the pseudonym Mary Vigliante

THE LAND

Although this book is out of print, copies are available at: AMAZON.COM

BARNES AND NOBLE.COM

   After a terrible holocaust 300 years before, only the Land survives. Tayla, crown princess of the realm, senses a secret bond between the sisters and the beasts of burden who serve them. Unlike cows, horses, and swine, these two-legged beasts are treated with extreme cruelty and contempt. They are either worked to death or ritually slaughtered. It is not until Tayla finds the ancient texts that she realizes who and what the beasts are. The ancient ones called them men!

Published by Manor Books in 1979 using the pseudonym Mary Vigliante

THE COLONY

Although this book is out of print, copies are available at: AMAZON.COM

BARNES AND NOBLE.COM

  Hell awaited those who survived the nuclear war. Humanity had reverted to barbarism. All the evils of the old society had grown worse. Sunny had been captured by four men who informed her she was now their wife. When the survivors organized, the men far outnumbered the women. They created a society and a family structure that supported male dominance. By their decree women existed only to serve their husbands and male masters. Sunny resisted, but was beaten and forced to submit. When she could bear no more of their cruelty, she tried to run away. But they dragged her back. Then Sunny found a gun.

   The Colony is the first of two novels about a post-holocaust world. The sequel, The Land, takes place approximately 300 years later. They were marketed by Manor Books as a mini-series, Aftermath Book #1 The Colony and Aftermath Book #2 The Land.

Published by Manor Books in 1978 under the pseudonym Jarl Szydlow

THE ARK

Although this book is out of print, copies are available at: AMAZON.COM

BARNES AND NOBLE.COM

   Whirling out in space, the spacecraft ALPHA-ARK is doomed. The ship's complex life-support systems have malfunctioned and no one knows how to repair them. Without the machines there can be no food. The crew will starve, their ship condemned to travel the infinite universe for eternity. The discovery of a secret computer, reveals the truth of their past and the fate that awaits them if the ship should land. They are not alone on the Ark. The masters who would enslave them lie sleeping, frozen, ready to rise again.