Nikki DiCaro
Business Professional and
Published Author
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The Second Full-Length Novel in the Amelia Series
Don't Eat the Potato Salad
NOW AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER!
A lighthearted look at an Italian family through the eyes of a strong-willed Italian wife and working mother
Book 7: The Amelia Chronicles -Don't Eat the Potato Salad
This is a continuing series told through the eyes and in the voice of Amelia Ciracco as she shares her life as a wife, mother, and business professional. Amelia tells her story through vignettes of her experiences. Amelia's strengths and vulnerabilities are evident in her honest and sometimes disarming approach to her husband, children, and co-workers. She will make you laugh and sometimes she may bring you to tears as you feel the commonality you share with her life experiences. She is fiercely loyal to her family and her friends although she is not immune to, and is sometimes confounded by, life's surprises. Amelia is not shy about speaking her mind even when her inner voice tries to overrule her.
Book 6: The Amelia Chronicles - Memoirs from an Irreverent Life
Amelia Ciracco, wife and mother of three children and two dogs, is dealing with life’s challenges. She views life through the lens she polishes with wit, sarcasm and truth. Amelia’s character flaws are self-evident. Although they don’t stop her; they sometimes slow her to an emotional crawl. She is fiercely loyal to family and friends and struggles to understand how some people can forsake loyalty and honesty for shortsighted gain.Amelia struggles through the juggling act of husband, family and work. Sometimes she drops one of the balls. That’s when wit and sarcasm cover up her failing.Her snarky jags are amusing and deliver more than a hint to truth. She amuses with anecdotes of loving family, engaging neighbors, testosterone-filled bosses and co-workers under tremendous pressure to perform in an atmosphere that is sometimes comical and other times too tense for normal people.
In Book One: I'm Nobody's Pancake, Amelia Ciracco opens up about her life as a wife and working mother. She shares life experiences through the lens of a strong-willed and loving wife and mother of three. Amelia brings a humorous twist to work, through her encounters with the boss she has labeled Mister Testosterone. She also shares the daily struggles of raising three diverse children and a husband whom she feels is comatose at times to her animated views. Amelia is every woman in some dimension, not all at once. But there are aspects of Amelia’s life to which every woman can relate and to which every man can become enlightened..
Book 3: Pass the Butter continues the exploits of Amelia Ciracco, a Sicilian-American housewife and working mother, has strong and vocal opinions and feelings about life and the world swirling around her. Mother of three diverse and wonderfully unique children, she returns to work when Randy, the youngest, starts school. Her husband Ralph is happy she’s back at work. He worried about her sanity hoping her marble bag stayed tied tight enough to keeps its contents intact until the children reached school-age.
Life’s hectic for the Ciracco family; although you couldn’t discern it from Ralph’s demeanor. The man makes stoic people look like they have attention deficit disorder. Amelia struggles through the juggling act of husband, family, and work. Sometimes she drops one of the balls. That’s when wit and sarcasm cover up her failing.
In Book 2: What, No Bacon?, Amelia, wife and working mother, continues sharing her life experiences through the lens of a strong-willed and loving wife and mother of three. Walk with Amelia, but not too slowly, through her encounters with raising three unique children. You'll relate to the daily struggles of raising three diverse children and a husband whom she feels is comatose at times to her animated views. Amelia is every woman in some dimension, not all at once. But there are aspects of Amelia’s life to which every woman can relate and to which every man can become enlightened. Amelia is passionate about her life and is protective of the lives of her daughters Suzanne and Lisa, and her son Randy.
In Book 4 Pass the Syrup, Amelia reminisces about personal epiphanies of a Sicilian-American housewife and working mother. You’ll share her strong and vocal opinions and feelings about life and the world swirling around her. Her husband Ralph worries about her sanity hoping her marble bag stayed tied tight enough to keeps its contents intact until the children reached school-age.
Life’s hectic for the Ciracco family; although you couldn’t discern it from Ralph’s demeanor. The man makes stoic people look like they have attention deficit disorder. Amelia struggles through the juggling act of husband, family, and work. Sometimes she drops one of the balls. That’s when wit and sarcasm cover up her failing.
Amelia’s professional life is replete with anecdotes of a loving family, engaging neighbors, testosterone-filled bosses and co-workers under tremendous pressure to perform in an atmosphere that is sometimes comical and other times too tense for normal people.
In Book 5, Top Off the Coffee and Leave the Check, Amelia Ciracco deals with the emotional struggles of an empty nest and how she adapts. Amelia learns that downsizing the grocery bill has advantages but takes a bit of getting accustomed to. Children visit with their significant others in tow. As the family expands to include Suzanne’s and Randy’s mates, Amelia and Ralph feel the joy of entertaining adults. The reverie of starting their post-parental life is interrupted by another of Lisa’s dramatic reentries. Will Lisa’s play on her father’s heartstrings give her control over the Broomall household? Suzanne has an announcement. True to form, Amelia begins to run conclusions through her overwrought mind that would make a psychoanalyst proud. Amelia continues to struggle through the juggling act of husband, family, and work. Sometimes she drops one of the balls. That’s when wit and sarcasm cover up her failing. Amelia continues to amuse us with anecdotes of a loving family, engaging neighbors, testosterone-filled bosses, and co-workers under tremendous pressure to perform in an atmosphere that is sometimes comical and other times too tense for normal people.
An intellectual thriller that pits brain against brain in this multi-dimensional novel.
The sinister and seedy underbelly of clandestine business dealings at a research university threatens to ruin careers when greed, festering like cancer, becomes the mistress and power her aphrodisiac.
Deal-making multi-millionaire Richard Gillespie struggles to maintain his perch atop the research university pyramid of influence and self-dealing. Gillespie seduces Dr. Brigette Lonerghan, a Machiavellian university executive, to access the valuable portfolio of inventions of Dr. Joseph Ralinski. No saint, Ralinski is the consummate sociopath who pocket millions from illegal activities.
Lonerghan becomes a pawn in a game of deception and theft between Gillespie and his nemesis, Louis Jacobsen – one of the prestigious university’s prolific influence peddlers. Jacobsen and Lonerghan are locked in an illicit affair; she wants marriage and he wants a cut of Ralinski’s fortune. Jacobsen plots to use Lonerghan to reap his windfall while she plans to turn the tables on him.
Three angles: Jacobsen/Lonerghan – greed and lust, Ralinski – avarice, and Gillespie - self-importance and arrogance. Destruction looms large on the horizon. Who will survive and who will fall victim to their flaws?
Shadow Woman - a thriller that immerses you in the hidden world of a transwoman.
Russell Radcliffe lost everything: his wife Mandy, his children, and his glamorous suburban mini-mansion. Left with only the tatters of a once successful life and remnants of his dignity, he realized he couldn’t fall any farther. His gender dysphoria, raging in his newfound freedom, pushed him to discover the courage to venture beyond the boundaries of conventionality. Shrouded in the shadows, Russell stripped off his male exterior to reveal Allison, his feminine self. Allison makes her debut, bringing a ray of hope that life might offer more than pain, loss, frustration, and confusion. Russell’s boss, Sylvia, a dominant executive, and beautiful sexual powerhouse, discovers his deepest secret. Sylvia is smart, ruthless, and Machiavellian. Her grip on Russell’s life becomes a deep and dark release for Allision. The fear, mixed with exhilaration over Sylvia’s seeming acceptance of the shadow woman, has its destructive side.
Sylvia’s hold on Russell tightens, playing with his emotions, He is torn between shame and desire. Allison wants release, freedom, and recognition and is willing to subordinate herself to her kindred sister. Russell fights for equal time, struggling with the duality that threatens to tear him apart.
Can he break free from Sylvia’s grasp? Can he prevail? Whom will he choose to be: Russell or Allison?
Poems from the Heart, Books 1 and 2
These two are books of expressions; a series of short stories, sometimes set to rhyme. They provide the opportunity to express emotions in a way that doesn’t require the complexity of characters or plots.
These poems are snapshots of experiences memorialized in creative words to convey an observation, a hidden meaning.
Messages come in different ways and through various means. Nature has messages, stories, tales, to share if we’re open to seeing and hearing. I’m a visual person. The beauty of nature speaks to me through colors, hues, shadows and reflections.
We are all part of nature. We are the human representation of inanimate objects. Our mind and spirit can take us to places only the birds can reach; if we are open to the possibilities.
My poems capture nature’s message. They are very personal and moving. They are my stream of consciousness.
Books Published as D.D. Nicaro
For emotionally conflicted Michael Whalen, normal relationships never materialize. His obsession with his sister Mary positions her as a psychological puppeteer leaving him trapped in a world of his making. When women in suburban Philadelphia start to disappear or turn up dead, the FBI's interest in a decade-long trail of missing women ignites. Michael becomes tangled in a net of manipulation, murder, human trafficking and corruption. Power and money bait the trap. All of the players soon find themselves drowning in a pit of "old money" covered with the stench of decay and abused societal privilege.
Sequel to The Trap Newly minted Witness Protection inductees Albert and Ella Johnson (formerly John Burton and his former detective partner Lena Reyes) settle uncomfortably into their new life a world away from Suburban Philadelphia police detective work. Their sleepy little enclave turns deadly when homeless men are murdered. T Albert’s interest in the unsolved murders grows. Ella worries her husband will risk their lives by violating their contract with the US Marshal Service. Albert convinces the FBI to allow him to consult with the local police above the objections of his wife and the US Marshal Service; quickly becoming embroiled in the investigation, and exposing his new friends to the brutality of a serial killer. His recklessness places his wife in the crosshairs of the killer. Can Albert save his wife and his marriage?
Two women look to bury their past and search for a future in a rural setting. Ginger Moreland, a woman with a lurid past returns home for vengeance. Victoria Wellborn carries an uncertain future, accomplished professional yet harboring emptiness. Two women brought together by fate and desire to settle the past. Walt Hooker and Johnny Blakely are two men searching for an opportunity to make a difference. Two men are thrown together by fate; neither saw their paths crossing. Their differences are their commonality. Two men and two women come together against one common adversary. Michael Hardesty is a throwback to the robber barons. His empire was built on the lives and the deaths of his prey. He is a man people would love to hate if they lived long enough to enjoy the feeling. Hardesty made one big mistake, he crossed Ginger Moreland in ways a man should never consider. Alone she might fail. With unlikely allies, she might bring him down, hard. But Hardesty won’t go down without a fight. Four allies put themselves in harms’ way. Their lives and the lives of their friends hang in the balance.