Basil Lucas, a member of the Bainbridge Riverwriters and the owner of many rejection notices from editors and publishers, has self-published two novels, both of which are on sale for $10 each at The Book Nook and at the Southern Artists’ Co-op at the Firehouse Center.

Copies are also available at the local public and college libraries. Proceeds from the sale will go to the local Habitat for Humanity.

Lucas will be on hand at the Book Nook on Saturday, Dec. 11, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. for a book signing.

He describes the two novels as being quite different from each other.

Our Secrets, which might best be described as Southern Gothic, is set on an abandoned Flint River plantation, where an unusual sighting is made of a strange woman and attempts are made to identify her. Turns out the woman has spent several years in a Pennsylvania mental asylum and the reader discovers individual secrets. Lucas thinks he may have drawn on his experiences from being formerly employed at mental hospitals.

Lucas says “Winter, a Boy, was written as a tribute to those wondrous people who have endured and overcome with a persevering grace the prejudice of me and my people. It is a fictional account of what might have happened to one of the slaves who belonged to the author’s great-grandfather. Significant characters include Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the Confederate States of America and Tunis Campbell, who was one of the first black members of the Georgia Legislature. Political intrigues surrounding the characters offer a glimpse into the tumultuous events thrashing about Georgia during the post Civil War Reconstruction era.”