Florence, Arizona · 1975
Three friends. One buried mystery. A truth the town has protected for nearly a century.
In a town where history drifts through the air like dust, stories of outlaws, lost mines, and buried treasure are part of the landscape.
Then Sam finds an old miner’s tag inside her late father’s baseball glove. With Mia and Willie beside her—and Tommy drawn into the widening mystery—the clue leads toward El Halcón, a legendary silver vein tied to vanished records, erased histories, and people who will do anything to keep the past underground.
New cover direction · Draft artwork and typography subject to change
Book One · The trail begins
Florence, Arizona, 1975. Eleven-year-old Sam Thompson is determined to earn a place on the boys’ Little League team. Then an old miner’s tag hidden in her late father’s baseball glove opens a mystery the town has spent years avoiding.
With Mia and Willie beside her—and Tommy drawn into the widening mystery—Sam’s search becomes the beginning of the Lollipop Gang and a trail leading into Florence’s buried past.
Purchase information will be added here when the book is ready for release.
Explore the case files →Four characters. Four paths.
Sam, Mia, and Willie form the heart of the early gang. Tommy’s path crosses theirs as rivalry meets a larger mystery.
Florence field notes · 1975
The Leader
An eleven-year-old pitcher with a rebel streak, a late-breaking curveball, and a question Florence would rather she stop asking: what really happened to her father?
The ten-book mystery
Ten titles mark the trail. The first three case files are open; what follows remains classified until the time is right.
Open case file · Spring 1975
A miner’s tag hidden in an old baseball glove sparks the first question—and draws Sam and two unlikely allies into Florence’s buried past.
The fifth member of the gang
Florence is more than a backdrop. Its heat, prison walls, irrigation ditches, ruined saloons, desert caves, and long memory shape every choice the gang makes.
“The desert remembers what people try to forget.— A Lollipop Gang Chronicle
About the author
The Lollipop Gang is a ten-book young adult mystery series set in Florence, Arizona, from 1975 to 1978. At its center is Sam’s coming-of-age journey, shaped by friendship, rivalry, and the truths she refuses to leave buried.
Drawing on a childhood in Florence and experiences in foster care, the author blends desert adventure, small-town secrets, and sharp-edged nostalgia.
These stories explore truth, resilience, cultural memory, and the families people choose when belonging is not guaranteed.
The Lollipop Gang is published by 316 Expressions, an independent creative company rooted in storytelling, memory, and the landscapes that shape us.