"Be Still My Heart: A Code for Love" has resonated with so many readers. What's your story? Do you agree or disagree with mine?

Nampa, Idaho  - March 16, 2026 - An excerpt from Chapter 5: My modus operandi was always the same. If our initial phone conversation was going well, I’d find out about her availability and willingness to meet before saying, “I’ll come up with a plan and text you sometime tomorrow.” By this time in the online dating game, I had already figured out that since I was the one who was expected to plan and pay for the initial meetup, I might as well suit myself. After all, these weren’t real dates, plus I had yet to lay eyes on any of these women. I figured meeting at a neighborhood bar within walking distance from my apartment for a beer or a glass of wine would make everyone happy—they didn’t have to come up with an idea or bring their wallet, and I could enjoy a leisurely walk to an inexpensive evening with a relative stranger.

Be Still My Heart: A Code for Love is on Amazon now.

Back Cover:

How many times do we have to be told to step outside our comfort zone before it becomes "You're just not trying hard enough?" At first, I bristled at such tiresome platitudes, yet there I was, rolling up my sleeves, putting myself out there, and believing that life gives you exactly what you put into it.

But does it? Has life really given you exactly what you deserve? When so many of us can't find romantic love, meaningful work, a true friend, a permanent home, or enough money to live on, I can't help but think that something other than our own poor choices and self-defeating behaviors is working behind the scenes to keep us from acquiring happiness, success, and fulfillment. To me, it just doesn't add up.

Be Still My Heart: A Code for Love will not only reveal what's hidden behind the curtain, but you'll also come to understand that your lot in life isn't all your fault.  💖💖💖 

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Robert Kurson's "Rocket Men" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - March 13, 2026 - Two high-profile assassinations, race riots, violent anti-war demonstrations, subversive countercultures, and Cold War threats of nuclear annihilation pummeled America into one of its darkest hours. No, I’m not talking about any year between 2019 and 2026; I’m talking about 1968—when the country was coming apart at the seams. But just like any story where the hero steps up to save the day at the last possible moment, NASA’s Apollo 8 year-end mission not only rescued America from imploding on itself, but it also saved the world.

Whereas Lily Koppel touched on the historic mission from the wives’ viewpoint in her terrific book The Astronaut Wives Club (2013), Robert Kurson’s Rocket Men (2018) recounts the story from the perspective of the three heroic astronauts themselves. Like most earthbound stargazers, I was under the impression that Apollo 11 was NASA’s greatest achievement, but even the first man to set foot on the lunar surface, Neil Armstrong, put Apollo 8’s mission at the top of the list. I whole-heartedly recommend these two books. While Koppel’s book offers the reader a complete background on all three NASA programs—Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo—Kurson’s focuses solely on Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, the first men to orbit the moon.

Earlier today, as I drove to the library to return Rocket Men, I was saddened by the fact that interest in space exploration seems to have faded away with the 1960s. While I watched the book disappear behind a wall, I had to wonder who—or what—would save America in 2026.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

-Chuck Trunks

"This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI."

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender Is the Night" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - March 8, 2026 - Google summarizes its definition of the Lost Generation, a term coined by Gertrude Stein, as the generation who came of age during World War I. With what we know of the conflict and its aftermath, it isn’t hard to understand how these young adults—especially in France and Italy—became spiritually adrift, deeming pre-war moral and traditional values as no longer relevant. Whereas Stein, an American writer and poet living in Paris, identified the social movement, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald popularized it in The Sun Also Rises (1926) and Tender Is the Night (1934).

I finished reading Tender Is the Night—one of only four Fitzgerald novels—a week earlier, and I still can’t stop thinking about it. Similar to Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Fitzgerald’s story centers around complicated and deeply flawed American expatriates living in post-war Europe. However, Fitzgerald’s characters are more aristocratic, intellectual, and refined—yet they still pursue what everyone wants: acceptance for their true selves and romantic love. What results is a timeless tale—one relatable even in today’s screen-rich society. Whether you see yourself in one or more of the characters or are drawn to the complexity of their misgivings, Tender Is the Night offers a haunting, unforgettable descent into the gilded world of the restless elite.

If you can get through Fitzgerald’s pedantic attentiveness to cultural details, poetic prose, and uneven pacing, you’ll be rewarded with a rich story that—if you’re like me—will make you believe we’re living among several lost generations right now.

-Chuck Trunks

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

NEW STORY coming this spring: "Pillars of Society" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)!

Nampa, Idaho - March 4, 2026 - Do you know what the United States of Private Equity Firms needs right now? A lower cost of living? Non-profit health care? A government that actually represents the interests of its taxpayers? Nope. It needs an allegorical tale of personal transcendence as told through the interactions between four fuzzy caterpillars. Carl, Bethany, Fitz, and Sigmund live and work in a colony located in a secluded pond surrounded by wetland trees and dotted with water lilies. Each represents one of four distinct, survivalist responses to crumbling capitalism and the ascent of fascism.

All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

"A Rationale for Being" by Chuck Trunks offers an escape route from the United States of Dystopia. This is Trunks Art's ninth book.

Nampa, Idaho - February 25, 2026 - An excerpt from Chapter 4 - "It's less about convincing people of my interpretation of the grand design and more about helping them understand their feelings about what I shared regarding the body and mind. I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. I'm trying to kick-start a billion or more internal conversations so that they, too, can discover the last remaining escape route."

Back cover:

There was a time when I felt safe—shielded from what lurks within the underbelly of a society predicated on corruption, exploitation, and manipulation. “I’m too smart, too aware, to be seduced by the ruling class’s lies,” I’d tell myself. But then one day, you wake up and find yourself exactly where you said you’d never be—smack dab in the middle of the spider’s web. Reality hits hard: nobody’s coming to save you. That’s when I realized it was up to me to save myself.

Although packaged within a playfully fictitious storyline acted out in a fifth-grade classroom in Idaho and at CBS Studios in New York City, A Rationale for Being—while utilizing a handful of fascinating scientific facts and well-understood psychological theories presented in the first three chapters of the book—concludes with a philosophical message that offers a way back to what you allowed others to take from you.

A Rationale for Being may be filled with interesting characters, passion, humor, and imagination, but make no mistake—this is the story of how I was able to save myself.

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Bill O'Reilly's "Killing Reagan" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - February 23, 2026 - If you like historical events and true-life stories and harbor a secret penchant for the salacious, then Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Series is for you. So far, I’ve read eight of the 13 books, adding Killing Reagan to my list earlier this month. His books always leave me feeling both satisfied and disillusioned: satisfied by newfound knowledge, yet disappointed that his unique insights and writing style have not been more embraced by educators or the media. Prior to reading this book, I assumed I was highly informed about the 40^th President of the United States.

My confidence stemmed from several notable factors: he was the president for half my high school years and all of my college years; he was the governor of California while I was attending elementary school in Los Angeles; I grew up in a Republican-centered family and community; I’ve visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, three times; and (despite his dementia from Alzheimer’s) I said, “Good morning, Mr. President,” to him from 10 feet away in Santa Monica in 1996. Yet, nothing in my previous experiences could have prepared me for the shocking revelations in Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Reagan.

I think it’s hard to write stories—especially stories that most people think they’ve already heard. But this is the very essence of Bill O’Reilly’s brilliance. He recounts historical events from unique perspectives that weave both facts and human interests into a framework of masterful storytelling. Can you imagine how daunting it would be if you were asked to write a book about Elvis, John F. Kennedy, or General George Custer? With so much having been written about these iconic individuals, you’d probably tell yourself there’s nothing more to say about them. Not only could Bill O’Reilly write the book and add it to his Killing Series, but he’d also write a New York Times bestseller you couldn’t put down.

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

"A RATIONALE FOR BEING" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art) is on Amazon NOW! This is the author's 9th book.

Nampa, Idaho - February 17, 2026 - Back cover blurb: There was a time when I felt safe—shielded from what lurks within the underbelly of a society predicated on corruption, exploitation, and manipulation. “I’m too smart, too aware, to be seduced by the ruling class’s lies,” I’d tell myself. But then one day, you wake up and find yourself exactly where you said you’d never be—smack dab in the middle of the spider’s web. Reality hits hard: nobody’s coming to save you. That’s when I realized it was up to me to save myself.

Although packaged within a playfully fictitious storyline acted out in a fifth-grade classroom in Idaho and at CBS Studios in New York City, A Rationale for Being—while utilizing a handful of fascinating scientific facts and well-understood psychological theories presented in the first three chapters of the book—concludes with a philosophical message that offers a way back to what you allowed others to take from you.

A Rationale for Being may be filled with interesting characters, passion, humor, and imagination, but make no mistake—this is the story of how I was able to save myself.

- - - - - 

All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).