New Release!
Michael Jennings’s debut novel, Ave Antonina, follows Peter Dandridge as he negotiates the emotional riptide of life as a draft-eligible young man during the Vietnam War.
“…thought-provoking, insightful, and entertaining, an original novel that is sure to satisfy readers on many levels.“
“Michael Jennings’s ambitious debut novel, Ave Antonina, delves into the vagaries of war and its effects on different levels, from confronting one’s own mortality to retribution against those who are merchants of death. It’s a solemn tome, more than 200,000 words, that spans several hundred years through various stories but focuses on a naïve enlistee from North Carolina in the divisive Vietnam War.”
– Michael Embry, author of New Horizons, the third book in the John Ross Boomer Lit series
“…[not] simply another story of the Vietnam War…“
“Ave Antonina is a powerful, disturbing, and thought-provoking debut novel from Michael
Jennings, a Vietnam veteran and award-winning journalist. Set at the height of the Vietnam War, Jennings’s novel deftly captures the critical quandary many young men of that era faced—whether or not to go to war. For Peter Dandridge, Jennings’s protagonist, the question entails an unusual twist. Peter’s father was a WWII medal-winning veteran and Peter wants to live up to his father’s military heritage. An injured knee has kept Peter out of ROTC and offers him a legitimate reason for avoiding service. However, despite the pleadings of his mother and, perhaps more influentially, the fact that he has just fallen in love, Peter finds himself unable to resist the call to duty.”
– Chris Helvey, Editor in Chief of Trajectory Journal and the author of Snapshot
Michael Jennings 