You’re wondering, who is Buck Brannon? Like Samuel Clemens who wrote ‘Tom Sawyer’, Buck Brannon is a pen name. My legal name is too hard to pronounce and even more difficult to spell. Throughout my life, several friends would call me ‘Bucky’. So I shortened that nickname to ‘Buck’. The last name, ‘Brannon’, is borrowed from a country road close to home.

I’m often asked, what book inspired me to be a professional writer? My reply somewhat flips the answer a bit. It wasn’t a specific book or author but it was a specific college Professor that provided the eventual impetus for a novel. Over three decades ago, I had three different shoulder surgeries and was ultimately told that I needed an artificial shoulder. That meant my career in dentistry would be finished. I began taking Journalism courses at Northern Kentucky University. The Professor, that I now call an Angel’, honed my writing skills. Being the ‘Editor’ of an award winning urban News Magazine during the day and a Professor at night, more than matched my dentist by day, student at night lifestyle at that moment in time. At the end of the semester, she informed me that the ‘Profile’ piece that I had authored, was going to be published in ‘Cincinnati Magazine’. I received a check for my effort and instantly became a ‘Professional Writer’. And...writing a novel became my next goal.

I’ve been asked quite a few times, even though ‘Towers Above’ is fiction, just how realistic is the book? Each time I respond with, “most of what I write about has evolved from real life experiences, for me, or from some other person’s documented experiences. 

Towers Above is the name I chose for the thoroughbred that’s the central character in my novel. 9/11 had a profound impact on me and the novel is a tribute to all those affected by that National tragedy. 

I’ve always loved watching horses race and being from Southwestern Ohio, I was lucky enough to have vacationed with family in Central Kentucky, near the perfectly groomed Kentucky horse farms. The fact that the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack were from the Middle East, the birthplace of thoroughbreds, dovetailed easily with the racing venue concept. Working part time at an elite thoroughbred track, in the paddocks no less, also assisted with the development of the novel’s plot.

So sit back and enjoy a very topical thriller novel. Dr. Rob Becker is your dentist and guide, who will take you through the adventures of his longtime  college friends and himself as they become entwined in a terrorist plot that threatens to prevent ‘Towers Above’ from running in the first leg of his Triple Crown quest.

Rob will also be your guide in the future sequel to ‘Towers Above". TOWERS' PROGENY - Book 2 of the Towers Trilogy is now available!  Look for Book 3 in 2021.