Book Signing at MickerSmith Florida BookTraders Tomorrow

Author Col. Joe Reich will be at MicklerSmith Florida BookTraders on December 19 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. to discuss his book The Treasure of Tampa Bay, meet local readers and sign copies of his book.

T. Allan Smith, MickerSmith proprietor, gave me the following description:

The Treasure of Tampa Bay covers 400 years of Tampa Bay history. It is fiction based on history. The book begins in 1528 with the tale of Juan Ortiz, a Spanish soldier who was inadvertently left when the explorer Panfilo de Narvaez departed. Col. Reich starts with a fictional marriage of Ortiz to a native princess. Then he covers the history of the region following the descendants of Ortiz right up to the era of space exploration.

Col. Reich is retired from the U.S. Air Force. He was stationed at MacDill for about a year in an intelligence-gathering capacity. He became fascinated with Florida history, and specifically Tampa Bay history, when he helped his son with a school project. The Treasure of Tampa Bay is the result of his decision to write a book based on the research he did. He is now settled in Louisiana and is ROTC director at a private school.

MickerSmith Florida BookTraders, located at 718 Second Street N. in St. Pete, is a new and used bookstore specializing in books about Florida and by Florida authors. The store has works by well-known Florida authors, as well as a growing collection of hard-to-find and out-of-print Florida books, some quite rare.

For more information, call MickerSmith Florida BookTraders at 727-894-1565.

(cross-posted at Sticks of Fire)