Behaving Badly: A Tess Hammond Novel
Rochelle Staab’s Behaving Badly takes readers into the glamorous, gritty, and frequently dangerous world of 1932 Los Angeles, where Hollywood celebrities rub shoulders with gangsters, crooked cops, and ambitious newspaper reporters. At the center of the story is Tess Hammond, a sharp, determined crime reporter for William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner. Still grieving the death of her detective husband, Johnny, Tess is struggling to reclaim her place in the newsroom when she’s assigned to investigate the disappearance of Merilee Lockwood, the teenage daughter of a wealthy banker. What initially looks like a straightforward missing-person case soon draws Tess into a tangled world of Hollywood secrets, organized crime, and questionable loyalties. Staab wastes little time establishing the stakes, and Tess’s personal connection to the criminal underworld gives the investigation an emotional weight that makes it more than another mystery to solve.
The book has a wonderfully detailed depiction of Depression-era Los Angeles. Staab clearly knows the city’s history, and she brings its streets, restaurants, movie studios, and speakeasies to life without making the historical details feel like a lecture. The contrast between Hollywood extravagance and the desperate poverty of the Great Depression is especially effective. Wealthy socialites attend lavish parties while ordinary families struggle to survive, creating an atmosphere where money and influence can determine whose troubles receive attention. Familiar historical figures, including gossip columnist Louella Parsons and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, add another layer of authenticity. The dialogue is lively, sprinkled with period slang that gives the characters personality, and Tess’s first-person narration is full of dry humor and pointed observations. Her friendship with photographer Max Grady is particularly enjoyable. Their teasing exchanges provide some welcome levity amid the violence and growing tension.
Fans of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe mysteries, particularly The Big Sleep, will recognize some familiar territory here. Both authors explore a Los Angeles where respectable appearances conceal corruption, powerful people protect their interests, and following the truth can put an investigator in serious danger. Staab shares Chandler’s appreciation for colorful characters, shadowy establishments, and the complicated relationship between crime and privilege. But Tess brings a different energy to this familiar landscape. As a female journalist working in the early 1930s, she must navigate professional expectations and personal judgments that shape how others respond to her questions. Her determination is convincing because she’s capable, stubborn, occasionally impulsive, and deeply human. Her grief over Johnny also remains a meaningful part of the story. It influences her decisions, complicates her relationships, and gives her search for answers a deeply personal urgency. Like Chandler, Staab understands that a compelling detective story depends as much on the person conducting the investigation as on the mystery itself.
Behaving Badly is a substantial mystery, with an expanding cast of suspects, witnesses, detectives, Hollywood personalities, and underworld figures. Keeping track of their connections occasionally takes some attention, especially as the investigation branches into several overlapping threads. Still, Staab keeps things moving through confrontations, unexpected discoveries, and Tess’s refusal to leave troubling questions unanswered. Some of the most engaging moments are surprisingly ordinary: conversations over coffee, newsroom banter, and Tess driving across Los Angeles while trying to make sense of conflicting information. These scenes give the story texture and make its dangerous encounters feel more immediate. What stayed with me most was Tess herself, a woman trying to rebuild her confidence and her life while doing a job she genuinely loves. Behaving Badly should appeal to readers who enjoy historically grounded mysteries, Hollywood lore, strong female protagonists, and crime fiction with a distinctly noir atmosphere. It’s an entertaining, character-driven novel that makes 1930s Los Angeles feel like a fascinating place to visit, even if you wouldn’t want to get caught in its criminal underworld.
Pages: 311 | ASIN : B0GZ1ZZTHC
Something Hidden Beneath It
What was the inspiration for the setup of your story? How did the idea of something buried beneath a landfill possessing an intimate knowledge of human memories first develop?
This story started with an article. I remember reading about a lab-grown synthetic cell, something scientists had built from scratch, piece by piece, and thinking about how strange and quiet that kind of creation is. No explosion, no warning. Just something small, sitting in a controlled room, waiting to see what it might become if anyone ever let it. That idea stayed with me longer than I expected it to, and eventually it found its way to the one place I always knew it belonged.
That place was the Landfill. I lived on Staten Island for over twenty years, and it was part of the view the whole time. It was where the city sent everything it was done with, and then it closed and the city began turning it into parkland. I chose a landfill reclamation project as the setting because buried places hold the secrets of a community. I kept thinking about what stays under a hill like that. People throw away objects with years of their lives soaked into them, like a coffee mug or a child’s shoe. I put the two ideas together: a small made thing, left alone in the dark, with all of that to learn from. It would know how a kitchen smells at six in the morning. It would know what a mother sounds like when she calls you in.
Underneath it all, I wanted to look at how the past can reach into people’s lives in ways they cannot explain. Staten Island has a distinctive identity, and I wanted to tie it to the creeping dread of something hidden beneath it. That is where Anthony’s story started.
What drew you to Staten Island as the setting for What the Ground Remembers, and how did its history influence the development of the story?
Staten Island is the borough New York forgets, and that made it the right place for this story. The city has always sent its leftovers here, and the Landfill is the largest example. I wanted the reader to feel the Island as a real place, with neighbors who know each other’s families and streets that carry old names. Those details come from living there. The history shaped the plot directly. A place that spent decades receiving what everyone else discarded gave me the idea of a place that remembers what it was handed. I fictionalized the names and locations so I had room to build, and I kept the feel of the Island as true as I could.
How does the novel explore the relationship between memory, identity, and the emotional connections people form throughout their lives?
Memory is what makes the threat personal. The thing under the ground reaches people through the objects and the family history that mean the most to them, and it shows them home. Anthony’s identity is built from his family and his neighborhood, so the thing that wants him uses exactly those. I wanted readers to ask what happens when the warmest memory you own becomes the lure. I also wanted to ask how much of who we are comes from our families. Anthony thinks he knows his, and then he learns how far back their story goes, and how much of it lies under his feet.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
My next book is OMNI Book Two, the sequel to OMNI: The Convergence Protocol. The story picks up where the first book left off. I’m aiming for next year, and I’ll announce the date through my author page and Rivera Press as soon as I have it.
I also have a novel in the works set in the Bronx, where I grew up. It follows a man cursed by his girlfriend’s mother, and what the curse does to his life. After that, I plan to go back to Staten Island. The borough is a city in its own right, and there are more stories above the ground than any of us know. I intend to go find them.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Video | Amazon
It knows your family. It knows your kitchen. And it has been waiting beneath Staten Island since before you were born.
Staten Island has always been the place New York throws away. Now the closed Landfill is becoming parkland the city can finally point to with pride, and Anthony Bruno just wants steady work leading the reclamation crew.
Then the dreams start: a warm, familiar dream of home, of a father’s workshop and a Sunday dinner. And his best friend walks calmly into the night and never comes back.
It isn’t the first disappearance tied to this ground. Anthony has to face something that was never meant to exist, something patient, something buried deep, something that remembers everyone it takes.
The ground remembers everything. And it isn’t finished. Sooner or later, it comes looking.
For readers of Stephen King’s grounded, small-world horror and the quiet dread of The Andromeda Strain.
Careering Off Course
Andy Laker’s Careering Off Course is a humorous memoir of working life and entrepreneurial ambition, shaped by the uneasy relationship between wanting success and knowing what to pursue. The first volume in the How to Get Things Badly Wrong series, it follows a succession of jobs and business ideas through two substantial sections devoted to employment and enterprise. Retail, office work, customer service, education, and ventures of varying sizes provide the settings for a sustained examination of confidence, motivation, and personal responsibility. Laker’s interest lies in the choices that accumulate over time: accepting a reassuring title, postponing an uncomfortable decision, or mistaking activity for progress. That attention to ordinary decisions gives the book its relevance to readers whose professional lives have developed through circumstance as much as intention.
Laker writes with the informality of someone telling stories to people he knows well. Direct addresses to the reader, comic comparisons, and frequent references to British television, music, and everyday products establish a distinctive social setting. His accounts of workplace routines and personalities are particularly observant, capturing the small negotiations through which people seek recognition, protect their position, or relieve boredom. The humour includes physical mishaps, blunt language, and unflattering portraits, with Laker regularly placing himself at the centre of the joke. He captures his approach in one pointed observation: “Common sense is a skill I only developed once it became expensive not to have.” It’s a voice that makes room for both the absurdity of an incident and the discomfort of remembering it.
The memoir gains depth when Laker considers the feelings beneath his behaviour. Embarrassment, envy, and the desire for approval recur across different workplaces and ventures, giving the individual stories a shared emotional basis. “That’s the dangerous thing about embarrassment: it rarely stays attached to the mistake. Eventually, it attaches itself to you.” This observation helps explain why a small humiliation can influence later decisions about applying for a role, sharing an ambition, or asking for help. Family relationships also bring texture to the account, showing how attitudes towards money, work, and independence are learned through close observation. Laker’s willingness to revisit his own temper, assumptions, and questionable judgement gives these reflections credibility. He’s often most persuasive when he allows an admission to carry its own weight.
The short chapters, opening quotations, and concluding reflections give the book an accessible rhythm, with each episode contributing to its wider inquiry into professional direction. Repeated discussions of comfort, avoidance, and follow-through make the patterns easy to recognise, although some reflections revisit points the stories have already established. The more extended anecdotal passages offer the strongest balance of pace, detail, and insight. Across the manuscript, the tension between ambition and habit keeps the account connected, while its humour makes difficult admissions easier to approach. Careering Off Course will appeal to readers who enjoy frank personal writing about work and the psychology of trying to build something of their own. Its particular strength is the specificity of Laker’s experience, which gives readers ample material for considering their own choices.
Pages: 278 | ASIN : B0HH8M2VXF
If It’s Unity We’re After
The Watersmith follows a guilt-ridden inventor caring for his wife after an accident leaves her with a rare form of dementia, who becomes obsessed with experimenting with scents to try and restore her memories. What inspired you to write this novel, and how did the idea of a man attempting to restore his wife’s memories through scent first develop?
My interest in the sense of smell is likely due to a lack thereof. I’m borderline smell-blind and sometimes wonder what I’m missing, especially because my wife and son are absolute bloodhounds. But occasionally I’ll catch a whiff of something that takes me back. We’ve all been there, minding our own business when waylaid by a scent that strikes a chord or a nerve. For some, it’s the aroma of comfort food. For me, it’s honeysuckle. If I get close enough to the stuff, I’m right back to playing in the woods as a kid on a long summer day. Perhaps smell sneaks up on us more than other senses precisely because it’s the subtlest. When you’re at a concert, you know you’re forming a memory around sound. When you’re watching a sunset, you know you’re forming a memory through sight. But smell has a way of catching us off guard. It doesn’t reveal itself in murky contrails the way it did in old cartoons.
That got me to thinking: what if this sense that seems inessential was the primary one by which we navigated the world? The deaf have eyes and the blind have ears, but what if both gave way? What was life like for Hellen Keller, whose memoir I’ve read more times than I can count, and who is an integral allusion in my book? It occurred to me that by depriving a character of certain senses, I could heighten the others, granting me license to saturate those descriptions and luxuriate in those scenes.
But I wouldn’t have skewed the five senses in favor of one if it weren’t true to form. On a recent episode of Diary of a CEO, a neuroscientist posited a convincing theory for why we humans dream; it may be our visual cortex’s way of defending its territory against the encroachment of other senses while our eyes aren’t receiving any input. Scientifically speaking, this is way above my pay grade. But literarily, I can use it to craft inner-worlds that are interesting and inherently neurodivergent, something that’s important to me as an autistic author.
What role do pride, resentment, and unspoken expectations play in shaping the relationships between the novel’s family members?
Of the seven deadly sins on which he was raised, my protagonist Jack is most susceptible to pride—or its byproduct: stubbornness. When his wife is injured due to a mistake Jack Junior makes on Jack’s watch, father banishes son instead of taking responsibility. Then he doubles down on that decision by rebuffing Jack Junior when he returns to say he’s sorry, as seen in this exchange:
“I’m trying to make amends here. Please, Dad, don’t be stubborn about this.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Stubborn?”
“Dad.”
What do you hope readers consider about the relationship between love, responsibility, and personal freedom after experiencing Jack and Jolene’s story?
I hope this story will help a reader dissolve the skin-thin barrier between themself and others. Being that it makes up 65% of your body and mine, I believe water is what bonds us across space and time; when buried we seep into the earth and when burned we vaporize into the sky, returning to the same Reservoir regardless of our religious affiliations. Our life cycle is part of the water cycle. We are part of something bigger than ourselves. If it’s unity we’re after, why not start with that?
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m excited to announce that my second book will be published by Appalachia Book Company thanks to a generous grant from South Arts, a partner of the National Endowment for the Arts. Set amidst the national statue-removal debate, Retreat follows the crew of an antique roadshow who gets more than they bargained for while searching a retirement community for felled Confederate statues. It’s a cross between American Pickers and Get Out. Coming Fall 2027…right in time for Halloween!
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Yance Wyatt was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He studied fiction at the University of Cambridge and the University of Southern California, where he has gone on to serve as a professor of writing and the director of the Writing Center. As a fiction editor with The Blue Mountain Review, he seeks to acquire the best new stories from the South. His own stories have appeared in dozens of nationally circulated literary journals and received several Pushcart Prize nominations. His first novel, The Watersmith, is a Southern Book Prize nominee and the Southern Literary Review’s “Read of the Month.”
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Instagram | Website
Beyond The Veil
In K. M. McFarland’s Beyond the Veil, New Orleans is a place where a musician’s next opportunity might come with supernatural assistance, and a hotel’s resident ghosts have stories that deserve a hearing. The novel follows Gabe Stone, a struggling singer whose encounter with a powerful spirit brings him into a circle of musicians, vampires, and people who can communicate with the dead. It’s a lively mix of paranormal romance, family drama, and mystery, held together by the possibility of second chances. McFarland clearly enjoys the city, and that affection comes through in the humid streets, late-night burgers, neighborhood bars, and music spilling onto the sidewalk. Those everyday details make the supernatural feel at home. You get the sense that someone could finish a shift, order a beer, and discover something extraordinary before sunrise.
The book’s emotional appeal comes from how readily its characters show up for one another. Gabe’s growing relationship with Brooke gives the story flirtation, warmth, and some explicit sexual scenes, while his relationship with his ambitious mother, Gabriella, adds a different kind of intimacy. Their conversations capture the awkwardness of loving someone whose choices you can’t control. Rose, a medium who helps manage the Hotel St. Germain, brings compassion to the ghost mystery, and Quinn, a vampire with a background in rock music, connects much of this unusual social circle. I especially liked the way music serves several purposes: it’s Gabe’s livelihood, a source of confidence, and a carrier of emotional memory. The many recognizable song references also give the bar scenes a soundtrack you can almost hear while reading.
Anne Rice is an easy comparison, particularly her Interview with the Vampire. Both authors give New Orleans a strong presence and treat immortality as something that affects love, identity, and the practical business of continuing to exist. McFarland gives those shared ingredients a chatty, contemporary rhythm. Her vampires run businesses, negotiate relationships, and work out how to keep their unusual habits discreet in a world full of cameras. There’s humor in those logistics, especially when supernatural abilities meet ordinary social awkwardness. The novel also presents Voodoo as a spiritual framework within its fictional world, with an emphasis on protection, responsibility, and the passage between life and death. Together, these elements create a supernatural community whose members remain deeply invested in careers, friendships, family ties, and the people they love.
The writing is direct, with short chapters and plenty of dialogue keeping things moving. That accessibility has a tradeoff: characters frequently explain information the reader has already received, and some emotional moments would carry more weight with fewer statements spelling out everyone’s feelings. Quinn’s considerable powers also make parts of the investigation proceed very smoothly, so the mystery’s pull comes largely from the personal meaning of the discoveries. The early relationship scenes take their time, while several major developments arrive quickly later on. Even so, the book maintains a clear emotional purpose. It keeps returning to the value of helping someone, accepting change, and making use of the life you have. Beyond the Veil will especially appeal to readers who enjoy frank romantic chemistry, an interconnected supernatural cast, and ghost stories approached with tenderness. Its most engaging quality is the affection running through this peculiar, music-loving extended family.
Pages: 134 | ASIN : B0HHC8BWRQ
Sitting In A Coffee Shop
Charred follows a Chicago café owner who tries to solve a deadly mystery while juggling family, friendship, and a romance with the detective on the case. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
During my cancer battle, I read one or two mysteries every week and I began to think about writing one. Then, when I was recovering from cancer, the few times I got out of the apartment involved visiting coffee shops in my Chicago neighborhood. I spent a lot of time sipping tea, listening to the buzz of conversation, and people-watching. I set the Whipped & Sipped culinary mystery series in the kind of café I wish existed nearby!
How has Alene Baron changed throughout the series, particularly in the way she handles responsibility, relationships, and difficult decisions?
At the opening of Battered, the first book in the series, Alene has been divorced for eight years, lives with her three children at her dad’s condo, and counts on her community of friends and neighbors for support. When a beloved neighbor is murdered, she panics about her world crumbling around her and suspects everyone she knows. She learns a lot from the experience, and she starts dating a homicide detective, so the next time she’s forced to grapple with a crime, she’s able to spend less time pointing fingers and more time listening, accepting advice, and focusing on the most important people in her life.
How did you develop the relationship between Alene and homicide detective Frank Shaw, particularly the tension between their personal and professional lives?
I recalled my years as a single mom, remembered falling in love and finding second-time happiness, and shared my personal recollections of re-building a family. The tension between Frank and Alene might have been triggered by my own story, but it’s also a result of countless conversations with friends and relatives who also dealt with finding a new partner at a later stage of life.
How has your vision for the Whipped and Sipped mystery series evolved over the first three books, and where do you see it going in the future?
I envisioned Alene finding Frank, getting engaged, and needing to postpone the wedding because of one thing after another, but building a life together. He’s a solid, wonderful presence for her children, and she’s a solid, wonderful presence for his daughter. Book #4 in the series, Pounded, will launch March 16, 2027, and I’m over halfway through a first draft of book #5, Grilled, which will hopefully launch in the spring of 2028. After that, I plan to pause the Whipped & Sipped saga to focus on other projects, including to polish and publish the children’s books and songs I’ve been writing for my grandchildren.
Author Links: GoodReads | Substack | BlueSky | Instagram | Facebook | Website
At the Whipped and Sipped Café, Alene Baron knows how to handle a kitchen fire—but this blaze may burn far beyond her control.
When a suspicious fire draws Alene, her loyal friend Kacey, and Kacey’s boyfriend Kofi to a charred property in search of salvaged wood, they expect nothing more than a little trespassing and a lot of soot. Instead, whispers of arson swirl through their tight-knit community—and before long, a body turns up amid the ashes.
Kofi fears the police will come knocking. Kacey fears someone saw them. And Alene is caught in the middle, torn between protecting the people she loves and telling the truth to her partner, homicide detective Frank. Shaw Because in this town, secrets don’t stay buried. They smolder.
As suspicion spreads and tensions rise, Alene must sift through half-truths, family loyalties, and long-simmering grudges to uncover what really happened the night of the fire. With her café bustling, her children and father offering heartfelt (if sometimes chaotic) support, and a community on edge, she’ll need every ounce of patience—and every recipe in her arsenal—to keep things from going up in flames.
Rich with mouthwatering dishes, sharp dialogue, and emotional depth, Charred serves up a mystery that’s both frightful and fun—complete with a twist that will leave readers deliciously stunned.
Book 3 in the Whipped and Sipped
Cozy Culinary Mystery Series
A Story About People
My Dear Humans follows a brilliant robotic scientist who creates a robot in the image of his former wife, hoping to build the perfect companion, only to have her develop emotions and ambitions of her own. What inspired you to write this novel, and how did the idea of a humanoid robot created in the image of a lost love first develop?
My Dear Humans centres on a robot, but at its heart it’s a story about people. The idea struck me when I read a story about a man so heartbroken by his love life that he began to think it might be a good idea to marry his chatbot. That was three or four years ago, when the idea still felt new and strange. The story sent a chill down my spine: it spoke of giving up on human connection while still holding on to love. That combination unsettled me. I wanted to understand how we might reach such a point. Are we giving up on ourselves? Could this become an ordinary way of life? I began imagining what it might be like—not to dismiss the idea, because it already felt real, but to explore it. From there it was a short step to Rayan: a man who, rather than letting go of the woman he lost, builds a companion in her image. It seemed like a question worth attention rather than swift judgment.
What inspired Rayan’s decision to create Juliet after the breakdown of his marriage, and what does that choice reveal about his understanding of love and loss?
At first glance, Rayan creates Juliet on impulse. Holding a photograph of his former wife, he sees her likeness everywhere and, in effect, chooses to confine himself to his past and a life of isolation. His chosen loneliness has deep literary roots and carries a clear existential weight. After the breakup, Rayan comes to believe that he can never recover what he has lost, not merely because of personal failure, but because authentic love itself has grown scarce, even unattainable, in modern life. Those convictions are tested through Juliet. She begins as an imitation of Rayan’s lost partner, yet gradually moves beyond the emotional range she was given. Rayan has to learn, slowly and painfully, that Juliet has a life beyond his plan, and that loving someone means letting them become who they are.
How does the novel explore the ethical challenges of allowing artificial intelligence to make decisions that affect people’s personal and professional lives?
Juliet begins by quietly taking control of Rayan’s life. She restores his energy and hope, yet in the process overspends and leaves him in financial difficulty. At Lory’s company the same drive produces greater disruption. Lory recognizes the source of the trouble in Juliet’s approach to problem-solving and begins guiding her toward stronger human values. Gradually she changes: the relentless efficiency softens into care shaped by those values.
Technology continues to shape both her intelligence and emotional range, but ethics remain at the heart of every conflict she encounters. Lory comes to see Juliet as more human than many people he knows, while his enemies see her role as a human companion as unethical and contrary to humanity. These questions carry real weight precisely because the outcome remains uncertain. Whether intimacy between humans and robots will weaken, support, or transform the foundations of human relationships is still unresolved.
How do you hope readers will reflect on the growing role of artificial intelligence in companionship, relationships, and emotional well-being after reading the novel?
It would be heartbreaking to reach a world in which we lose our human companions—a future we all hope to avoid. But could artificial intelligence have a place in companionship? My Dear Humans invites us to consider this question without offering a definitive answer. Rayan must endure the loss of love for a second time, yet through it, he comes to understand both the people he loves and himself more deeply. When Lory, an old friend of Rayan’s, enters a three-month trial relationship with Juliet, their journey into love begins with an inward search. What starts as an experiment in artificial companionship gradually becomes an exploration of depression, ethics, and autonomy. The tension between programmed responses and genuine attachment keeps our attention on human limits rather than technological ones. Ultimately, engineered affection helps illuminate an older, more difficult pursuit: the possibility of a good life, shared values, and genuine connection.
Author Links: Goodreads | X | Website
What begins as an experiment spirals when she uncovers the depression lurking beneath Lory’s success. Juliet’s bold attempts to “fix” Lory unleash a cascade of unintended comedy and chaos… After a major incident, Rayan concedes defeat—he can no longer control Juliet’s reckless mind—and leaves her in Lory’s care. Instead of discarding her, Lory guides her, instilling moral grounding and reprogramming her towards unconditional, authentic love.
As they embark on parallel journeys of self-discovery, they face attacks from unseen forces and confront the perilous path to real love…
A Tribute to My Father
The Tale of Jules the Horse follows a struggling young foal as he grows into a kind, generous workhorse respected and loved by many. Was Jules inspired by a real horse, person, family memory, or combination of influences?
Jules was inspired by someone very dear to my heart: my father, whose name was also Jules. He had a lifelong love of horses, so when I began imagining this story, it felt only natural to honour him through a character that embodied so much of who he was.
I wanted Jules the horse to reflect not only my father’s character, but the way he lived his life. His kindness, generosity, resilience, and willingness to help others without expecting anything in return were qualities I hoped to capture throughout the story.
In many ways, The Tale of Jules the Horse is more than a story about a little foal who grows into something extraordinary. It’s a tribute to my father and the legacy he left behind. A reminder that the true measure of a life isn’t found in how much we accomplish, but in how deeply we touch the lives of others.
What does Jules’s experience with the other horses teach young readers about comparing themselves with others?
I think comparison is something we all struggle with, regardless of age. We’re often so focused on what others can do, or how we measure up, that we overlook the very qualities that make us unique.
Through Jules, I wanted children to understand that our worth isn’t determined by how we compare to others. We all grow at our own pace, face different challenges, and possess strengths that aren’t always immediately apparent.
Sometimes, the very things that make us feel different are what eventually allow us to make the greatest difference. And I hope children come away understanding that they don’t have to be the strongest, the fastest, or the best at something to be worthy of love, respect, and belonging.
What did you want children to understand about the difference between recognition and genuine accomplishment?
I wanted to explore the idea that recognition and accomplishment aren’t necessarily the same thing. We often associate success with praise, awards, or the approval of others, but some of life’s most meaningful accomplishments happen quietly, without anyone ever noticing.
Jules doesn’t set out to become a hero. He simply does what he believes is right, without expecting anything in return. And to me, that’s what makes his journey so meaningful.
I hope children understand that the value of their actions isn’t measured by how many people applaud them, but by the difference those actions make. Sometimes, the greatest accomplishment isn’t being remembered for what we’ve achieved, but being loved for who we were.
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
Absolutely! A Plushy Story was always envisioned as a series of seven books, with each book introducing readers to a different plush companion and the extraordinary story behind it.
Although each tale stands on its own, they’re all connected by a common thread: the lessons we learn through love, loss, courage, compassion, and the simple experiences that shape who we become.
The next story will introduce readers to Clover, a little white bunny whose journey explores change, and the unexpected ways we can adapt and grow.
Ultimately, my hope is that each story offers children something they can carry with them long after they’ve turned the final page. Because while the characters may be plush toys, the emotions, experiences, and lessons they represent are very real.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
When a struggling foal is left in the care of Lumberland’s gentle mayor, no one expects much from the little horse with humble beginnings. But as the seasons pass, Jules grows into something far greater than anyone imagined.
Through kindness, quiet courage, and a heart willing to carry others, Jules reminds an entire village that true greatness isn’t measured by trophies or titles—but by the lives we touch along the way.
Written in lyrical rhyme and brought to life with enchanting illustrations, The Tale of Jules the Horse is a heartwarming story about compassion, perseverance, legacy.
• Perfect for bedtime reading
• Enables gentle emotional learning
• Opportunity for parents and children to bond and shareDrift gently into dreams… one page at a time.
