The Trapped Operator
Peter S. Bergeron’s The Trapped Operator is a practical business book about the difference between running a company and truly owning one. Bergeron builds the book around a painful personal experience: the collapse of his family’s business after his father’s death exposed how much of the company’s knowledge, direction, and decision-making had remained concentrated in one person. That story gives the book emotional weight, but it also serves a clear purpose. Bergeron uses what happened to introduce the Fatal Issues Framework, a diagnostic model designed to help owners identify the structural weaknesses that keep them overworked, reactive, and indispensable.
As a small business management book, it offers a thoughtful alternative to the usual linear picture of startup, growth, and maturity. Bergeron argues that companies repeatedly move among three operational states: Survival, Scale, and Stability. He then connects those states to twelve recurring problems, including inadequate capitalization, poor cash flow management, client overdependence, weak marketing, ineffective management, and failure to evolve. The framework’s strongest idea is containment. A healthy business doesn’t need to eliminate every source of pressure, but it does need systems capable of keeping one problem from spreading throughout the organization. That approach feels especially useful because it encourages owners to look beneath urgent symptoms instead of solving the same crisis again under a different name.
The book also works as an entrepreneurship guide because it turns its concepts into a sequence readers can apply. Bergeron organizes the company around Resource, Process, Visibility, and Enterprise systems, then explains how weaknesses travel between them. A brief assessment places readers into one of eight business profiles, while later chapters provide specific containment disciplines for each fatal issue. The examples drawn from contractors, manufacturers, staffing firms, and other owner-led companies keep the material grounded. Bergeron’s background in finance and operations shows in the detail, particularly when he discusses capitalization, cash forecasting, financial controls, delegation, and management development. Some sections revisit the same structural language several times, but that repetition also reinforces a vocabulary readers will need to use the framework effectively.
What makes The Trapped Operator particularly compelling as a family business succession book is its understanding that a company can be profitable, respected, and deeply loved while still being unable to survive its founder. Bergeron treats succession as the result of years of structural preparation rather than a transaction completed near retirement. His tone remains direct and empathetic because he knows the owner’s identity is often tangled up with the business itself. The result is a substantive, personal, and highly actionable book for entrepreneurs who want to build leadership depth, reduce founder dependency, and create a small business that can keep functioning when they finally step away.
Pages: 207 | ASIN: B0H751RPHJ
Timebomb
TIMEBOMB is a high-velocity military thriller that brings former SAS soldier Rick Fernscale back into the crosshairs of The Chameleons, a ruthless globalist organisation with a new apocalyptic scheme called Project Lucifer. After SAS Trooper Ronnie Anderson is kidnapped and used as bait, Rick is pulled from his hidden life into a chain of hijackings, assassinations, undercover missions, political upheaval, and a final island confrontation where the fate of millions hangs by a very literal countdown. The novel moves with the blunt urgency of a field report, never lingering long before the next ambush, explosion, betrayal, or tactical improvisation arrives.
What I found most striking was the book’s appetite for momentum. Barron writes action as if he is assembling machinery under pressure: guns, aircraft, vehicles, medical procedures, military acronyms, and emergency responses all have weight and texture. There is a fondness here for technical specificity, and while the details can occasionally crowd the page, they also give the novel its particular flavor. I felt the story worked best when Rick was forced to think under impossible conditions, whether in freefall, undercover, or cornered by enemies who have underestimated him.
I also found the book’s political edge impossible to ignore. TIMEBOMB isn’t a neutral thriller; it’s openly argumentative, sometimes polemical, and very much interested in climate policy, state power, media control, and distrust of elite institutions. Some readers will find that bracing. For me, the strongest moments came when the ideological scaffolding gave way to personal stakes: Rick’s loyalty to Maria, the camaraderie among soldiers, and the grim knowledge that survival often depends on nerve, timing, and a willingness to do ugly things quickly.
I would recommend TIMEBOMB to readers who enjoy military thrillers, political conspiracy, action novels, techno-thrillers, and adventure stories. It will especially appeal to readers who like their fiction combative and loaded with hardware, strategy, and geopolitical suspicion. Fans of Tom Clancy may recognize the same taste for operational detail and large-scale threat, though Barron’s voice is more pugnacious and less bureaucratic. TIMEBOMB is a hard-charging thriller with a fuse short enough to make every chapter exciting.
Pages: 173 | ASIN : B0GX31229Z
Six Weeks: A Literary Memoir
William Ledbetter’s Six Weeks is a memoir of family inheritance, sibling devotion, and end-of-life caregiving, centered on the final weeks of his sister Nancy’s life. After Nancy is diagnosed with terminal cancer and enters hospice, Ledbetter fulfills an earlier promise to help care for her. The narrative moves between the practical demands of those weeks and the family history that shaped the siblings’ relationship. By placing Nancy’s illness within a larger account of poverty, abuse, estrangement, faith, work, and reconciliation, Ledbetter presents caregiving as the culmination of a bond formed through decades of shared responsibility.
The memoir’s structure follows the movement of a single day, progressing through sections titled “The Promise,” “The Dawn,” “The Afternoon,” and “The Night.” This design gives the book a sense of approaching darkness while allowing the earlier chapters to explore several generations of family experience. Ledbetter’s recurring observation that “We are the sum of the decisions we make and the decisions made upon us by generations before us” provides the book’s central idea. In tracing the consequences of those decisions, he shows how inherited wounds can become habits of vigilance, humor, discipline, and care. Family history isn’t presented as background alone. It explains why Bill organizes, protects, and assumes responsibility, and why Nancy responds to suffering with patience, compassion, and faith.
Ledbetter writes in a direct, observant style that pays close attention to ordinary objects and routines. Hospital badges, medication binders, diner menus, household bills, a broken clock, and a serving of rice pudding carry emotional meaning without losing their physical reality. The hospice chapters are especially effective because they show love through labor: recording dosages, answering calls, managing paperwork, helping Nancy remain comfortable, and staying near her when conversation is no longer possible. Humor also remains essential to the siblings’ relationship, giving them a recognizable way to communicate when solemn language would feel inadequate. Nancy emerges as a fully realized presence whose generosity continues even as her world becomes smaller.
The memoir reaches its emotional resolution through reconciliation. Estranged relatives reconnect, unfinished obligations are addressed, and Bill gradually recognizes that his commitment to Nancy has given them both a measure of peace. At her funeral, he reflects on Nancy’s belief that sixty years had been “enough living for a full life,” a statement the book supports through its careful portrait of her influence as a sister, mother, teacher, and friend. Her final letter to Bill completes the promise at the heart of the memoir by affirming that his efforts held the family together. Six Weeks is ultimately a thoughtful record of how devotion becomes action, how family patterns can be confronted with honesty, and how grace can take shape through the difficult work of remaining present.
Pages: 248 | ASIN: B0H2QSP2MG
Alice and Agapogo
Alice and Agapogo: A Tale of Two Worlds follows Alice, a brave and stubborn girl hiding from the witch Matilda, as she escapes into a mysterious Underworld with her two loyal dogs, Bella and Lola. What begins as a flight for safety turns into a much larger adventure involving the Sanctuary, ancient Miners, prophecies, betrayal, a talking Cricket, and the dragon-like Agapogo, who becomes both protector and friend. It’s a big, imaginative children’s fantasy with danger, loyalty, courage, and a strong sense that a child can matter deeply in the struggle against darkness.
I found myself most drawn to Alice herself. She’s not a neat, perfectly behaved heroine, and I liked that. She makes risky choices, argues with fear, gets things wrong, and keeps going anyway. Her bond with the dogs gives the story its warmest heartbeat. Those moments where Bella and Lola protect her, sit beside her, or silently understand what she needs felt tender in a way that grounded all the magic. I also appreciated that the book doesn’t treat children as fragile observers. Alice is scared, but she’s also capable, observant, and morally awake.
At times, the story’s rhythm feels almost like an oral tale being told around a fire, with direct sentences, repeated thoughts, sudden turns, and a strong forward pull. That gives the book urgency and a handmade charm. I did occasionally feel the story was crowded, with so many characters, attacks, plans, prophecies, and revelations that some emotional beats could’ve used more room. Still, the ideas stayed with me: chosen courage, the cost of betrayal, the possibility of repentance, and the way old stories can become real when a child is brave enough to step into them.
I thought this was an ambitious and heartfelt fantasy with a dark edge and a surprisingly emotional core. This is an exciting story overall, with witches, danger, pursuit, and some intense scenes. I can see it captivating confident middle-grade readers who like dragons, hidden worlds, loyal animals, and children who outthink adults. I’d recommend it for families who enjoy adventurous fantasy with danger, mystery, and a sincere belief in courage.
Pages: 231 | ASIN : B0H3GDKSX3
Wacky Whales & Tuff Ruffy
Wacky Whales & Tuff Ruffy by Rain Story is a lively underwater adventure story for kids set around New Zealand’s Chatham Rise. The story follows traveling whales Crescendo and Echo as they return home to a bustling community of sharks, fish, an orca, an octopus, and other memorable sea creatures. What begins as a cheerful homecoming soon grows into a larger rescue mission when seismic surveying, commercial trawling, discarded waste, and damaged seabeds threaten their ocean home.
The book moves through its plot in quick, comic-book-like episodes, with speech bubbles, playful names, and frequent action. Hurley’s determination, Flail’s troublemaking, Groovy’s leadership, and the whales’ teamwork give young readers several personalities to follow. Beneath the jokes and narrow escapes, this children’s book builds a clear message about cooperation, responsible fishing, habitat protection, and caring for injured wildlife. References to Māori clothing and language also connect the fantasy adventure to its New Zealand setting.
The illustrations are the book’s strongest storytelling feature. Nearly every page is filled with bright, cinematic underwater scenes, expressive faces, colorful coral, bubbles, nets, boats, and sweeping ocean views. The characters’ exaggerated reactions make danger and humor easy to understand, while larger scenes, such as the damaged seabed and community cleanup, help children see the scale of the environmental problem. The visual style gives this illustrated ocean adventure the energy of an animated film and provides plenty for children to notice during a read-aloud.
Wacky Whales & Tuff Ruffy is an energetic marine conservation story for children that combines comedy, rescue action, cultural details, and an accessible conservation theme. Its large cast and fast sequence of events make it feel like a whole underwater community coming together rather than a story centered on one hero. Young readers who enjoy whales, sharks, sea life, environmental adventures, and humorous picture books will find a busy, imaginative world here, along with a practical reminder that protecting the ocean takes teamwork.
Pages: 47 | ASIN: B0H6FDTQ3Z
Built on Unconditional Love
The Devil Inside follows a father and daughter pulled into a haunting tied to H.H. Holmes, where ledgers, mirrors, and breathing pages reveal that evil survives through memory and the stories that keep rewriting it. What inspired you to reimagine H.H. Holmes?
H.H. Holmes has always fascinated me because he’s one of history’s most infamous serial killers, but most books about him simply retell the crimes we already know. I wanted to explore something different. I started asking myself, What if Holmes never really disappeared? What if death wasn’t the end for him? What if he found a way to rebuild his Murder Castle and continue his work through memory, obsession, and the people drawn to him? That “what if” became the foundation of the novel. Rather than writing another historical thriller, I wanted to blend real history with supernatural horror and create a story where Holmes becomes something far more terrifying than a man. You could say I wanted to bring him back to life.
The novel uses recurring images of ink, ledgers, gold script, ash, and breathing architecture. How did those motifs develop as you wrote the story?
Those images grew naturally as I explored the idea that evil leaves traces behind. Holmes wasn’t just collecting victims in my version of the story. He was preserving them. The ledgers became a way of recording souls, the ink represented memory refusing to fade, and the gold script symbolized temptation because it always appeared beautiful before revealing something horrific. Even the house itself became a living participant in the story. I wanted the building to feel as though it remembered every victim and every secret, almost as if the walls were breathing alongside the people trapped inside. Those recurring images helped tie the supernatural elements together while reinforcing the idea that some horrors never truly disappear because they simply wait to be remembered. As I continued writing, those motifs took on a life of their own and became another way of showing that the past is never truly gone. It lingers, waiting for someone to uncover it.
Julie and Frank’s relationship gives the horror a strong emotional center. How important was that father-daughter bond to the novel’s structure?
For me, it was the heart of the novel. Horror is always more powerful when readers genuinely care about the people facing it. Frank approaches everything as a scientist who believes there must be a logical explanation, while Julie is forced to experience things that defy reason. Their relationship creates a balance between skepticism and belief, but more importantly, it’s built on unconditional love. No matter how frightening the haunting becomes, Frank never stops trying to protect his daughter. That emotional bond gives the story its humanity and raises the stakes because the battle isn’t just about surviving evil. It’s about a father refusing to lose his child to it.
What do you hope readers are still thinking about after they turn the final page of The Devil Inside?
I hope readers walk away wondering where evil really comes from. Is it something we create, something we inherit, or something that survives because we continue telling its story? The Devil Inside asks whether monsters die with their bodies or whether they continue to exist through memory, fear, and obsession. More than anything, I hope readers are left questioning the things we choose to remember and the things we desperately try to forget because sometimes those are the stories that refuse to stay buried.
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What begins as a haunting becomes something far more disturbing: a legacy of obsession born in the shadow of Chicago’s Murder Castle, where a killer learned to turn flesh into data and memory into machinery. As the past reasserts itself through hidden ledgers, buried tunnels, and recorded breaths, Julie is drawn into a design that refuses to end.
To break the cycle, she must descend into places where light cannot reach, where history does not stay buried and the Devil is no longer a man, but an idea that survives through memory, ritual, and inheritance.
The Devil Inside Me is a gothic, slow-burn psychological horror novel that blends possession, historical evil, and emotional dread. Elegant, unsettling, and relentless, it explores temptation, redemption, and the terrifying cost of remembering what was never meant to survive.
A Community of Colorful, Creative Folks
The Utterly Unacceptable Atrocity of Isabelle Marsden follows a former event planner who retreats to Kansas and discovers, through art and friendship, that healing may require becoming gloriously unacceptable. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
NSP: Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve found–and eventually been absorbed into–a community of colorful, creative folks who have encouraged me to explore and develop sides of myself I didn’t even know I had. Their encouragement has been instrumental in helping me heal from grief and physical setbacks. I wanted to see how my protagonist, Belle, would react if placed in a similar community.
How did you approach creating characters like Reba, Mae, Ezra, and Wallace so they felt emotionally essential to Belle’s journey?
NSP: I’m glad you thought so. I had to think about how to answer this question because I didn’t do anything intentionally with that aim in mind. I just thought Belle connected with those three characters, and they connected with her, in very sincere ways that conveyed care and support.
Lawrence, Kansas feels both grounded and faintly enchanted in the story. What drew you to this setting, and how did it shape the novel’s atmosphere?
NSP: I lived in Lawrence for six years while attending graduate school. I found a rich and diverse community both inside and outside the university, including a few people on whom I based some of the book’s characters. It was also there that I learned about Lucas, grassroots art, and the people who create it. And yes, Lawrence did feel both grounded and faintly enchanted in my experience there.
Humor plays a big role in a story that also deals with trauma, humiliation, and grief. How did you balance the novel’s off-kilter comedy with its more serious emotional undercurrent?
NSP: I grew up in a family that used humor to cope with stressful situations–not in a way that discounted the seriousness, but in off-kilter ways that gave us a break and a chance to smile and laugh together. That impulse still comes naturally to me.
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All Isabelle Marsden wants when she moves from Chicago to Kansas is a place to retreat, reassess, and regain control of her life after an ugly #MeToo experience. But after a chance encounter with a free-spirited artist who carries a wallaby in a baby sling and makes assemblages from roadkill, she’s drawn into a community of eccentrics who soon have her lobbying to rescue their Summer Solstice parade, conducting surveillance at a roadside zoo, and visiting an outsider artist’s strange, yet intriguing, sculpture garden.
Inspired by that wild creation, Belle starts her own peculiar assemblage, convinced it’s the key to repairing her fractured life. As she uncovers her hidden creativity—and madness—her project lands her in trouble with her landlady, the city zoning department, and even the police. Ultimately, her only way through is to rely on help from her found family of oddball characters—and on her newly redefined self.
The Genre Holder
Ex-Mas Song follows a man who survives a suicide attempt and wakes to face his failures, toxic attachment, fractured family life, and desperate need for recovery. At what point did you know this would become a Christmas story?
This project began as a dare from my then second wife to write a meta-fiction story like the film Adaptation, directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman (portrayed by Nicolas Cage in the movie), who writes about his problems scripting a non-fiction book into a metaphysical meta-mess of a comedy. My first thought was, “Well, what would I write about?” The answer became what was going on around me during Christmas. That became the starting point, but I spun my wheels on it until I came up with an idea for a structure: mimic A Christmas Carol. Since mental health, suicide ideation, addiction, and recovery play such a prominent role in my life’s history and experience, that became the idea, and A Christmas Carol became the genre holder, so to speak. “Cont;nue” became a subtheme for the book.
Faith is central to the novel, but the journey feels more like wrestling than preaching. Was that balance important to you?
My faith became the cornerstone that made my redemption possible. However, after it happens, it’s no longer about me, but about helping others. After I began to let God reshape my life, I began to serve others more. In order to serve, you have to talk to people and listen to their stories. The opportunity came to help lead a faith-based twelve-step program, which is about “walking the talk”, yielding oneself for service, or living out the Serenity Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer and the Serenity Prayer are my cornerstones to sobriety and sanity. There is no use in preaching those prayers. One must live them out for them to be of any use. Words are meaningless without being connected to action and the motives of the heart. When the right words match the right motives, miracles can happen!
The psychiatric ward is portrayed with both pain and humanity. How important was it to avoid stereotypes?
There were no stereotypes since most of it was based on first-hand experience; Grandpa’s Ghost, Boz, and the Merry Prankster were meta-add-ins from A Christmas Carol (Boz) structure. The closest literary experience that I have come across regarding a psychiatric ward would be One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey (the Merry Prankster), which I read after my own experience. I would like to add that some reviewers and readers have mixed reactions to Blair (which can translate to “battlefield”). Your review was very sympathetic. Hint: she represents the PAST, and as we all know, the Past Doesn’t Change: it’s a Dead End. The Serenity Prayer helps me to deal with the past and to focus on the here and now as I head toward the future.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I have two ongoing concerns. The older and longer project is a Mark Twain meets Jules Verne steam balloon adventure. A grandfather tinkerer makes a balloon for one last adventure, only to discover his granddaughter has stowed away, and shenanigans ensue. I am about three-fourths done with a draft, but since I revise as I go along, I doubt this will be finished and published in 2027.
The other ongoing project is my latest serial on Substack. Breaking Grin’s Law is a Gothic mystery, an alchemical comedy with an ensemble cast. Set in 1803 Heidelberg, Germany, two orphaned brothers, Sebastian and Karl Grin, work at a rare book store and attend University during the night, and solve bizarre occult mysteries at night. The serial comes out at the end of every month, covering the brothers’ adventure in the form of a principle that is experienced or discovered. I am halfway done with this project. The latest installment is June’s “Send in the Golem,” which is available here.
Once the serial is complete, it will form the next installment of the 13 short story collection, which I hope to publish sometime in 2027, so to speak. “Cont;nue” became a subtheme for the book.
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