Emotional Depth
Emerland: The Return of the Dark Lord follows a girl revealed to be the Starborn, as ancient rivalries, forbidden magic, and a love bound to destiny converge in a struggle against the darkness rising. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration to write Emerland: The Return of the Dark Lord was my desire to escape reality and step into a world where dreams were possible. Even though that world carried its own fights, fears, and darkness, victory still had its day.
Over time, I reached a point where I became so detached from reality that Emerland began to feel real. It was then that the story began to shape itself in its own way, becoming something I could clearly visualise unfolding. It reached a point where I was experiencing Emerland rather than writing it, and that is the experience I wanted to offer readers—the ability to see the story unfold as they read. That, to me, is the real joy and the inspiration to write.
How did you balance prophecy and destiny with Diamond’s need to discover herself as a person?
For me, prophecy was never meant to define Diamond—it was meant to challenge her. While it sets a path before her, it does not decide who she becomes.
This is reflected early in the story, where the elves grant Baba Yaba two visions and one life for the chosen one, knowing that one life would never be enough to overcome what lies ahead. In both visions, Diamond fails to fulfil the prophecy—once as a princess, and again despite strength and alliances. Those failures were important, as they show that prophecy alone is not enough.
In the end, the balance comes from making Emerland’s victory feel deserved, rather than something simply written in the stars. It becomes a shared victory—one that others can feel and share in, because they have witnessed Diamond’s fights, failures, struggles, tears, and fears.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
For me, the story was not built around a single theme, but rather a collection of emotions. Each character, dialogue, and moment was shaped by how it felt, and that emotional depth became the foundation of the novel.
For example, love is a strong driving force in the beginning. It is what moves Diamond—she leaves home out of love to find her steward, and later parts from Onyx to continue her journey. Yet, despite those choices, she does not always save what she sets out to protect, and in many ways, she experiences loss.
As the story unfolds, love returns in a more complex form. She fears it, resists it, and questions it, but eventually learns to live with it and draw strength from it.
In contrast, darkness carries its own presence—vast, powerful, and unyielding. It was important for me to do justice to that strength. Even in defeat, it does not simply give in, and that gives weight to the story.
Thus, giving words the weight of emotion is something I see as central to any story. In Emerland: The Return of the Dark Lord, each character carries its own emotional presence, and those emotions grow alongside them—something I found important in keeping the story natural and true. It may be a darker thought, but I found that even when characters are lost, their emotions do not fade; they remain with others and continue to shape the story—and in many ways, that is what keeps it alive…..
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
Writing is my passion. The stories and characters stay with me, often returning as thoughts in moments of quiet reflection—something I enjoy, though at times I set it aside to focus on life.
At the moment, I am not actively working on a new project, but I feel there is still much more to uncover within Emerland: The Return of the Dark Lord. Each character carries more of their story yet to be told, and it is a world I would certainly like to return to and continue exploring.
For now, my focus remains on Emerland: The Return of the Dark Lord and sharing its journey with readers.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
A sweeping tale of prophecy and rebellion, of mothers and monsters, Emerland: The Return of the Dark Lord is a lyrical epic where light is fragile, hope is costly, and even the stars are not silent.
Moral Perspectives
A Haunting Connection is a multi-point-of-view paranormal fantasy centered around a woman with a unique gift struggling to trust those around her and a man who questions his own powers. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
In the third grade, I was electrocuted. The hair dyer fell into the tub, and my mom had to revive me. Ever since, I’ve been fascinated by the paranormal and stories about life, death, and the energy that lingers. I love visiting old or historic places, and sometimes I get visions or ideas about what actually happened there. After I read the history, I’m often chilled by how similar my ideas and vision were to actual events.
The inspiration for The Ascension Series came after I delivered a package to a mysterious house on Cougar Mountain in Bellevue, WA. My scanner kept glitching when I went there, and my imagination created a story as to why. The house seemed to push me to start writing.
The other thing that inspired this book was Korean dramas. I watch them with my daughter and found myself sketching one out about an American in Korea caught in a complicated emotional situation. That concept worked perfectly for Brandon’s storyline.
Brandon acts as a kind of moral counterweight to Leah. How did you develop the contrast between their paths?
Brandon and Leah’s contrast really came from my travels. When I lived in Japan, I saw how people orient themselves around family, community, and the greater good. In Thailand, life seemed to be more about survival. People were more willing to take risks. In the U.S., our values create tension around personal desire and social expectations. We see these differences not only in cultures, but in age groups.
Leah is young and discovering her powers. She wants to help people, but that help comes in the form of manipulation. Over time, she finds herself justifying her actions for the greater good.
Brandon is a detective. He’s seen addiction and the misuse of power. So when he’s introduced to Yoona and given the chance to learn, he questions everything.
That contrast allowed me to explore the temptation of power and the discipline required to resist it. Their paths highlight perspective, life experience, and emotional maturity.
The multi-POV structure gives readers access to very different moral perspectives. What challenges did you face in balancing those viewpoints?
The biggest challenge was fully inhabiting each character—history, motivations, personal goals, and moral perspectives. I needed their actions to feel authentic to who they were, not a device to move the plot forward.
Another challenge was working with powerful characters. Yoona had to take actions that at times could be judged as morally wrong. But she sees the full picture and knows that in order to achieve necessary outcomes, she must bend her morality. That’s tricky when she is supposed to hold the moral high ground. But it works because Brandon, being skeptical, questions her, and in doing so, we explore the gray areas of morality.
When I traveled overseas, I saw knockoff brands everywhere, sold openly. In the U.S., doing the same thing could get you sued. But in Thailand, selling these items is a way to put food on the table. That raises questions: how do we judge what’s right or wrong when necessity forces choices we might otherwise reject? That tension is at the heart of A Haunting Connection.
Another major challenge I had was the cost. What is the cost for each character? For Leah, it’s her father’s trust, her best friend’s loyalty, and her own ability to choose. Power pulls, and each time she uses it, she loses the ability to resist.
Can you give us a glimpse inside Book 3 of The Ascension Series? Where will it take readers?
A Haunting Redemption opens with the same 1945 Nagasaki scene that started the first two books, but this time from Yoona’s perspective. Readers finally see the full story behind the pivotal moment that shaped the present.
From there, the story picks up where book two left off, with the long-anticipated disturbance Choi and Yoona have been talking about since book one. This event affects every character, altering lives and the world around them.
Then we race toward the confrontation between Ruth and Yoona. Who ends up redeeming themselves along the way, and how does that redemption change the world forever?
Leah Davenport survived the supernatural nightmare of A Haunting Deception,
but her struggles have only begun.
From Washington to Seoul, leaders and manipulators see her as the key to
shaping the world’s future. For Leah carries a rare gift: the ability to step inside
minds, to bend thoughts and feelings as if they were her own. And with every
use of her gift, she walks the path that destroyed those before her.
Caught between rivals, Leah must decide who to trust and how far she’s willing
to go to keep her freedom.
Meanwhile, Brandon Spencer trains with a shaman in Korea who promises similar
power, yet he begins to question whether such power is a gift, or a curse that
corrupts everyone who wields it.
Power has a price, and that price devours everything you love.
Imagination Isn’t Our Limitation
MIR.EXE follows a burned-out dockworker in corporate-controlled future Alaska, who is pulled into a dangerous mission involving stolen code, old loyalties, and a chance to break a company’s grip on the world. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The setting, characters, and major themes were inspired by my work for the Pentagon in Homeland Defense. I spent time in Alaska learning about and planning ways to defend the land and the people from disasters, both natural and man-made. On one of the many long flights home from Anchorage to DC, I asked myself, “What if we fail?” and began to sketch out what became “The Alaskan Century,” which I included as an epilogue. I prefer science fiction that explores a few changes in depth as opposed to the broad, more fantastical “space operas.” So I made one change, warm super-conduction, and went from there.
The book treats technology as something intimate, painful, and almost spiritual. What were you most interested in exploring through that human-machine tension?
I was (and still am) most interested in how humans interact in a changing world. Biologically, we (modern humans) are practically identical to nomadic and cave-dwelling ancestors of 100,000 years ago. So I don’t believe that another hundred or even a thousand years will drastically change the ways in which we interact. We will still be capable of simultaneous greed and generosity, of cruelty, and sympathy. I built my characters and the technological world around this framework. We have the capacity today to do marvelous things, but imagination isn’t our limitation; scarcity, tribalism, disease, love and passion, diplomacy, and war will always draw the focus. Technology won’t save us;an that mission has always been, and will always be, a human endeavor.
In that way, I suppose it is spiritual. Imagining increasingly advanced technology allows us to explore what it means to be human.
Echo is an intriguing and well-developed character. What were some driving ideals behind the character’s development?
I wanted Echo to be as flawed and perfect as any of us. He is motivated almost entirely by love, but that is not enough to succeed. At the same time, he has agency and is not some powerless recipient of the universe’s wrath. He is trying to do the right thing, but can’t control his environment, and lashes out in frustration like anyone else. I wanted to make the reader question their understanding of good and evil. In the end, there is a strong argument that Echo made the wrong decision, and that perhaps the status quo was the best outcome for most people. At the same time, the antagonists have some very valid points.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
While I hadn’t thought about it before, I’ve had requests from readers to explore both the next chapter in Echo’s story as well as a prequel. I’m exploring the space, writing new scenes, and building from there. I’m going to stick with this universe for a little while until I’ve said all that I want to say. Keep an eye out in 2027!
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Echo Kinyata, once a child soldier and now a CrateGhost stevedore with a hacked brain, has learned to keep his head down. But when his estranged wife Lyra sends a cryptic message, he’s pulled into a conspiracy that could topple Cryosaga’s iron grip. The key: a mysterious data chip from overseas, and a virus known as Mir—capable of upending the balance of power.
Hunted by insurgents who should be allies and stalked by AIs with agendas of their own, Echo must decide who to trust in a world where loyalty is currency and every choice cuts deep. MIR.EXE is a hard‑edged cyberpunk thriller where survival means outsmarting forces that blur the line between human and machine… and between good and evil.
Uncomfortable Question
In ARTIFICIAL EVERYTHING, you make the argument that our tendency to trade human connection and experiences for digital convenience is slowly erasing what makes us functional human beings. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I kept observing the same pattern everywhere: as we remove effort and friction from life, we also remove the very conditions that build human capability.
This book came from that discomfort. Not from theory, but from watching children, professionals, and entire systems slowly become more dependent while appearing more efficient.
I didn’t write it to critique technology. I wrote it to ask a more uncomfortable question: what are we becoming when nothing requires us anymore?
Did you learn anything in your research that surprised you?
What surprised me wasn’t a single finding, but the consistency of the pattern.
Across completely different areas — childhood, work, relationships — the same mechanism repeats: remove friction → capacity doesn’t develop → dependence increases.
What’s striking is how invisible this is in real time. Everything feels easier, better, more efficient… until you realise something fundamental is no longer there.
Were there parts of your own life where you noticed a shift away from human connection before you started writing?
Yes, and that’s part of what made the book unavoidable for me.
You start noticing how quickly even highly capable people reach for AI before thinking, or how communication becomes easier but less real, or how silence and boredom have almost disappeared.
It’s not dramatic. It’s gradual, and that’s exactly why it’s powerful.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from ARTIFICIAL EVERYTHING?
Awareness.
Not rejection of technology, but recognition that convenience is not neutral. It shapes what we become.
If readers finish the book and simply pause before taking the easiest option, and ask, “What am I not developing here?” Then the book has done its job.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
In ARTIFICIAL EVERYTHING, Dr. Carine Jennings examines a pattern that has quietly reshaped childhood, work, social life, and human capability itself.
Across domains, friction has been systematically removed, replaced by screens, algorithms, automation, and artificial substitutes. What was once built through struggle, effort, and necessity is now outsourced, optimized, or eliminated.
This is not a book about technology as innovation. It is a book about technology as substitution.
Drawing on sustained observation rather than academic theory, Jennings traces how convenience alters development:
Children grow without unstructured play.
Professionals outsource thinking to AI.
Social connection becomes performance.
Conflict is avoided rather than resolved.
Productivity increases. Capability declines.
The result is a new human type; highly functional in mediated environments, increasingly fragile without them.
ARTIFICIAL EVERYTHING is not anti-technology and not nostalgic. It does not argue for going backward. It asks a harder question: what do we lose when every human challenge is replaced with an artificial solution?
Written as cultural diagnosis rather than prescription, this book names what is eroding, why it matters, and why the consequences may only become visible when it is too late to reverse them.
For readers interested in cultural critique, human development, leadership, education, and the long-term cost of convenience, this book offers clarity where reassurance is easier.
Worth of a Girl
Worth of a Girl is a faith-centered suspense novel that follows eight-year-old Bibi, a Ugandan girl who thinks she is being sent to school, only to be drawn into a trafficking operation disguised as a trade school. From there, the story becomes a survival narrative about deception, cruelty, rescue, and the long road back to dignity. It’s fiction, but the book makes clear that it is rooted in real patterns of child trafficking, and that real-world grounding gives the novel its weight.
I enjoyed how plainly C.A. Simonson tells this story. The writing is direct, accessible, and emotionally clear. There is no fancy distance between the reader and the pain here. We experience so much through Bibi’s innocence, and that choice gives the early chapters a hard kind of irony because I understood the danger long before she did. That made the book unsettling in an effective way. I also thought Simonson handled contrast well. The false promises of dresses, schooling, and food sit right beside the reality of exploitation, and that gap becomes the whole engine of the novel. The dialogue and character lines felt pointed at times, but in this case, I could see why. This is the kind of book that wants to tell a story and sound an alarm at the same time.
I found myself responding just as much to the author’s moral choices as to the plot. This is not a morally gray book. It is openly interested in evil, faith, protection, and restoration, and it leans fully into a Christian framework where prayer, providence, and courage shape the way forward. That will work well for some readers. For me, it mostly worked because the book’s strongest thread is not abstraction but worth itself, the insistence that children who are treated like property are still fully human, still precious, still deserving of safety and a future. I appreciated that the ending does not stop at rescue. It keeps moving toward rebuilding, education, work, community, and leadership, especially in Bibi’s later life, which gave the novel a sense of earned hope instead of quick relief.
I would recommend Worth of a Girl most strongly to readers of Christian fiction, issue-driven suspense, and redemptive drama, especially those who want a novel that is emotionally straightforward and grounded in a real social crisis. It’s not a subtle book, and I don’t think it wants to be. It wants to witness, to warn, and to restore some sense of hope. I respected that. Readers who want a heartfelt, faith-shaped novel about survival, rescue, and human dignity will likely find a lot to appreciate here.
Pages: 314 | ASIN : B0G6KNFMNB
Love in Action Starts With Ourselves
Destination Marriage is a faith-centered guide to traditional marriage that celebrates the unique strengths of men and women and offers a heartfelt roadmap to lifelong commitment, unity, and purpose. Was there a specific moment or realization that sparked this book?
As a combat-wounded veteran of the Vietnam War who was quite near death back in 1968. I am sure I have had a good beginning and following lifetime events to appreciate many sacred things in my life, such as Love, Health, and life in general.
You emphasize love as a daily choice. What does “love as action” look like in everyday life?
Love in action starts with ourselves and spreads outward. We need to do the best we can for ourselves concerning health and financial matters. When we can reach a good level, we need to attract am opposite sex partner that can unite with us in marriage to move forward in our lives.
What does true partnership look like in marriage?
A true partnership in marriage puts everyone on the same page where we have the liberty to activate ourselves as individuals within the partnership to bring as many qualities as possible to all concerned within the family.
What gives you hope for the future of marriage?
I have a great hope to see marriages become a personal goal to secure the most successful way of life. Only when we can feel the senses of love that continually grows as men and women unite in marriage can we feel truly alive. It is not so much for what we can do for ourselves that matters, it’s what we can do for the ones we love to share in our successes no matter how small or large they may be.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
You’re Not Too Old, and It’s Not Too Late: Weekly Practices for Meaning, Mindfulness, and New Possibilities at Midlife and Beyond
You’re Not Too Old, and It’s Not Too Late is a warm, research-informed companion for midlife and later adulthood, structured as fifty-two short chapters of reflection and practice rather than a single linear argument. Author Ilene Berns-Zare writes out of positive psychology, mindfulness, and lived experience, urging readers to rethink aging not as a narrowing corridor but as a season still open to meaning, creativity, resilience, and renewal. The book moves easily between scientific findings and intimate personal images: a chain link fence that comes to stand for fear of what lies beyond retirement, the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi as a way of honoring cracks rather than hiding them, and a red maple tree whose stubborn growth becomes a tender emblem of endurance. What emerges is less a manifesto than a weekly invitation to ask better questions of one’s life and to answer them with attention, gentleness, and action.
Berns-Zare is earnest, but not brittle. She writes like someone who has had to coax herself, morning by morning, toward steadier ground. I felt that especially in the passages where she admits to feeling unsettled by aging, by loss, by transition, and then slowly turns those anxieties into inquiry instead of denial. The chapter built around the gratitude letter to her high school music teacher gave the book an unexpected depth of feeling. It reminded me that her central subject isn’t really optimization. It’s reverence. Reverence for teachers, for family, for inner life, for the possibility that even now, after disappointment or fatigue or grief, something unfinished in us may still want to bloom.
I also admired the way the book keeps trying to braid ideas with practice. Berns-Zare returns to a familiar constellation of themes: growth mindset, gratitude, mindfulness, purpose, supportive relationships, self-compassion, and flow. I think these are sturdy and worthwhile ideas, and she presents them with clarity and conviction. Because the chapters are designed as weekly meditations, a few insights arrive in slightly different clothing. Even so, the writing has a sincere luminosity that carried me through those repetitions. I was especially moved by her refusal to make aging sound glamorous. She makes it relatable. Bodies falter, identities shift, energy changes, grief enters the room, and yet she keeps pressing toward a broader, kinder language for what a later life can be.
I found this to be a generous and thoughtful book. It offers companionship, perspective, and a believable faith that a person can still grow wiser, more open, more alive. I’d recommend it most to readers in midlife and beyond who want reflective, research-aware encouragement rather than hard-edged self-help, and also to anyone standing at a threshold, wondering whether change still belongs to them. This book’s answer is yes.
Pages: 252 | ISBN : 978-1957354958
The Metamorphosis of Marna Love
Tom McEachin’s The Metamorphosis of Marna Love follows a sixteen-year-old Iowa girl whose strange dreams, appetite for existential literature, and growing suspicion that her mother has hidden something immense from her begin to braid together into a deeper reckoning. What starts as a sharp, observant coming-of-age story about jobs, boys, school, friendship, a bowling alley that feels like sensory warfare, gradually opens into a mystery about memory, violence, and the buried aftermath of a supermarket shooting from Marna’s childhood. The novel’s real engine is not plot alone but Marna’s inward change: she moves from skittish curiosity to moral urgency, and then toward a harder, more adult kind of self-knowledge.
I liked how intimately the book inhabits adolescent consciousness without making Marna flimsy or precious. She’s funny, exasperating, bright, vain in small human ways, and often startlingly earnest. Her running arguments with Kafka and her teacher, her awkward experiments with dating, her loyalty to Kate, and her instinctive but imperfect love for her mother all make her feel lived-in rather than designed. I especially liked the way McEachin lets her mind dart: one moment literary, the next petty, the next wounded, the next brave. That movement gives the novel a supple realism. I also found the mother-daughter relationship unusually affecting. Barbara is not merely withholding information for plot purposes; she is a woman who has survived something and then tried, perhaps clumsily but lovingly, to make a habitable life after it. Their conversations have a bruised tenderness that resonated with me.
What surprised me was the book’s moral texture. A lesser novel might have turned the mystery at its center into a clean revelation, but this one keeps asking messier questions: what memory owes truth, what gratitude owes reality, whether one act of courage can coexist with a damaged life, and how a young person learns to judge others without becoming glib. I liked that the novel grows more serious without becoming pompous. I do feel that some passages could have been trimmed, and now and then the dialogue explains a touch too much, but the book’s emotional candor more than compensates. By the final pages, I felt the story had earned its tenderness. It doesn’t confuse transformation with polish; Marna’s metamorphosis is awkward, costly, and incomplete, which is exactly why it feels true.
I would recommend this novel to readers of young adult literary fiction, coming-of-age fiction, psychological fiction, family drama, and mystery-inflected contemporary novels, especially anyone who likes books where interior life matters as much as events. It should resonate with readers who enjoy the introspective intelligence of John Green, though this novel is earthier and more quietly feral in its emotional weather. I read The Metamorphosis of Marna Love as a novel about how identity is not discovered in one flash but assembled, painfully and beautifully, from memory, language, and the courage to look straight at what hurt you. This is a coming-of-age novel that understands growing up is less a bloom than a reckoning.
Pages: 252 | ASIN : B0GKCJDYGD
