Communication is Key
Husband Wants Hotwife follows a happily married woman who tests the strength of her marriage when she explores the eroticism of the “hotwife” world. Where did the idea for this book come from?
The idea came from the first paragraphs. As soon as those words “I told him I couldn’t do it” stuck in my head, the remainder of the book fell into place.
Emma’s voice is very conversational, and the pacing moves quickly from one major scene to the next. How did you shape her narrative voice and rhythm to keep readers engaged?
How to explain this? When I’m writing, it’s as though the characters have taken over and I’m merely recording their stories. In Emma’s case, it’s clear from the first page that her hormones have taken over. She’s eager and open to sex, and as a good-looking woman with a kinky husband, things are going to happen.
Consent and communication are central to the story, especially in high-intensity situations — what real-world influences shaped how you portrayed the dynamics in Chris and Emma’s relationship?
Communication is key to any successful marriage, but it’s absolutely essential in a hotwife union where the possibilities of jealousy and misunderstandings are so close to the surface.
Can we look forward to more books from you soon? What are you currently working on?
I just released Creating a Cuckold, and I’m working on a new novella that will take a unique track. Below is the blurb for Creating a Cuckold:
Even though it scared him, Brad wanted his beautiful wife, Isabella, to cheat on him. He planned always to leave her unfulfilled, then to introduce her to his friend Mike as a test. He knew Mike had a way with women, but Brad wasn’t ready for the hold Mike soon had on Isabella. It wasn’t long before he discovered that his wife was being shared at work, and that she was a size queen.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~
We could hear them going at it upstairs as I made fresh coffee for us in the kitchen. My body was humming like a cord stretched tight for too long. I’d put on a long housedress, but my husband Chris was sitting naked at the table.
“We need to talk,” he said.
I turned to look at him, thinking, “Oh, no.”
“How do you feel about all the things we’ve done today?” He started.
My thoughts went from “Oh, no” to “No way!” I saw nothing good coming from this conversation.
“I don’t know,” I said while attempting to look busy. “How do you feel about it?”
What a chickenshit I was. I was happy to be wearing the old housedress, which covered everything but my head, feet, and hands. It felt like a layer of flimsy armour.
“Did it turn you on?” Chris asked.
What a stupid question! I was still wet down there, and I could feel my lady parts vibrating. So, what did I say?
“Yeah, kinda. What about you?” I needn’t have asked. Chris was sporting a magnificent boner.
“I got excited watching you with her, and now I’m wondering if the same thing would happen if I watched you with another guy.” Chris was so upfront about it that he just blew me away with his honesty.
“How would you feel about watching me with another woman?” There it was, Chris had asked the magic question, the question I suspected was the real reason for his eagerness to share me. He wanted to get himself some strange.
“Nope,” I said. “That’s not happening. You’re mine, exclusively.”
I was happy to see Chris smiling. Happy, but confused. “Why are you smiling?” I asked.
“It’s what I hoped you would say. I don’t want another woman. I just want to share you and enjoy the pleasure it gives me.”
The next day, Chris asked a question that surprised me, and that’s not easy for him to do. I pride myself on being able to anticipate him. I believe all wives in successful marriages possess this skill or something similar. After a while together, you can anticipate where your significant other is usually going. But not this time.
“What would you think of us joining a sex club?”
The Turning Point
Too Strong For Your Own Good is an intimate blend of memoir and guidance that invites readers to explore the hidden cost of chronic strength and to show exhausted high achievers how to reclaim health, joy, and self-leadership by listening to their bodies. Why was this an important book for you to write?
This book wasn’t something I decided to write—it was something that asked to be written through me.
For decades, I lived the life of the “strong one.” The high achiever. The helper. The woman who could handle anything—until my body finally said no. After surviving multiple cancer diagnoses, chronic illness, and profound burnout, I realized that the very strength I had been praised for was slowly costing me my health, my joy, and my sense of self.
As I healed, I began to recognize this same pattern everywhere. In my years of coaching leaders and high performers, I watched capable, compassionate people quietly disconnect from themselves in the name of responsibility, success, and survival. The strongest people were often the most exhausted and the least supported.
I wrote Too Strong For Your Own Good so others don’t have to spend decades learning what nearly cost me my life—that real strength includes the wisdom to rest, the courage to feel, and the trust to finally come home to yourself. This book is both a truth-telling and an invitation to evolve from survival-based strength into a more soul-aligned way of living and leading. It’s the book I wish someone had handed me years earlier.
When did you first realize that being “strong” had become harmful rather than helpful?
I realized it when my body stopped responding to willpower. I could no longer push through symptoms, override exhaustion, or “mindset” my way forward. What once felt empowering began to feel like self-erasure.
As I slowed down enough to listen, I saw something more clearly: the strength I had relied on wasn’t a conscious choice-it was a survival strategy I had developed very early in life. Proving my worth through constant doing had once helped me feel safe, capable, and in control. But over time, it came at a cost.
Being strong became harmful the moment it required me to abandon myself. When saying yes to everyone else meant saying no to my own body, my own needs, and my own truth, I knew something had to change.
That realization was humbling and clarifying. I understood that my body wasn’t betraying me-it was protecting me. It was asking me to stop living from adrenaline and proving, and to begin listening. That moment became the turning point not only in my healing but in how I now guide others.
How does burnout in leaders quietly ripple into families, teams, and organizations?
Burnout doesn’t stay contained. Even when leaders are highly competent, their nervous systems set the tone. Chronic stress shows up as urgency, control, emotional distance, and reactivity- often without anyone naming it.
Families feel it as an absence. Teams feel it as pressure. Organizations feel it as disengagement and quiet erosion of trust. When leaders are operating from survival, they unintentionally teach others to do the same, moving faster, bracing tighter, and normalizing constant pressure.
Sustainable leadership isn’t just about resilience or performance. It requires regulation, presence, and self-trust. When leaders feel safe in their own bodies, they create environments where others can do their best work without burning out.
What does sustainable healing actually look like day to day?
Sustainable healing is quiet and relational. It looks like pausing instead of pushing. Listening instead of overriding. Setting boundaries that honor the body. Making decisions that feel congruent rather than impressive.
Day to day, it’s less about adding more practices and more about removing what no longer fits. It’s learning to notice when we’re slipping back into survival and choosing to respond with honesty and care instead.
Healing becomes lasting when strength is redefined – not by how much we can carry, but by how well we stay connected to ourselves.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Anette Demattio | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Website | Amazon
Too Strong For Your Own Good reveals the hidden cost of pushing through, pleasing, and holding it all together—while your body quietly pays the price.
After surviving six cancer diagnoses, Anette DeMattio realized her body wasn’t broken—it was speaking. Now, with over 25 years of experience in transformational coaching, she helps high achievers and caregivers turn survival patterns into embodied self-leadership.
In this book, you’ll learn how to:
• Understand your symptoms as signals—not setbacks
• Break patterns that silently drain your energy
• Rest in a way that feels safe—not scary
• Lead and live from calm, clarity, and soul
This isn’t just a book about healing. It’s a powerful invitation to return to your truest self—strong, soft, and fully alive.
If your body is whispering for relief…
If you’re tired of pretending you’re fine…
If you want peace without burnout and strength without suffering…
Let this book show you how to stop surviving—and start living, vibrantly and freely as the real you.
Moments of Vulnerability
A Dangerous Man follows a grief-driven vigilante known as Ghost who targets traffickers and organized crime syndicates while the FBI tries to track him down and stop him. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Wow… it’s been such a long journey. At the original time of writing ADM (2016/17), the concept was nearly 16 years in the making or consideration. The inspiration came about from seeing what seemed like constant news cycles of child abuse, abductions, saved children from debaucherous circumstances. I was a young father at the time, and even though I worked in law enforcement as a corrections deputy then, I felt completely ignorant and helpless to do anything about these tragedies. There was no outlet. So, I returned to developing stories so that real justice could be dealt out to the kind of monsters that would do such horrendous things. Up until the time I finally started putting words to the page – there is actually a short story version that I’d written first – I was doing research. It’s the kind of topic that kicks open a door that I couldn’t close, much of which predicted and showed signs of evidence to the timely information the public as a whole are learning today.
Ghost is both terrifying and oddly compelling—how did you approach that balance?
I think what balances Ghost being both terrifying and compelling is that, despite his next level attributes, he’s got an emotional grounding to him, humanizing him, and making him relatable. It is easy to say that A Dangerous Man is a hyper-masculine novel, which is fair and true and purposeful. Beyond that, I also knew women eat up these stories, too. I wanted Ghost to be multi-layered from a singular perspective. Yes, he’s a father, but I wanted him relatable as a parent overall. I am deeply protective of the ones I love, especially my child, and I think Ghost transcends just being a father. With a lot of female readership, I think that aspect makes him relatable. I’ve heard so many times from women that they sometimes don’t like Ghost, but they absolutely love how he handles the consequences he imparts. This is further coupled with moments of vulnerability or openness – the memories that reveal he’s so much more than vengeance incarnate. Or that he used to be.
What questions about justice did you want readers to wrestle with rather than answer?
To be honest, I had no questions about justice in mind for the reader to wrestle with rather than answer. At least, not that I remember. I reveled in the ambiguous morality at the forefront of who my anti-hero was. I simply wanted to put it on full display for entertainment’s sake. Simultaneously, I knew it would be an injustice not to present the dichotomy of the circumstances viewed by the public. I know first-hand having worked in law enforcement that what I’m calling justice is not shared by all. There’s discourse to be had there. There are many clips of families forgiving murderers when the latter is being sentenced to life in prison for their crimes. It adds to the tension and suspense of the story, and my only aim was to properly serve the story and build further intrigue. Ghost’s accolades would not be universally received were they true and so publicly well known. There would be plenty of condemnation for his vigilante acts by diverse outlets. Similarly, there would also be plenty of praise and encouragement. I think at the present time, however, the latter option would become a great majority today with what people are learning.
When will Book Two be available? Can you give us an idea of where that book will take readers?
I do not have a specific date for the coming sequel of A Dangerous Man, but it is coming, and it will be in 2027. The untimely delay is due to an assortment of other projects already in motion, and mostly not wanting to continue working with the vanity/hybrid press under which ADM’s first edition was published. So, I forced myself to hold off, but I’ve had an immediate trilogy planned for a decade at this point. And once again, the revelations coming out in the world surrounding the topic of trafficking are timely to events in Ghost’s next foray, A Violent Man.
As for where the sequel will take readers… Well, there’s only one way to go. Deeper into the abyss.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Amazon
His crusade of retribution has freed countless trafficking victims from captivity, sweeping across the United States like a storm, and leaving a bloody path of destruction in his wake.
Who is he?
He was a father, a husband, and a former government operative who lost everything he cared for to a merciless Russian crime syndicate. And he’s arrived in Boston to bring his odyssey of vengeance to a close.
Can he be stopped?
Pursuing him is a relentless FBI agent with more at stake than enforcing the law, a hard-boiled detective suspicious of every piece of the puzzle, and a pair of cunning twin assassins who might rival his skill.
At what cost?
They’ll risk everything being drawn into the chaos of one man’s war for justice. Motives will be questioned, loyalties will be tested, and no one will come out unscathed – if at all.
The Hand I Was Dealt
In Life and How to Live It: Near Wild Heaven, you share with readers the trauma, confusion, and the beliefs that shaped you. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I started writing my memoir series in 2019, after witnessing my only sibling pass away at the age of 45. She was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer that took her within four months she was diagnosed.
I got to the hospice she was in, which was an 8-hour drive away, just in time to see her take her last gagging breath. It was something that shocked me to my core.
I decided soon after that I had to do something with my life. This death was just another tragedy that my life was full of.
I started writing my memoir shortly after about my childhood growing up in poverty in Philadelphia. I grew up in the 80s and 90s in a rundown, lower-class neighborhood called Kensington. My father was a long-time heroin addict, and my mother was a devout evangelical born-again Christian. This was how I entered the world and the hand I was dealt.
The first book chronicles how I entered such rotten conditions and what I found along the way to keep me going. Mainly friends I made, and especially the popular music of the times. R.E.M. was a huge influence on me. So much so that the book series’ title and subtitles are from songs from the band.
The first one ends with me in an emotional predicament that leaves me feeling numb from the trauma I experienced so far by the age of 17.
This installment picks up right after and shows a kid full of confusion and no options in life, trying to pick up the pieces of his life and find his way.
The first book is more of a launching pad for my story. This one is the real beginning of how I lived and tried to find meaning in it all.
It’s the beginning of my sort of wild years. Hence why I call it Near Wild Heaven. I show how I lived my teen years without many filters or boundaries on. I show how I live in the moment as much as I can and try to figure out this life we are all in. Along the way, I tell stories of the girls I fell for, run-ins with local cops, meeting people who were out to make me feel bad about being myself, mental health problems that plagued me, and running down dreams that were never coming to me.
It was important for me to get these out to show I didn’t just live in vain. I experienced these moments, and I think they’re worth telling.
I appreciated the honesty with which you tell your story. What was the most difficult thing for you to write about?
When I started writing this series, I knew I just wanted to tell it like it was. I wanted to be honest about everything. The problem there was that I had to relive some painful memories. I remembered everything that happened to me back, but putting it to paper and explaining how things happened and how they made me feel was a bit difficult to do. The worst part was the telling of meeting people who questioned my faith in humanity. I met people who were so cruel and ugly to me at such a young age that it left me feeling insecure and constantly conflicted about how I saw my fellow man. People who were just out to manipulate and kill my positive energy did a number on my mental state and my views on society in general for a bit back then. I couldn’t grasp why some people would just be downright ugly to people who did nothing to them. Then I realized some people don’t have the courage to be decent human beings.
Did you learn anything about yourself as you were putting this book together?
Writing this book was at first a bit difficult. I was writing these during the Covid lockdown. So all I did then was work (I was an essential worker) and write. There wasn’t much entertainment or distractions going on then. So reliving some of this put me in a dark place for a while. When I got out of the time periods I found most troubling to write about, and started to get the editing done, I felt a sense of accomplishment or a reminder of who I was then and how I hope that self is still alive in me now. This book is set when I was 17/18 and I was full of ambition and passion for life. 30 years later, it’s harder to have such fire in life. No matter how one is raised, 30 years of life takes a toll on you. Writing this one and what is going to be the next one (that’s being edited now and is the same time frame) was a reminder of who I am to the core and how I can’t ever forget that.
What advice would you give to someone who is considering sharing their own memoir with readers?
My advice is to be honest and try to write from your experiences, but also think of how others might read or see it. Try to explain how things happened, but make sure it’s universal as much as so the reader can relate and understand the situations.
Author Links: GoodReads | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Amazon
In the gripping second volume of his memoir series, Chaz Holesworth steps out of the wreckage of his Philadelphia childhood and into a new wilderness: adolescence, longing, awakening, and the dangerous freedom of life beyond the rules that once defined him.
Raised in a world where faith meant fear and obedience meant survival, Chaz enters his teenage years numb and isolated. Emotions are weakness. Questions are sin. Desire is the enemy. But when first love cracks open the cage, and forbidden music floods in, everything he has been taught about identity, God, and himself begins to unravel.
With every lyric he wasn’t allowed to hear, and every mile he runs from home, Chaz discovers pieces of a self he never knew he could claim. Friends become family. Music becomes prayer. And movement becomes the only escape from a growing storm of shame, confusion, and spiritual fallout he doesn’t yet have language for.
Drugs, heartbreak, adventure, and raw curiosity collide as Chaz tries to live fast enough to stay ahead of his past. But survival has a cost, and reclaiming his voice means confronting everything silence once protected him from.
Lyrical, honest, and unflinchingly human, Life and How to Live It: Near Wild Heaven is a coming-of-age memoir about breaking indoctrination, surviving first love, and learning to choose life after years of enforced silence. Set against the pulse of mid-90s music and youth culture, it is a story for anyone who has ever tried to outrun their past, or finally stopped running.
Loveability & Chaos
Brunt and Eggbert Happen Upon a Wreck! follows an unlikely boy-and-monster duo who have their life turned upside down by a chaotic young monster and must decide whether patience and kindness can transform trouble into family.
Wreck is chaotic but lovable. How did you balance those traits?
My goal was for the chaos to be the primary trait starting out, but with the loveability to show more as the plot continued. I still wanted some loveability even at the beginning of the book and some chaos at the end of the book. I hope I achieved that!!
The book emphasizes patience over punishment. Why is it important to show kindness toward difficult behavior in stories for young readers?
One of my guiding principles as a parent is to explain why I’m requiring or requesting specific behavior, and not to show exasperation with behavior that doesn’t follow my requests. That is because I generally believe that logic is more effective than attempts to mold youth with punitive actions. And I also try to mix in a little fun and silliness in my parenting.
Will we see more adventures with Brunt and Eggbert?
Yes!!! Book 3 of the series will debut late 2026 or early 2027, and it introduces a new character: a diabolical aunt of Wreck who tries to claim Wreck as her own.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facbook-Author | Facebook-Publisher | Instagram-Author | Instagram-Publisher | Website
Their days are filled with peach cobbler experiments, cozy story times, and endless projects to make their cave feel like home. Life is perfectly peaceful—until their dear friend Astrid, the head zookeeper, shows up at their door with a tiny, chaotic surprise.
She’s a little lost monster, and she’s a WRECK! Quite literally. From shredding furniture to breaking pottery to gobbling up shoes in a single bite, Wreck turns Brunt and Eggbert’s peaceful life upside down. Eggbert can’t wait to send Wreck packing, but Brunt isn’t so sure. Is Wreck just trouble, or could she be the missing piece their family never knew they needed?
Full of heart, humor, and a whole lot of mess, Brunt and Eggbert Happen Upon a Wreck! is a story about patience, friendship, and discovering that sometimes family comes in the most unexpected (and seemingly disastrous but potentially spectacular) forms.
Imagination and Inspiration
The Grand Adventures: A Secret Unveiled follows a group of cousins who stumble into a magical sleigh that kind of works like a time machine, taking them to witness important moments in Biblical history. What was the inspiration for your story?
When covid locked down the country, I bought a Santa outfit for my husband and made a Mrs. Claus dress for me. Our volunteer fire department got a list of all the kids and addresses, raised funds, bought and wrapped presents, and devised a plan to distribute throughout town. On our little trailer behind the command truck with the 2 big fire engines behind it all began. Social distancing went out the window with the first little boy and his sister about knocking Santa off the trailer, and us getting the best hugs ever. Ever since we give to whoever asks for Santa and Mrs. Claus. When we shared with our grandkids they loved it and they wanted to share with the world that their grandparents were in fact the real Santa and Mrs. Mary Claus. So, grandma’s storytelling and the imagination of the 10 grandkids, the story emerged. It inspired our oldest grandson, who is now working as the lead writer on the 2nd story for the series.
How did you decide which biblical moments to include?
It was rather easy for us as we were at Thanksgiving but Christmas was just a month away. We gathered together and talked, I just listened. There are so many to choose from, but most decided on these 2.
How did you approach writing emotional faith moments for kids?
The grandkids were the inspiration. Asking what would you say, think, do, or feel in these situations?
Do you plan to continue the cousins’ adventures?
Yes, very much so, the adventure is continuing with our 16-year-old grandson, William, who has taken the lead in writing book 2. I am so very proud of him and each of my grandkids. The hardest is trying to get all 10 grandkids together to decide what to do, where to go, and how to fulfill the adventure.
Author links: GoodReads | Facebook | Instagram | Website
Arboreal Destiny: The Trees that Shaped the History and Culture of People
Arboreal Destiny: The Trees That Shaped the History and Culture of People takes twenty kinds of trees, from figs and olives to oaks, chestnuts, and rubber, and shows how they have steered human history, belief, trade, and even medicine. Each chapter starts with clear biology, then moves through myths, sacred stories, everyday uses, and modern science, before the final section widens out into a case for trees as key allies in facing climate change and ecological breakdown. The book argues that we literally grew up with trees, built our homes and ships from them, wrapped our gods and our empires around them, and that our future still rises or falls with their fate.
The writing is careful, researched, and very steady. The author piles up stories, laws, quotes, and footnotes, and the effect is that each tree feels huge and crowded with people. I loved the way the fig chapter moves from wasp pollinators to Egyptian coffins to Buddhist pilgrims under the Bodhi tree. The olive chapter does something similar with lamps, temple rituals, and long-lived groves tied to families. Those shifts kept my curiosity awake. The tone can sometimes feel textbook-like, and the book is very detailed. Still, the overall voice is calm, patient, and respectful of readers who want substance.
The book quietly insists that trees are not scenery. They are the main cast. When I read about chestnuts feeding mountain villages, or white pines driving imperial navies and colonial anger, I felt a little jolt of grief at how casually we cut these living systems down. The closing material, where trees become tools for restoring ruined land and drawing carbon out of the air, hit a different nerve. It felt hopeful, but also a bit desperate, like we are turning back to old companions after years of neglect and asking them to save us one more time. I appreciated that the author does not romanticize everything. Rubber and palm chapters, for example, face the violence and exploitation tied to those trees. I would have liked a stronger personal voice from the author, a short scene on the ground, a human face among the facts, because the subject is so alive that it almost begs for that touch.
This is not a quick nature coffee table read. It’s closer to a serious but accessible course in how trees and people grew into each other, with a side of quiet moral urgency about where we go next. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy narrative history, people who like to see religion, trade, science, and culture in one frame, and anyone involved in conservation, policy, or environmental education who wants stronger stories to tell. If you are ready to see forests and street trees as long-time partners with a real stake in our future, this book will be well worth your time and attention.
Pages: 414 | ASIN : B0GNNVSG69
