More than a Story, an Adventure
Floo Flocky Doo to the Rescue follows a kindhearted girl who rescues a baby squirrel and decides to bring him everywhere she goes, until a chaotic grocery store escape teaches her that love sometimes means letting go. What inspired the character of Floo Flocky Doo and her adventurous spirit?
In 2000, our youngest daughter, Hunter—just four years old at the time—slipped on an apron to help her mother prepare dinner. With a proud smile, she carried a plate over and declared, “Miss Floo Flocky Doo is here to serve YOU!”
In that joyful moment, our family knew this delightful character had the heart of a children’s story. Inspired by Hunter’s imagination, Miss Floo Flocky Doo was born. Twenty-six years later, that spark has come to life in my debut picture book, Floo Flocky Doo to the Rescue!
Beneath the humor, the story touches on responsibility and letting go. How did you balance silliness with that quieter emotional lesson?
Beneath all the laughter and mischief, that quieter message really grew out of real life. The story may feel whimsical—with a runaway baby squirrel, blueberry footprints, and grocery store chaos—but at its heart, it’s about doing the right thing, even when it’s not the easiest or most fun choice.
I was very intentional about letting the humor lead the way, especially for young readers. Kids connect first through joy, rhythm, and surprise. Once they’re fully engaged—laughing, predicting what might happen next—that’s when the deeper message can gently settle in without feeling heavy or forced.
So the balance comes from layering—keeping the story light, musical, and fun on the surface, while allowing the emotional lesson to naturally reveal itself through the character’s choices. For me, the goal was never to teach the lesson outright, but to let children feel it—and maybe even talk about it afterward.
What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book?
A joyful burst of fun, smiles, and giggles! Kids will delight in the book’s whimsical rhymes and love joining in on the catchy, confidence-boosting refrain—“Hootie Hoo, I know what to do!”—as the main character faces each new challenge with imagination and heart. It also combines the musicality of classic rhyming books with a personal, grounded storytelling foundation, which gives it a warm and authentic feel.
If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours?
If you’re going to choose just one book to share with a child this week, make it Floo Flocky Doo to the Rescue—because it delivers exactly what kids (and parents) are looking for in a read-aloud experience: laughter, rhythm, heart, and a character they’ll want to visit again and again.
This isn’t just a story—it’s an interactive adventure. Kids quickly latch onto Floo’s playful catchphrase—“Hootie Hoo, I know what to do!”—and love jumping in to say it out loud. That kind of participation turns reading into a shared moment, not just a quiet activity.
It’s also packed with high-energy, laugh-out-loud fun. A mischievous baby squirrel on the loose, a chaotic grocery store chase, and a hummingbird with a clue create the kind of delightful mayhem that keeps kids fully engaged from start to finish.
But beneath the humor is something even more important: heart. The story gently weaves in themes of kindness, responsibility, problem-solving, and friendship—giving parents and educators something meaningful to feel good about and to discuss with their children / students.
And finally, Floo herself is unforgettable. She’s bold, imaginative, and full of joy—the kind of character children connect with instantly and want to follow into the next adventure.
If you want a book that makes kids laugh, invites them to participate, and leaves them smiling at the end…this is the one to bring home.
Will Floo and Lucky Lou return for more adventures?
Absolutely. In fact, we encourage young readers and adults to visit the book’s website, www.FlooFlockyDoo.com and vote for what adventure Floo Flocky Doo, should pursue in book number two!
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
A runaway squirrel. A frantic chase. A hummingbird with a secret clue. And a brave little girl who knows just what to do!
Meet Miss Floo Flocky Doo—a brave, imaginative girl who loves helping others. When she discovers a tiny baby squirrel named Lucky Lou, she rescues him, loves him, and brings him everywhere she goes. But during a trip to the grocery store, Lou escapes and chaos breaks loose!
Kids will giggle as Lucky Lou jumps into a customer’s wig, races through the aisles, spreads blueberry jelly footprints, and hides in the fruit section. With the help of her hummingbird friend Peanut, Floo shouts her favorite magical phrase:“Hootie Hoo— I know what to do!”
This charming, rhyming picture book is filled with:A lovable, mischievous baby squirrel
A clue-finding hummingbird named Peanut
A brave girl who uses kindness and quick thinking
Silly, unforgettable grocery-store antics
Bright, delightful illustrations on every page
Already an international award-winning children’s picture book, Floo Flocky Doo to the Rescue, is perfect for bedtime stories, classroom read-alouds, and early readers who love funny animal adventures. Families will enjoy the heartwarming themes of caring, problem-solving, and the magic of friendship. Bring Miss Floo Flocky Doo along with YOU!
Noticing the Small Things
The Star Thrower follows three recent graduates on a trip to Bali, where they abandon their expected paths to pursue ones that give them purpose, learning along the way that small actions can make a big impact. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The story and setup stems from the Loren Eiseley’s “The Star Thrower” (or “starfish story”) is part of a 26-page essay. In that story, a man sees a boy throwing stranded starfish back into the ocean. When told he can’t save them all, the boy replies, “It made a difference to that one.” I wanted to explore how “Generation Z” or recent grads or really anyone—who often feel paralyzed by the scale of global problems—can find agency by focusing on the “one” thing in front of them rather than the “everything” they can’t control.
Bali feels transformative rather than decorative. What made it the right setting for this moment of awakening?
Bali is often called the “Island of the Gods,” but its power lies in its Tri Hita Karanaphilosophy—the harmony between people, nature, and the spirit world. It introduces a paradox and a stark visual and spiritual contrast to the “corporate ladder” or the rigid academic structures the graduates just left that plays out throughout the book. The setting isn’t just a backdrop; the physical environment and getting lost force the characters to slow down and notice the “small things” they overlooked in their fast-paced lives back home.
Each character finds a different path, yet their journeys remain interconnected. What interested you about that balance?
I wanted to highlight the importance of friendship. Even as we travel paths, our growth is often fueled by the people who knew us before we changed. It highlights that “purpose” isn’t a one-size-fits-all destination. By keeping the characters interconnected, it shows that when one person finds their light, it makes it easier for their friends and others to find theirs, too. It’s a “rising tide lifts all boats” philosophy.
The novel is openly hopeful. What do you hope readers carry with them after finishing the book?
I hope readers can feel less overwhelmed by the “grand plan” of their lives and more empowered by their daily choices. Hope isn’t a feeling; it’s an action. The Star Thrower is presented as a disciplined choice and sometimes that choice involves making changes and perhaps finding a new direction. It’s not that the characters ignore the world’s problems; they simply choose to address them one “starfish” at a time. The “Star Thrower” isn’t a person who fixes everything; the “Star Thrower” is someone who refuses to do nothing. If you finish the book and feel like you can do one small, kind thing for your community, the book has done its job. What is one “starfish” action a reader can take today?
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
Their summer of self-discovery takes a sharp turn when they become entangled in a legal battle against a powerful corporation responsible for a massive environmental spill. The stakes are immediate and personal: their coastal community’s health, its economy, and the survival of endangered wildlife.
The friends emerge victorious. While the community celebrates the win, the friends’ ultimate reward is deeper than the legal triumph. By protecting life and bringing a corporation to justice, Ava, Sam, and Leo discover their true purpose, realizing that their combined talents are the ‘how’—the essential tools—for the greater ‘why’—the fierce protection of their world. The book celebrates the profound benefit of teamwork, illustrating that true purpose is often found not in solitude, but in collaboration for a cause greater than oneself.
Entrepreneur Secrets: Real Stories of Purpose, Profit, and Power
Entrepreneur Secrets: Real Stories of Purpose, Profit, and Power is a many-voiced collection about entrepreneurship as lived experience, not glossy myth. Across its chapters, author Peter Remington gathers business leaders who treat success as something more textured than revenue: Bill Baldwin grounds real estate in trust, neighborhood knowledge, and showing up; Dr. Jacquie Baly frames leadership through education, policy, immigrant resilience, and legacy; Matt Brice turns the sudden shock of opening a restaurant just before pandemic shutdowns into a lesson in improvisation; Gretchen Gilliam builds The Hive around the humble, communal metaphor of bees; Beth Harp’s Kids’ Meals story reminds the reader that scale can still be tender, human, and mission-led. The book’s central argument is simple but deeply felt: entrepreneurship is not just building a business, it’s building a life with purpose braided through the hard parts.
What I appreciated most was the book’s emotional generosity. Its strongest chapters don’t pretend that entrepreneurship is sleek or painless. They linger in the uncomfortable rooms: the empty restaurant dining room after COVID closures, the early office where the phone doesn’t ring, the private ache of reinvention later in life, the quiet pressure of leading people who are looking to you for courage. I found those moments moving because they made the advice feel earned. Baldwin’s insistence on one phone number and one email for decades could have sounded like a small business tip, but in context it becomes almost moral, a commitment to steadiness. Baly’s reflections on education and representation carry the warmth of someone who knows that access isn’t abstract. Saba Syed’s spa story, with its emphasis on faith, women’s care, and starting again, adds a softer and more intimate register.
Some chapters read like polished keynote speeches, some like memoir, some like mentoring notes written from across a kitchen table. The book leans into motivational language, and a few passages repeat familiar success principles about mindset, gratitude, resilience, and finding your “why.” Still, I found myself forgiving the repetition because the voices keep shifting the light. Charles Clark’s food-centered origin story has a satisfying sensory pull, while Kimberly Sherer Cutchall’s “You. Only Better.” chapter brings a sharper leadership lens, asking not only what leaders achieve but how they make people feel. The best writing here has a plainspoken sincerity that lands because it refuses cynicism.
I came away from Entrepreneur Secrets with respect for its sincerity and its insistence that profit, power, and purpose don’t have to live in separate rooms. The book works best when read slowly, one story at a time, rather than as a conventional business manual. Its conclusion, for me, is that entrepreneurship is less about certainty than devotion: to people, to craft, to community, to the stubborn little flame that keeps asking to be protected. I’d recommend it to aspiring entrepreneurs, small business owners, nonprofit leaders, career changers, and anyone who wants business wisdom with a distinctly human pulse.
Pages: 277 | ASIN : B0GMTLB6KR
Lovestruck Maggot
In Lovestruck Maggot, we follow Mona Ripple, scarred, middle-aged, fiercely competent, and disastrously in love—as she tries to claw a future out of the brutal colony world of Kalderra, where “Maggots” harvest volatile alien carcasses under the shadow of corporate greed, native mystery, and lethal beauty. What begins as a break-for-freedom story, with Mona dreaming of buying out her and Darien’s contracts, quickly widens into something stranger and more dangerous: a planet-scale power struggle wrapped around devotion, exploitation, and the mad hope that love might still mean escape.
What I liked most is that the novel never treats love as a softening agent. It treats it as an accelerant. Mona’s voice has grit under the fingernails: funny, vulgar, wounded, possessive, tender, and a little frightening all at once. I didn’t read her as a neat heroine; I read her as a person whose longing has warped around survival until the two are nearly indistinguishable. That gives the book a welcome asymmetry. The romance is not dainty or idealized. It’s hungry, bruised, delusional in places, and therefore weirdly moving. The author understands that desire can make people luminous and ridiculous in the same breath, and he gets a lot of charge out of that contradiction.
I was also taken by the texture of the worldbuilding. Kalderra doesn’t feel like wallpaper pasted behind the plot; it feels mined, lit from below, and faintly toxic. The opening planetary report gives the book a sly, cold-blooded frame, and then the novel drops into a much hotter register: banter, violence, class resentment, strange ecologies, and the eerie glamour of the subarashi forests. I especially admired the tonal audacity here: the book can pivot from gallows humor to menace to aching sincerity without losing its footing.
I’d hand this to readers who like space opera, science fiction, romance, survival adventure, body horror, dystopian fiction, and weird western-inflected SF with a sharp voice and a taste for the baroque. It should land especially well for people who want character heat inside a dangerous speculative setting rather than clean hard-scfi sterility. It feels closer to Kameron Hurley than to sleek blockbuster space adventure; there’s also a bit of Gideon the Ninth’s irreverent bite in the way it lets sentiment and savagery share the same room. Lovestruck Maggot is proof that even in the harshest world, love can still be the most explosive substance on the page.
Pages: 365 | ASIN : B0GPRPR53S
Trouble in Cyborgia (Night Crusaders Series Episode 4)
Trouble in Cyborgia is a compact superhero adventure with a pulpy, futuristic setup and a surprisingly earnest moral core. It is the fourth entry in the Night Crusaders series, and the book frames itself as one of the series’ shorter “companionless mini adventures,” with the spotlight falling mainly on Simeon while Thomas Givens serves as the first-person narrator who pulls readers through the story. That choice gives the novel a nice angle. Instead of feeling distant or mythic, Simeon is seen through the eyes of someone who is impressed by him, puzzled by him, and gradually changed by what he witnesses.
What the book does best is establish its world in bold, direct strokes. Georgia City, nicknamed Cyborgia, is a place where cybernetics shape public life, work, policing, media, and power. The novel leans into that setting with real conviction, turning corporate technology into the engine of both wonder and abuse. The early dungeon sequence is especially memorable because it takes a bright futuristic city and reveals the machinery underneath it as cruel and predatory. Even a line like “Because I am a Night Crusader” works with a straight-faced sincerity that tells you exactly what kind of heroic register the book is working in. It’s not coy about heroism. It believes in it.
The book is also very much a story about labor, dignity, and the spiritual cost of letting convenience replace conscience. Thomas opens the novel by asking, “Whatever happened to that good old-fashioned work ethic?” and that question ends up shaping far more than the background. It gives the whole story a distinctly moral and social frame. This isn’t just a tale about a hero punching robots. It’s a tale about what kind of society gets built when efficiency, profit, and technological expansion stop answering to anything human. The novel keeps returning to institutions, jobs, media narratives, and public responsibility, which gives the action a larger civic backdrop.
What I found appealing on a craft level is the book’s plainspoken confidence. It moves scene to scene with very little fuss, and that gives it an old-school serial energy that fits the “Episode 4” label. Simeon isn’t presented as an unreachable icon. He gets trapped, weakens, makes risky choices, falls for people, and has to rely on others. That matters, because it turns the book into more than a victory lap for a superhero. It becomes a story of exposure, endurance, and community, with journalists, coworkers, allies, and ordinary citizens all helping shape the outcome. By the time the corporate collapse and legal reckoning arrive, the novel has built a world where public evil has public consequences.
Trouble in Cyborgia is a sincere, energetic blend of superhero fiction, dystopian corporate thriller, and moral fable. It has the feel of a story told by someone who likes heroes to be heroic, villains to stand for something rotten, and settings to carry an argument about the world. Its tone is openhearted, its themes are clear, and its best moments come from how fully it commits to its own vision of justice, technology, and human worth. If you meet the book on those terms, it’s an engaging ride through a futuristic city where the fight isn’t only against machines, but against the system that built them.
Pages: 145 | ASIN : B0FZDGXPFZ
A Path to Spiritual Transformation
In Suffering Leads to Hope, you assert through your own experiences and biblical references that by facing pain, we find its meaning and can begin a significant transformation. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I got to a point in my life where my emotional pain felt overwhelming. My stepdad died suddenly, my wife of 12 years divorced me, we lost our two baby girl embryos, my company was liquidated, and I was facing 15 years in Federal prison. I tried to avoid my pain with denial, drinking, and mental escapism–to no avail. Eventually, I realized that I had to live in my pain, wrestle with it, and surrender to it. It was in this posture of surrender that my relationship with God was finally able to blossom. Once I admitted my own limitations, my sins, and my character frailties, God could finally lead me on a path to spiritual transformation.
Did you begin with a theological structure in mind, or did the structure emerge from your experiences?
While in prison, I was drawn to the Apostle Paul’s letters, especially the letters he wrote from prison. Paul was given 39 lashes multiple times, he has ridiculed, rejected, and stoned to the point of death. Yet, he still tells us to rejoice in our suffering. His guidance in Romans 5:3-4 created the foundation for this book: “We rejoice in our suffering because suffering leads to endurance, endurance leads to character and character leads to hope.”
Was there a particular stage—denial, anger, surrender—that was most difficult to move through?
Spiritual Transformation is not linear. I am thankful I have experienced significant spiritual growth, but I still struggle with denial, anger, bitterness, and surrender on a daily basis. These feelings remain present, but no longer control my thoughts, and I can easily release them.
Yet, surrender is still a challenging spiritual discipline for me. I lived the majority of my life following my will as an assertive overachieving Wall Street professional. Taking my hands off the wheel of my life and handing over control to God was difficult, but it was incredibly rewarding. I finally feel at peace now following the singular example of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He not only absorbs my sins, but he also carries my anxiety, pain, and suffering.
What do you want someone in the middle of suffering to take from your story?
Pain and suffering are important parts of our lives. I spent so much time avoiding my suffering by numbing it with alcohol, denying its existence, or filling my days with work to avoid reflection. By embracing my pain and understanding its purpose in my life, I realized it did not happen by accident. It was a necessary refining tool that has fundamentally changed my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual existence.
If you have the courage to confront your suffering and surrender it to God, it will transform you into the person God created you to be.
Author Links: GoodReads | Instagram | Website
Loss. Failure. Shame.
Anger that won’t quiet.
Faith that feels hollow.
Suffering can either harden us—or transform us.
The difference is what we do next.
In Suffering Leads to Hope, James Velissaris writes with hard-earned clarity about what happens when everything familiar is stripped away—reputation, comfort, certainty, control.
Raised by a single mother.
Educated at Harvard and Columbia.
Seventeen years on Wall Street. Chief Investment Officer.
Then prison. Divorce. Death. Despair.
When identity collapses—when titles fade and reputation dissolves—what remains is the condition of the heart.
Written largely during his time in federal prison, this book is not theoretical faith—it is faith tested under pressure. Anchored in Romans 5—suffering → endurance → character → hope—it guides readers through the spiritual movements that determine whether pain deepens faith or hardens into bitterness.
Inside, you will learn how to:
• Face suffering honestly
• Confront anger before it takes root
• Practice repentance that restores
• Extend forgiveness when it feels impossible
• Replace anxiety with Godly peace
• Root hope in Christ rather than circumstances
With more than 200 Scripture references and a fully developed Biblical Index, this book is more than a message—it is a lasting resource for study, reflection, and spiritual growth.
For the believer weary of shallow answers.
For the person walking through humiliation, loss, incarceration, or identity collapse.
For the Christian seeking faith that does not collapse under pressure.
Hope is forged in surrender to God.
Alex the Bull Rider-Riding Bulls from A – Z
Alex the Bull Rider introduces readers to a young boy named Alex as he takes part in an exciting bull-riding event while also learning the ABCs. The story begins with a bull named Ace and ends with a bull named Zeus, taking readers on an entertaining alphabetical journey through Alex’s adventurous experience. This clever structure gives the book both educational value and a strong sense of momentum, making it easy for young readers to stay engaged from beginning to end.
Written by Al Leal, Alex the Bull Rider is an energetic and imaginative book filled with bright, eye-catching illustrations. One of the most enjoyable parts of the story is the way each bull’s name matches a different letter of the alphabet. That detail feels fresh and creative, and it adds an interactive element that helps hold a child’s attention. Each bull also has a distinct look and personality, which makes every page feel lively and new. The illustrations invite readers to pause, observe, and talk about what they see, adding even more value to the reading experience.
Alex is portrayed as courageous and determined throughout the book. Bull riding is an intense sport, so his willingness to keep trying stands out. I especially liked that Alex took breaks when needed and continued even after falling off the bull more than once. That part of the story offers an important message for young readers about perseverance, resilience, and not giving up after setbacks. It also shows that competition can be enjoyable and rewarding.
Another fun feature is the bonus material at the end of the book, including a word search and a maze. These activities add to the overall appeal and make the book even more engaging for children. I highly recommend Alex the Bull Rider for young readers who enjoy action, adventure, and creative learning.
Pages: 40 | ISBN : 979-8-9951169-0-5
The Cowbird’s Song
Joe Markko’s The Cowbird’s Song is a wide-cast historical novel about Shiloh Mills, a Methodist covenant community planted along the Guyandotte River, and the generations drawn into its difficult orbit: Cherokee converts and leaders, formerly enslaved people, Quakers, millwrights, preachers, laborers, children, and descendants still wrestling with inherited vows. The book moves from 1790s settlement dreams through slavery, faith, family fracture, Appalachian hardship, labor conflict, and modern reckoning, using the river itself as a kind of witness.
I was most struck by the book’s appetite for moral complication. It doesn’t treat faith as decoration or history as costume; both are working materials, as heavy and splintery as timber. The best passages have a riverine patience, letting lives accumulate rather than rushing toward tidy revelation. Moses Freeman, Jonathon Ani-Wayah, Sarah Littlepage, and the later Shiloh descendants feel less like figures arranged for a lesson than people trying to keep their names intact while larger forces lean on them.
The prose reaches for sermon, myth, and hymn all at once. But I found myself enjoying that excess because the book’s emotional scale is sincere. Its recurring cowbird image, displacement, stolen nests, survival under another name, gives the story a sharp symbolic beak. What stayed with me was the novel’s insistence that belonging is not a place one simply finds; it is made, damaged, inherited, and remade.
The ideal target audience is readers of historical fiction, Christian fiction, family saga, multigenerational drama, and faith-based literary fiction, especially those drawn to stories about settlement, conscience, race, labor, and spiritual inheritance. Readers who admire the moral sweep of Marilynne Robinson or the historical-community texture of Charles Frazier may find a familiar seriousness here, though Markko’s voice is more devotional and communal. The Cowbird’s Song is a rugged, prayer-haunted novel about the nests we steal, the names we choose, and the mercy of still being carried downstream.
Pages: 546 | ISBN: 9798234041753
