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Dragons, Demons & Demigods follows a mill girl with a sharp tongue and a buried past who learns she’s the heir to a dragon throne and the spark that could ignite a mythic civil war. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The description of Clío as a “mill girl” made me smile. I had considered her many things but not a mill girl. That said, it is an appropriate appellation. The rich, and often unread, landscape of Celtic Mythology and Celtic culture provided the inspiration for Dragons, Demons & Demigods as it did for my prior historical fantasy novels. The difference is that in writing an “urban” fantasy, I had more freedom to explore the rich characters of Celtic mythology.
In Dragons, Demons & Demigods, the supernatural associated with the Land of Immensity is balanced by the reality of wartime Northern Ireland. The alternate location is largely my birthplace—East Belfast, Northern Ireland—although in the awful times of World War II. I lived and played with my mates in the streets named in the story. I lived in the house of my grandfather, Lazarus. His was a name I could never resist as a character. I spent most of my adult life in East Belfast, and to this day, from steamy hot Texas, I love the city and its people.
In hindsight, I probably would have given Clíodhna (Clío) a different name, if only because I missed an opportunity to base a novel around Clíodhna, the Queen of the Banshees.
Clío is brash, funny, and unapologetically raw. How did you shape her voice?
I think Clío shaped her own voice! In essence, she is an amalgam of many of the girls I knew in my home city of Belfast, who could chop you off at the knees with their caustic remarks, and several females, famous in Tuatha Dé mythology. The latter includes her namesake Clíodhna, Queen of the Banshees, who, despite her terrifying name, was beautiful, charming, and promiscuous, and Queen Maedbh, whose nickname Maedbh of the Friendly Thighs testified not only to her libido but also her negotiating style.
Clío is a millennia-old adolescent suddenly faced with a harsh reality. She is a paradox in that she is the ultimate party girl but has amassed a wealth of knowledge by witnessing human history for thousands of years. Brianag, in the Blood Queen Chronicles, Clío has a strong moral core at odds with how others perceive her.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I am not sure I have “themes” in any of my books, and I do not deliberately set out to explore specific themes. That said, I am often fascinated to read the theses attributed to them post-publication. From my perspective, being an author is being an entertainer, not a teacher or preacher. My starting goal is always to write a well-researched and excellent “yarn” in the tradition of the ancient Celtic seanchaithe—storytellers— a tale that will take the reader away from their daily lives.
I do not avoid supposed “controversial” topics, e.g., Clío’s lesbian lovers, in the novels, but then, to the times and people of my stories, such issues were not controversial. Maybe civilization has regressed, not progressed.
Can you tell us a little about where the story goes in book two and when the novel will be available?
Book 2 of the Tuatha Dé Chronicles is titled: Eater of Souls and has an expected release date of Autumn 2026. As might be anticipated by the title, the sequel is several shades darker than the first book. Eater of Souls also has an earthly location. This time, it is mid-1950s Galveston County, Texas, which, by all accounts, was a wild place in the 1900s, with its Red-Light District and widespread criminal networks. The novel provides more backstory on the Goddess, the origins of the Womb-Born and Dragon, and the antagonist An-Ársa, but hopefully, not enough to bore my readers. Eater of Souls brings more interaction between the supernatural and human characters and more moral dilemmas. “How many dead humans are acceptable, Etta? One, ten, one hundred, one thousand, or ten thousand? If we don’t eliminate this nest of vipers, the alternative is a world enslaved and millions butchered by An-Ársa and the Nemed.”—Lazarus
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Mythology and faerie tales provide comfort and safety for humans and supernatural creatures alike. Facts are dangerous.
What if you discovered you were a dragon and the queen-in-waiting of the Dragon Throne? What would you do if challenged by a brother you had never met to a duel to the death for the throne? What if you found out those you loved and trusted had betrayed you? What if this was only the beginning?
It is Northern Ireland in the 1940s. To her friends at the linen mill, Clío is a beautiful young woman who is an expert in partying. What they do not know is that her age is counted in millennia. What Clío did not know is who or what she was until the morning she woke up wailing, “I’ve got scales!” Dragon puberty had arrived.
Dragons, Demons & Demigods is the first book of The Tuatha Dé Chronicles. The two-world, portal story merges historical and urban fantasy with Celtic mythology.
Content Warning: Dragons, Demons & Demigods contains language, minor scenes of sex, and fantasy violence, which may not be suitable to those under the age of 14 without the parent’s permission.
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Silver Book Award
Celebrating the brilliance of outstanding authors who have captivated us with their skillful prose, engaging narratives, and compelling real and imagined characters. We recognize books that stand out for their innovative storytelling and insightful exploration of truth and fiction. Join us in honoring the dedication and skill of these remarkable authors as we celebrate the diverse and rich worlds they’ve brought to life, whether through the realm of imagination or the lens of reality.
Award Recipients
Dying to Meet the Newcomer by Judith Fournie Helms
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Dragons, Demons & Demigods
David H. Millar’s Dragons, Demons & Demigods opens in mythic prelude, dragon-queen Bráchthine laying twin eggs under the shadow of a prophecy and extracting a promise from Nuadha, High King of the Tuatha Dé, to protect her daughter Clíodhna (and to keep the son from becoming a civil-war fuse). Then it snaps to 1940 Belfast, where “Clío” (the same Clíodhna, glamoured into a young woman) wakes from demon-haunted dreams and tries to live a rough-and-ordinary life with “Lazarus” (Nuadha in disguise) until two dead girls appear on their doorstep bearing a thorny rose sigil and the supernatural starts leaning hard on the wallpaper of the everyday. From there, the book cracks open into the Land of Immensity, Tuatha Dé courts, Fomorian schemes, artefacts like Daghdha’s Cauldron, and the dragons’ Arena, until Clío is forced to stop being an unanswered question and become a queen in full view of enemies, allies, and gawkers who suddenly want her bloodline to mean something.
I really enjoyed how textured the story is. Millar’s Belfast is not a generic “gritty city” stage-set; it’s weather, vinegar, coal smoke, trams, the social physics of working-class streets, and a heroine who is both ancient and impatient in a way I found oddly endearing. Clío’s voice is brash, horny, funny, and occasionally raw enough to sting; she swears the way some characters pray, and the book lets that be characterization rather than decoration. Even when the plot turns cosmic, the story keeps dragging its boots through real human spaces, parlours, doorsteps, police stations, so the magic feels less like glitter and more like a hidden engine finally grinding into view.
The worldbuilding is exuberant, sometimes gloriously so. We’re handed names, bloodlines, artefacts, factions, and ancient grudges with the confidence of a bard who assumes you can keep up (and often you can, because the momentum is real). When it lands, it lands big: the political venom of the Tuatha Dé, the Fomorians’ hunger for leverage, and the dragons’ brutal legalism converge into set pieces that feel like ceremonial violence, beautiful and appalling at once. The Arena chapters, in particular, have that “watching history be made with teeth” sensation; I caught myself wincing and reading faster.
This one is for readers who like urban fantasy, historical fantasy, Celtic mythology, Irish folklore, dark fantasy, and mythic adventure with adult edges, sex, profanity, and violence that aren’t coy about being there. If you enjoy the modern-myth collision of American Gods, but you want it less highway-trip dreamy and more Belfast-brick immediate, more “portal in the parlour” than “omen on the open road,” Millar’s approach will likely scratch that itch. And if you’re the sort of reader who likes a heroine who becomes dangerous not by being chosen but by being cornered, you’re in the right place. Myth doesn’t knock in this book; it leaves bodies on your doorstep and calls it an invitation.
Pages: 396 | ASIN : B0GFY2GD9D
Total Chaos
Shana Congrove’s Total Chaos is a paranormal romance with a strong urban-fantasy engine: secret wolf-shifting twins (the Breedline) are trying to hold their found-family world together while a Chiang-Shih demon keeps slipping the leash. The book opens by grounding the Breedline mythos and framing the story as “our story” from a queen’s perspective, then quickly drops us into the fallout of a brutal castle battle where the Archangel of Mercy, Zadkiel, intervenes, and the demon finds a new way to survive. The core tension is simple and propulsive: the demon is cast out of one host, slides into another, and the Covenant has to hunt it down while relationships, loyalties, and bodies keep changing in scary, supernatural ways.
I enjoyed how unapologetically the book commits to its series identity. It reads like a true “mid-series” paranormal romance installment: fast-moving plot, lots of emotional check-ins, and that constant push-pull between tenderness and threat. The author makes big, operatic choices, too. Angels arrive. Souls and memory restoration are literal problems to solve. Even the lore gets spelled out in a way that feels like the book is handing you a flashlight, not testing you. It definitely assumes you’ll roll with the heightened tone. This is the kind of book where the volume knob starts at “dramatic” and then somehow turns up.
I also found myself thinking about Congrove’s balance between romance and monster-story mechanics. The “bonded mates” idea is front and center, so when characters cling to each other, argue, or propose, it lands as more than just sweetness. It’s survival. And I liked the way the mythology feeds the emotional stakes, especially when the story reveals that one character’s identity matters not just romantically, but cosmically, like the Beast concept that reframes what “power” means in this world. The book loves explanation and escalation, sometimes back-to-back. For me, it worked best when the story let a moment breathe, then hit again. Short. Punchy. Then a longer scene where you can feel the characters trying to steady themselves.
I’d recommend Total Chaos most to readers who already enjoy paranormal romance that leans bold and cinematic, with shapeshifters, demon lore, and a tight-knit group dynamic, and especially to anyone who likes their series books to close with emotional payoff while clearly teeing up the next crisis. (The back matter makes that handoff pretty explicit.) If you’re already invested in the Breedline world, this one delivers the kind of chaos its title promises. If you’re brand new, you can still follow the main conflict, but you’ll probably appreciate it more if you start earlier in the series, when the relationships and grudges first take root. Overall, a highly recommended read for paranormal romance fans.
Pages: 380 | ASIN: B0G81DL29M
A Trail of Darkness (Book 3 of the Last Battlefield for Light and Darkness)
A Trail of Darkness is an epic fantasy sequel that splits its attention between ground-level danger and bigger, cosmic stakes. It opens with a chilling act of corruption that turns a lake into an abyss, then follows Zeferti, a newly recognized mage in Witen, whose graduation day curdles into betrayal when the very people meant to protect the “sacred” place try to erase her. Forced to run, she falls in with a rough band of Corruption Hunters led by Rah’keem, gets pulled into a frantic night fight against a mind-bending threat called the Pristine Herald, and ends up staring at clues that suggest something larger is moving behind the scenes.
I liked how confidently author Marvin North commits to the vibe. The writing likes bold imagery, and when it works, it really works. That opening corruption sequence has that “cold water turning wrong” feeling, like you can almost taste metal in the air. And then the book pivots into Zeferti’s perspective, where the tension is more personal, more immediate: fear, betrayal, the instinct to survive, the awkwardness of having to communicate without speech. I also appreciated that the action tends to be built around clear problems and quick choices rather than endless spectacle. When Zeferti acts, it feels earned, and it’s often messy in a relatable way.
North also makes some deliberate structural choices that tell you what kind of series this is. The story takes a “big arc” approach, with parts, interludes, and even a bonus section that reads like an add-on storyline (“The Darkness Contract”) rather than just extra fluff. On the page, you can feel the author balancing two modes: intimate character survival on one side, and a wider lore machine on the other, where Light and Darkness aren’t just themes, they’re literal forces with their own politics. If you love staying glued to one character’s tight viewpoint, the zooming-out moments may interrupt your momentum. But if you like the sense that the ceiling keeps lifting, that the world is bigger than the scene you’re in, those turns are part of the fun.
I’d recommend this most to readers who enjoy epic fantasy that leans into dark magic, monster-hunting energy, and ongoing series mythology, especially if you like stories where “corruption” is both a personal trauma and a literal, spreading force. If you’re already invested in the wider Light vs Darkness conflict, this book feeds you well. If you’re new, you can follow the immediate plot beats, but I think it’s written as a continuation, and it will work best for people who like settling into a long campaign rather than a quick standalone adventure.
If you’re the kind of reader who lights up for the creeping dread and moral pressure of The Wheel of Time, or you love the big-hearted grit and lived-in worldbuilding you get with Brandon Sanderson, this story will feel like familiar territory with its own darker weather. It has that long-series momentum where every scene seems to tug on a larger thread, and it pairs urgent, on-the-run survival with the sense that something ancient and dangerous is waking up just out of sight. Come for the monsters and the magic, stay for the way the corruption seeps into everything, forcing the characters to make choices that aren’t clean, easy, or completely safe.
Pages: 498 | ASIN : B0GM8XQXQQ
A Feedback Loop
The Fifth Anomaly follows an urban exploration team who are investigating an abandoned prison known for paranormal activity, where they discover their data and sense of time start to bend around the anomaly. What inspired Hillrose Penitentiary as the central setting?
That’s actually a funny topic. The entire story started from an approach of “Could I compose a good creepypasta.” Found footage, especially ghost hunters played a part in that, and penitentiaries carry a lot of weight in those circles. From the outside, it’s a set of walls containing dark things and keeping them from bleeding into the world. I just leaned into that containment failure.
The central idea that “observation changes the observer” drives the story. Where did that concept originate?
There’s not a lot in the horror space that scares me anymore, but one thing that has never ceased to unsettle me is the idea that “our assumptions about our world are inaccurate.” Look at the film Oculus for example. There’s something terrifying about “My mind tells me I’m biting into an apple, but it’s actually a lightbulb”. That extends into the premise of the book in the sense that “our world is not a closed system, it is a feedback loop.” Cosmic horror to me is basically anxiety codified into prose. Once you start thinking that way, everything looks fluid.
Do you see the book as horror told through technology, or horror about technology?
Horror told through technology. The horror comes from realizing how small we are and how little control we have over objective reality. Technology is just the lens. Discord logs, camera feeds, digital timestamps that stop making sense are just the artifacts we see through them. Yomi uses technology as a medium because she understands observation and documentation better than the humans do. The screens aren’t the threat; they’re just showing you what was always there.
What will the next book in that series be about, and when will it be published?
The next book, The Chuin Cascade: A Threshold Chronicle, has a complete first draft at 70,000 words. I’m currently doing a revision pass based on what I learned from editing Book 1. Cleaning up show-don’t-tell issues, tightening sentence structure, all the unglamorous craft work that makes the difference. Once that’s done, it goes to professional editing. I’m targeting late 2026 for release. The companion album, Threshold II: Catharsis, is already live on Spotify – the mythology was built first, so I could release the music ahead of the book.
Author Links: Facebook | Instagram | Website | Spotify
Until Hillrose Penitentiary.
What begins as another routine investigation becomes something else entirely when Marcus Chen’s team discovers a pattern. A pattern that repeats across decades, etched into the prison’s structure and buried in its records. As they document the anomaly, the pattern begins to replicate. In their footage. In their notes. In their perception of time itself.
Some patterns demand to be observed. And observation changes the observer.
The Fifth Anomaly is the first book in The Threshold Chronicles, a cosmic horror series exploring the boundaries between humanity and their place in objective reality. This edition features an integrated soundtrack experience. Scan QR codes at chapter endings to hear the music that accompanies each threshold.
For readers of American Gods, House of Leaves, and the New Weird.
The Fifth Anomaly: A Threshold Chronicle
The Fifth Anomaly follows a small urban exploration group that prides itself on debunking hauntings with cameras, notes, and skepticism, until they meet Hillrose Penitentiary, a prison with too many basements, missing records, and a pattern of investigations that always start in October and never quite finish. As Marcus, Riley, Sam, and Kevin descend through Hillrose, their footage, their chat logs, and even their sense of time start to bend around the anomaly. The story keeps zooming out, until we meet David, a writer who realizes he is somehow channeling their ordeal into the very book I am holding, and the act of publishing the story becomes part of the horror itself. It is a cosmic horror tale about patterns that want to be seen and a book that may not want to stay fictional.
I really liked how the book feels. The Discord transcripts, reports, chat logs, and more traditional scenes flow together in a way that reads fast and keeps the world grounded. The author even opens with a frank foreword about “just trying to finish a book,” which sets a scrappy, human tone that I found charming and disarming before the story gets weird. The writing leans into clear, conversational language, so even when the concepts get big, the sentences stay readable. Sometimes the momentum gets ahead of the polish. I could feel a bit of repetition and a few cumbersome transitions, especially when Kevin is info-dumping research or when the group re-states the pattern one more time. But I never felt lost. The scenes in Hillrose’s lower levels, the tallies on the walls, the long grind of “observation duty” all landed for me with a heavy, tired dread that fit the characters and the premise.
What I liked most was the book’s attitude toward observation and authorship. The core idea that “some patterns demand to be observed, and observation changes the observer” runs through everything: the Discord channel, the cameras, the tallies on concrete, the way David’s hands become a kind of meat keyboard for something else that wants the story finished and uploaded. I felt genuinely unsettled by the suggestion that my act of reading joins that pattern. The meta twist, where The Fifth Anomaly exists inside its own last chapter as a runaway book that writes and distributes itself, is clever and creepy. It also brushes up against real-world questions about AI, co-writing, and who is really in charge of the words. Riley’s arc in particular hit me harder than I expected. Her mix of competence, fear, and longing for a “normal” life gave the cosmic stuff a human anchor, so when the story asks her to pay the price for seeing too much, I felt that loss.
I would recommend The Fifth Anomaly to readers who enjoy cosmic horror with a tech-age vibe, people who liked House of Leaves, creepypasta, or “found footage” stories, and anyone curious about metafiction that plays with Discord chats, documents, and author notes as part of the scare. It is not for someone who wants neat answers, clean timelines, or a cozy ending. The book leaves some edges rough, both in prose and in lore, and it leans into existential dread more than jump scares. I closed the last page feeling spooked and impressed that a debut horror novel managed to make the simple act of opening an ebook feel like joining a very old, persistent experiment.
Pages: 469 | ASIN : B0G8LTJQR5
