Blog Archives
Romance in Unexpected Places
Remember, It’s Just in Your Head follows a university student navigating grief, anxiety, identity, guilt, and the difficult journey toward choosing to live after the suicide of his close friend. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I am someone who never really acknowledged the mental health of others around me when I was growing up. I realised as I grew older that it’s important to be conscious of everyone who is around you, because their presence can be very beneficial to recovery when you feel low.
Life can take a major turn without any warning, so Reuben personifies how unpredictable these scenarios can be.
Guilt comes because of reflection on decisions that have had consequences that could’ve been avoided. The struggle is that you can’t change the past, and that in itself is a feeling you have to overcome.
How did you balance the novel’s darker themes with its moments of humor, friendship, romance, and hope?
All our emotional responses are built upon interwoven experiences; ruminating on darker themes would make the story too morbid. Reuben as a character’s life still needed to progress even if he was faced with such profound, depressing challenges.
I made Reuben an intuitive character who explored himself as a person and worked out how to tackle his vulnerability by seeking support when he realised he needed it. Humour is a way of relieving stress and anxiety, connecting with people to find positives out of awkward or uncomfortable situations. The story explores this by expanding upon the various personalities you come across in day-to-day life.
Finding romance in unexpected places helps Reuben develop as a character; he learns about his sexuality by exposing himself to people who can relate to it themselves. Nathan is a fundamental character in that plot arc and shows that there are people out there who are going or have gone through similar experiences.
How did you approach writing Reuben’s memories of Ava without reducing her character to her death?
Reuben reflects on several occasions throughout the story when he is faced with objects or situations that give him nostalgia.
Ava has a relationship with him that has lasted many years, and this is depicted by how well they know each other. This is shown in how much they open up to each other and how they promise to be there for each other when they’re struggling. They share sanctuary spaces around town that Reuben feels connected to and comfortable escaping from the harsh community that he is exposed to.
Ava is represented both in life and in death by her Polaroid Camera and how she insists that Reuben takes pictures of “the good stuff.” She shows him how to find beauty in the ordinary and turn something plain into something special.
The story explores art in various forms to show how much someone can connect with their natural passion. Reuben knows by the end of the story that whether Ava is alive or dead is irrelevant to how influential she has been in supporting him mentally in his acceptance of himself.
What did you want readers to understand about queer love within a story that is also centered on grief?
That LGBT+ people are not alone when they’re nervous about coming out. That mental health is a journey that encompasses acceptance regardless of how long it takes.
Sexuality and gender are not something that should define you, in the same way that anxiety shouldn’t. Just be true to yourself and take your time with the hurdles that you come across.
If you love someone, you should make it count, whether they’re the same or opposite sex. Missing opportunities is not something you’d want to dwell on in the future or regret.
Grief is not something that you should have to endure all through life; it shouldn’t trap you. However, all things that are close to our heart take time to heal.
Make sure you value yourself and everything around you because life is never guaranteed to be stable. Make things as easy as possible for yourself to achieve the happiest well-being.
Reuben never chose to be gay, but he learns this from finding solace. Any reader who can relate to this needs to know that life is always about focusing on the “good stuff.”
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | YouTube | Instagram | TikTok | Amazon
Haunted by what might happen and burdened by his secret, Reuben is trying his hardest to cope. With him sharing sanctuary spaces with his close friend Ava around town, the two have places to relieve stress, where no one can find them.
When Ava’s own pain proves deeper than anyone knew, Reuben is left with grief, guilt, and the impossible question of whether he got caught up in his own spirals too much to notice. Remember, It’s Just In Your Head is a tender contemporary novel about friendship, loss, self-forgiveness, and making sure that anxiety isn’t something that defines you.
“Photography isn’t about capturing perfect moments. It’s about finding beauty in the ordinary, and turning something so plain into something special.”
Remember, It’s Just in Your Head
Remember, It’s Just in Your Head, by Ben Dylan, is a contemporary LGBTQ+ coming-of-age novel about grief, identity, and the difficult work of choosing to live. University student Reuben Fletcher is already struggling with anxiety, suicidal thoughts, family pressure, and his hidden sexuality when his close friend Ava dies by suicide. Her death leaves him replaying every missed warning sign and unanswered call. From there, the story follows Reuben as he carries his guilt through lectures, orchestra rehearsals, friendships, and a campus culture that can be both cruel and unexpectedly supportive.
As mental health fiction, the novel is intensely direct about depression, disordered eating, panic, and bereavement. Reuben’s first-person narration keeps the reader close to his spiraling thoughts, especially when ordinary moments become loaded with fear or regret. The recurring images of rooftops, photographs, and chemical reactions give shape to emotions he can’t easily explain. Ava’s Polaroid camera becomes the book’s strongest symbol, connecting memory with her final request that Reuben keep looking for “the good stuff.”
The queer coming-of-age story develops alongside Reuben’s grief, particularly through his relationship with Nathan and his frightening experience of being publicly outed by Xan. Dylan captures the exhausting calculations that come with hiding, as well as the relief Reuben gradually finds in being known. The supporting cast gives the campus novel a generous emotional range. Ryan, Sophia, Taylor, and even Reuben’s abrasive classmate Nadia are carrying private pain of their own. Their stories reinforce the book’s central idea that kindness often begins when someone takes the time to look beneath another person’s performance.
The prose favors emotional clarity and repeated motifs, occasionally restating Reuben’s guilt and fear more often than the moment requires. That repetition also reflects a mind caught in rumination, making his eventual return to music feel genuinely earned. This is a grief and healing novel with a tender gay romance, a strong awareness of student mental health, and a sincere belief in human connection. Remember, It’s Just in Your Head offers an openhearted portrait of survival as something built slowly through friendship, creativity, accountability, and the decision to keep showing up.
Pages: 243 | ASIN : B0HCTPJ9YV
The Dawning
Zoe Nauman’s The Dawning is an ambitious young adult portal fantasy built around faith, free will, and the seductive pull of power. In Amaris, the former celestial Arielle has sacrificed her wings and immortality to guide a collection of increasingly divided clans. Her frustration makes her vulnerable to Abaddon and the dark ruler Sephtis, who transform her into the formidable Sathariel. Meanwhile, a prophecy summons three wounded teenagers from Earth, Fatiha, Cosmo, and Jiyanu, whose blood may provide the key to containing her. It’s a large-scale story filled with dragons, underwater kingdoms, living trees, stone giants, magical gateways, and enough sacred objects to keep the heroes constantly moving.
I think the book’s most compelling idea is that Sathariel’s fall grows from recognizable emotions. Her resentment, loneliness, and desire to be appreciated give the temptation of darkness a personal foundation. The three Yasha reflect that emotional focus in different ways: Fatiha carries the pain of betrayal, Cosmo lives with grief and anxiety, and Jiyanu struggles with anger after witnessing terrible violence. Their experiences make the novel as interested in emotional recovery as it is in battles and prophecy. Nauman also creates some memorable settings, particularly Mariam’s ocean realm, the Vanavashtha forest, and the dragon riders’ mountain home. The multilingual names and spiritual traditions give Amaris a deliberately multicultural identity, while the scene in which leaders of several Earth religions unite against Sathariel makes the book’s message especially clear.
Readers of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time will recognize a similar blend of interdimensional adventure, spiritual symbolism, and young people confronting a darkness that thrives on fear and conformity. Like L’Engle, Nauman treats love as an active force. Her approach is broader and more ensemble-driven, moving among clan leaders, celestial beings, villains, and the three teenagers. That scope gives the story an epic quality, though it also means the opening half carries a substantial amount of mythology, prophecy, and explanation before the Yasha arrive. The prose favors vivid sensory description and states its moral ideas plainly, creating a style that feels accessible and earnest.
What I liked most was the novel’s belief that unity requires choice. The people of Amaris don’t overcome their differences because they suddenly agree on everything. They choose to cooperate because protecting one another matters more than preserving old divisions. The final confrontation gives that principle real emotional weight, and victory comes with a cost that keeps the conclusion from feeling too tidy. The Dawning is a sincere, imaginative fantasy about turning grief into purpose, resisting the appeal of control, and finding strength in people whose lives and beliefs differ from your own. It leaves Amaris secure for the moment, while giving the wider series plenty of magical and emotional territory to explore.
Pages: 313 | ASIN : B0GX3CW7R2
Power and Exploitation
Wolf Warrior follows a wild shepherdess as she travels through dangerous kingdoms and magical realms while confronting exploitation, political conflict, and powerful forces that test her growing role as a leader and protector. What draws you to the fantasy genre?
What drew me into the fantasy genre was the magical creatures, like dragons and unicorns, and magic systems. My favorite types were shape-shifting, summoning, healing, divination, and elemental control. Each rule is fascinating and can be dicey if it falls into the wrong hands.
The villains manipulate and control creatures, while Clara works to build bonds with them. Was that contrast intended as a larger commentary on power and exploitation?
No. This kind of story was just the plot point I’ve enjoyed in previous films and fantasy stories that involve the battle against corruption.
Healing is a major theme in Wolf Warrior. What does healing mean within the magical and emotional world of the novel?
Healing means that while the painful memories won’t go away, you’re able to move on from them. The magical healing just means removing the physical injuries and making sure the soul is intact. However, when it comes to the emotions, empathy is the biggest key!
What can readers expect from Clara and the Beast Heart series going forward?
Clara will slowly begin to take on the role of leader, but she’s also going to encounter some friction with King Helios and Almathia because both have gone through a difficult loss. As for Lady Maroona and the remaining children, I’ll be working on their origins.
However…Lady Maroona’s and Clara’s battle is far from over!
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Beast Heart Series: Wolf Warrior
Erin Tunney’s Wolf Warrior, the second book in The Beast Heart Series, is an expansive fantasy adventure that pushes Clara’s story far beyond the personal struggle that first defined her. Clara is still the Wild Shepherdess, bonded to the wolf Onyx and the unicorn Lotus, but she’s becoming something larger: a mediator, fighter, healer, and increasingly reluctant leader. The novel moves from the Selkie kingdom beneath the ocean to pirate ships, frozen Harpy settlements, Sand Dwarf territory, and volcanic caverns filled with Hellhounds. Along the way, Clara gets pulled into a conflict involving Queen Sedna, the mysterious Leviathans, human mages, and a trade in Selkie pelts that reveals just how deeply exploitation runs through the Human Kingdom. The setting is especially fun when Tunney lets the strange creatures take center stage. Selkies change forms underwater, Leviathans communicate through the sea, and magic behaves almost like a living ecosystem. The result is a fantasy world that feels busy, dangerous, and genuinely inhabited.
What gives Wolf Warrior its strongest identity, though, is the way it treats bonds as a form of power. Clara’s abilities revolve around Life Threads, and Tunney keeps returning to the difference between connection and control. The villains force animals and other beings into obedience, manipulate their threads, and treat living creatures as resources. Clara becomes powerful by doing almost the opposite. She listens, repairs, cooperates, and gradually learns that some problems are too large for one person to solve. One of the most telling moments comes after the battle with High Mage Fathma. Clara has already won, but she refuses to consider the job finished while Queen Sedna is dying, so Clara, Wave, Quartz, Orion, and Aquental work together to reconstruct Sedna’s damaged Life Threads. That idea carries into the later restoration of Iridescent, where memory, affection, and Quartz’s love become part of the healing itself. It’s an earnest approach to magic, and it makes Clara’s compassion feel like an active skill.
Tunney writes with a direct, highly visual style, particularly when monsters, battles, or magical transformations are involved. The underwater sections have glowing cities, enormous shadows, strange fish, coral structures, and creatures that can shift from beautiful to frightening within a few sentences. The later Hellhound material gets darker, with captured souls, animal experimentation, and Duke Averance’s disturbing attempts to merge domesticated beasts with magical creatures. There’s a lot happening throughout the novel, and that abundance becomes part of its personality. Alliances change, characters are captured and rescued, old enemies become potential allies, and new pieces of the Beast Heart mythology keep appearing. The emotional register is just as open. Clara cries, panics, gets angry, falls in love, makes mistakes, and gets physically battered by the consequences of her choices. The lighter exchanges with Twitch, Helios, Quartz, and the animals help keep all that danger from becoming monotonous. I especially liked how the developing romances sit alongside the larger political story instead of replacing it.
Readers of Tamora Pierce, especially her Immortals books, may recognize something appealing in Clara. Like Pierce’s Daine, Clara’s relationship with animals and magical creatures gradually changes how she understands both power and the societies around her. Tunney takes that idea in a particularly political direction, building Clara into someone who can connect species and kingdoms that have spent generations fearing one another. By the end of Wolf Warrior, she’s beginning to see herself differently too. After surviving betrayal, war, and the corruption of people she was raised to respect, Clara looks at herself as a warrior, a survivor, and someone capable of leadership. She also recognizes that the conflicts she’s uncovered are much bigger than one kingdom, while the epilogue opens the Beast Heart mythology even further through Hazel and her own hidden connection to that power. Wolf Warrior feels like the point where The Beast Heart Series grows from Clara’s individual story into a much larger fantasy about alliances, inherited hatred, freedom, and what kind of person deserves to wield power.
Pages: 340 | ISBN : 978-1806932689
Innocence and Sarcasm
How a Sneeze Destroyed a Multi-Billion-Dollar Company follows a man who, after a devastating accident, receives an experimental computer interface and accidentally downloads his Linux computer directly into his consciousness. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
It’s the thing I would do. I have the photic sneeze effect that David has, and I thought, “Ok, what is the worst possible thing that could happen?” and then I made it happen. And before you ask me, yes, I would plug myself into my computer.
How do David’s extraordinary abilities change him as a person rather than simply making him more powerful?
At first, all he wanted was to rule the gaming world where he lives via his gaming console; then the upgrade/interfacing with Betsy allowed him to react with the outside world as they would with his games. Without worry of being made fun of due to his Asperger’s, giving him confidence through his newfound abilities.
Beneath its humor, the novel raises an enormous question: what would someone actually do if almost nothing were impossible for them? What interested you about exploring that idea?
Some would attempt to use the abilities for themselves and not for others, which is why I chose to explore the innocence and sarcasm of David’s life and help him create things to benefit others, which is his core persona.
The ending clearly leaves room for David, Betsy, Edith, and Harry to have more adventures. What possibilities excite you most about continuing their story?
Oh, the things they could do as a team. The Further Adventures of the Impossible 4 await, so get ready for more action and Impossible things. Albeit from the perspective of Edith and Harry.
Author Links: Barnes & Noble
What would you do if you could do anything? Talk to the animals maybe? Well I can become them. What about learning a new language or two? I download them into my brain. Or how about printing your own money? Me? I only borrowed $5,000 and went on a shopping spree and look where it landed me hey! Working for the president on above top secret missions that’s where! Now how is all this possible? Well, a single sneeze not only turned my world upside down, it turned me into a super hero. Able to gain WIFI access with a single thought, download operating manuals for any vehicle from land through sea to aircraft. all in a single thought. The possibilities are endless to me and Betsy. Who is Betsy, my other half (Literally the other half of me) my home supercomputer I ended up downloading into my skull. My name is David Vincent Gillespie, and this is a story of how I managed to bring down a multi billion dollar company with a single sneeze.
How a Sneeze Destroyed a Multi-Billion-Dollar Company
How a Sneeze Destroyed a Multi-Billion-Dollar Company by Nightdancer Slater is a fast-moving science fiction action comedy built around one wonderfully strange chain reaction. David Vincent Gillespie has a violent photic sneeze while driving, crashes into a freight train, suffers catastrophic spinal injuries, and eventually receives an experimental computer interface that helps restore his mobility. Things get considerably stranger when David plugs himself into his beloved Linux gaming computer, Betsy, and her operating system merges with his consciousness. From that point on, the novel treats the human body like editable computer hardware, giving David and Betsy an expanding collection of abilities that turn a medical experiment into a wild sci-fi adventure.
The biggest personality in the book is David himself. He narrates everything with sarcasm, wordplay, deliberate mispronunciations, inappropriate jokes, and a habit of talking directly to the reader as though he’s telling the whole story across a table. That makes this as much comic science fiction as it is an action story. Betsy is a great match for him because she gradually develops from David’s favorite computer into a genuine character and partner, capable of repairing his body, downloading skills, manipulating biological “data,” and eventually transforming living tissue into different species. The possibilities keep escalating, from night vision and instant martial arts knowledge to sonar, animal transformations, regeneration, and some extremely inventive uses of shapeshifting. The fun comes from watching David encounter each ridiculous new possibility and almost immediately find an even more ridiculous way to use it.
Once David’s abilities attract government attention, the book becomes an episodic science fiction action novel full of secret missions, criminals, terrorists, kidnappings, hidden compounds, shootouts, helicopters, underground bunkers, and increasingly bizarre escapes. His battles with Mr Bleach are especially entertaining because David approaches potentially deadly situations with the attitude of someone who’s more interested in annoying the villain than delivering a heroic speech. Later developments broaden the story considerably. Betsy gains an independent human body, David and Betsy marry, and their extraordinary twins Edith and Harry inherit abilities that make their parents look almost ordinary. By the closing chapters, the story has turned its central technological idea into an entire super-powered family dynamic, with the children downloading languages, solving seemingly impossible problems, transforming themselves, and joining their parents’ adventures.
What gives How a Sneeze Destroyed a Multi-Billion-Dollar Company its particular flavor is its refusal to keep its imagination on a leash. It’s a humorous science fiction novel, a superhero-style adventure, a technology fantasy, a crime caper, and eventually a family comedy, all filtered through David’s relentlessly mischievous narration. Ideas arrive quickly and tend to grow into bigger ones, so the story has the feel of someone enthusiastically asking, “What could happen next?” and then choosing the most chaotic answer available. Beneath all the transformations and jokes, there’s also a warm thread running through David’s relationships with Betsy, his mother, his children, and even people he meets through his missions. The ending deliberately leaves their strange family adventure open for more, closing with a promise that there’s more trouble, technology, transformation, and comic science fiction madness still to come.
Pages: 106 | ISBN : 9798260307014
Queen of Starlight
Molly M. Hammond’s Queen of Starlight, the second book in the Starlight Series, is an energetic fantasy adventure built around magical worlds, ancient riddles, dragons, political reconciliation, and a romance that’s finally ready to move beyond lingering glances. A year after saving Edira, Luma begins seeing shadows that no one else can see. She soon discovers that a corrupted mage named Hex is draining magic from both Edira and the wizard world of Malicath, forcing former enemies to work together. The resulting quest takes Luma through ruined landscapes, secret archives, dragon sanctuaries, and the unsettling Dark Forest between worlds.
The book’s biggest strength is its lively group of characters. Luma remains the emotional center, but Figg’s blunt humor, Aire’s playful commentary, Trill’s pompous “owl matters,” and Ketu’s dragon-sized enthusiasm keep the story from becoming too heavy. Ashen is an especially effective addition. His swagger and flirtatious teasing create friction with Corr, yet he gradually becomes a courageous and loyal friend. Hammond gives the ensemble a warm, lived-in quality, so scenes involving meals, jokes, children, and minor squabbles matter almost as much as the magical battles. Even the alliance between elves and wizards grows through personal trust.
Luma’s central struggle gives the adventure its emotional weight. She starts by insisting she’s fine while fear, exhaustion, and strange whispers steadily close in around her. As the story progresses, she has to accept grief, romantic vulnerability, her mother’s dark magical legacy, and the limits of starlight by itself. The final confrontation works because victory depends on balance. Luma learns to wield darkness and light together, controlling her anger instead of letting vengeance control her. Izarre’s death brings genuine pain to that lesson, while Ashen’s sacrifice for Corr shows how far the once-divided characters have come.
Readers of Sarah J. Maas will recognize the appeal of a powerful heroine surrounded by a loyal, bantering found family, with romance and large-scale magical conflict woven through the same story. Hammond’s storytelling has a more direct, brisk rhythm, and her world carries an inviting fairy-tale warmth even when the stakes turn grim. The resolution is generous, giving space to political recovery, returning dragons, weddings, friendships, and Luma’s new role as queen. That hopeful finish suits a book whose clearest idea is that strength comes from bringing divided forces into harmony. Queen of Starlight is a heartfelt romantasy sequel with accessible world-building, affectionate humor, and a heroine who earns her crown by learning what her power truly contains.
Pages: 302 | ASIN : B0H8TF5Z4H
