Author Archives: Literary Titan
Two Connected Souls
Two Connected Souls follows Derrick, his wife Susan, and their young son Ricky as their cozy New England life shatters when a tragedy occurs that leaves Derrick unresponsive and left in a coma. While his body lies in the hospital, his consciousness slips into a bright, unknown dimension where a silent robed figure guides him through scenes from his life and towards a final destination. Back on earth, Ricky feels every shift in his father’s condition and starts to sense that their connection runs deeper than ordinary love. They realized his cell phone that father and son once used as a simple safety net turn into a strange bridge between worlds, allowing Derrick to call home from that other plane and later letting Ricky call his father back from the edge of a darker place. Their bond solidifies into something almost physical, a shared soul connection that lets them touch, travel, and finally find their way back to the family, with the promise of another soul waiting to join them in the future.
Reading it, I felt like I was inside a heartfelt family story first and a spiritual thriller second. The writing leans warm and earnest, full of sensory detail about seasons, snow, and the quiet routines that makes life feel safe. Sometimes the prose stretches a scene, yet that same intensity gives the big emotional beats real weight. I liked how the cell phone, a very ordinary object, becomes a lifeline across dimensions, even if the device occasionally feels a little on the nose. The dialogue often spells things out in plain terms. Sometimes I wanted more subtext, but the hospital scenes, the accident, and Ricky’s panic and hope held my attention and felt vivid.
What stayed with me most was the way the book talks about love, faith, and choice in very simple language. The story treats the bond between parent and child as something literally cosmic, not just emotional, and I found that oddly comforting. I liked the idea that even “bad” or empty souls still crave warmth and that Derrick’s refusal to give in matters, not just his beliefs or his prayers. The visits to the misty realm, the angels, the hint of hell, and the robed creator figure are pretty straightforward. For me, it felt like listening to someone tell a very personal near-death story. I could feel the wish behind it. The wish that love really does reach across every barrier, and that a child’s trust and a parent’s promise are stronger than fear.
Two Connected Souls is heartfelt, clear, and determined to reassure you that death is a doorway, not a wall. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy inspirational or spiritual fiction, to parents who like stories about fierce parent–child bonds, and to anyone who finds comfort in vivid pictures of heaven, angels, and divine presence. If you want a straight-from-the-heart story about love that refuses to let go, I think this book will be very enjoyable for you.
Pages: 91 | ASIN: B0GDVLW9GG
Belonging to the World
Belonging to the World follows Barry Hoffner’s journey from the sudden loss of his wife, Jackie, to an unexpected path of healing as he travels to every country on earth. The book opens with the shattering grief of Jackie’s death and the dark, disorienting months that follow, then widens into a story about connection, curiosity, and the raw power of human kindness. Hoffner moves through deserts in Oman, chaos and beauty in Afghanistan, warmth in Syria, wonder in Bhutan, and countless small moments of humanity that tell him he still belongs to the world, even when he feels unmoored from it. It is both a memoir of loss and a chronicle of awe, written with honesty and a clear desire to understand people wherever he goes.
As I read, I felt pulled into his emotional rhythm. Sometimes he writes with a quiet weight, almost like he is whispering because the grief is still too close. Other times, he throws himself into a scene with bright energy, like he is hungry to feel alive again. I found that mix moving. It mirrors how grief actually behaves. It hits hard, then softens, then surprises you all over again. The travel stories aren’t just pretty postcard moments. They are the places where he bumps into his own pain and also where he finds these tiny sparks of connection. I loved how often strangers show up at the perfect time. It made me think about how people everywhere have this instinct to reach toward someone who hurts.
I also appreciated the simplicity of the writing. He doesn’t try to sound wise or polished, and I liked that. It feels like someone telling you the truth as they live it. The chapters unfold quickly, each country arriving like a new test or a new chance. I sometimes wished he lingered longer, especially in the places that clearly changed him. But the pace also reflects his state of mind. After loss, standing still can feel dangerous. Moving forward feels like survival. And the way he carries Jackie with him in every experience made me ache. It never felt sentimental. It felt real.
By the end, I had this sense that the world he traveled through became less a map and more a mirror. Every landscape, every border crossing, every shared meal made him a little braver and a little softer. I didn’t finish the book thinking about travel as a checklist. I finished it thinking about how connection works. How people can stitch you back together without even knowing they’re doing it. How a life can shift from broken to open if you let yourself keep going, one unfamiliar place at a time.
I would recommend Belonging to the World to anyone traveling through grief, anyone who loves travel stories with heart, and anyone who wants to see the world as more generous than the headlines make it seem. It’s especially good for readers who don’t need tidy lessons and who are comfortable walking beside someone still figuring it all out. The book feels like a companion for anyone trying to rebuild after life comes apart.
Pages: 405 | ASIN : B0FZNNDF5L
Lunches with Ed (A Dementia Journey of Love)
Lunches with Ed tells the story of a woman caring for her husband as dementia slowly changes every corner of their shared life. The book follows Judy Collier’s journey from the first troubling signs to the caregiving years at home, the painful decision to move Ed to long-term care, the strange mix of heartbreak and sweetness in her daily visits, and finally the peaceful end of his life. She lays out the memories through stories, journal entries, and reflections that show love staying steady even as everything else slips away.
The writing feels simple at first, almost like someone talking to a friend over coffee, yet that is exactly what makes it so strong. The plainness pulls you in. You start to feel the fear she tries to hide and the way she keeps moving anyway. There were moments that made me laugh because they felt so human and odd, like Ed grouping his grapes into sets of four or insisting his license was locked in the doctor’s desk. Then I’d turn a page and feel my chest tighten when he wandered outside in the middle of the night or when she held window visits during the long months of Covid. The emotional swings felt real. They felt like life. I found myself pausing often just to sit with it.
What stayed with me most was how she writes about devotion. Not as some grand thing but as a series of small acts that never stop. Holding his hand while he sleeps. Feeding him when he forgets how. Talking to shadows in the corner because it eased his fear. None of it feels dramatic. It feels steady and warm and a little exhausting and also brave in a quiet way. The journal entries hit me especially hard. They show the rhythm of her days shifting between hope and dread. They show how love keeps showing up even when the person you love is drifting somewhere you cannot follow. I felt myself rooting for both of them and sometimes whispering a little prayer under my breath because the truth of it all was so heavy.
I closed the book with a mix of sadness and gratitude. Sadness because the story is real, and loss is real. Gratitude because the author chose to share something so personal and because her honesty might make someone else feel less alone. I would recommend Lunches with Ed to caregivers, family members walking through dementia, readers drawn to memoir, and anyone who wants a reminder that tenderness still matters in hard seasons.
Pages: 82
The Stanton Falls Mysteries – Promotion to Peril
Susan Reed-Flores’s The Stanton Falls Mysteries: Promotion to Peril explores the destructive forces of greed and envy, which drive the chilling crimes in the small town of Stanton Falls. As newly appointed Police Chief Dan Ross, along with Detective Scalari and rookie Detective Reed, navigate the murky waters of corruption and injustice, they find themselves embroiled in a deeply personal and dangerous investigation. The team embarks on a thrilling journey as they piece together clues, unravel crimes, and bring wrongdoers to justice. The discovery of corruption within their own ranks adds a compelling twist to their mission, emphasizing the importance of integrity in their pursuit to protect Stanton Falls. Despite the dangers, their unwavering commitment to justice shines through, making for an engaging and suspenseful read.
The writing is engaging and accessible, with Reed-Flores’s clear narrative style allowing the story to flow smoothly. The pacing is well-handled, especially as each short story builds upon the last, creating a cohesive and satisfying reading experience. However, I found that while the plot twists were compelling, some of the dialogue could have used a bit more polish to make the characters’ interactions feel more natural. For instance, certain conversations between Ross and his fellow detectives felt a bit stiff, which slightly detracted from the immersion. One of the strengths of this book is its ability to balance the tension of the crime-solving aspects with the personal lives of the characters. Reed-Flores does an excellent job of weaving in moments of vulnerability, particularly in the scenes involving Ross and his family, which add emotional depth to the narrative. The interplay between the professional and personal stakes keeps the reader invested in both the outcomes of the cases and the well-being of the characters. The structure of the book, with its three interconnected short stories, allows for a variety of cases and character developments, which keeps the reader engaged. The mysteries themselves are well-crafted, with clues that are thoughtfully placed and pay off in satisfying resolutions. The final story, which ties together elements from the previous ones, is particularly strong and serves as a fitting conclusion to the trilogy’s middle entry. That said, some of the secondary characters could have been developed further, as they sometimes felt like they were there more to serve the plot than to add richness to the story’s world.
The Stanton Falls Mysteries: Promotion to Peril is an enjoyable read, particularly for fans of cozy mysteries who appreciate a blend of suspense and character-driven storytelling. Reed-Flores’s ability to create a sense of place and community within Stanton Falls makes the town feel like a character in its own right, adding to the overall charm of the book. I would recommend this book to readers who are looking for a light yet engaging mystery that delves into both the personal and professional lives of its characters, with just the right amount of intrigue to keep you turning the pages.
Pages: 209 | ASIN : B0DH2QKQBC
Bad Day for Justice (Warren & Carmichael Legal Thrillers – Book 2)
Bad Day for Justice follows two Seattle lawyers, Sydney Warren and Duncan Carmichael, as they get pulled into the fallout from a brutal year in 1983. A Navy pilot vanishes in a stolen EA-6B Prowler, a huge public power project implodes, and a financial advisor named Harold Dawson dies under very suspicious circumstances. Decades later, the grown children of the supposed killer and the victim, along with the Ortez family from the missing-jet scandal, stumble into a fresh blackmail scheme tied to a lost jewel called the Tsarina’s Spider, and everyone has to decide what “justice” looks like when the truth arrives forty years late.
I really enjoyed how the authors handle the nuts-and-bolts stuff. The legal and military pieces feel grounded, yet the story still moves. The opening sequence with the stolen Prowler has real punch, and the later courtroom work around the Dawson death goes down smooth, even when the arguments get technical. The book hops between Navy bases, Seattle law offices, British Columbia ferries, and a Cascade trailhead, and each place feels authentic. I liked spending time with older versions of Sydney and Duncan. They are competent, stubborn, a little tired, and still fully in the fight. The large cast can feel crowded at first, yet by the time Allison rides that little Aquabus with a fake jewel in her lap, I had a decent handle on who mattered and why.
The core question of justice delayed sits over everything, and the forty-year gap makes that question sting. The children of Dawson and Nowak carry scars from choices they never made, and their scenes together have a quiet ache that lingers. I liked the way the story refuses a clean hero-villain split. Dawson’s suicide, Nowak’s ruined life, Danny Ortez’s desperate choices in the past and his weary acceptance in the present, all of that pushes the book into interesting moral gray. The backstory around the WPPSS bond debacle and the art-heist angle with the Tsarina’s Spider feels like a lot of moving parts, and once or twice, I had to pause and mentally sort out who owed what to whom. Still, the emotional throughline kept pulling me back.
By the end, the big deck gathering at the Carmichaels’ house gave me that mix of relief and unease that I like in a legal thriller. The good guys get some wins, old lies get aired out, reputations get patched, yet there is no magic fix for lost decades or wrecked careers. It feels honest. I would recommend Bad Day for Justice to readers who enjoy character-driven legal thrillers, people interested in the Pacific Northwest and real-world financial messes, and anyone who likes seeing older protagonists treated as full-on leads instead of background mentors. If you want a smart, steady, slightly twisty story about family, accountability, and what “justice” costs once the dust finally settles, this one is worth your time.
Pages: 397 | ASIN : B0GGL6WRDT
Nether Land: High School Temptation, Insurance Haze, Stolen Resolution, and Murder
Nether Land follows the tangled rise and tragic end of Ed Netherland, a boy from Murfreesboro who grows into a bold, brilliant, often reckless man whose life eventually spirals into money schemes, fraud, and a mysterious death on St. John Island. The story begins with his funeral and jumps back to the author’s childhood, tracing decades of shifting friendships, grudges, ambition, and uneasy admiration. The book pairs coming-of-age moments with a slow, unsettling unraveling of Ed’s world, and by the time the narrative returns to that final day in 2014, the path feels both inevitable and deeply strange.
While reading it, I felt pulled into a long conversation with the author, one that wandered through memory in a way that felt warm, irritated, tender, and suspicious all at once. His writing is simple on the surface, yet tight with tension underneath. I liked how he captured the awkward cliques and rivalries of Central High. I also felt his lingering resentment toward Ed slip through, even when he tried to be neutral. That honesty made the book feel more vivid. The chapters about UT football, fraternity life, and early adulthood had a friendly, nostalgic tone. Then the tone shifted. The deeper the book went into Ed’s business dealings, the more the storytelling tightened. I could feel the author wrestling with disbelief. The emotional through-line held steady even when the pacing slowed because he kept circling the same question that I found myself asking, too. How does a smart kid from a decent home end up in a storm of lies, lawsuits, and danger.
I kept thinking about the author’s mix of curiosity and frustration. He wrote with affection for the people who shaped him, although not always affection for Ed. Even so, he treated Ed as a real person and not a tabloid headline. I liked that balance. Sometimes I felt the narrative turning slightly dreamy as he drifted back into old school hallways or late-night parking lots. Other times, the writing snapped into something harder when he described the financial tricks, the false promises, and that chilling stretch before the murder. I found myself reacting in quick swings. I laughed at small teenage moments. I felt annoyed at Ed’s constant posturing. I felt sad when the story reached the island and stayed there. The emotional unpredictability made the book gripping, and I never drifted away from the author’s voice.
I would recommend Nether Land to readers who enjoy true crime that leans more toward reflection than sensationalism and to people who like memoirs about Southern towns, complicated friendships, and the strange ways ambition can bend a life. If you enjoy true crime with heart, you’ll enjoy Nether Land.
Pages: 246 | ASIN : B0FZWPXJ9R
The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon
Barry Maher’s The Great Dick and the Dysfunctional Demon starts with a Harvard professor in the late sixties riffing on Moby-Dick and The Great Gatsby and tossing off the idea of a modern version called “The Great Dick.” The story then jumps to 1982 and to Steve Witowski, a thirty-something screwup on the run from a botched drug deal who stumbles into a brutal assault near an old church on the California coast. He tries to help, kills the attacker in chaotic self-defense, and meets Victoria Fairchild, a luminous stranger with secrets of her own. From there, the book slides into a mix of road novel, noir, and supernatural thriller as Steve gets dragged deeper into a tangle of murder, occult relics, demons that may or may not be real, and his own talent for bad decisions.
Steve opens by flat-out calling himself an asshole, and the narration never lets him off the hook. His inner monologue is sharp, petty, funny, horny, scared, sometimes all in the same beat. The writing leans hard into sensory detail and low-level absurdity, like the reek of the Checker cab or the way cheap weed and an old song drift through the scene right before the attack. The fight on the embankment is brutal and weirdly intimate. Keys in his fist, Latin muttered at the worst possible moment, a truck roaring closer. I could feel the panic in my throat. When the book slows down afterward and lets Steve and Victoria talk, that same energy hums under the dialogue. The tone stays casual and foul-mouthed, yet there is a careful rhythm in the sentences. It feels tossed off in the way really worked-over prose often does. I found myself rereading lines just to enjoy how a joke landed or how an image curved at the end.
The book plays with failure and faith in a way that was thought-provoking. Steve keeps trying to patch his life with lies, quick exits, and a little dope, then suddenly he is neck deep in something that smells like capital E Evil. The dagger with the names of Jehovah, Ahura Mazda, Huitzilopochtli, and Asmodeus etched into the handle is such a great symbol for the book’s spiritual chaos. It pulls Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, and Aztec gods into the same creepy object and then hands it to a loser who just wanted to dodge a prison sentence. I liked how the story keeps asking what counts as sin, what counts as choice, and where simple cowardice shades into something darker. At the same time, it never reads like a lecture. It feels like a wild story that happens to drag big questions in behind it.
The book is full of sex, violence, and black humor, yet there are small, quiet moves that give it an unexpected emotional weight, little flashes of shame or tenderness or sheer exhausted relief. The setting, work around coastal California, and the abandoned church give the more supernatural turns a solid, grimy base to grow out of, which I really liked, and the whole thing runs on a kind of nervous, late-night momentum.
I would recommend The Great Dick and the Dysfunctional Demon to readers who enjoy flawed, talkative narrators, morally messy thrillers, and horror that leans into both jokes and genuine unease. If you like work in the vein of Carl Hiaasen or early Stephen King but wish it had more occult weirdness and a bit more sex, this will probably hit the spot. For anyone up for a fast, foul-mouthed, slightly unhinged ride that still has something on its mind, I think this book is absolutely worth the trip.
Pages: 464 | ASIN : B0FKWK2K7C
Who I Was And Who I Am Now
Quantum Queen challenges the culture of endless healing by showing readers how to shift from overthinking and overfunctioning into embodied certainty, identity-led action, and self-authorized leadership. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Because it is the book I needed the most when I got stuck in the same loop, while trying to leave the victim mindset loop. Quantum Queen is a line in the sand between who I was and who I am now. I lived it, and I see so many women living through the same without realizing that it is a problem to begin with. I didn’t see anyone in the industry draw that line in the sand. I only saw extremes that swung back and forth between having to be 100% healed, and the other side discouraging healing, and therapy, to send a message that the viewer isn’t broken.
There is a time and place for healing, and the finish line to being fully awakened doesn’t exist. It’s about using your awareness to start orbiting a new timeline without passive, watered down, repetitive manifestation advice that has lost its meaning.
The concept of the “overfunctioning woman” is interesting. What patterns did you notice most often in women who resonated with this archetype?
– She is an absolute boss at analysing her patterns, and taking full responsibility for her part to the point where she starts drowning in overproving, overdelivering and never feeling enough in the inner work she has done.
– She distrusts ease, because she is used to being put in a position of having to control the situation, and take care of everyone else. Her nervous system is unfamiliar with ease.
– Difficulty resting: She feels restless when she is off work or on a vacation. Making her struggle to believe that she can just let her hair down, be supported, taken care of and loved.
– Coaching the trigger away instead of moving through it: She knows TOO MUCH about trigger work, and all the tools that exist like EFT Tapping. That can be a form of avoidance to not fully sit through the discomfort, and the pattern stays alive within her so she continues to coach herself through it while feeling angsty for still experiencing it.
If a reader takes one embodied practice from Quantum Queen and commits to it, which do you believe has the greatest power to shift their baseline?
Chapter 13’s activity: It moves the reader from understanding the concepts and the theory intellectually to allowing it to land in the body at a cellular level, while bypassing all the mental loops through body-based embodiment. Continually practicing that regulates the reader back into the state through shifting the physiology in real-time and making certainty the baseline default. The frequency of certainty is the frequency that creates self-belief in being worthy, successful, chosen and empowered.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I am working on a NEW VOLUME of QUANTUM QUEEN for entrepreneurs on mastering the sold out frequency to have the energetic backing behind the strategy, and lovingly release the identities blocking that frequency from landing (e.g.: Imposter syndrome, fear of exposure). I choose to write when I am in the embodied state, so every single word is ACTIVATING the icon within you. Therefore, a date for the new volume has not been established yet.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
by Rozana Manifests
Manifestation through a Law of Assumption lens, focused on identity shifting. Manifestation isn’t about micromanaging thoughts or chasing “signs.” It’s about who you are BEING as a whole: the identity you live from, the energy you anchor, the reality you decide is yours.
In Quantum Queen, Rozana Manifests invites you into a radical, embodied redefinition of manifestation: one that dismantles outdated healing narratives, collapses the “waiting” timeline, and brings your biggest desires into your now.
This book is for the women who’ve done the work (who’ve journaled, affirmed, meditated, processed, visualized), and still feel stuck in the loop of becoming. It’s for the leaders, healers, creators, and visionaries who are tired of checking their frequency and are ready to be the frequency.
Through unapologetic chapters blending science, psychology, identity theory, and energetic mastery, you’ll learn how to:
• Shift your identity on a quantum level so your reality bends around who you’ve decided to be
• Collapse timelines by exiting the nervous system’s addiction to pain, healing, and proving
• Regulate your body to receive massive love, wealth, and visibility without burning out
• Lead, sell, and love from overflow while dropping fear, and perfectionism
• Recode your default self-concept into your desired reality, permanently
This book doesn’t ask you to do more. It asks you to remember the version of you who was never separate from what she wanted.
You’ll discover a unique framework that helps you lead movements, build legacy, and magnetize your desires by anchoring into certainty, not hustle.
The truth is: your manifestation results have never been about your affirmations. They’ve always been about your identity.
This is your initiation into becoming the one who naturally receives what others chase for months and years.
Read Quantum Queen and step into the embodiment of a woman whose success, love, wealth, and impact are inevitable.
LITERARY TITAN 