That First Scintillating Spark
Too Complex follows an avid gamer whose addiction to his hobby leads him to disengage with the world around him. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I came up with the idea from watching some of my favorite streamers, I’m not going to name any of them. There’s this one streamer I watch from time to time who often complains about gamers who choose their hobby to become their entire livelihood…which is pathetic. Not for anything productive like content creation or improving decision making skills but to be perceived as a bum or going by gamer vernacular, a “sweat”. Then, from there I’ve caught a glimpse of a reflection of myself after reading about how that first dopamine click will automatically get you hooked on what made it happen the first time around, therefore forming a double-edged sword. Once you receive that first scintillating spark in your eyes making you feel great about yourself, like you have accomplished something peculiar to you because it’s something you’re not immune to. Then from there, you begin to crave more of it because you want to get the same “high” you got from the taste sample. This has happened to me when it comes to video games but also other unhealthy addictions such as social media and alcohol consumption. Hence, the idea behind our antagonist.
What do you find to be the most rewarding aspect of writing humor? The most rewarding?
I think that when it comes to writing, writing humor specifically is my go-to level of expertise especially when social satire is involved. Whenever I’m minding my business, reading, watching YouTube or working my shifts, I come across a lot of problems with certain people that irritate me and I assume that there’s several kindred spirits out there who would agree. Now, this may come off as pessimistic, but the best way to overcome the pessimism would be to shed a little light on it with humor. For example, young generations of today are becoming more and more illiterate, let me create a comic strip where they’re the butt of the joke and because they can’t read it, they won’t get offended. I’m basically taking the negativity and reshaping it to make it more positive and somewhat enjoyable, that’s a reward anyone with a soul would cherish. However, this doesn’t mean that I’m forcing my personal opinions on people against their will like other “satirists” tend to do from time to time. I just try to pinpoint a particular topic that a massive demographic of people would be on the same page with. Not to mention that I try to poke fun at all parties involved on the subject and not be one-sided and biased.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The overall themes are what has been said. I wrote this to entertain and to express the pros and cons of gaming. Pros being with our main heroes, Corey and Mavirna as they use their gaming experience to overcome challenges in the pest-infested apartment to evict their tenant, Cody and speaking of Cody, his addiction represents the cons. It showcases that gaming is an artform, an artform that deserves to be held high on the same pedestal as film, theater, television and literature.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
The next book will not be a part of the same series, however, it’ll have the same tone but with more adult content as opposed to this one which is family-friendly. The name of the next book which I hope will become a series will be called Stale Seed Bed. A surreal, satirical slapstick comedy about a part-time babysitter watching over a wide variety of troubled youth. It’ll tackle many hot button subjects like dumb internet trends, unproductive side hustles, damaging addictions like gooning etc. I don’t know exactly when it’ll be done considering what I mentioned earlier that I’m still working a day job, but I’ll be working on it as much as possible and you’ll know more about it in advance.
Author Links: Facebook | Website | Cara
The Awful Odyssey
The Awful Odyssey follows young Burgeon, a half-canid, half-raptor pup caught between two worlds. The story opens with dreamy flights through Sleeping Locus and shifts fast into the grim reality of the Loyal Trench. What starts as a simple coming-of-age tale becomes a journey through class divides, harsh routines, emotional wounds, and the mysteries of realms beyond sight. Burgeon fights expectations at school, struggles under the weight of poverty, and clings to a fading bond with his mother. The book grows darker and stranger as secrets seep through the cracks of his life, and the tone swings between wonder and dread. It feels like a fable wrapped in a nightmare, stitched together with heart.
I was swept up in the contrast between light and dark. The author writes with an emotional honesty that I really enjoyed. The dream sequences are soft, fragrant, and warm. They lulled me in with that childlike belief that everything bright will stay bright. Then the trench scenes slapped me awake, though. The grime, the cold, the cruelty, the sense that the world has teeth. The writing leans into that contrast again and again. I was frustrated with Burgeon sometimes. At other times, I felt like I understood him and really cared about him. The pacing dips occasionally, yet even in the slower parts, I felt the tension humming. The story carries a sense of constant threat and constant longing that kept me engaged in the story.
The ideas the story explores were really intriguing. Identity. Shame. Desire. Responsibility. The book pushes all of those themes into a tight space and watches them rattle around inside Burgeon’s life. I kept thinking about how much he wants structure even as he fights it. How much he wants freedom even as it scares him. The scenes with the wizard surprised me the most. They were tender. They were strange. They reshaped everything I had assumed about the world he lives in. I loved that shift. It made the story feel bigger than its darkest moments and gave me something hopeful to hang onto. The writing never tries to sound clever, and that plainness works well. It lets the emotional weight sit right on the surface where you can’t ignore it.
I’d recommend this book to readers who enjoy character-driven fantasy that leans emotional, odd, and a little grim. If you like stories about broken places and resilient kids. If you like worlds that feel worn down yet still magical. If you like tales that sit with pain but don’t give up on wonder. Then this book is perfect for you.
Pages: 200
Hug Whispers Between Worlds
Hug Whispers Between Worlds follows Tim, a twenty–eight–year–old drifting between self-doubt, stalled ambition, and the quiet weight of family expectations. His life feels stuck until a strange encounter at his grandparents’ mountain lake house introduces him to Hug, a gnome who slips in and out of reality with riddles that cut deeper than they should. The book blends everyday frustration with magical realism, using Hug as a mirror that forces Tim to face the parts of himself he keeps avoiding. What begins as a hazy late-night hallucination grows into a journey of reflection, healing, and small but powerful shifts in how Tim moves through the world.
The scenes with Tim’s family have this raw authentic truth that made me wince a little because I’ve sat through those exact kinds of conversations, where every joke lands like a judgment and every question hides a comparison. The author doesn’t use heavy language. Instead, the emotions just show up in the pauses and the awkward laughs and the things nobody says. I liked how the magical parts didn’t drown out the real ones. Hug isn’t there to whisk Tim away. He nudges him and pokes at him and calls out the nonsense he tells himself. The mix of earthy humor and odd wisdom works really well, and I found myself rereading some of Hug’s lines because they felt simple on the surface but grew deeper the more I thought about them.
I also liked how the book handles drift and disappointment. There’s no tidy breakthrough. No big speech that fixes everything. Just a slow turning, like someone waking up after being half asleep for years. Tim’s struggles felt close to the bone. The scenes with Paula were especially tough in a good way. They’re trying to love each other while standing in different kinds of fog, and the author shows that with a gentle touch. The story could have leaned too sentimental or too mystical, but instead it keeps landing in this nice middle place where doubt and magic share the same breath. I appreciated that the book doesn’t pretend meaning arrives fully formed. It comes in pieces. It comes in small moments by a stream. It comes in noticing the person beside you before they fade from view.
I’d recommend Hug Whispers Between Worlds to readers who enjoy character-driven stories and gentle magical realism. It’s great for anyone who’s felt stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure what comes next. If you like stories that mix real-life messiness with a touch of wonder and just enough mystery to keep you curious, this one is worth your time.
Pages: 25
My Dogs Were So Funny
Peaches and Jake Celebrate Christmas follows two rescue pups as they enjoy the wonder of Christmas morning with their family. Where did the idea for this story come from?
The events of this books actually took place a couple of years before I wrote the book. I always take a lot of pictures if things that happen in my life, and one year my dogs were so funny with their Christmas toys that I took a lot of pictures of them with their toys. One day after I had written my first two books, I ran across the dog’s Christmas pictures I had previously taken and thought that it would be a funny story to write about.
Are there any experiences from your own life included in Peaches and Jake’s Christmas antics?
All of the events in my books are true… they actually happened… and pretty much the way they happened.
Can readers look forward to more adventures with Peaches and Jake?
I don’t have any plans at this time to write another “Peaches and Jake” book.
Author Links: Amazon | Website
Perfect for children ages 3 to 7, Peaches & Jake Celebrate Christmas is a delightful read that will inspire young readers to embrace the joy of giving, the magic of Christmas, and the importance of family & friendship. Each page is filled with warmth and holiday charm, making it an ideal addition to any family’s Christmas reading tradition.
I Know You
I Know You follows Eilidh, a Scottish teenager whose life flips from exam day nerves to heartbreak to something far stranger. What begins as a coming-of-age story full of friendship, grief, and young love suddenly veers into a haunting experience in an Ethiopian refugee camp, where suffering, compassion, and disorientation collide. The book jumps between timelines and perspectives in a way that keeps you leaning forward, trying to stitch the pieces together just as the characters try to make sense of their own fractured realities. It feels intimate at times and then shockingly vast, almost like two novels braided into one.
The opening stretch, set in Scotland, felt light on the surface, but it carried an ache that hit me harder as the chapters moved on. The writing holds a kind of gentle honesty. It stays close to Eilidh’s emotions without dressing them up, and it lets her teenage certainty sit right beside her unravelling doubts. When the story shifts into the chaos and brutality of the camp, the tone changes sharply. I felt the ground move under me just as she does. Those sections knocked the breath out of me. They were raw, unsettling, and written with a restraint that made everything feel even more real. I kept pausing, not because I needed a break from the book, but because the moments asked for you to think about them for a moment.
There were points where the transitions left me a little lost. Even so, the emotional core held everything together for me. The scenes of care, fear, and tiny human connections had me thinking about them and the story for a while afterwards. And the way the book treats memory and trauma felt honest. Messy. Human. I appreciated that it didn’t try to explain everything. It trusted me to sit with uncertainty, and that trust made the story hit deeper.
This is the kind of novel I’d hand to readers who like character-driven stories that wander into unexpected territory, people who don’t mind when a book lifts them up just to pull the rug and make them feel something sharper. If you enjoy coming-of-age stories that refuse to stay tidy or narratives that mix tenderness with real darkness, you’ll enjoy reading this book.
Pages: 328 | ASIN : B0C545LJDG
Final Curtain
Final Curtain is a rich and eerie collection that gathers voices from across time and imagination and sets them wandering through the long shadow of The Phantom of the Opera. Each story pulls a thread from Leroux’s world and spins it into something new. Sometimes it feels dreamy. Sometimes it slips into horror so quietly that you only notice once you’ve already shivered. The book opens with Steve Berman’s thoughtful introduction, setting the stage for the authors’ explorations of obsession, beauty, grief, and the strange spell of performance, and then moves through an eclectic lineup of tales that echo the Phantom’s myth without ever repeating it.
The memoir-style opening by Nadia Bulkin really resonated with me. The voice of the Countess trembles with longing and dread, and I found that mix weirdly relatable. Her fear of mirrors and her slow unraveling got under my skin. I could feel her confusion and her sorrow settling over me as if I were living in that drafty house with her. Other stories came at the Phantom from sideways angles, and that variety kept me on my toes. One moment, the writing felt delicate and sad. The next, it felt sharp and uncomfortable. I liked that. I liked not knowing what emotional corner I’d be pushed into next.
The book’s ideas were intriguing, maybe even more than its plots. So many of the stories are really about the ache of wanting something you can’t have or the way art can consume you before you even realize you’ve handed it your soul. There were times when the writing made me slow down and sit with a feeling for a bit. Some pieces were more lyrical than others, and some wandered off into tonal experiments that didn’t always land cleanly for me, but even when I wasn’t fully connecting, I still admired the nerve of the attempt. I found myself rooting for the writers as much as for the characters.
I’d recommend Final Curtain to readers who enjoy moody stories that riff on classics without getting trapped in imitation. It’s a great pick for anyone who likes gothic atmospheres, emotional messiness, or tales that play with memory, love, and the dark edges of creativity.
Pages: 302 | ASIN : B0G4MWKX56
Keeping the Stethoscope, Hanging up the Uniform, The Curse of Combat Disability Retirement
Keeping the Stethoscope, Hanging Up the Uniform tells the story of a combat-disabled Army nurse who carries his battlefield memories into the civilian ER. The book shifts between gripping trauma-room scenes, raw reflections on disability retirement, and a steady, painful questioning of how a nation can praise its veterans yet leave so many struggling to survive. It blends medical urgency with personal grief, while also tracing the larger social and political failures that shape veterans’ lives. The chapters move from intense medical narratives to broader calls for reform, tying individual suffering to systemic problems.
This was a thought-provoking and emotionally stirring book. The writing feels like a pulse that speeds up and slows down. It mimics the chaos of an ER and the quieter, heavier weight of memory. I kept feeling this mix of admiration and frustration. The author speaks plainly, and that plainness hits hard. There’s no dressing up the trauma, no soft edges on the anger. The stories the author shares are vivid. The medical scenes come alive in a way that made me tense up, and the personal reflections feel like someone talking late at night when honesty comes more easily.
What stayed with me most wasn’t the medical detail, but the sense of abandonment threaded through the book. I could feel his disappointment. His exhaustion. His hope trying to hold on even while he keeps pointing to everything that is broken. He talks about veterans who are homeless, veterans who end their own lives, veterans who are reduced to numbers in the system, and he handles all of it with a mix of sorrow and grit. Some passages made me angry in a way that almost surprised me. Others made me pause and sit with my own discomfort.
By the time I reached the final chapters, I felt grateful for his honesty. This book is a call to pay attention, to stop pretending that “thank you for your service” solves anything. It’s a reminder that behind every veteran is a story still unfolding, sometimes painfully, sometimes quietly, sometimes with no support at all.
I would recommend this book to readers who want an unfiltered look at military and medical life, especially those who work in healthcare, public policy, or veteran support fields. It’s also a strong read for anyone who wants to understand the deeper emotional cost of service, far beyond the slogans and ceremonies.
Pages: 192 | ASIN : B0G1L9FM6F
