Blog Archives
Heartwarming Journeys
The Adventure of Alex and Er follows a brave knight and his unicorn mare who embark on a quest to recover a snowman’s missing broom. What was the inspiration for your story?
My son’s name is Alexander. A few years ago, he went away to his pre-med school.
Because he was 3,000 kilometers away, my parental obligations were reduced to zero; I had the time to think and create. One day, while thinking about him, I realized that his moniker consists of two names: Alex and Er. I also thought of developing a children’s story about two characters named Alex and Er. Why a children’s book, you may ask. Picture books allow me to employ my talents to write, illustrate, and design, and THE ADVENTURE OF ALEX AND ER became my first publication.
What scene in the book did you have the most fun writing?
The most rewarding moment was when I connected an innocent snowman and an evil old witch through an item they both used—a broom.
What were some goals you set for yourself as a writer in this book?
My goal was to create a whimsical yet straightforward and enjoyable story. I planned to create a good book for young readers who love magical tales and heartwarming journeys. First, I wanted to make it as authentic as possible, with typos and imperfections. Then I realized that children’s books have a significant educational component and should never give their readers bad grammar lessons. The story has been updated, but an older version may still be available on the web.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
Number seventeen will be an adventurous in spirit roller coaster of action that will be lavishly illustrated and handwritten to please children and book lovers of all ages. Cinderella, Aladdin, Rumpelstiltskin, Thumbelina, and other fairy tale characters work together to make a sad and abandoned wooden horse happy again. The title of the new publication? LITTLE RED RIDING HORSE.
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The Jack Dean Story
Gary D. Patrick’s The Jack Dean Story follows the extraordinary life of a man who endures more loss, danger, and transformation than most people could imagine. From being orphaned as a child to surviving brutal foster homes, finding real love in the care of two teachers, and later navigating the violence of war and the moral fog of life afterward, the book traces Jack’s path through heartbreak, courage, and self-reinvention. It reads like a heartfelt confession mixed with an adventure story, full of emotion and grit, told in plain language that feels genuine and unpolished in a good way.
I found myself pulled into Jack’s world almost immediately. The writing isn’t fancy or flowery, but that’s what makes it feel so real. It’s simple, honest storytelling that fits the life it’s describing. The early chapters broke my heart, especially the scenes of abandonment and cruelty. You can almost feel the coldness of those houses and the emptiness of being unwanted. Then the warmth of the McClearys comes like sunlight after years of rain. Later, in Vietnam, the story takes on a tense, vivid rhythm that captures both the horror and the brotherhood of war. Patrick doesn’t shy away from pain, but he also doesn’t wallow in it. There’s a kind of steady resilience running through Jack that makes you root for him, even when his choices later in life start to blur the lines between right and wrong.
Emotionally, the book hit me harder than I expected. It’s not just about one man’s life: it’s about what happens when fate keeps testing someone who refuses to quit. The way Patrick writes about loyalty, guilt, and redemption feels raw and human. I liked that Jack isn’t perfect. He makes mistakes, sometimes big ones, but you still feel his heart in everything he does. The story kept me turning pages because I wanted him to find peace, and even when he didn’t, I understood why.
I’d recommend The Jack Dean Story to anyone who enjoys true-to-life tales about perseverance, sacrifice, and the search for meaning. It’s a powerful read for veterans, history buffs, and anyone who’s ever wondered what it takes to keep going when life doesn’t play fair.
Pages: 124 | ASIN : B0FH1X9ZRK
Mental Gymnastics
Dig Two Graves follows a man recently released from prison, armed only with a Bible, rage, and an unresolved history, as he attempts to reclaim his place in the world and regain his respect. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Two primary inspirations, which I discuss in the Afterword: the Egyptian novelist (and 1988 Nobel Prize winner) Naguib Mahfouz’s short novel from 1961, The Thief and the Dogs, which is set in the aftermath of the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, and living in Southwest Florida, which has undergone its own climatic, cultural, and political upheavals in recent years.
When creating Von Martin, did you have a plan for development and character traits, or did it grow organically as you were writing the story?
Since I was following the plot of The Thief and the Dogs pretty closely, I knew WHAT Von was going to do at every turn. What grew organically, and what interested me enough to actually write the novel in the first place, was that it seemed I knew WHY he would be doing these things, the mental gymnastics he would go through to make each terrible decision seem like the correct one to him. Von’s internal narrative, his voice, carried me through to the end.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The idea of respect, as opposed to revenge, is huge, obviously. Is respect something you must earn from the people in your life? Or is genuine self-respect a prerequisite?
I’m also fascinated by how I, and many of us, take actions that we are 100% convinced are correct, or righteous, or just, or good, but then these actions have terrible consequences for those around us, and for ourselves. We are often our own worst enemies, and Von is an extreme example of that.
What is the next book that you’re working on, and when can your fans expect it out?
The next book is a dark fantasy titled This Accursèd Blade. It’s the story of a cursed sword, from the sword’s point of view, and is also centered around a strong revenge plot: Illyria is a young woman whose soul has been trapped in this sword, and she is determined to work her way back to the sorcerer who put her there to exact her vengeance. I’m presently editing the manuscript, and hope to have it out by the end of the year.
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Von Martin walks out of prison with nothing—no job, no home, no real plan. His ex-wife has moved on with his former best friend. His daughter doesn’t recognize him. His old boss pretends he doesn’t exist.
Everyone tells him to play it safe. Keep his head down. Stay clean. Rebuild.
But Von knows respect isn’t something you get by asking politely.
What starts as a quest to salvage his dignity quickly spirals into a blood-soaked reckoning through the sultry heat and septic underbelly of Southwest Florida. Brutally funny, cynically violent, blisteringly sunburnt, this is the story of a man fighting to reclaim his place in a world that has long since left him behind.
You probably shouldn’t root for Von Martin.
But you just might anyway.
Echoes of Fortune: Shadows Over Cozumel
Echoes of Fortune: Shadows Over Cozumel dives straight into a sunlit mystery wrapped in salt, sweat, and history. Author David R. Leng sets his story off the coast of Mexico, where old Confederate ghosts meet modern intrigue. Former Navy SEAL Jack Sullivan, Smithsonian curator Emma Wilson, and their friend Steve Johnson uncover the wreck of a ship believed lost to legend, and with it, a secret that powerful people would kill to keep buried. What starts as an archaeological dive quickly turns into a survival game against unseen watchers and old evils hiding beneath Caribbean calm. It’s a fast, cinematic tale that mixes history, conspiracy, and suspense with surprising tenderness between the chaos.
Leng’s writing is tight but vivid, the kind that keeps your pulse up and your coffee cold. His pacing is unrelenting. The story doesn’t just move, it races, then stops just long enough to let the tension breathe before diving back in. I loved how he balanced action with quiet moments of connection between Jack and Emma. Their relationship never slips into cliché. It feels lived-in, tested by the same salt and fear that hangs over the sea. The dialogue feels natural, especially between Jack and Steve, their banter carries the weight of shared trauma and unspoken loyalty.
But it’s the ideas beneath the adventure that stuck with me. Leng plays with the notion that history never dies, it just waits for someone foolish or brave enough to dig it up. The Confederate artifacts aren’t just relics; they’re symbols of how greed and ideology outlive their wars. I caught myself thinking about how the past haunts the present, how people chase fortunes or legacies without realizing what they awaken. At times, the prose leans cinematic, almost like a screenplay, which works for the story’s rhythm but occasionally sacrifices deeper introspection. Still, when it hits, it hits hard. The quiet dread before a dive, the stillness of the man in the white Panama hat, those moments land like punches.
I’d recommend Echoes of Fortune to anyone who loves a smart thriller with history’s fingerprints all over it. If you enjoy Clive Cussler’s maritime adventures or the artifact hunts of National Treasure, this book will grab you by the collar. It’s not just about what’s found under the sea, it’s about what’s waiting when you surface. A great weekend read.
Pages: 90 | ASIN : B0FSMTD53S
The Deficit of Critical Thinking
The Ascent of Greed and the Audacity of Mind Stealing follows a young graduate who enters the corporate world with high hopes, only to encounter greed, manipulation, and the unsettling rise of artificial intelligence. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration came from my observation that many young graduates leave college with little critical knowledge about the rapidly developing transformative technology of artificial intelligence. Certainly, this technology is giving a helping hand to different sectors of society, resulting in improvements in people’s well-being. However, drawbacks are also emerging from its application. My observation is that young graduates are rightly enthusiastic about the positive aspects of this technology, but they pay little attention to its impending negative effects. That is why Adam, the main character of the book, was shocked when he learned from a layman in a café about the dangers of brain-reading technology. Does this mean that our teaching institutions are failing to instill critical thinking in their students? Or have the latter become so venal that they only focus on securing employment and earning good money? Some of these graduates, like the book’s protagonist, appear to have left college with little awareness of the consequences of the indiscriminate use of AI.
Yet our planet is full of news about unwanted initiatives driven by AI. The most critical issues raised by the media concern the destabilizing nature of fake news, as well as the threat posed by the excessive replacement of human jobs by machines. Obviously, there are many other sophisticated applications of this technology—such as in strategies for war games—about which we have little information.
In the past, we were used to seeing the younger generation fighting against perceived or real threats to society. Nowadays, however, despite the warning signals from subject matter experts and intellectuals about the unchecked development of AI, there is little outrage directed at those who push for its unregulated expansion. Why is the younger generation not outraged by this fact?
The book narrates a successful remedy to the deficit of critical thinking regarding AI development: the formation of an Action Group aimed at creating awareness about the dangers of unregulated AI within society. The Group was organized by a few enlightened young men and women who decided to act together in sensitizing the wider population about this impending danger. In a way, consciously or unconsciously, the Group was striving to instill in people’s minds a critical perspective on the unchecked development of AI, thereby compensating for the deficiency they had suffered at school. Eventually, they managed to raise awareness across entire populations, who fought for the regulation of AI and ultimately convinced policymakers to accept it.
Some events in the book were chillingly like real-life events. Did you take any inspiration from real life when developing this book?
Some of the chillingly realistic events are indeed based on real-life experiences, most notably those related to fake news. I took inspiration from a true story about a politician from a small locality whose reputation was tarnished by fake news, ultimately affecting his eligibility for public office. Likewise, the harmony of an extended family I knew was destroyed by false news created by certain individuals.
It is unfortunate that in such instances, the effects of fake news continue to linger even after the news has been exposed as baseless mendacity. Victimized people no longer seem as spontaneous as they once were. That is why Chapter 12 of this book, a product of my creative writing, is dedicated to the devastating impact of fake news.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Three important themes have inspired this book. The first is the wickedness of fake news, which I mentioned above. The second theme is the news about research in some Asian universities regarding their advancements in reading the human brain. Apparently, this research has progressed to the point where scientists expect to be able to scan people’s thoughts and convert them into text. The possibility of such an occurrence blew my mind and compelled me to deliberately create a state of confusion between reality and fantasy, so that due attention would be given to this sensitive issue of tampering with the most important human organ.
The third theme is the loss of jobs, as many tasks are being replaced by AI. This process is happening right in front of us. Simple examples include the replacement of cashiers by self-checkout machines; the introduction of chatbots in place of customer service representatives; and the replacement of bank tellers and loan officers by ATMs and online banking. Of course, even more significant job replacements—less visible to the public—are taking place in the industrial and transportation sectors. The book focuses on this issue, and explores the darker aspects of unemployment by imagining the disaster it could unleash in a once-happy community.
Will this novel be the start of a series, or are you working on a different story?
At present, I am busy developing a story about the misfortune of an African migrant family that almost made it to Europe, but in the end did not, because the boat on which they were traveling was swallowed by the hungry Mediterranean Sea. The book is, once again, a product of my imagination, but it closely follows the true experiences of thousands of individuals and families. Although the reasons for emigration to Europe are numerous, the book will focus on political themes related to the lack of freedom and democracy in the migrants’ countries of origin.
Author Links: Amazon | GoodReads
Driven by an insatiable greed for profits, the corporation prioritizes sales above all else, disregarding cultural values, beliefs, and ethical boundaries. Employees are trained to focus solely on increasing revenue, with little regard for the moral implications of their actions. To achieve their goals, the corporation deploys advanced AI systems that not only replace human ingenuity but relegate staff to subordinate roles beneath the machines.
In its quest for dominance, the corporation ventures into a controversial new realm: brain-reading technology. By accessing the minds of two young individuals, it seeks to uncover consumer preferences at an unprecedented level, triggering widespread outrage over the invasion of privacy and the potential for exploitative mind control. This reckless experimentation not only exposes the dark side of AI but also raises profound ethical and legal questions.
As the societal backlash intensifies, activists and thought leaders rally to expose the dangers of unregulated AI development. They document the devastating impacts of these technologies and demand immediate action from policymakers to prevent further harm. Public outcry ultimately forces governments to enact strict regulations, averting the catastrophic consequences of an unchecked AI future.
Through a thought-provoking narrative, AI and the Ascent of Greed explores the collision between humanity’s ethical values and the rapid advance of technology. With a powerful blend of corporate intrigue and societal critique, Pietros Kidane crafts a cautionary tale that challenges readers to consider the implications of technological progress on our collective future.
Terra Tamers: Alpha
Terra Tamers: Alpha is a sprawling young adult sci-fi adventure set in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity clings to life aboard floating cities after a cataclysm known as “the Hollowing.” The story follows Matthew Wong, a teenager under house arrest in Sojourn, a massive city adrift at sea. Alongside his younger brother and a group of friends, he ventures into a dangerous world filled with sentient machines called Holos and mysterious remnants of the old world. The book is a blend of futuristic technology, human resilience, and the kind of awkward hope that only a young hero can carry. It’s part survival story, part coming-of-age tale, and part philosophical dive into what it means to remain human when the world has been remade by its own creations.
Reading this book felt like watching a vivid dream unfold. There’s an undercurrent of pain and perseverance that runs beneath the action, a quiet heartbeat that says, “keep going.” The writing isn’t always clean or polished. But it feels alive. I found myself drawn in by the rhythm of the dialogue and the scrappy, sarcastic charm of the narrator. The world-building is detailed without becoming overwhelming, and the emotional core, this bond between siblings trying to find their place in a crumbling world, hit me harder than I expected.
What really stood out to me were the quieter moments, the human ones tucked between the chaos of combat and survival. The book isn’t afraid to be sentimental, and I kind of loved that. It wears its heart right on its sleeve. There are bits where the pacing slows, or a joke lands flat, but the sincerity never does. You can tell Petrilli poured himself into these pages, and that makes the story resonate in a way that feels more honest than many perfectly edited novels.
I’d recommend Terra Tamers: Alpha to readers who love stories about grit and heart more than perfection. Fans of Percy Jackson or The Maze Runner will feel at home here, though this book carries a quieter, more introspective tone beneath the adventure. If you’re looking for a story that blends science fiction with emotion, or if you simply want to be reminded why hope still matters even when the world feels broken, this one’s worth your time.
Pages: 524 | ASIN : B0F9DBXR8H
The Reckoning of Chaos and Magic
Todd Ockert’s The Reckoning of Chaos and Magic picks up in a world torn apart by disaster and violence, where ordinary people cling to survival through grit, loyalty, and a surprising spark of the supernatural. The story follows Mel and her crew from Freedom Ranch as they navigate a brutal new world after civilization’s collapse. Between biker gangs, gunfire, and a hint of midlife magic, Ockert weaves an intense and emotional tale of resilience and found family. It’s a mix of post-apocalyptic survival, combat realism, and mystical discovery, all grounded in friendship and love.
What really struck me about this book was how human it felt. The writing is raw, fast, and filled with emotion. You can feel Mel’s fear and fire. She’s strong, sarcastic, and flawed in all the right ways. The story never slows for long, yet it never loses sight of its characters. The world is cruel, and Ockert doesn’t sugarcoat that, but there’s warmth under the grit. I liked how the dialogue feels like real people talking under pressure. The moments of humor hit right when you need them, like a deep breath between storms. Sometimes the pacing felt jumpy, almost cinematic, but that also gave it energy, like watching an action movie unfold with heart. The magic side of the story adds a weird but welcome twist, it’s subtle, not sparkly, and feels more like power hidden in ordinary people than fantasy for its own sake.
I have to say, this book hit me harder than I expected. The writing isn’t about fancy turns of phrase; it’s about connection and survival. I found myself rooting for every battered, bloodied character. The scenes of violence are harsh, but they’re written with honesty, not shock value. The women in this story, Mel, Gail, Shelly, aren’t damsels or sidekicks. They’re the backbone of the book, and their friendship feels real, full of teasing and fierce loyalty. I also loved the touches of romance, especially between Mel and TJ, which felt tender and grounded in years of shared struggle rather than something sugary or forced. At times, the dialogue leans a bit heavy on exposition, but the sincerity of the writing more than makes up for it. You can tell Ockert loves these characters and the world he’s built for them.
It’s not just about chaos and magic, it’s about what people choose to protect when the world falls apart. I’d recommend this one to readers who love strong characters, action mixed with heart, and stories that don’t flinch from the dark. If you’re into post-apocalyptic tales like The Walking Dead but wish the heroes had a touch of witchy wonder, this book’s your jam. It’s rough, real, and full of hope where you least expect it.
Pages: 346 | ASIN : B0FG87T7T1
LITERARY TITAN 