Blog Archives
Rivalry. Redemption. And Second Chances
IRATE: A Rocker’s Raging Romance follows a heavy metal musician who suffered an abusive childhood try to heal and find real love. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The setup of Irate is where the reader will meet this emotionally damaged young child who listens to the most insane music that inspired him to go into music instead of screwing up his life by going to jail or ending up dead. He had his favorite bands, learned to play bass guitar, and sang with aggression.
Ramiro suffers from his father’s abuse and has to unlearn the toxic behaviors as an adult to find his happiness. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Ramiro wanted Noelle to be the perfect girlfriend and expected her to marry him. He criticized everything she did and loved from her clothes to her music, but he didn’t dare say a word about her sing. He knew she had talent and could become a big star than him. Ramiro knew he had issues and had to resolve them by seeking counseling. He hated his father so much to the point of therapy.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The themes I explored in Irate were an interracial romance/ different musical lifestyles between Ramiro and Noelle. Ramiro’s dark side and Noelle’s light side. The father and son rivalry. Redemption. And second chances.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m working on a family drama which is a sibling rivalry between two brothers. So, this story is a dark family drama. I write things that are dramatic whether it be a love story or family situation or anything.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook
Palisades of the Heart
Phyllis A. Still’s Palisades of the Heart: Dangerous Loyalties, Book Four, is a captivating young adult historical romance that picks up right where its predecessor, Warrior on the Western Waters, left off. Set in August 1776, the novel follows Mary Shirley as she and her family settle into their new home in Cooks Fort, Western Virginia, following their escape from the Shawnee village. Mary is now nearly 15 years old and must navigate the challenges of finding peace after her traumatic experiences while also exploring her first love with William McGuire, a scout for Cooks Fort.
Still masterfully crafts Mary’s story, introducing new characters while developing the ones readers have come to know and love. What stands out most is Mary’s character development. Readers witness her transformation from a young girl to a woman who grapples with the lingering effects of her past trauma. Still writes about Mary’s PTSD with care and delicacy, so much so that even readers unfamiliar with the previous books will understand what she’s been through.
The perfectly crafted dynamic between Mary and Will is another highlight of the book. Still captures the beauty of first love through these characters, detailing their shyness and constant thoughts of one another. Their story reminds us that love is a constant throughout history. A fun fact about the book is that Phyllis is an eighth-generation descendant of DAR Patriot Mary Shirley McGuire, who inspired the Dangerous Loyalties series. Still’s commitment to doing justice to her ancestors shines through in this successful and thoroughly enjoyable series.
Palisades Of The Heart is a fantastic read for historical fiction enthusiasts. This story of romance and the thrilling adventure that comes from living on the frontier is sure to capture the heart of readers. Whether you’ve read the previous books or not, the novel will keep you captivated from beginning to end.
Pages: 257 | ASIN : B0BVGN6XPC
The Mythos Of The American West
Gunslingers follows a young man living on a ranch who, after witnessing his family’s murder and cousin’s kidnapping, sets out to right the wrongs that have been committed. What was the inspiration for your unique story?
Since Gunslingers is a western, I was certainly inspired by the movies I watched growing up like Clint Eastwood westerns, the Young Guns series, and both versions of 3:10 to Yuma. While I was writing, I had the soundtrack to Paint Your Wagon playing in the background fairly often, but I don’t know if any of those songs bled into Gunslingers or not. I read much more in the science fiction and fantasy realm, and had just re-read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series when the germ of the idea for Gunslingers started to take hold, but it took another five years or more to blossom.
The mythos of the American west is all about independence, learning to rely on yourself, and standing up to those unsavory forces that are drawn to those areas where the traditional law cannot reach. Gunslingers is a classic coming of age story or heroes journey set in the backdrop of our collective imagination of what it means to be a cowboy on the frontier.
Will wants revenge but learns he can have more in life than rage and hate. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Will starts out living a fairly sheltered but typical life on a ranch in the old West, but his genealogy includes the original settlers and heroes who conquered the West, so when that comfortable life is snatched away from him, he falls back on that heritage of strength and resilience to buoy him and fuel that need for revenge. If we live off of anger and revenge, though, we are looking back on what we lost, and not forward to what we could still have or build. Along his journey, Will starts to see that there are more possibilities for his life than shoot-outs, bloodshed, and an early grave.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Gunslingers touches on a host of different themes including the gap between our myths of the past and the actual history of that past, the treatment of women and indigenous people, and individual pain versus the societal gains in the name of progress. The overarching theme though for all of the main characters relates to our struggle to escape the obligations, burdens, and sins of our own past and the inherited past we receive from our families.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
My next book is called Janie and focuses on one of the other main characters from Gunslingers, Janie De Casas. As readers of Gunslingers will agree, Janie is too powerful a character to leave her where we did. Janie is currently in the editorial process and should come out later this year with the possibility of more to come after that.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook
Will and Finn’s flight lands them under the protective wing of former Territory Ranger David McPhail who schools the young men in the lore and training of those fabled Rangers. With the addition of Janie De Casas, the daughter of one of Hogg’s Agents, the quartet of gunslingers set out to right the wrongs Governor Hogg and his Agents have inflicted on Jefferson.
Is revenge the solace Will seeks? Can burgeoning love save him from a path of destruction? Or will betrayal doom them all? Follow the quartet as they seek to outrun their legacies of pain, deliver justice to those who wronged them, and hope to discover a well-deserved peace. Find out if they are successful in Gunslingers by Kendall Roberts!
Live a Happier and More Fulfilling Life
“The Life Is Too Short Guy” offers a practical roadmap for living a happier, more fulfilling life by embracing positivity and making the most of every moment. Why was this an important book for you to write?
As I looked around in a post-COVID world, I was disappointed and saddened by how much negativity and pessimism I was observing everywhere. There continues to be a global malaise and national dialogue around negative thoughts and concepts. I saw it as my mission to change this dialogue and the world by making the world happier one smile at a time. The book is meant to be a practical handbook anyone can use to live a happier and more fulfilling life.
What is a common misconception you feel people have about positivity and how powerful it is?
The most common misconception is that it is hard to live a happier life. My goal for the book and when I speak to audiences is to give people very simple tools to start living happier today. Small changes have meaningful implications individually and then with a ripple effect, globally. Everyone can be happier and it takes so little to change.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
The most important idea is Attitude is Everything: The Power of Positivity. Related to this is the principle Choose Your Attitude – Own It. These two LITSG principles empower each person to focus on a positive attitude and then to focus on positive interactions with the world around you. Little Things Make a Big Difference is the third principle of LITSG and it is so important for readers to realize small changes in behavior and attitude will make a big difference. The other principles of LITSG I share are:
- Funny Things Are Everywhere
- Minutes Matter
- Learn, Learn, Learn
- Take a Chance and Get It Done Today
- Passion
- Can’t Make it Alone
- Live Today… Don’t Wait For Tomorrow
The most important idea for me to share is that we each have the opportunity to take control of our life and our situation and live a happier life.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?
I hope readers can take the tools from The Life Is Too Short Guy to make small changes and live a happier more fulfilling life. I want a world where positivity, gratefulness, and happiness are the leading topics and themes. I am on a mission to make the world happier one smile at a time.
Author Links: Twitter | Facebook | Website
The Life Is Too Short Guy will give you a practical roadmap for making the most of every minute and living a happier and more fulfilling life. Author Scott White takes you on an inspiring and emotional journey; weaving thought-provoking personal stories and the stories of others who have had major AHA! moments in life. Result: The Life Is Too Short Guy “LITSG” philosophy.
Explore the LITSG philosophy and learn how you can use it daily. Principles include:Attitude is Everything – The Power of Positivity
Funny Things Are Everywhere
Minutes Matter
Can’t Make it Alone
Take the tools you learn in this book and make today, and every day, The Best Day Ever!
To Be An Example To People
I Was Dying…Then I Changed My Mind shares your story about dealing with chronic pain and illness for your entire life and how you learned to heal. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I am not the only person in the world who was diagnosed with an incurable disease by doctors and was addicted to drugs. The majority of adults, children, and even pets in developed countries, today, use at least one drug every day, and they are suffering not only from untreated diseases, but also from the side effects of the medications. I shared my story to be an example to people and give them courage to hold on to life, and tell them that they are neither helpless nor hopeless. While people must find the best treatment for themselves, a holistic approach to healing worked the best for me.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
The hardest thing for me to write was the first part of my book, as I cried a lot for that little girl, the young woman, and devoted mother and daughter I was from my past. Since it was not possible for me to clearly remember my sixty-one years of sickly life, in order to write the first part I had to read my old diaries, prescriptions, medical reports, and my appointment notebooks. Thus many painful memories from the past came to life in my eyes. I had forgotten that period because I am not that woman anymore. While I was writing my book, I was a brand-new woman who had just started to live my life fully in 2017.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
I shared the most important ideas I have come up with at a great price: self-love, self-respect, and self-care. The healer is within each of us; there is no need to look for that on the outside.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?
I want readers to understand that loving ourselves, being healthy, and being happy does not depend on anyone or anything on the outside. Everything we need lies within us. People will treat us as we treat ourselves.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Facebook
This is the story of how I made the choice between life and death and found the freedom to heal. This is the story of a woman who spent decades in and out of hospitals, trapped by other people’s expectations; this is the story of a woman who believed sacrificing herself for others was the measure of true love. This is the story of how I made myself a prisoner of duty, acquiescence and sickness. But it’s also a story about liberation.
I Was Dying…Then I Changed My Mind is a story about where to go and what to do in order to be free from debilitating pain. For those who have given up on a healthy life or have fallen into the vortex of pills, prescriptions and addiction, my book shows how complete healing and profound liberation are possible when we open ourselves to radical self-love. By documenting my journey from decades of illness and fear, I Was Dying proves we all have the capacity to heal ourselves.
“Truth” Is Being Sacrified
Forbidden Homeland: Story of a Diasporan is a memoir about discovering your family’s history and roots in Armenian Genocide and Karabakh Conflict. Why was it important to share your story?
We live in a world where “truth” is being sacrificed for geopolitics and power. Mighty nations are not only proving that “might is right”, but they are also rewriting history to suit their narratives. They have the means to bribe, dine, and wine media folk, academics, and politicians to promote their version of facts in order to influence public opinion, or cover up their true agendas. I wanted to share my story, to show that no matter how much truth is suppressed, it still finds a way to be found. I wanted to give a voice to marginalized nations.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
The hardest thing to write about was my grandmother’s genocide experience. I found out about what had happened to her family during the genocide when I found her relatives here in California. It was only then, that I started understanding the possible signs of trauma I had witnessed in my grandmother while growing up in Lebanon.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
Many ideas were important for me to share:
- That America is formed of many Diasporas, and that we have to celebrate our diverse backgrounds, but also realize that many similar reasons have propelled us (or our ancestors) to immigrate to this country. My book has in fact become a talking point and an opportunity to share similar experiences and challenges in our backgrounds.
- We need to get to know each other’s backgrounds in order to be able to understand the foreign policies of this nation. Most of the U.S. foreign policies happen without the knowledge of the American people, however, they are implemented in all of our names and funded by our tax dollars. We should educate ourselves in order to hold the government accountable for its actions or to praise the government for its good deeds abroad. As Americans we value policies that promote freedom, democracy and human rights.
- It was important to share what happened to my family and my homeland over a hundred years ago in order to explain what is happening in Armenia and Artsakh (Karabakh) today. Many things are being taken out of context or fabricated to distract from the truth. A lot of gaslighting. I want my book to raise awareness of the fight between democracy and tyranny happening now in Transcaucasia. Armenia, the only democracy in the region, is being constantly threatened by invasion, by the same perpetrators of the Armenian genocide!
- That the Armenian story is part of the Human Story. We are all connected. The ancient Armenian monuments and churches that Azerbaijan is destroying belong to humanity and to world history, that is why their destruction is called “Cultural Genocide”.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?
One thing I hope readers take away from my story is that when people are ignorant about facts, they can be easily manipulated at the whim of leaders. Therefore, education is key in order to question where our money and military assistance are being sent to and for what purpose. The new generation, in particular, needs to learn how to look up facts because without facts we cannot have a future.
With this book, I also hope to give smaller nations and victims of genocide a face and a voice.
Author Links: Black and White Version | Color Version | Barnes and Noble | GoodReads
Using personal accounts of diaspora, author Katia Tavitian Karageuzian delves into her cultural past to start solving mysteries about her family history with a focus on the Armenian Genocide and the ongoing Karabakh conflict.
Karageuzian thought her journey started with the discovery of long-lost relatives, but instead, that discovery led to a decades-long search to reveal the extensive history of American involvement in the destiny of her homeland and a buried record of those living with generational trauma.
As she slowly uncovers the answers she is looking for, Karageuzian also discovers surprising truths along the way—and an inspiring resilience that readers won’t soon forget.
Now, for the first time, she shares both her research and the answers she dug up in order to expose the geopolitics that consistently bury those truths and muffle the current ongoing wars in Transcaucasia.
How Difficult It Is To Break Free
Secrets in the Mirror follow mirror twin brothers who grow up in an abusive environment and their effort to survive the life they are handed. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
I know someone who has two daughters, close in age, who were always inseparable when they were young. But in their early 20s, the older daughter began demeaning & belittling her sister’s choices & life decisions, manipulating, and ultimately gaslighting to the point that the younger daughter had to break off relations in order to save her own well-being. This was very traumatic for her as well as for their parent, whose therapist concluded from communications that the older daughter had become narcissistic. And then there is a well-known political leader whose behavior and communications provide overwhelming evidence of narcissism, inflicting trauma and stress on the nation. I began to wonder how difficult it is to break free of a narcissist, and mused how much more difficult it would be for identical twins.
What were some of the trials that you felt were important to highlight the character’s development?
“Trials”? Do you mean what were the challenges & difficulties the main characters faced, which exemplified the central theme of the novel? Well, their father was raised in a tough macho mob-connected culture, and decided that his twins had to be tough. He anointed Devon to be the Best, the Winner, but gave no guidance or example of what that entailed, just to claim it & fake it. So Devon became a hollow narcissist. The father also decided that Gavin (the Main Character) was a “loser”, and that it was his job to take care of Devon, the ‘winner’. So Gavin grew up abused and uncertain of his own worth and Devon grew up in a charade, and used drink, drugs and risk-taking (mob) to fill the empty spot in him, while Gavin felt compelled to “save” his brother from his own worst instincts.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
- The expectations & demands of parents can be damaging to their children, especially in dysfunctional families.
- Dysfunction in families can be proliferated into multiple generations unless someone finally breaks the chain – which is difficult.
- At some point, you must make a choice between the imperative to save others versus the struggle to save yourself. You can’t save anyone until you save yourself.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m working on Gavin’s sequel. I didn’t think there would be a sequel, but he had other ideas, and came to me in a half-dream state, laying out the entire plot. So now he’s nagging me to write it. In it, he will have to return to Boston to “tie up loose ends” and be exposed to all the things that nearly destroyed him, things he thought he’d left behind. He will discover more secrets, he will be in danger, he will be triggered & react dysfunctionally. He will exhibit symptoms & behavior of CPTSD. His wife Katie — along with his old counselor Dr Pedersen and best friend Tray — will have to pull him back from the edge. Its themes will include how dysfunctional families can cause crippling CPTSD in their offspring, and how close friends can rally around and help save the damaged person.
I believe it will not likely be published until early 2024.
However, the audio version of ‘Secrets In The Mirror’ should be available this summer (2023).
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Instagram
When Gavin looks in the mirror he sees his twin Devon ― literally. Yet like the mirror, inside they are the reverse of each other. Devon is the chosen one, anointed by their tough Mob-connected father, who demeans Gavin as a loser but expects him to save his brother from his worst instincts. Gavin struggles to believe in himself and make his own decisions in the face of Dad’s bullying and Devon’s narcissistic gaslighting. When Devon gets into drugs and crime, people start dying. Gavin flees far away to protect his hard-won selfhood and his new family. But he can’t escape his sociopathic brother, or the Mob. Yet inextricable bonds tie him to Devon, and Gavin vows to break the lethal chain of family dysfunction and rescue his twin from his self-destructive path. Can he save his brother before Devon destroys them both?
A dysfunctional family saga with psychological suspense, Secrets In The Mirror is the story of one family’s struggle to rise above the toxicity of multigenerational domestic abuse and crime. But Gavin is the one who must finally break the shackles of multigenerational and narcissistic abuse, despite inextricable bonds with a twin who’s headed for self-destruction. It is a tale that grapples with the imperative to save others versus the struggle to save oneself.
Magic In An Urban Setting
The Realm of Darkness follows a team of Guardians competing in a tournament where they must uncover secrets, fight corruption, and face off against a powerful demon threatening to destroy humanity. What were some new ideas you wanted to introduce in this book that was different from book one?
Particularly with Book 2, I was eager to explore magic in an urban setting. The setting of Book 2 is in a large city where there are cars, firearms, phones, televisions, etc., but magic is also very present. I was very excited to show magic in that setting, particularly as the main villain reveals himself to the main characters and exhibits his power.
What scene in the book did you have the most fun creating?
I enjoyed everything surrounding the first time the main characters come face-to-face with the main villain of the series. It was fun having the characters go through such a grueling rescue mission only for that rescue mission to be a trap just to get them in position to meet the villain face-to-face for the first time. Those chapters were definitely the most fun for me to write.
Was there anything that developed organically while writing the story that surprised you about your characters?
As I wrote further into Book 2, the friendship dynamics between the five main characters solidified in the story, and even though they are becoming closer as friends, it was very organic to have the main character and leader of the team, Dalton, respect the privacy of his more secretive teammates rather than push them to reveal things they are not ready to share. It was a part of his character I did not expect to happen so organically, considering he is trying his best to learn as much as he can about his mission and the colleagues helping him fight the antagonist.
What can readers expect in book three in the Dimension Guardian series?
Book 3 starts off with a period of levity and silliness only for the team to delve further into the darker parts of their mission. There is more danger, more growth, and the characters have to learn to walk the line between their jobs as Guardians and their private lives as those who are closest to Dalton are directly threatened for the purpose of bringing Dalton and his team closer to a destined battle with the demon trying to destroy the realms.
Author Links: Twitter | Facebook | Website
LITERARY TITAN 