Blog Archives
A Sense of Pride
Hard Times is centered around a young magazine writer who discovers a life marked by racist terror, mob pressure, and reinvention when he tracks down a vanished heavyweight champion. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I wanted to write a culmination of all the things African American boxers and war veterans went through in the years leading up to our greatest war. I interviewed several relatives who were in the “Great War” for their perspective, and I created Nathan as an homage to their sacrifice. I added the turmoil and adventures he went through, like the fictional story of The Odyssey, and it fit.
You portray Nathan as deeply human—flawed, driven, tender, and wounded. How did you approach balancing his mythic “King Cobra” persona with his private self?
Nathan always wanted to be something more than just a sharecropper. He saw what Black people went through in the South. He was driven to do great things.
Boxing often symbolizes struggle and survival in literature. What did the sport allow you to explore about race, power, and identity in Nathan’s life?
Boxing is a way, especially in the past, to give Black people a sense of pride over their oppressors. Equal opportunities were nonexistent, so the brutal sport allowed them to fight back the only way they knew how.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m working on a sequel to my dark Mystery novel, A Tall Dark Sin, entitled The Devil Walks In/A Tall Dark Sin 2. I’m looking for a late fall release.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Restorative Nature of the Outdoors
When the Forest Dreams follows a Polish American young woman who believes she may soon inherit her mother’s illness, as she decides to live her life to the fullest while she is able. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
My love of modern retellings was the driving force behind writing my second novel. When the Forest Dreams is a contemporary reimagining of The Blue Castle, by L. M. Montgomery. The story stayed with me because of its powerful exploration of fear, freedom, and self-discovery. One of the central plot devices in the original is a life-altering medical diagnosis, and I was drawn to the emotional urgency that creates, the way the possibility of limited time forces a person to confront what they truly want from life. In the original novel, the diagnosis is angina pectoris. For my adaptation, I chose an illness that is more familiar to contemporary readers and one that can be difficult to diagnose, making the possibility of a misdiagnosis feel credible. For both Valancy and Emma, that mistaken diagnosis becomes the catalyst for transformation. Faced with what they believe may be their future, they begin to reclaim agency over their lives and choices. At its core, their journey is about recognizing that fear often keeps us confined long before circumstance does.
Emma moves from obedience into appetite and self-expression. Was her transformation something you planned from the start, or did it evolve as you wrote her?
This transformation is key to both the original and my retelling and has been part of the story from the beginning. The story is about confronting fear and recognizing how often fear holds us back without us even realizing it. As Alice Walker famously observed, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Once Emma breaks free of the things holding her back, she grows and matures, gaining an important understanding that it wasn’t the church or her parents who were keeping her down; she was the one holding herself back. Once she overcame that, things became clearer, and she found happiness.
Birdwatching and Central Park play a vivid role in the story. How did nature become such a grounding force for Emma’s inner life?
Nature is a grounding force for Emma because, in many ways, it is the one place in her life where she feels fully present and free. Much of Emma’s world feels muted and constrained, and I wanted birdwatching to be the one thing that belonged entirely to her—a source of wonder and escape, even within the limitations of her circumstances. I wanted to emphasize the restorative nature of the outdoors for mental and emotional well-being. For Emma, birdwatching becomes both a refuge and a way of understanding herself. Her connection deepens when she travels to the old-growth forests of Arkansas in search of the Ivory-billed woodpecker. In that wilderness, nature shifts from being a place of comfort to a catalyst for self-discovery and transformation.
What do you hope readers take away about duty, identity, and the possibility of reclaiming a life that feels predetermined?
Duty and identity often shape us long before we have the chance to question them, and I hope readers take away that a life that feels predetermined is never truly fixed. At its heart, this story is about courage, transformation, and the quiet reclamation of self—the idea that it is never too late to challenge expectations, redefine who you are, and choose a different path. Fear of change is often the greatest barrier between us and the lives we want, and I hope readers come away believing that growth and reinvention are always possible, no matter where they begin.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
What if the life you were meant to live was waiting just outside your door?
New York City, 2013. Emma Jablonski’s life is as dry as the day-old bread at her family’s bakery. Living with her parents and grandmother, she clings to the only escape she knows: a recurring dream that feels more real than her waking world. But when Emma’s eyes are open, she’s reminded of what’s out of reach—Jake, the enigmatic boy-next-door.
After a life-changing diagnosis forces her to face her fears, Emma decides it’s time to truly live—before it’s too late. With Jake and his vibrant friend Vee, she dives into a whirlwind of experiences: a fake engagement, dazzling parties, and an obsession with the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird that may not even exist.
But as her daring adventure is coming to an end, Emma begins to embrace a future she never thought possible. Dreams and reality aren’t supposed to mix . . . are they?
A modern retelling of L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, this gentle story of love, resilience, and the beauty of the unknown reminds us to seek joy in the most unexpected places.
Survival of the Fittest
In Adventures of a Looney Scot, you share your childhood experiences in Glasgow and trace your life through class, landscape, and national identity through a comedic lens. What made you decide to tell your life story?
I am no ‘spring chicken’, hence I need to speak up now for my children’s sake, or forever hold my tongue. Note that Adventures of a Looney Scot follows the first part of our hero’s life (see video link) as described in Book 1 of the Quantum Leap Forward trilogy that sets the scene for Ewan MacLeod’s leap from Scotland to Hong Kong. (see Facebook). This is soon to be followed by Book 2 Epicentre: Hong Kong (Edition 2) when that city state experiences the shock of The Big One; then finally Book 3 The Making of Punta – our resort in the Philippines that presents the development of The Most Sustainable and Liveable Resort in the Philippines (see Punta Riviera Resort and also Facebook).
How did you decide what to include from such a wide-ranging life without losing that sense of spontaneity?
As described above, each stage is presented as a book in the trilogy. My life has, in fact, been discontinuous and very much shaped by movements from growing up in Scotland, then moving to Hong Kong, life and death in Hong Kong; then moving to the Philippines; each being very much moulded by the three women in my life who have kept us in shape, given us strong direction, and helped us keep our own and our families’ heads above water. When all else fails – exercise your sirtuin genes and – keep breathing! Ach well, that’s life!
Your family life is depicted with both chaos and loyalty. How do you see those dynamics now, looking back?
Keeping our heads above water includes that from tsunamis and flooding, for example, from two super typhoons in the latter part of 2025 and a 4-6m high tidal surge wave that smacked into our resort Punta Riviera Resort at Bolinao, Pangasinan. The stories throughout this trilogy are partly about picking ourselves up after each disaster and learning from them. Filipinos have specific words for this recovery, namely Kapwas or Bayanihan, where everyone gets up after a disaster, helps everyone else near them to do the same by seeing themselves in others, then all move forward in the same direction. In the West, we follow the philosophy of ‘Survival of the Fittest,’ which is a very weak alternative and not how civilizations have survived natural disasters over centuries. When Matt Gandi was asked by a reporter after visiting Churchill’s cabinet in London: ‘So what do you think about British Civilization?’ he is reported to have replied: ‘Oh, that would be nice.’
If readers take one thing from your story, what do you hope it is?
Readers may appreciate that in Scotland, our Ancient Ancestors from a previous civilization left us precious ancient cultural secrets that helped us keep the Roman Empire out by forcing them to build Hadrian’s Wall, the English wall-bangers at bay for many years, and this helped us maintain our unique national identity. This led to our unusual DNA and our use of intuition, invention, and creativity during and after the Age of Enlightenment and Industrialization. However, whilst these are important issues, my pride in being a Scot and maintaining a healthy sense of humour are the key ingredients in this soup.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Leadership Mindset
Adventures in Leadership offers reflections on leadership based on outdoor misadventures, near misses, and hard-won moments of perspective. Why was this an important book for you to write?
It was important for me to write Adventures in Leadership because the most meaningful leadership lessons I’ve learned didn’t come from a conference room; they came from real experiences, often in moments where things didn’t go as planned.
Over the years, I realized those moments, missteps, pressure, and uncertainty had more to teach than any formal training ever could. And if I could capture those lessons in a way that was honest and relatable, I believed it could help other leaders navigate their own challenges a little more effectively.
At its core, I wanted to show that leadership isn’t about titles or ego. It’s about how you show up for people, especially when things get hard. And if sharing my experiences helps someone lead with a little more humility, awareness, or intention, then the book did exactly what I hoped it would.
Many chapters end with clear takeaways—how important was it for you to keep the lessons practical and actionable?
That was incredibly important to me. I didn’t want to write a book that just sounded good; I wanted to write one that people could actually use.
There’s no shortage of leadership content out there, but a lot of it lives in theory. My goal was to bridge that gap between insight and action. After each chapter, I wanted the reader to walk away with something they could apply immediately, whether that’s a shift in mindset, a better conversation, or a small change in how they lead their team.
Because to me, leadership only really matters if it shows up in how you operate day to day. If someone can read a chapter and then go lead a little more effectively that same week, that’s where the real value is.
Was there a particular experience—like getting off trail or a near miss—that changed your leadership mindset the most?
There are a few moments that stand out, things like a river rescue or a near miss on Half Dome, but honestly, it wasn’t any single experience that changed my leadership mindset. It was the accumulation of those moments over time.
What I started to realize is that, in both the outdoors and leadership, things rarely go perfectly. People make mistakes, plans change, and pressure shows up when you least expect it. And instead of seeing that as something to eliminate, I began to see it as something to lead through.
That shift carried over into how I led my teams. I wanted people to feel like they could be human, that they didn’t have to be perfect to be valuable. Because when people feel trusted, supported, and appreciated for what they bring to the table, they perform better, they grow faster, and they show up more fully.
So those experiences didn’t change me overnight, but they reshaped how I define what good leadership actually looks like.
If readers remember only one lesson from Adventures in Leadership, what do you hope it is?
If there’s one thing I hope readers take away, it’s that leadership isn’t about a title or being perfect, it’s about how you show up for people.
The most meaningful leadership happens in real moments, when things are messy, when there’s pressure, when someone needs support. That’s where trust is built, and that human connection, especially through adversity, is what people actually remember.
If someone walks away understanding that they can lead right where they are, by being present, by being real, and by valuing the people around them, then that’s the lesson that matters most.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
After more than two decades leading teams in the corporate world, Brent Witthuhn discovered something unexpected: the moments that shaped him most as a leader didn’t come from strategy meetings or spreadsheets; they came from the outdoors.
From getting lost on remote trails…
To pushing through exhaustion, uncertainty, and failure…
To learning firsthand what it really means to lead when things don’t go according to plan…
Adventures in Leadership is a collection of real stories from the trail, each paired with a powerful, practical leadership lesson you can apply immediately in your life and work.
Inside, you’ll discover how to:
Stay calm and lead through uncertainty
Take ownership when things go wrong
Build trust and support within a team
Adapt when the plan falls apart
Grow through both success and failure
Written in a clear, relatable style, this book feels less like a lecture and more like sitting around a campfire, hearing stories that stick with you long after they’re told.
Whether you’re a seasoned leader, an aspiring professional, or simply someone looking to grow, Adventures in Leadership will challenge you to think differently about leadership, and remind you that the best lessons are often learned when you step off the beaten path.
Through the Eyes of Everyday People
Abigail Trench follows a displaced schoolteacher in Revolutionary-era New York as she is drawn from daily survival into a dangerous world of espionage, political awakening, and self-invention. What drew you to tell a Revolutionary War spy story from the perspective of someone outside the usual circles of officers, generals, and famous patriots?
I’ve always been interested in history, especially the history of the American Revolution. I’ve read numerous books about the era, both fiction and nonfiction. What I’ve noticed about the best historical fiction authors, such as Ken Follett, is that they tell the story of the era through the eyes of everyday people, allowing readers to experience this period through the eyes of ordinary individuals. I chose a teacher as my protagonist in ABIGAIL in part because she gives readers someone to relate to. In my novel, readers do meet famous figures from the revolution, such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Nathan Hale. But the real heroes of my story are teachers and merchants and pickpockets.
Abigail begins the novel as a teacher rather than a trained operative. How did you approach making her transformation into a spy feel believable?
The truth is none of the members of the Culper Ring was a trained operative. With the exception of Benjamin Tallmadge, Washington’s Spymaster, who worked in the militia, none of the other members had military or any other kind of training. So, in the story, when the British strip Abigail of her profession, her home and her virtue, she resolves to fight back. When her position gives her the opportunity to overhear certain secrets of the British, she turns her resolve to strike back against the Redcoats into a weapon.
The novel pays close attention to class, labor, danger, and street-level survival. What kinds of research helped you build that texture of Revolutionary-era New York?
I’ve read quite a few books about this era and have gained insights from them, especially Gore Vidal’s historical novel, BURR. I also spent considerable time researching primary sources about some of the gritty details of life in colonial America in 1776. Some aspects of life in late 18th century have been documented, e.g., the 1776 fire in New York City, the unsanitary conditions of life in the city, and the execution of Thomas Hinkle. Other details had to be fleshed out with my imagination, and that’s half the fun.
How did you balance real historical figures like Nathan Hale and Robert Townsend with Abigail’s fictional emotional journey?
Overall, the historical record for most of what happened during this time is sparse. Of course, it has been 250 years. We have only few details and particulars on individuals like Nathan Hale and Robert Townsend. I was able to take some of those details—like the fact that Nathan Hale was also a teacher–and weave them into my tale of Abigail. In fact, the paucity of verified information gave me greater flexibility to develop my narrative of a woman who tutored officer’s children by day and carried intelligence to secret meetings at waterfront taverns at night.
Author Links: GoodReads | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | BookBub | Website
Evolving
Shadows in the Creek follows a disgraced journalist who returns to his picture-perfect town to investigate the murder of a young woman, only to uncover the lies the town has kept hidden.Was Edenvale inspired by a real place, or more of a symbolic landscape?
For me, Edenvale is more of a symbolic landscape, though the setting is somewhere familiar – a small, idyllic town somewhere between Hartford, Connecticut and New York. I live in Connecticut, and for my first novel, I needed the setting to hit close to home. But the place is symbolic in that Dante Villehart, the disgraced journalist, comes to this town he feels is quiet enough to allow him to escape into anonymity. Just as he is trying to settle, he learns of the demise of someone he knew very well. He is suddenly compelled to get back into investigative journalism, much against his initial will. He quickly learns in the process that this apparently quiet town is heavily laden with secrets the rich and powerful would literally kill to keep buried.
Dante feels both capable and compromised. How did you shape his moral center, and how important was his past failure in driving the present investigation?
Many people, including myself, have made mistakes in the past. However, not all of us get to correct them once they are acknowledged. That is, we don’t often get the redemption opportunities that would help to lighten the load of our past guilt. Dante has this opportunity, though he came by this reluctantly at first. He is compromised because he knows his mistakes directly led to consequences he wished never developed. But this compromise leads to his resilience. He now has an unwavering desire to not fail in his quests to unearth the truth. Sometimes his pursuit of the truth puts him in danger–another compromise that gives him the grit he needs to prove himself capable.
The book thrives on mood as much as mystery. How do you balance tension with introspection in a crime story?
Dante is actually coming to terms with the new person he is becoming. He is driven by his desire not to fail again but could still fail if he makes the rash decisions he once made under pressure in his past. Now, he is not trying to make deadlines with a story. He now has to solve a mystery that requires swift attention and also demands careful introspection as a guide to ensure his new path is not paved with the familiar failure he once knew. In other words, Dante is evolving while he solves the case. Part of this process necessarily requires that he reflects and looks inwards for strength and guidance.
Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out and what can your fans expect in the next story?
Shadows in the Creek is in fact the first book of the Dante Villehart Redemption series. The series has three books, the other two being Death in the Manor and Knight In Gale: Vengeance. The two latter books have been published recently, and I am hoping to use the momentum of Shadows in the Creek to propel them.
Fans can expect Dante to continue evolving. In the past, he would push people away, keep his guard up, and wouldn’t allow anyone to get too close. He lets himself become more vulnerable in letting others in but is still cautious as his association with people could put them in danger (and often does). Therefore, Dante starts to become the new redeemed man he has started to become – still with flaws, but less guarded and more balanced.
Fans can also expect to see Dante continue his journey solving cases in The Dante Villehart Files.
False Bay
False Bay is a literary novel with strong elements of magical realism, ghost story, family saga, and social history. Set around Cape Town’s False Bay, it moves through the lives and deaths of a wide cast: Ella, Veronica, Sebastian, Godfrey, Manuel, Mother Angels, Father Innocent, Mary, Liz, and others whose stories overlap through love, trauma, faith, race, sexuality, apartheid, memory, and the sea. The book is not built like a neat plot machine. It feels more like a chorus of voices calling across water, each one adding another piece to a strange, painful, often funny picture of a community marked by beauty and damage.
Dunn lets almost everyone speak, including the dead, the wounded, the guilty, animals, saints, ghosts, and people who have been ignored or pushed to the margins. That choice could have become messy, but mostly in a way that feels true to the book’s world. Life here is not tidy. Grief interrupts jokes. Violence sits beside gossip. A drowning can be tragic and absurd in the same breath. I found the shifts in voice especially effective when they revealed how differently people remember the same wound. No one owns the whole truth. Everyone carries a shard of it.
The writing has a plainspoken sharpness that I appreciated. It can be blunt, even shocking, but it rarely feels careless. Dunn writes about sex, abuse, disability, addiction, racism, queerness, Catholic guilt, and spiritual hunger without polishing the edges too much. That gave the novel force. At times, I did want a little more space to breathe between tragedies, because the book piles pain upon pain. Still, the humor saves it from becoming grim. Veronica’s theatrical wit, the recurring Bloody Marys, the cats, the braais, and the local Cape texture all keep the book alive and human. The genre blend also works well: as literary fiction, it is interested in memory and voice; as magical realism, it lets ghosts and visions feel as ordinary as weather; as a Cape Town social novel, it keeps asking who gets seen, who gets forgiven, and who is left outside.
I would recommend False Bay to readers who like layered, character-driven literary fiction that is strange, candid, and emotionally full. It will especially appeal to people interested in South African stories, queer histories, Catholic imagery, family secrets, and novels where place becomes almost a character of its own. For readers willing to sit with discomfort, contradiction, and dark humor, False Bay offers something memorable: a haunted, salty, bruised novel that keeps listening to the people history usually leaves underwater.
Pages: 204 | ASIN : B0FPN7VT82
Symphony Of Lies
Symphony of Lies by Maria Monday is a psychological thriller about Emma Mally, a flawed investigative journalist whose quiet retreat in the Swiss Alps is interrupted when she is named in the will of Nicole Wagner, a mysterious Monaco acquaintance with deep ties to Emma’s past. What begins as an inheritance story quickly becomes something darker: a trail of secrets, suspicious deaths, manipulation, and questions about whether truth can ever be clean when power and money are involved. The book openly frames itself as “a cerebral, high-stakes psychological thriller,” and that genre label fits its interest in suspicion, memory, control, and moral unease.
What pulled me in most was Emma herself. She isn’t presented as spotless, which I appreciated. She has crossed ethical lines in her career; she knows it, and the book lets that guilt sit beside her sharper instincts. That makes her more interesting than a simple truth-seeker. I also liked the contrast between the cold, intimate Swiss setting and the polished, sunlit danger of Monaco. The movement between those worlds gives the novel a strong sense of atmosphere. The prose leans into description, especially when introducing people, places, and luxury, but I can see what Monday is reaching for. She wants the glamour to feel almost too bright.
The author’s choices are boldest in the way Nicole is handled. She becomes a kind of mirror for Emma, forcing her to look at grief, loyalty, family history, and her own hunger for answers. I found that compelling. The book is generous with its emotional guidance, often making sure the reader understands the weight of each revelation and the depth of what Emma is feeling. That clarity gives the story an accessible, direct quality, especially in moments where grief, guilt, and suspicion overlap.
The central idea has weight: people can build entire lives out of stories, and the most dangerous lies are often the ones that feel protective. That’s where the thriller works best for me. Not only in the threat of violence, but in the quieter fear that you may have loved a version of someone that never fully existed.
I would recommend Symphony of Lies to readers who enjoy psychological thrillers with a polished international setting, morally complicated women, inheritance mysteries, and a slow uncovering of old corruption. It’s less of a stripped-down, fast-cut thriller and more of a layered, reflective one, interested in wealth, secrecy, friendship, and the cost of knowing too much. Readers who like their suspense mixed with family shadows and social critique will appreciate it most.
Pages: 362 | ASIN : B0GHT44LK4
