Blog Archives
Crossing Borders of Times
Crossing Borders of Times, One Man’s Journey to Search For His Ukrainian, Greek & Bulgarian Roots tells the story of a family stretched across countries, decades, and memories. It follows George, an aging immigrant reflecting on his life, and Alex, his grandson, who stumbles into their tangled heritage. Their lives intertwine with ancestors from Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Greece through letters, dreams, pictures, and rediscovered 142-year-old lost manuscripts. He discovered in the basement of his old house in Khan Asparuh Street, Sofia, Bulgaria, narrative moves between nursing homes in America, historic struggles in Eastern Europe, and the restless search for identity in a modern world. It is part memoir, part novel, part meditation on belonging.
Reading this book felt like sitting in someone’s living room as they pulled old photo albums and told stories that were raw, unpolished, and heavy with feeling. The prose has a weight, an almost aching pull toward the past, but it’s balanced by warmth.
From the first lines, we dive right into the story. Crossing Borders of Time”: ‘One Man’s Journey to Search for His Ukrainian, Greek, and Bulgarian Roots’ by Kiril Kristoff is a masterfully crafted narrative that deftly blends memoir and fiction.
The Literary Titan Book Award winner Kristoff uses elegance, nuance, and clarity to depict a deeply personal and moving story. In addition to honoring the immigrant experience, this book offers a poignant meditation on spiritual inheritance, cultural identity, and intergenerational connection.
The story immerses readers in a universe full of historical resonance and emotional weight from the very first sentence. Kristoff establishes the mood early on with a narrative voice that is both personal and sweeping. By introducing readers to George, whose life and legacy act as the story’s emotional compass, the opening paragraph foreshadows the great voyage that lies ahead. It is a powerful beginning that entices readers to keep turning the pages because it is vivid and full of promise.
The complex, multi-layered tale of Grandpa George, a Bulgarian immigrant who overcomes poverty, war, and cultural displacement to start over in America, is at the core of this book. George’s hardships – beginning at the bottom of an auto repair shop, overcoming anti-immigrant sentiment, and attempting to establish a dignified life – are realistically and compassionately depicted. No matter how minor, his personal triumphs are incredibly fulfilling and give the story a powerful emotional undertone.
A Saga of four Generations of Americans of Bulgarian Roots men: This is history and geography all wrapped in a story of culture, hardship, and achievement in the American dream. Grandpa George & grandson Alex are not ordinary travelers. Adventure is a tapestry in this historic, fictional emigrant’s travel novel memoir where courage, friendship, relationships, family, and love are threads. George has the elixir of curiosity, empathy, an indefatigable nature, and creativity to explore the hidden corners of a faraway place and draw out the stories from relatives he met in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. After the Afterlife, George received the most straightforward, informative answers to questions about what happens after a person passes into the afterlife, which he wrote in his memories.
The topics explored range from human and personal issues, such as who greets the person after their passing, to insightful descriptions of the nature of consciousness and reality. Meeting all his past way parents & relatives, He found many answers to all these questions with his characteristic laid-back directness in a no-nonsense way that brings our understanding of the afterlife into the twenty-first century.
At times, I’d be caught by an image so sharp and tender that it stopped me. It’s not a clean, tight novel. It’s messy in the way life is messy, which oddly made it more convincing. The book insists that roots matter, even when you’ve spent years pretending they don’t. I felt the tension of being between cultures, never quite at home anywhere, and the heartbreak of seeing traditions fade with each generation. The sections on Alex’s obsession with his great-great-grandfather’s manuscript made me restless, because I know that pull, the need to give voice to those who came before us. At times, I wanted the story to dig deeper into Alex’s present struggles, but maybe that’s the point. The past overshadows everything, and it’s left to us to wrestle with it or ignore it.
I’d say this book is best for readers who crave stories of migration, memory, and the ache of belonging. If you want to sit with a book that makes you think about your grandparents, your childhood, or the stories that shaped you, it delivers. It’s for the ones who wonder where they come from and for those willing to accept that the answer may never be simple.
Pages: 513 | ASIN: B0F79TRN5J
Driven: The Founder’s Seed Book 3
Driven is the third installment in The Founder’s Seed series, continuing the riveting saga with even higher stakes and deeper revelations. The book pulls you straight into a galaxy alive with politics, betrayal, and fragile alliances. Admirals, traders, and hidden survivors of a nearly lost people clash in a world where loyalty is currency and compassion is weakness. At the heart of it all are Alira, still wrestling with her fractured self, Botha with his quiet wisdom, and Thrace carrying the burden of leadership under constant threat. The novel moves between brutal experimentation on the mysterious Iridosians, tense negotiations among rival factions, and deeply personal struggles for survival. It is a story of ambition, cruelty, resilience, and the thin thread of hope that refuses to snap.
Reading this book stirred a mix of awe and discomfort in me. The clinical coldness of Knøfa’s experiments made my stomach twist, yet I couldn’t look away. The writing is vivid, even when it’s painful, and that’s part of its power. I found myself admiring the author’s willingness to go dark, to show how curiosity can turn into obsession, and how power can warp good intentions. At the same time, the quieter moments between Alira and Botha gave me room to breathe, to feel the warmth of trust slowly taking root in frozen soil. Their scenes lingered with me, like a candlelight after the storm.
There are a lot of moving parts here. Political factions, shifting alliances, plots within plots, and it took me a while to sort through them all. But once I settled in, I found myself hooked. The author doesn’t coddle the reader. She trusts us to keep up, and I respect that. What I loved most was the emotional honesty tucked between the battles and schemes. Fear, hope, guilt, tenderness, it all feels raw and real, even in the middle of starships and alien physiology.
Driven left me both unsettled and uplifted. It’s a rewarding read. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy science fiction with grit and heart, to those who don’t shy away from moral grayness, and to anyone who loves stories that ask what survival truly costs. If you like your space operas full of high stakes but also deeply human at the core, this book will leave a mark.
Book 1 – Galileo’s Points of Light in the Night Sky (Dr. K’s Portal Through Time)
Galileo’s Points of Light in the Night Sky tells the story of two siblings, Jennifer and Daniel, who, with the help of the mysterious Dr. K, travel back in time to meet Galileo Galilei. Through their journey, they witness Galileo’s discoveries firsthand, from the moons of Jupiter to the phases of Venus. They even help him build a telescope. Along the way, the children learn not just about the science of the universe but also about curiosity, resilience, and the courage it takes to question the world around you. It is part history, part science, and part adventure, written with young readers in mind, and it manages to make centuries-old discoveries feel fresh and exciting.
I found myself charmed by the storytelling in this children’s book. The voice is warm and approachable, and the author makes sure the science never feels heavy. Instead, it comes alive through dialogue and adventure. The way the kids interact with Galileo is delightful, and their wonder mirrors what I imagine any curious child would feel meeting a great mind of the past. I also liked how the book wove in real facts without turning it into a dry lesson.
There were moments where the writing leaned into explanation, and I felt the momentum slow. Still, those small bumps didn’t take away from the bigger experience. The heart of the book is curiosity, and that comes through loud and clear. I also appreciated how the narrative balanced Jennifer’s voice with Daniel’s. It gave the story a sense of shared discovery, which felt true to childhood adventures.
I’d recommend this chapter book to kids who are fascinated by space, science, or history, and also to parents or teachers looking for an engaging way to spark that interest. It’s perfect for middle-grade readers who enjoy a mix of imagination and learning. The story encourages children to ask questions and to see science as an adventure. For me, that’s its greatest success.
Pages: 104 | ASIN : B0F4NQTCNP
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Life
Laura Muirhead’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Life is a memoir that moves through childhood, teenage years, early adulthood, and the deep reckoning of midlife with both candor and heart. She tells her story through episodes that range from tender family memories to shocking discoveries about her own parentage. The book blends personal narrative with reflections on resilience, gratitude, and the strange ways life can twist, betray, and yet still surprise with meaning. At its core, it’s about finding strength in truth, even when that truth shatters the story you thought you knew.
What struck me most was the honesty in her voice. She recalls being a child lost in a swirl of divorce, stepparents, and hospital stays, and later a young woman stumbling through identity crises, bad relationships, and financial struggles. The writing feels raw and unfiltered, which made me lean in closer rather than back away. At times, I was frustrated on her behalf, especially in chapters where her stepmother’s cruelty and her mother’s betrayal came through in sharp detail. Other times I felt relief and warmth, like when she described the steadfast love of her grandmother, or the freedom of learning to fly on her own terms. Those shifts kept me hooked. I found myself thinking about my own life, my own plot twists, and how I’ve responded to them.
The heart of the book, for me, was her discovery in her forties that the man she grew up calling “Dad” was not her biological father. The way she described the unraveling of family secrets, the weight of betrayal, and the eventual path toward forgiveness carried a lot of emotional punch. I could feel the anger in her words, the ice cream in the freezer standing in for the weight of all those tangled emotions. And then later, the surprising peace she found in gratitude. I didn’t always agree with her conclusions, but I respected her process. There’s something very human in the way she stumbled, raged, reflected, and then tried again to make sense of it all. Her style of telling is simple but layered, moving between plainspoken anecdotes and larger reflections on truth and resilience. That mix made it feel both intimate and universal.
I felt that this book wasn’t just her story. It was also a nudge to the reader to look at their own. To consider where the cracks are, and whether those cracks let in anger or light. I’d recommend this book to people who enjoy memoirs that don’t sugarcoat the hard stuff, especially readers who are working through family secrets, identity shifts, or personal healing. It would also speak to those who just like a true story told straight, with grit, gratitude, and a good measure of heart.
Pages: 68 | ASIN : B0F3D9WNVT
Beyond the Sky: A Mountain Woman’s Journey to Personal Freedom
Beyond the Sky follows Tillie Carpenter, a character introduced earlier in Ann Heap’s Hidden Valley series. The book is split into two parts. The first part traces Tillie’s journey from her teen years through college, weaving her passion for science and her involvement in the civil rights movement into a vivid coming-of-age narrative. The second part shifts back in time, presenting the journals of her foremothers, the mountain women of Hidden Valley, stretching from Irish immigrant ancestors in the 1840s to Tillie herself. The book is about heritage, resilience, and the blend of old wisdom with modern science.
I found myself swept up in the writing. The style is warm, almost conversational, yet it carries weight when the story demands it. The descriptions of family bonds, quiet mountain life, and the turmoil of the civil rights era felt raw and real. There were moments when the writing tugged me straight into Tillie’s skin, especially during her conflicts with her stepmother and her longing to merge Granny’s folk remedies with modern research. There were times the pace slowed, especially in some of the journal sections, but just as quickly, Heap would pull me back with a sharp emotional moment.
I admired how Heap connected the private, everyday struggles of women across generations with broader historical movements. It gave the sense that change doesn’t just happen in marches or headlines, but also in kitchens, gardens, and the quiet choices families make. I loved that balance.
Beyond the Sky is a heartfelt novel that I would recommend to readers who enjoy historical fiction rooted in family and community, and to those who like stories that braid social justice into personal lives. It would especially resonate with readers who appreciate strong, complex female characters and the blending of old traditions with modern challenges. It’s not a quick or light read, but if you’re willing to let the story take its time, it’s rewarding.
Pages: 352 | ASIN : B0F4RRHPQ4
Hello, Egypt!: A Children’s Picture Book Thrilling Treasure Hunt Adventure Through Ancient Wonders for Kids Ages 4-8
In Hello, Egypt!, the ever-curious Travel Sisters, Sophie and Stephie, embark on another vibrant adventure, this time across the sun-soaked landscapes of Egypt. Accompanied by their loyal pets, their magical globe Globik, and their friend Ali, the girls dive headfirst into ancient wonders and modern marvels. What begins as a sightseeing trip quickly transforms into a captivating treasure hunt, blending discovery with delight as the trio explores bustling souks, iconic pyramids, and so much more.
Ekaterina Otiko’s latest installment in the Sophie and Stephie: The Travel Sisters series is a dynamic fusion of entertainment and education. Brimming with curious facts and cultural insights, the story reads like a hands-on PBS Kids episode but in book form. From ancient history to contemporary surprises, the narrative seamlessly incorporates fascinating details about Egypt’s past and present. Even Arabic vocabulary appears throughout the pages, complete with easy-to-follow pronunciation guides that make learning feel natural and engaging.
Reading this book transported me straight back to those cozy Saturday mornings spent in front of the TV, soaking in every bit of fun and knowledge from shows I adored. That same warm nostalgia pulses through every illustrated page, brought to life with Jose Gascon’s colorful artwork that perfectly captures the animated energy of childhood curiosity.
Among the delightful discoveries, who knew the Red Sea is literally red or that Alexandria boasts a modern library built in the early 2000s? Readers will also find the heart of the story lies in the bond between the characters. Sophie and Stephie’s sibling dynamic feels real and relatable, while Ali’s guidance brings a grounded sense of wonder to their journey. And of course, Globik and the pets add that whimsical spark, echoing the charm of timeless cartoon sidekicks.
Hello, Egypt! is a joy to read. It’s fun, informative, and deeply engaging. Ideal for curious readers aged 5–10, the book offers something new with every revisit. Whether you’re a young explorer eager to learn about world cultures or an adult craving a nostalgic return to educational adventures, this trip through the Land of the Pharaohs is an unforgettable ride.
Pages: 35 | ISBN : 978-1959490197
Beyond Superhero School: Let The Games Begin!
Let The Games Begin! picks up right after Gracie Dix’s Welcome to Superhero School and throws us straight into the lives of a group of teens who are trying to navigate the awkward balance of being both teenagers and superheroes. Their old school is gone, and now they are forced to attend a “normal” high school, hiding their powers while still facing dangers, bullies, and the ever-present shadow of VORK. It’s a story about friendship, secrets, and resilience, wrapped in a mix of action, humor, and heartfelt moments.
I loved how much energy pulses through the writing. The dialogue feels natural, and the banter between characters often made me smile. Some scenes, like Nick’s struggles with PTSD triggered by a history class video, hit harder than I expected. Those moments reminded me that beneath the flashy powers, these kids carry real pain and complicated histories. The story rushed from fight to fight. The momentum kept me turning pages, eager to see what the group would stumble into next.
I also loved how the friendships felt genuine. The teasing, the loyalty, and the occasional tension reminded me of my own messy and chaotic friendships when I was younger. A few lines of dialogue leaned cheesy, but honestly, that gave the book its charm. The heart of the story, the kids sticking together, was a wonderful heartbeat that consistently beat throughout the novel. Dix crafts the kind of book that makes you remember how important it felt to belong to a group, especially when the world seemed confusing or hostile.
Let the Games Begin! is perfect for readers who love fast-paced adventure, quirky humor, and found-family dynamics. It’s a book I’d hand to middle schoolers who want something fun but also real enough to stir up emotions. And for anyone who ever felt like an outsider trying to hide a part of themselves, this story hits home in a surprisingly tender way.
Pages: 508 | ASIN : B0F4Y6ZCBY
Ultra-Criminal Types
Once Upon a Safehouse follows a woman who receives a large inheritance from her uncle, thinking that it’s a life-altering fortune and a mysterious mansion, but it turns into a legacy she never expected or wanted. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
During the pandemic, I watched a whole lot of streaming shows, and one of them was all about the Nazi ratlines to South America. Those shows were astonishing because a lot of the “hideouts” that were located had secret rooms, or escape tunnels, built right into their architecture. Talk about bizarre! Who would do that – unless they had something to hide that was major. And that was enough to get me thinking about it and wanting to turn it into a story!
Were you able to relate to your characters while writing them?
I was able to relate to most of them, yes – the decent characters, especially. It’s always a challenge to try to get into the heads of the more nefarious ones, and this book had some ultra-criminal types in it. Still, I tried putting myself into the place of hunted people who had convinced themselves they’d done “nothing wrong” and took it from there.
What intrigues you about this time period enough to write such a thrilling period piece?
Thank you for calling it thrilling! I look at it this way. The whole World War II era was bizarre in so many ways, and the wrong people had taken over dozens of countries in the world. Everything was upside-down. Decency towards marginalized groups was outlawed, murders of persecuted groups were legalized, and bombs were being dropped all over the place. It was insane. Germany was ruling half of Europe in an atrocious manner, and Japan was just as bad, if not worse, in the countries they took over in Asia. So there are a lot of possibilities for material! And I always try to tell a story where there’s plenty of hope in spite of it all, too.
What is the next book you are working on, and when can fans expect it to be released?
I’m working on one mystery involving suffragettes, and another about a school that closes down under very odd circumstances. I’m having fun with them both!
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Former American paratrooper Glenn Halliday and his British-born wife Ivy think they’ve struck gold when they inherit a sprawling mansion in Argentina in 1963. But the house has other plans.
A poorly concealed door hidden off the parlor. A Nazi-era coin found in their daughter’s room. Strangers watching the house with unnerving intent.
As Glenn and Ivy dig deeper, they uncover a chilling legacy—one that links wartime crimes, hidden identities, and a past that refuses to die. What was this house really used for? And why does it seem to be calling them into its shadows?
Some inheritances come with strings. This one comes with living ghosts.
LITERARY TITAN 