Blog Archives
Black and White Smoke – C-Suite Woes: Subtlety Has Limits
Black and White Smoke, by Thomas V. Papa, is a corporate thriller with its feet planted firmly in boardrooms, investor meetings, private jets, cocktail bars, and the quiet corners where reputations are made or ruined. The book opens with a regulatory fight over credit rating agencies and quickly widens into a story about money, control, succession, and the people willing to bend or break the rules to get ahead. Its early mantra, “Evidence, evidence, evidence,” captures the world of the novel well: everyone claims to be guided by facts, but almost everyone is also chasing power.
At the center is Jon Kiza, VASPI’s CFO, who’s trying to steer the company through a dangerous period after founder Vlad Fabiano disappears from active leadership. Jon’s rival, Paxton Stump, is louder, flashier, and more naturally theatrical, while Tessy Hill has to hold the company together from the board chair’s seat. Around them, Abe Quinn and Krenith bring a more predatory energy to the story, turning what could’ve been a corporate succession drama into something closer to a chess match with surveillance, planted scandals, hostile media, and real physical danger.
What makes the book so engaging is how seriously it takes corporate life as a battlefield. Papa doesn’t treat finance, acquisitions, data, or board politics as background noise. They’re the machinery of the plot. The scenes work best when the characters are sparring across a table, testing each other’s weaknesses, or trying to read what isn’t being said. Jon is especially compelling because he isn’t a smooth superhero type. He’s smart, proud, bruised, and sometimes cornered, which makes his fight to survive feel personal as well as professional.
The writing has a brisk, slightly satirical edge, with plenty of sharp internal commentary and personality packed into the dialogue. Paxton’s bluster, Dreyfuss’s bluntness, Quinn’s menace, and Jon’s controlled irritation all give the book texture. The plot is busy, sometimes deliberately crowded, but that fits a story about a sector being reshaped by deregulation, ambition, and backroom pressure. The line “Subtlety has limits” feels like the book’s operating principle: polite corporate language keeps giving way to harder tactics.
Black and White Smoke is a smart and energetic corporate thriller about who gets to lead when a company is under siege. It blends boardroom maneuvering with espionage-style tension, while keeping its focus on character, loyalty, ego, and judgment under pressure. Readers who enjoy high-stakes business fiction, succession battles, and stories where the real weapons are information and leverage will find plenty to chew on here.
Pages: 244 | ASIN : B0GQ1X71NF
Shadows of the Archipelago: An Anthology of Philippine Mythological Creatures
Shadows of the Archipelago, by E. R. Escober, is a dark anthology that reimagines Philippine mythological creatures through tragic, emotionally heightened stories of love, terror, betrayal, and vengeance. Across tales centered on the Nuno sa Punso, Tikbalang, Manananggal, Diwata, Multo, mermaid, Batibat, and Aswang, the book treats folklore not as decorative mythology but as a living force: something old, wounded, and still watching from the edges of human life. These are monster stories, yes, but the deeper concern is often what people do to the misunderstood, the lonely, the beautiful, and the cursed.
I was struck by how insistently the book asks me to reconsider the word “monster.” Escober’s creatures are frightening, but they are rarely simple villains. The Nuno becomes a protector whose love is misread as horror; the Tikbalang’s violence grows from persecution and grief; the Batibat becomes less a random nightmare than a moral reckoning. The book’s strongest moments come when folklore and human cruelty collide, creating a kind of gothic pressure in which the supernatural is not the scariest thing in the room. I appreciated that the stories don’t merely parade legendary beings across the page. They give them sorrow, appetite, dignity, and doom.
The style is dramatic, sometimes operatic, and it leans into excess: curses crackle, grief burns, bodies transform, and love tends to arrive already shadowed by catastrophe. That intensity won’t be for every reader. But the book’s fervor also gives it its peculiar magnetism. It reads like folklore retold around a fire by someone who refuses to whisper, someone who wants each legend to feel less like an artifact and more like a warning pressed into your palm.
I would recommend Shadows of the Archipelago to readers who enjoy folklore, mythology, dark fantasy, supernatural horror, gothic tragedy, creature horror, and mythic retellings with a strong emotional core. Readers who admire the folkloric menace of Neil Gaiman or the culturally rooted darkness of Silvia Moreno-Garcia may find a similar pleasure here, though Escober’s work is more fevered and melodramatic in its delivery. This is a book for those who like their legends blood-warm, grief-soaked, and morally thorny.
Pages: 210 | ASIN : B0GP2QB14K
Protect the Most Vulnerable
A Strange Sound follows a toad who works as a berry delivery driver, who is perplexed by the mysterious noises she hears along her route and is pleasantly surprised to discover their source. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration comes from a deep desire to nurture a love of animals in young readers. I want children to be curious, thoughtful, and compassionate. Of course, my dog, Mazzy, was my greatest muse. I adore her completely. She gives me so much warmth and saves me emotionally every single day. I wanted to share this deep connection through a spirited story, helping children discover these feelings in a fun way.
Was Mazzy the puppy part of the original concept, or did the story evolve toward adoption as you wrote it?
Mazzy was the heart of the concept from the very beginning. She is a real-life companion whom I rescued from a dangerous situation in another country. In fact, she traveled a long way, by truck, before we met. The story is a tribute to her presence in my life.
What do you hope children learn about care and responsibility from Terry’s decision?
I hope children learn not to close their hearts to those who need help. It is important to protect the most vulnerable creatures in our world. Responsibility means recognizing when another living being depends on us and choosing to act with kindness, even when it requires patience, strength, and effort. Terry’s kindness brings a loving puppy into her life, but her decision matters most because she offered help when it was needed, without knowing what would come of it.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
The next book is titled Little Differences, the first part of a two-book series. It uses funny rhymes and brilliant art by Dainius Sukys to explain the differences between animals that are often confused with one another. For example, children will learn how to tell a hare from a rabbit or a toad from a frog. Many adults who have seen the previews told me that they themselves just learned how to tell these apart. So much fun! We plan to launch it just in time for Christmas or sooner.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Free Activity Pack | Instagram | Amazon
It opens gentle conversations about kindness and discovery where you least expect it.
Terry the Toad is driving through a beautiful landscape when something unusual breaks the quiet. First, a great roaring sound. Then, much softer, a sweet and curious sound from somewhere deep inside her truck.
Another driver might have hurried on. Terry stops. She listens. She looks. What she finds in that still, unhurried moment brings a warmth that lingers long after the final page.
For parents, this is a thoughtful gift that creates a space for quiet sharing. For children, hearing these rhythmic words feels like a comforting embrace. Through its lilting rhyme and Terry’s observant choices, the book builds real emotional vocabulary without ever feeling like a lesson. Each repeated phrase and turned page guides little readers toward kindness and an unexpected visitor.
Open this gentle story today and let curiosity lead you both home.
Left Her Pregnant By A Roadie!
Miz Country Goddess follows a singer determined to rebuild her life and a younger musician whose unexpected encounter with her alters both of their futures. What drew you to explore a romance between characters at different stages of life?
I introduced the character of Rina in my first romance, The Silent Woodsman. She was the ex-girlfriend that stood in the way of Joe’s budding romance with Ali, the shy former foster child he rescued in the woods. I had no plans then to continue Rina’s story, or I probably would not have left her pregnant by a roadie! The entire saga (this is the seventh book featuring some of the same characters, though it totally functions as a standalone) began in 1995, and I was eager to find out what happened to my characters over time, so I had to let them tell me.
The third time my husband and I drove through Tonopah, NV, on our way from Arizona back to Washington, I imagined Rina driving through after her divorce, six years later, now responsible for a small child, jaded by her past relationships and wanting little more than a scandal-free, financially stable existence. Then she meets Henry, who she’s immediately drawn to but is convinced is off limits. All she wants is to keep her fans happy and stay in the label’s good graces. Henry doesn’t fit into that. For men, age gaps are no big deal. For a woman, even a couple of years can raise eyebrows. Before meeting my husband, I dated a few younger men. It always felt temporary and weird, but they were totally cool with it. One of my friends has an amazing marriage with a man eight years younger. She’s unusually charismatic, and he’s unusually mature. Although it didn’t occur to me until recently, they were a major inspiration for this story. They’ve been together thirty years and are going strong.
What did you want readers to understand about vulnerability through Rina and Henry’s relationship?
Hmm, tough one. First off, no relationship works unless both parties are willing to be vulnerable. Showing someone the facade you think they are looking for is a surefire way to fail. It’s also exhausting to keep up. When there’s fireworks and nothing else, a relationship lasts maybe two weeks to two months. I thought it would be interesting to try to show that even a few days with someone you truly click with can seal your fate forever.
A lot of the young men in romance novels are pretty cocky. Henry is an old soul, and having four older sisters means he understands women better than most. His parents have a seemingly perfect relationship, which is daunting. He knows from the moment he meets Rina that she is different, a fascinating combination of charm and self-reliance and insecurity. The night before Henry lets Linc take him away to Nashville, he bares his soul to Rina. She responds by confessing a few of her own secrets. By letting their guards down emotionally, they form an unintentional bond. Of course, showing vulnerability isn’t enough. You have to be genuinely interested in your partner’s welfare and tuned in to their wants and needs. And none of my principal characters ever takes themselves too seriously. This kind of ideal behavior seldom happens in real life, which is why we like to see it play out in fiction!
What aspects of country music culture were most important for you to capture?
I set out to write something more akin to a soap opera, like the series Nashville. But the characters had other ideas. What’s interesting to me about country music is the expectation of conformity. Performers dress like cowboys and cowgirls (sometimes fancy, sometimes not), behave and speak in a folksy way to fit the fans’ expectations. Down-to-earth and accessible good ‘ol boys and girls, patriotic and god-fearing. (I see some changes in the culture now; remember, this was 2003.) In the world of classical music, singers and musicians are expected to be gracious, sophisticated, and dress elegantly. The audience is full of snobs who want to believe you are as elite as your art. I don’t know much about the world of rock ‘n’ roll, but it seems like a rock musician’s main goal is make ground-breaking music that will make them stand out. They can come up with their own signature style in their wardrobe, and they have more leeway to live their lives on their own terms.
They all need to turn on the charm whenever they’re in public. That’s a given.
In country music as in any business, the bottom line is everything. To stay on top, you must keep drawing the crowds. It’s not just the women the record labels seek to control, it’s all their artists. But clearly, it’s harder for women. Some of my inspiration for Rina came from Amy Grant’s transition from Christian artist to crossover star and the scandal surrounding her divorce and remarriage. As a woman, if you want to keep performing in any branch of the entertainment business, you have to keep reinventing yourself. Rina is at this crossroads even though she appears to be at the top of her game.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m doing one last edit on the final book in the Beyond the Olympic Peninsula series, Mister Heartbreaker. It features Kilo Mahelona, another of the problematic characters in the original series, a former professional dancer, stage actor, and yoga teacher who Hollywood discovers in his late twenties. This story takes place in the present, so that’s different from any of my other books. (Miz Country Goddess begins in 2003.) I’m aiming for an October release. I narrate and edit my own audiobooks, and during that process I find (hopefully) the final typos, mistakes, and inconsistencies. Set in L.A., Part I of Mister Heartbreaker is a loose, humorous take on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (with elements of Groundhog’s Day), but Part II is a more traditional second-chance celebrity romance that takes place in my favorite seaside village, Port Townsend, Washington. (Not an entirely accurate depiction!) Kilo, famous for his movie villains and tittered about in the tabloids for dating ever younger women, discovers he has a daughter the age of most of his girlfriends. Primed to redeem himself after his encounter with the spirits, he tries to boost his daughter’s acting career and unwittingly delivers her into the clutches of a guru-type director. He and the mother of his child must work together to help her see reason. This means building trust and getting past all the bad stuff that’s kept them apart all these years, including Kilo’s reputation as a heartbreaker. Fans of my other books get to catch up with most of the characters and their grown children. They also get to witness the incidents from Kilo’s youth that formed his character for good or ill. Like all my scamps, he is too charming for his own good.
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Website
Newly divorced from her skunk of a husband, country music idol Rina Bakersfield is en route from Las Vegas to Bend, Oregon, where her parents have been caring for her young daughter. When her car breaks down, a charming mechanic comes to the rescue.
Henry is handsome as sin and sings and plays guitar like an angel. In no time, Rina is convinced he could become a country music heartthrob. Despite the explosive chemistry that leaves them both reeling, she cannot picture a future together. She is eight years older and certain that if Henry fully understood what a mess she’s made of her life, he would turn tail and run.With a heavy heart, she summons her manager, who spirits Henry away to Nashville.
Neither can forget those few heady days, but it is Henry who vows to keep the faith. He will bide his time till their paths cross again.
Teaching Through Action
Babies on Board Part 2 follows an iguana, a parrot, a squirrel, and a mouse who band together to visit the beach in the middle of the night to help sea turtle hatchlings safely reach the ocean. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I moved to Florida in 2013, and I started to take notice of all the wonderful wildlife and sea creatures that live here in this amazing state. My first residence was right on the beach, and it just happened to be sea turtle nesting season, which occurs May through November ( also Hurricane season). I first noticed the poles with yellow tape all along the beach, and then I met actual volunteers who sit next to the nest at night and wait for the hatchlings to break free from their shells. This occurs exactly two months after the female turtle lays her eggs. The baby sea turtles must make the long trek from their nest to the water, where they will swim to freedom. Only half of the baby turtles survive because there are many predators on land ( crabs, snakes, birds) and sea (sharks, dolphins, barracuda, grouper) waiting to gobble them up. Also, the babies do get confused by the street lights, if there are any around. They instinctively crawl toward the moonlight, which is always over the ocean. This magnificent journey inspired me to educate children about these adorable little sea creatures who are the greatest of survivors.
How did the concept of teamwork among such different animal characters first develop?
The concept for my series started out with a friendship between Grumpy the Iguana and Green Parrot. Afterwards, neighbors in Flamingo Park were introduced into the storyline, like Mr. Squirrel and adopted friend, Little Mouse.
Do you have a personal favorite character to write scenes for?
I love all the characters because they each have their own individual personality. Grumpy is the brains. Green Parrot brings sensibility. Mr. Squirrel is a perfectionist, and Little Mouse is a kid who used to be scared but is now fearless.
How do you balance storytelling with factual environmental education?
I try not to preach, and by teaching through action, I think children will be more willing to absorb the message.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Babies on board (part 2) continues the story. Grumpy and friends return to the beach, only this time it is in the middle of the night. They are there to make sure that all of the baby turtles make it safely to the sea where their father anxiously awaits their arrival. But as we all know, nothing ever goes smoothly when it comes to
Grumpy the Iguana, the Green Parrot, Mr. Squirrel and Little Mouse. Follow along and watch as our heroes fight against time and a street light to help the baby sea turtles find their dad..
I Am A Modern Day Artist
In The Creative Way, you share with readers the photography and digital artwork that has grown out of nature, travel, memory, illness, recovery, grief, and curiosity. Why was it important for you to share this book with readers?
I wanted to share my story and my art because I have always enjoyed capturing the beauty of nature in photos.
Was there a particular moment when you realized photography and digital art had become an essential part of your life?
Photgraphy has been a hobby for most of my life. I am a modern day artist who creates art out of photos. I use photo editors or apps to perfect my images. I use A.I. when I can I used it to create an image of a woman standing at heavens door when a close woman friend passed away.
Do you typically see the finished image in your mind before you begin editing, or does the artwork evolve as you work?
Sometimes I have an idea on how the should look and other times I experiment with apps or a.i. and change the image to some even more beautiful.
What advice would you give to artists who want to experiment with digital tools but feel intimidated by the technology?
Don’t be afraid of Technology. I use it in my photography and when I am writing to research and check for errors. You can create an image of anything without leaving the house.
Author Links: Instagram | Facebook | Pixels | Website
An Everyman
Over Brooklyn Hills follows a seventy-year-old man whose struggles with the painful realities of climate change parallel larger threats involving fossil fuel interests and a climate terrorist group. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Several things bother me about a lot of climate fiction, and one is that while climate change is an actual existential threat to the social and economic well-being of humans and our biosphere, climate fiction often puts climate change to be upfront acutely. Today—and into the near future—the danger of climate change is less on a human scale than most other of life’s challenges. Much of climate fiction has some apocalyptic quality to the story or presents a main character who is a climate scientist or activist trying to correct a wrong. Unfortunately, such approaches can fail to help readers identify with the issue of climate change within their own lives. Without such identification, the issue of climate change is more likely to remain abstract and all the more easily ignored.
One of the important threads in my writing of fiction and poetry is to make the attempt to capture characters’ feelings as they respond to circumstances. I love to write full-on action and plot-driven parts of stories too, but both as a reader and as a writer, I find that characters without some interiority seem only pawns in the puzzle master’s play, and no matter how compelling or cleverly built the plot may be, the story will feel empty. Raymond Chandler, as much as he’s pointed to as a master of private investigation pulp fiction, is a wonderful and effective writer because the reader gets to know Philip Marlowe, whether by actual reflection by the character, the way the character describes the world around him (including the famously odd and wonderful similes), or how he interacts with other characters.
Why did you want to tell this story through the perspective of Davin Caine at this stage of his life?
Davin Caine is something of an everyman—neither hero nor villain, not a genius with special knowledge nor someone lacking curiosity. Caine, like many other characters in the book, knows about climate change, but like most everyone else, his priorities are the bills to pay, work, friends, family, the next house repair….
By the time of the action of Over Brooklyn Hills in 2035, Caine is seeing a lot of change with the climate crisis and has gotten more involved. Climate migration—writ small and large—is one of the themes.
At the start of the series (in Kill Well, taking place in 2026), Caine is still recovering from a divorce, is worried about paying bills and the cost of energy, and is ambivalent about his paying job. All the chaos of the Trump regime overwhelms him. He’s frustrated that he can’t get into his art studio, and anxious, basically, about everything. Caine feels isolated, just like most people living in our culture today. One of the themes in this book is the difficulty of grasping in our daily lives the import of climate change; another theme is the malfeasance of entrenched interests such as the fossil fuel corporations and the countervailing forces obscuring, delaying, and denying climate action. Well, the malfeasance of moneyed interests and danger of income inequality carry throughout the series.
In Dear Josephine (which takes place in 2029), the climate situation worsens, but progress has a glimmer of hope in the U.S., post-2028 elections. Still, Caine and most everyone else tend to focus on mundane everyday concerns, but the climate crisis keeps creeping in, and acutely so with Hurricane Josephine. I didn’t want the hurricane to be experienced directly—that’s not how most of us would experience it. Caine is in the Berkshires, and the perspective on the hurricane is mediated by the news and by distance. A major theme is how climate change affects us, including economically, even when the consequence is not direct. Another theme is the previously referenced malfeasance, but in this book, the readers see bad actors emerging from different sides: pro-climate, pro-economic justice, and the big money interests.
As I age, I find myself interested in how aging fits into climate fiction, so Caine is set up to show us these effects. Farm to Me, the last book of the series and set in 2047, has Caine at 82. There’s plenty of climate progress, but the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the years before maintain a changing climate. There’s a distinct focus on young persons’ climate change struggles, in part contrasting with what we see with Caine.
I don’t think you can talk about climate change effectively without including it in daily lives.
Do you think fiction can help readers grapple with issues that often become polarized in public debate?
I believe so, but I can’t claim to know this. There have been some studies on the efficacy of climate fiction to get readers involved, but those studies are thin—small sample sizes—and there’s the lack of consideration in them about the characteristics of the specific climate fiction used in the studies. One easy conclusion? Apocalypse and dystopia may have the tendency to discourage people from acting, but I’m pretty sure there’s no need for a Ph.D. for this finding.
The biggest need for public action is to end the social silence suppressing conversations about climate change. In the U.S., nearly three-quarters of the population think climate change is a serious problem, but only something like 20 percent talk to others about it. Can the right fiction help encourage conversations? I hope so. Is my work that kind of climate fiction? I hope so, but this question can only be answered by readers. Climate change is a big problem, and big problems get addressed legislatively. Conversation is oxygen for political metabolisms.
One of the reasons why I pursued the topic of climate change through a series is to provide a sort of longitudinal study across the next two decades. Restricting the series through characters to the Berkshires helps, I hope, to keep the reader thinking about their own everyday lives in relation to climate change. The fact is that here in the developed nations, we aren’t on the verge of climate change-instigated societal collapse, even if the energy systems we’re participating in are laying the groundwork for longer-term problems that make the world a harder place for people to thrive.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m at work on Farm to Me, which is the last book in The Steep Climes Quartet. I expect a Spring 2027 publication date. In this last book, food production is a theme, as is the consequence that the young will suffer. Like the other books in the series, there are thriller elements, although none of the books are simply thrillers, which is why I describe the series as “literary climate fiction.”
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Davin Caine is at last on Medicare and is getting a modest Social Security check each month, but still works with Berkshire Interactive. He’s also been busier in his studio and has sculptures in galleries in the Berkshires and the Hudson Valley, and his solar/batteries and VPP membership keeps electricity bills down. His three house sharers, with housing still scarce, help with expenses. Marsha’s been with the Housatonic House on the Hill for nearly a decade, and she’s queen of the big vegetable garden. Charlie is a more recent house sharer, and a nigh-on perfect one, since he’s often away on business or holed up in his third-floor bedroom working. The newest house sharer is Be, a ceramic artist who helps Davin out with the first floor Airbnb apartment and who has just claimed a corner of the studio and could easily claim his heart if he isn’t careful.
But as summer approaches, a stunning heatwave settles over New York City, west to Lake Erie, and south into parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The heat drives people to escape into the relatively cool hills of the Berkshires just as high season is coming on, so there’s little room for the hordes. Young Brooklyn hipsters take up camping in the woods around Monument Mountain Reservation and along the Appalachian Trail, or double and triple up at the summer homes of friends’ parents, or anywhere, somewhere, to sleep. Many in the town aren’t happy about it, or the spike in petty crimes, and it’s up to Marian Gray-Fletcher, Great Barrington’s town manager, to solve the problem. But she’s distracted with her own philandering husband, until a drug-gang killing focuses her attention.
The international news is full of climate migration stories and political problems in Europe and a conflict between India and Pakistan. Central and South American climate change-induced droughts make for huge numbers of people heading north and the militarized southern border and running battles between cartels and U.S. forces are in the headlines. And then there’s No One is Safe, a climate terrorist organization that has a history of blowing up refineries and pipelines and the occasional oil exec, and one climate direct action veteran finds himself wondering how deep the NOS-cartels connection goes.
