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The Sound of Violet, 10th Anniversary Edition
Allen Wolf’s The Sound of Violet follows Shawn, a young autistic programmer who longs for connection, and Violet, a woman trapped in exploitation who hides behind a practiced charm. Their worlds collide in ways that neither one expects, and the story weaves romance with themes of trauma, hope, misunderstanding, and the hard work of seeing someone for who they truly are. It moves between humor and heartbreak with surprising ease, and the plot leans into both the sweetness and the messiness of love.
I found myself rooting for Shawn almost immediately. His inner life felt vivid. His sensitivity to color and sound created moments that were oddly beautiful, and I kept pausing to imagine how overwhelming the world must feel to him. I liked how the writing didn’t try to polish his edges. It let him be blunt and awkward and sincere. Those traits gave the story its emotional heartbeat. Violet’s chapters hit me differently. I felt the tension behind her confidence. I felt the fear tucked between her jokes. The writing made her pain feel present even when she tried to hide it, and that contrast kept me pulled in. I caught myself more than once whispering, “Please get out of there” as her world closed in on her.
What surprised me most was how simple the prose often felt while carrying so much weight. Scenes slid quickly from funny to tense, and I liked that the book didn’t pretend those shifts were unusual. Life works like that sometimes. A moment is warm, then it isn’t. A date feels hopeful, then it falls apart. The story’s rhythm captured that truth, and it kept me leaning forward. I also found myself getting irritated with certain characters, which I count as a success. The book wanted me to feel the discomfort of exploitation and the sting of people who misunderstand others. It worked. I felt it.
By the end, I was glad I stayed with the story. It made me think about how people judge each other, and how much quieter the world becomes when someone finally listens. I would recommend The Sound of Violet to readers who enjoy heartfelt romances, stories about neurodivergent characters, or narratives that explore heavy themes with gentleness. It would also appeal to book clubs that like talking about big emotions and complicated choices.
Pages: 319 | ASIN : B0FMP438MV
Nuggets of Gold
In Careers By the People, you present the average workday through interviews from a broad spectrum of careers, offering advice and inspiration for high school and college graduates as well as those looking for change. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Careers By the People was written because I didn’t prepare for the workforce, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into, so my goal was to put my thoughts and ideas to paper to help the next generation with career choice and career readiness. I was a first-generation, low-income student which is deemed an FGLI. About 50% of college students are in this category. So, I wanted to tell my story and note what I should have done to prepare for the workforce, so they do not make the same mistakes.
My goal was simple; get a job that pays well. Selling technology pays well, but didn’t interest me, so I was bored to tears for years. I try to drive that message home when I speak to students, as many believe money equates to happiness, so I inform them that money is great, but also to enjoy your labor, hence why I write about career readiness, speak about it, produce YouTube videos about it and more.
What was your process for selecting the interviewees for this book?
Some of the process was a joy, such as reaching out to leaders in the industry I knew in the hopes they would tell their story about how they secured elite positions. Receiving those questionnaires was a big score. Others I connected with via professional associations. Another angle was through advertising in my college’s alumni network and magazine. Basically, any angle and way I could think of to ask workers to take 15-30 minutes to fill out a questionnaire about their occupation. Many were intrigued, and many couldn’t careless.
Did you learn anything during the course of your research that surprised you?
A lot. When it came to the questionnaires, I received some from former associates who I barely knew who answered the questions succinctly whereas close friends wouldn’t take the time to fill them out.
As for the workers themselves, the ones who took risks were happier or satisfied versus the risk-averse ones. One that stuck out was a clerk who truly disliked her job, and her responses, even after many edits, were hysterical.
Another curveball was when the professional truly disliked their occupation, and on one of the last questions asking if they would do the same career again, they said yes, which is mind-boggling.
Please understand that I had to review and edit a variety to find 101 nuggets of gold. Some questionnaires were “yes/no” for 90% of the questions. The goal was to determine what it was truly like to be an x, y, or z as the only person who knows about your job/career is you, so what’s it like to be an actuary?
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Careers By the People?
The questions. I hope anyone in school, the military, or changing careers views the questions and asks people in the industries that interest them the questions so they know what they are getting into instead of guessing “Yeah, I hear that it pays well, I will do that.” I want people to do a little homework on career choice before spending time and money on an occupation that won’t last 3 years, and then they are starting from the beginning again, trying something else.
The book is a fun read and offers suggestions and ideas to help you choose what profession is best for you.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | YouTube | LinkedIn | Amazon
After three decades in corporate America, Mike Wysocki wondered if the grass really was greener on the other side. So he put his background in sociology to work and spent years surveying industry veterans in a variety of occupations.
The responses were eye-opening: an honest, insider’s look at what workers say about their careers outside of the office.
Wysocki chose the 101 most powerful responses for the two-time award-winning Careers By the People to demystify the world of work with practical experience rather than theory. These industry profiles pair the practicality of guidance counselors with the storytelling of a networking event (without the small talk).
Told in a Q&A format, insightful answers to thought-provoking questions include:
descriptions of a day-in-the-life of the profession they chose.
truths about conflicts, co-workers, and management.
common misconceptions, issues and what pitfalls to avoid.
what’s fulfilling, what’s draining, and what’s worth it.
With humor and authenticity that doesn’t hold punches, this career guidebook will help you narrow down career choices so you can determine what is best for you.
All paths lead to retirement—which one are you on?
Careers By the People won a 2024 Bronze IPPY Award in the BEST FIRST BOOK – NON-FICTION – INFORMATIONAL Category as well as a 2025 Silver Axiom Award – Career.
It’s a great book for Careers & Technical Education as it views 101 occupations that break down into California CTE Career Pathways. In the book there are (4) in Agriculture and Natural Resources (7) Arts, Media, & Entertainment (1) Building & Construction Trades (14) Business & Finance (18) Education, Child Development, & Family Services (1) Energy, Environment, & Utilities (5) Engineering & Architecture (3) Fashion & Interior Design (10) Health Science & Medical Technology (3) Hospitality, Tourism, & Recreation (5) Information & Communication Technologies (6) Manufacturing & Product Design (14) Marketing, Sales, & Services (6) Public Services (3) Transportation.
Since the book has been published, I have spoken at many high schools and colleges about career and career readiness such as Cal State Dominguez Hills, Boston University, UMass Amherst, Univ. of New Hampshire, Suffolk University, Hawaii Pacific University, Weymouth High School, Holbrook HS, New Milford HS, Randolph HS, Maui HS, Kapolei HS, University of Hawaii Maui College, University of the Pacific as well as many others.
Careers By the People was published to help students with career choice and career readiness. It’s a story of Wysocki, a first-generation low-income average student that makes it out of college unprepared for the real world and the obstacles that one faces. Thirty plus years later, the book is out. Each person was asked 20+ questions and the majority had 5+ years’ experience. Moreover, Hollands Occupational Themes is incorporated as the chapters with modern day terminology. It entices the reader with history and humor.
The website, http://www.careersbythepeople.com, has an excerpt to download, videos of the reasons for the book, the full list of endorsements, interviews, book reviews, YouTube Channel with over 80 videos about career readiness, a speaking engagement at Hawaii Pacific University etc…
Nurturing the Mystic Within
Nurturing the Mystic Within follows Catherine S. Tuggle’s journey to understand the message that arrived through a vivid dream. The dream delivered five simple words. Those words shook her ideas about God, fear, and love, and eventually inspired her to explore belief, trauma, and spiritual healing. Through autobiography, psychology, and a reinterpretation of the Genesis story, she builds a pathway that helps readers uncover the fears that shape their reality and block their ability to perceive life as Paradise. Much of the book focuses on the unconscious roots of fear, the formation of beliefs, and the personal exercises she developed to help dissolve the veil that hides unconditional love.
Tuggle’s writing blends intimate storytelling with big ideas; she writes plainly and openly. She doesn’t try to sound like a guru. Her willingness to expose painful memories gives the book a raw honesty that made me trust her voice. I found myself wincing at the childhood scenes. The moment Agnes threw the valentines on the floor, or the wrenching knife incident, forced me to stop for a breath. Those stories aren’t there for drama. They serve the purpose she claims for them. They show how beliefs take root long before we know the meaning of the word belief. I felt myself wishing she had lingered a little less on theory and more on lived moments, because her lived moments are where the book shines.
I also found myself moved by her interpretation of Genesis. I appreciated how she questions long-held assumptions without attacking them. The way she ties Adam and Eve’s fear to our own unconscious habits made the old story feel surprisingly fresh. The shifts between memoir, theology, and psychology come a little fast, but the blend mostly worked for me. I liked the sense of searching. I liked watching her move from confusion to clarity. The dream sequence she shares in the preface kept me thinking about the idea that love is all that exists. It sounds simple on the surface, almost too simple, and yet the book spends hundreds of pages showing just how hard it is to believe that in everyday life.
I would recommend Nurturing the Mystic Within to readers who enjoy spiritual memoirs, especially ones that grapple with fear, trauma, and the desire for inner peace. It would also suit people who like gentle psychological insight wrapped in a story rather than textbook-style instruction. Anyone who has ever felt trapped inside old beliefs or puzzled by the tension between the world’s harshness and the idea of a loving presence will find something worth holding onto here.
Pages: 216 | ASIN : B0G2DLBVHQ
Grounded in Reality
The Little Girl’s Mother centers around a family who becomes the target of a powerful criminal syndicate after their daughter witnesses a murder. How did you balance the action scenes with the story elements and still keep a fast pace in the story?
In my mind, it felt like these events were naturally happening at a fast pace, with the whole story taking place over only a handful of days. The pace was driven by the plot in that way and the parents’ (and Tyra’s former teammate’s) desire to “fix the problem” (so to speak) and to remove their daughter from danger as soon as possible. The very nature of the deeds that they had to undertake from the start to the end of the book meant the action and tension were not really going to let up.
Because this is the first book that I have ever written, and because it just sort of started one day, my whole approach to writing it was very inefficient and largely unstructured. I had the general plot, a few key scenes, and the rough chronology of it in my mind, but I wasn’t sure how it all joined together. I wrote an initial 10,000 to 15,000 words or so, and then I went back and read through it, making refinements and/or completely changing certain parts. Then I continued from where I left off, writing another 5,000 to 10,000 words before repeating that whole process again. I did this several times until I got to the end. Along the way, I noticed there was a drop in the action and tension around halfway through, and I immediately recognised that was the perfect point for me to add in the flashback story that Paul tells about how incredible a soldier Tyra is and why her former team mates are so indebted and in awe of her. It was like fitting that piece of a jigsaw that completes a key part of the total picture, and it felt perfect in every way to me when it was in place.
What was your favorite character to write for and why? Was there a scene you felt captured the character’s essence?
Tyra. Absolutely Tyra. She is formidable! Like her former teammates and her husband, Stephen, I am in total awe of her. If she were real, then she is the person you would want by your side in any eventuality. But my goal was to make her feel plausible and real, not some sort of bulletproof superhero who can smash through walls and defeat any foe. Metaphorically, she definitely can do those things, but I wanted her character grounded in reality. She was/is an incredibly skilled soldier and a ferocious, almost animal-like fighter, but what makes her so lethally effective is her mind and her intellect. It is like a tactical supercomputer that instantly knows what the best action is in any situation, and when that’s coupled with her other skills, she is awesome! I often find myself thinking “I wish I were like her.”
There are many moments in various scenes when I think this is clear to the reader, including in the very first chapter, when we literally see her switch from civilian mode back to Special Forces team leader mode. If there were still any doubt in the reader’s mind as to what Tyra’s essence is, I think it is absolutely clear in the finale, where we see how brutally lethal she can be. I loved discovering this about her in this story.
What was your favourite part (or parts) to write?
I genuinely enjoyed writing it all, especially the chapters for the flashback and the finale. Or perhaps it’s fairer to say that I enjoyed what I created because, to be totally honest, there were times when the writing was hard.
But without a doubt, my absolute favourite parts were the “interactions” (!) between Tyra and Shefi (the man who wants her daughter dead). I don’t want to give anything away about those moments when they come in the story, even now, after having read them countless times, I can still read them and feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. As I was imagining those scenes (especially the finale) and as I was writing them and even when I’ve read them back since, I found myself almost acting them out to feel the power of those moments and, really, the power of Tyra herself!
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
Up until about a month ago, I would have said that I didn’t have one! I always have a fair few ideas kicking around, but they are often just a few bullet points or sentences and totally disparate. This is the first book I have ever written, and it just sort of happened (over a four-year period!).
However, much like what happened with The Little Girl’s Mother, a few of my recent ideas have started to join up and develop to the point where I’m now intrigued and excited to experience this new story myself, so I am 99% certain that I will start writing again in 2026. It won’t be in the same story universe as The Little Girl’s Mother and will be set around the early 1980s, but it will be another Action Thriller with formidable characters and an exciting storyline. As for how long before it’ll be finished, I’m sorry to say that I don’t honestly know (full-time job and full-time family commitments eat up so much free time), but I believe that, from what I’ve learned from writing The Little Girl’s Mother, it will not take me four years to finish!
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
A young girl witnesses a gangland murder and barely escapes with her life. The criminal responsible wants her dead at all costs but, when the police seem unable to guarantee their daughter’s safety, the father and the mother, along with the members of the special forces team that she once led, must take matters into their own hands.
There is nothing more fearsome in nature than a mother protecting its young.
This is an Action -Thriller that truly delivers plenty of action and plenty of thrills! You will not be disappointed!
The Secret of Spirit Lake
In The Secret of Spirit Lake, a young adult mystery with a gentle paranormal twist, we follow fourteen-year-old Amy, yanked away from her old life and dropped into a big yellow Victorian on a quiet Virginia lake. She ends up in the tower bedroom, where strange things start happening that point to a girl named Sally who used to live there. The story moves back and forth between Amy’s present-day summer of swim practices, new friends, and family tension, and the late 1930s life of a farm girl named Penny whose path slowly, uneasily, begins to overlap with the lake and the house Amy now calls home. The mystery sits in the space between those timelines, asking what really happened at Spirit Lake and what it means for the people still living there.
I really liked how the book uses that alternating structure. At first I was more invested in Amy, mostly because her voice feels so familiar: grumpy about her parents, irritated by younger siblings, convinced no one understands her, then slowly softening as she gets pulled into swim team life and real friendship. But Penny’s chapters crept up on me. Her world is harder and narrower, full of chores and exhaustion, and then that terrible fire that takes her parents hits with real emotional weight. The mystery works because those two stories start to rhyme. Amy is lonely and displaced; Penny is lonely and trapped. Sally is caught between them as a literal ghost, but also as this symbol of what happens when adults fail kids. The writing itself is clean and straightforward, the kind of YA prose that trusts younger readers to keep up while still feeling approachable. Short chapters keep things moving, and the ghost scenes are eerie without ever turning into nightmare fuel. There is a soft, almost cozy feel to a lot of the pages, even when the subject matter is dark.
What stood out to me most was the way the author chose to center safety and care instead of just creepiness. The ghost is sad more than scary, and the book keeps circling back to the question of who looks out for children when their parents can’t or won’t. You see it in Penny’s encounters with the state worker at the hospital, who is doing her best inside a rigid system, and in how Lucy and Henry neglect and emotionally abuse Hal and Millie behind the façade of a beautiful lake house. You see it again in Amy’s realization that her “annoying” little siblings are actually kind of adorable when she lets herself pay attention, and that her parents, while imperfect, are trying very hard to give their family a better life. As a YA mystery, the book leans more emotional than plot-twist-heavy, and sometimes the coincidences that help the girls solve the decades-old case feel a little convenient, but the emotional payoffs mostly earned my trust. I cared more about Millie hugging her long-lost brother on a sunny balcony than about every logistical detail lining up perfectly.
By the end, I felt like I’d spent a summer at the lake myself, watching Amy grow into her own skin, cheering through swim meets, and then sitting up way too late trying to fit together scraps of diaries and old letters with her and her friends. The paranormal element stays light, but the feelings underneath are not. The Secret of Spirit Lake is the kind of YA mystery I’d hand to a thoughtful middle schooler or young teen who likes ghost stories that are more about healing than horror, or to adults who enjoy warm, character-driven young adult fiction with a bit of intrigue. It would fit well in school and library book clubs, especially with readers who are ready to talk about grief, neglect, and found family in a safe way.
Pages: 335 | ASIN : B0FLM38VSC
LITERARY TITAN 