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Intention and Action
Where The Winds Blow follows the rise of Path Finder, a grassroots movement born from grief and idealism, while powerful governments, criminal networks, and ordinary people collide around it. What was the inspiration for the original and fascinating idea at the center of the book?
The inspiration for Path Finder came during the COVID crisis, while I was cleaning out my garage for the third time in a week. I suddenly imagined finding the UK’s prime minister hiding in there – someone who’d simply decided he couldn’t cope any more. That image stuck, and I started writing, using it as a focal point.
It led to a simple but unsettling thought: for all their bombast and posturing, governments have only limited control over what actually happens within their own borders. The responses to the 2008 crash, COVID, and countless regional crises revealed not grand strategists, but leaders who were overwhelmed, reactive, and often out of their depth.
Lies, distraction, and obfuscation disguise their weakness and uncertainty – skills that modern power structures have perfected. Meanwhile, real influence increasingly sits with billionaires, technocrats, and the vague, unaccountable entity we call “the markets,” all of whom operate with little responsibility to the societies they shape.
Across much of the world, there’s a simmering resentment paired with helplessness – a frustration that’s often misdirected toward convenient scapegoats rather than those truly responsible. What feels missing is a spark: something that turns anger and despair into constructive action rooted in honesty, humanity, and hope.
I don’t pretend to know how that spark might happen in real life, although I believe it will. In the Path Finder series, I’ve created a world only inches removed from our own, where readers can enjoy the humour and drama in the story, recognise familiar institutions and personalities, and perhaps imagine a different future – for themselves as much as for society as a whole.
History is full of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, often accidentally or without understanding where their choices might lead. This series begins with one man deciding he’s had enough of pretending to be something he isn’t and disappearing. Three books in, even I’m not entirely sure where that decision will ultimately take him or Path Finder. I just know it’ll be fun finding out!
What are some things that you find interesting about the human condition that you think make for great fiction?
What fascinates me most about the human condition is the gap between who we think we are and how we actually behave when things stop going to plan. We like to believe we’re rational, principled, and in control, but pressure, fear, love, grief, and ambition have a habit of knocking those ideas sideways. That gap – between intention and action, certainty and doubt – is where great fiction lives.
I’m also interested in how ordinary people respond when they’re swept up in events far bigger than themselves. Most of us don’t set out to change the world, break systems, or become symbols of anything. We’re just trying to get through the day, protect the people we care about, and make sense of the noise. Yet history shows that it’s often these accidental participants – people acting from love, stubbornness, guilt, or hope – who trigger the biggest consequences. That tension between small, human decisions and vast, unpredictable outcomes runs through the Path Finder series.
Finally, there’s the absurdity of it all. Humans are capable of extraordinary kindness, bravery, and resilience, but we’re also unwittingly brilliant at self-delusion, tribalism, and panic. Put those traits under stress – mix them with power, money, ideology, or blind faith – and you get situations that are by turns terrifying, ridiculous, and darkly funny. Satire lets me explore those contradictions honestly, without pretending we’re either heroes or villains. We’re usually just flawed, emotional creatures doing our best… sometimes making an almighty mess of it… occasionally doing something amazing.
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from Where The Winds Blow?
More than anything, I hope readers come away feeling that the time they spent with Where The Winds Blow was time well spent. I want them to have been entertained – laughing at the absurdity, caught up in the momentum, and maybe a little breathless at times – but also quietly validated in the way they see the world.
If there’s a deeper takeaway, it’s the reassurance that confusion, doubt, and frustration aren’t personal failings; they’re rational responses to a chaotic system. The characters in the book don’t have grand plans or neat answers – most of them are muddling through, reacting, improvising, and occasionally getting things spectacularly wrong. And yet, meaning still emerges from those imperfect choices.
I also hope the book leaves readers with a sense that individual actions matter, even when they seem small, accidental, or misdirected. Change doesn’t always come from heroes or leaders; it often starts with ordinary people deciding to stop pretending, to care a little more honestly, or to take one step they didn’t think they were capable of taking.
If readers finish the book feeling entertained, understood, and perhaps a little more open to the idea that hope can exist without certainty, then I’ve done my job.
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
The series will continue. As for where the story will take the reader, who knows?! I’m currently writing shorter pieces for my Path Finder newsletter subscribers that fill in some of the character back stories. One of those pieces became a major plot line in Where The Winds Blow, and I have no doubt that one or two of my current works in progress will do the same in the fourth novel.
Author Links: GoodReads | Threads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
The Path Finder movement has gone global. Millions of followers. Endless headlines. Oceans of cash.
Only one tiny snag: the founders still have no idea what the movement actually is. Now the powerful want answers – and they’ll do anything to keep control.
Meanwhile, an ex-soldier from Afghanistan crosses continents and the Mexico-US border, desperate to reach his family before the authorities catch him or local vigilantes do even worse.
Elsewhere, Simon and Pippa Pope are chasing storms, blissfully unaware that their late wedding gift could unleash consequences for humanity, the planet, and a whisky-soaked Scotsman on a collision course with destiny.
Fast, funny, and ferociously sharp, Where The Winds Blow skewers the powerful and the absurd in equal measure.
It’s the third and wildest instalment in The Path Finder Series, following Paths Not Yet Taken and Good for the Soul. Each offers satire with bite, stories with heart, and storms of every kind.
Reputation Is Paramount
Gods of Glenhaven follows a middle-aged couple and their teen daughter trying to navigate a failing marriage and broken family dynamic in a talkative small town. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I love suburbia for many reasons. What fascinates me most about it is that it seems like the goal is to eliminate as many of the hardships and vicissitudes of life as possible. In the suburbs, you try to capture and keep the good things, while either ignoring or reframing the bad things you can’t manage to avoid. And reputation is paramount — you don’t want to become known as anything other than an upstanding person who loves their job, their children, and their community.
Do you have a favorite scene in this story? One that was especially enjoyable to craft?
I especially enjoyed writing the scene in the Home Depot, which takes place the morning after the Rites of Initiation at the high school. There are seventy naked people slumbering amidst the lumber and wheelbarrows, and a stunned police sergeant has to sort it all out.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The value of the social contract is the big theme. This is why I needed Gods (who don’t play by the rules) and the potential for humans to have unusual power, which might encourage them to break the terms of the social contract.
Can fans expect to see more releases from you soon? What are you currently working on?
I like to write short comedy pieces — my work has been published in McSweeney’s, Points in Case, Weekly Humorist, and other magazines. I’m doing a lot of that kind of writing while also beginning work on a second novel, entitled Little Dan.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
When Greek gods sweep into the quaint suburban town of Glenhaven to untangle their messy love lives, the helpless mortals don’t stand a chance.
Christian Orr, struggling with work and erectile dysfunction after discovering his wife’s infidelity, has just moved into what his daughter Francesca calls the Divorced Dads Apartment Complex. His high-powered attorney ex, Sloan, is jaded and restless, leaving precocious Francesca caught in the crosscurrents of change.
Enter Dionysus-“Dee”-the god of wine, sex, and questionable decisions, who shows up searching for his estranged wife Ari and their teenage son Maron. After three thousand years of Dee’s antics, Ari has had enough. She’s struck a deal with Zeus to start fresh-as a mortal suburban mom. And what’s more normal than falling for a regular guy like Christian? If only Dee would stop tearing through Glenhaven in his quest to win her back.
Drunk on Dee’s wine, the residents of Glenhaven form chanting covens in the woods, participate in ecstatic rituals, and experience divine revelations-all while Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” loops faintly in the background of their lives.
Gods of Glenhaven is a hilarious, poignant, and confronting novel about the universal fears and follies of the human condition, and the joy and freedom we can experience by letting go.
Gods of Glenhaven
Gods of Glenhaven is a raw, darkly funny, and deeply human story about people falling apart and trying to stitch themselves back together. It follows Christian Orr, a man sliding into middle age with a broken marriage, sexual dysfunction, and a pile of humiliations that somehow keep getting worse. His wife, Sloan, is a driven attorney who mistakes dominance for control until her life unravels, too. Their teenage daughter Francesca floats between them, trying to make sense of the wreckage. Around these three, the town of Glenhaven buzzes with gossip, longing, and absurdity. It’s a small world full of big emotions, where humor and despair share the same seat.
I found Statler’s writing disarmingly sharp. Every line feels alive with awkward truth. He doesn’t flinch from embarrassment or pain, and he writes humiliation with the kind of precision that made me both laugh and squirm. The dialogue is quick and biting, but the silences hit harder. Christian’s spiraling self-awareness feels almost too real at times; I could feel the claustrophobia of his failures and the absurd hope that something, anything, might still redeem him. Sloan, on the other hand, made me furious and fascinated in equal measure. She’s brittle, proud, often terrible, but undeniably human. The novel moves like a tragic comedy that keeps threatening to tip either way.
What really struck me was how the book keeps shifting tones without losing its rhythm. One page had me laughing at Christian’s disastrous attempts at self-improvement, and the next left me staring, a little shaken, at how much loneliness the humor covered up. Statler writes like someone who has seen both the joke and the wound and refuses to pick one. The story feels like real life that’s been turned just slightly toward the absurd, so everything painful also glows with a weird kind of beauty. It’s messy, brave, and very alive.
Gods of Glenhaven is a brutal but compassionate look at failure and forgiveness. I’d recommend it to readers who love flawed people written with empathy. Fans of writers like Richard Russo or Jonathan Franzen will probably feel at home here. If you’ve ever felt lost, humiliated, or ridiculous and still had to get up the next morning, this book might hit uncomfortably close to the truth.
Pages: 378 | ASIN : B0F8KPGH67
“The Line of Horror”
A Dangerous Friendship follows a woman navigating heartbreak, loneliness, and the lure of risk, who, after a failed marriage, is drawn to a magnetic yet volatile woman whose energy feels both liberating and destructive. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Any kind of loss that forces a woman to question her future and identity sends me into story-telling mode. Especially against the backdrop of New York City in the 1980s, where there was an electric vibe and the possibility that anything could happen if you were open to it. I lived in the City during that time and it was magical. Wealth, street art, theater, fantasies of changing your life in a New York minute—it was heaven.
What was the inspiration for the relationship that develops between Tina and Spike?
Every female friendship I’ve had or witnessed since high school. We know the archetypes of the popular girls, the mean girls. What about the dangerous ones? What about the women who promise to give us power. Who tell us stories that we want to believe are true because are own lives seem so meh. Also, in the 1980’s, there was a second wave of feminism with women fighting for equal rights and questioning cultural and social norms. That history fans the flames of the relationship between Tina and Spike and their confusion: wanting to be powerful in their right but also looking to be elevated to a different reality by wealthy men.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Reinvention after loss. I like to explore the ways women navigate identity and self-worth when their lives take an unexpected turn. Also, truth vs. fiction. I’m fascinated by the stories we tell ourselves and each other to survive. Finally, the thin line between attraction and danger. Tina calls this “the line of horror,” which she refuses to cross at first, then leaps over, believing that Spike, like a cult leader, will change her world.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
My next novel is The Enlightenment of Henry Pike. It leans even further into dark humor than A Dangerous Friendship. It follows a slightly unhinged philanthropist who’s being swindled out of his fortune by those closest to him. At its core, it’s also about loss and reinvention—and our endless obsession with wealth, power, and the lives we think we deserve. Readers can expect it in the next two years.
Author Links: GoodReads | Instagram | Facebook | Website
In 1980s New York City, aspiring writers Tina and Spike bond in a complex, all-consuming friendship that will change their lives forever.
Desperate to redefine herself after a failed marriage, twenty-nine-year-old Tina embarks on a thrill-seeking journey to feel alive again. When she meets thirty-five-year-old Spike, a beautiful, seductive, seemingly invulnerable woman, she becomes enthralled by the older woman’s stories of NYC power brokers, sex, wealthy men, and her past. Tina latches on to Spike as someone who can save her from mediocrity and show her how to be the kind of woman who can have power over men—both in romance and in life.
Chasing adventure and the writing life, Tina and Spike rent a cabin together for the summer in the rural backwoods. There, they go on a wild, manic, darkly humorous journey involving dive bars, drugs, men, and all-night dancing, becoming increasingly psychologically entangled in each other’s lives along the way. But eventually Tina realizes just how dangerous Spike is, and is forced to act to save herself.
Filled with New York wit and fast-paced dialogue, this is a story of loss, betrayal, survival, and blurring the line between attraction and peril.
A Dangerous Friendship
Robin Merle’s A Dangerous Friendship tells the story of Tina, a woman navigating heartbreak, loneliness, and the lure of risk, who is drawn into a powerful and consuming relationship with Spike, a magnetic yet volatile woman whose energy feels both liberating and destructive. The book unfolds as a mix of confession, memory, and cautionary tale, with Tina’s voice pulling readers through the strange encounters, reckless adventures, and raw emotions that define her search for meaning and connection. At its heart, the novel explores how desire, loss, and self-deception intertwine when we reach for love in places that might destroy us.
The writing is sharp, sometimes even intoxicating, as if the sentences themselves were alive with the same restless energy that fuels Spike. There were moments I felt swept along by the chaos, unable to look away even when the scenes grew uncomfortable or unnerving. The style often felt conversational, almost like overhearing someone at a bar late at night telling you the truth they hadn’t meant to say out loud. That rawness worked for me. It made me trust the voice even when I knew the choices being described were dangerous or misguided. Still, there were times when the sheer intensity wore me down. I caught myself needing a pause, needing to breathe, because the book doesn’t really let you step away from the emotional heat. That relentlessness is its strength, though.
I kept coming back to the theme of how easily people mistake chaos for passion, or instability for depth. Spike is fascinating because she’s equal parts irresistible and terrifying. I understood Tina’s attraction to her. Who doesn’t want to be pulled into someone’s orbit when they seem larger than life, when they make you feel braver than you are? Yet I also felt a knot in my stomach, knowing where such relationships might lead. The book never pretends that this friendship is healthy, and I liked that honesty. It made me think about the kinds of people we let in when we’re at our most fragile, and how often the need to feel alive can push us right to the edge of destruction.
A Dangerous Friendship left me unsettled in the best way. It’s not a comforting read, but it is a truthful one. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy stories about flawed characters, messy emotions, and the dangerous beauty of being swept up in someone else’s storm. If you’re drawn to novels that explore obsession, betrayal, and the thin line between love and ruin, this one will keep you turning pages.
Pages: 311 | ASIN : B0DWYJWSBF
They Tried Their Best
The book follows the inner life of a woman navigating modern loneliness, love, and survival. It begins with quiet domestic scenes that show the strange mix of comfort and despair in everyday routines, then tumbles into awkward dates, toxic men, obsessive scrolling, and a world tilting into chaos. Her dog, Honey, is her anchor, and later, a new puppy joins the mix. As personal heartbreak runs alongside collapsing politics and rising paranoia, she turns toward building a bunker—half symbol of safety, half desperate project. The story blends personal confessions with dark humor, showing both the numbness of screen-soaked nights and the ache of wanting to be loved.
I found the writing raw and often uncomfortable, but that felt intentional. It reads like opening a diary, one full of shame and yearning and sharp observations. The author captures the rhythms of loneliness so well, like the endless scrolling, the forced laughs, the hollow comfort of TV and apps that pretend to connect. At times, I felt impatient with the narrator, but then I realized that was the point. She is flawed, and the honesty of those flaws is what makes her compelling. The style is jagged, almost chaotic, but that messiness mirrors the world she lives in.
Emotionally, the book hit me in waves. Sometimes I laughed at the biting asides, other times I felt a knot in my chest from the self-doubt, the grasping at crumbs of affection. There’s a scene after a disastrous date that made me want to throw the book down in anger at men like that, but then the vulnerability after, the quiet moment of self-love, pulled me back in. The bunker storyline in particular moved me. It’s absurd and practical at the same time, a metaphor for needing safety when the world feels hostile. The writing is simple, sometimes stark, yet it holds these emotional punches that sneak up on you.
I think this book would be powerful for anyone who has felt let down by people and yet still holds onto hope. It’s not for readers who want neat plots or tidy resolutions. It’s messy, alive, and sometimes exhausting, but in a way that feels real. I’d recommend it to those who like character-driven stories, people who aren’t afraid to sit with discomfort, and anyone who has ever curled up with their pet while the world outside seemed to spin out of control.
Pages: 184 | ASIN : B0FC83DT39
Still Waters Run Deep
PEOPLE PERSONnel follows a burnt-out HR manager trudging through her final year at a shrinking charity while juggling caregiving for her declining mother and quietly plotting a radical act of mercy. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I have worked in HR in the not-for-profit sector for over 30 years and I live in Whitstable (UK). I have written before (historical) but thinking of the old adage, ‘write what you know’ I decided to do just that. I wrote something where character and location were key. You’ll notice it is not set in a particular time because I didn’t want it to date. I hope it will be picked up and televised one day so that my antihero can reach a wider audience and I can retire, like Janice.
I found Janice to be a very well-written and in-depth character. What was your inspiration for her and her emotional turmoil throughout the story?
Thank you. No spoilers but I wanted her to be a very ordinary person who ends up in the position of doing extraordinary things. She flies under the radar. She is invisible and for what happens in the story the fact that she is so overlooked gives her a very significant advantage.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Still waters run deep. It’s the quiet ones you want to watch out for. Again, no spoilers, but most fictional killers are larger than life as are the characters who catch them. To me it’s far more disturbing if the killer turns out to be someone just like you. I put, ‘But she always seemed so nice…’ on the back cover because that’s what people always say when their crimes come to light. Janice is a person who keeps herself to herself.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
I wrote this book 8 years ago and only very recently revisited it and got it published. I do have ideas for another book about Janice, perhaps a prequel, and hopefully that will be out in the next 6-12 months rather than in another 8 years.
Author BlueSky
She commutes every day from her home in Whitstable, Kent to London and is soon to retire from her standalone role for a not-for-profit sector organisation, that is facing very difficult financial decisions. She is innocuous, dull, easily overlooked and cut an inconsequential, loveless path through, what appears to have been, a largely non-eventful life.
Everyone knows she wouldn’t lift a finger. Everyone knows she wouldn’t swat a fly. Everyone knows she’ll just sit there and be quiet. No one would think twice about her, but Janice Mead’s savage way of exiting those who are now surplus to her requirements may change all that. See what kind of a person Janice Mead really is.
PEOPLE PERSONnel
PEOPLE PERSONnel follows Janice Mead, a seasoned HR manager trudging through her final year at a shrinking charity while juggling caregiving for her declining mother and quietly plotting a radical act of mercy. Set against the backdrop of a dreary office and the grey sprawl of southeast England, the story slips between sardonic workplace comedy and unsettling introspection before veering into a shocking yet oddly tender act of revenge and redemption. Holup delivers a narrative that simmers slowly, then boils over in a morally complex and relatable way.
Holup’s writing is dry, sharp, and deeply British. The voice of Janice (or Myra, depending on which identity you trust) is both painfully funny and heart-achingly bitter. Her observations cut deep, especially on ageism, bureaucracy, and the way society quietly dismisses older women. I found myself wincing at how real it all felt. There’s no sugar-coating here. It’s the raw, unfiltered truth of late-career burnout and quiet domestic despair, until, suddenly, it’s a murder mystery disguised as an act of grace.
What really surprised me is how effortlessly Holup builds a character who is both forgettable and unforgettable. Janice is invisible in the way that older women often are, and yet she becomes the exact opposite by the end: powerful, decisive, terrifying in her stillness. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. The bees, the gloves, the crispy pancakes, all these odd details add up to something chillingly intimate. The ending, though extreme, felt almost inevitable. It left me with that odd emotional mix of satisfaction and sadness, like watching a long-overdue storm finally break over a parched field.
If you like character-driven fiction with bite, with humour that borders on cruelty but never loses its humanity, then you’ll get a lot out of it. It’s perfect for readers who enjoy Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, but wish Eleanor had a darker side and a plot to poison someone. PEOPLE PERSONnel is bleak, funny, and full of feeling.
Pages: 307 | ASIN : B0FC462XY8
LITERARY TITAN 