Blog Archives
Gallow’s Rebel Wolf
Gallow’s Rebel Wolf is a fast, bawdy paranormal romance built around a wonderfully chaotic premise: Gallow, one of three werebear brothers who run the Blood Moon Tavern, discovers that his fated mate is Rebel, the wolf shifter who has just poisoned his brother. The book announces its playful personality immediately, replacing a familiar three-bears fairy tale with towering, brooding werebears and their rowdy mountain tavern. From there, it mixes a centuries-old feud, magical mate bonds, kidnappings, betrayals, pregnancy, and family drama into a story that rarely slows down. It’s very much a romantic comedy with claws, even when the characters are facing poison, assassins, or an enemy ritual.
Gallow and Rebel’s relationship drives nearly every scene, and their chemistry comes from their refusal to behave like a conventional romantic couple. They throw pinecones, trade ridiculous insults, bite each other, get handcuffed together, and gradually turn all that hostility into affection. Their banter is the book’s strongest feature because it gives both characters clear personalities. Rebel is sharp-tongued, impulsive, and fiercely protective, while Gallow hides genuine tenderness beneath his swagger and physical strength. The emotional arc becomes more sincere as Rebel confronts her grief, distrust, and fear of depending on another person. Gallow’s devotion also grows beyond the demands of the mate bond, especially when he protects her, worries over her injuries, and struggles to express what she means to him.
The novel has a lot in common with Shelly Laurenston’s popular shifter romances. Like Laurenston, the author treats supernatural strength and animal instincts as opportunities for comedy. Both create loud extended families, aggressive heroines, oversized heroes, and conversations that can turn from threats to flirting within a few lines. Gallow’s Rebel Wolf pushes that style toward broad, almost cartoonish humor, with recurring jokes about Gallow being a rug, Rebel smelling like honeydew, and the bear brothers becoming helpless around children. Some descriptions and emotional reactions are repeated more often than necessary, and nearly every moment arrives at maximum volume. Still, that heightened style fits the book’s energetic world and makes the quieter declarations of loyalty feel surprisingly sweet.
Readers who enjoy fated mates, enemies-to-lovers romance, protective shifters, explicit heat, and found-family chaos will find plenty to enjoy here. The book’s real appeal isn’t the mystery of whether Gallow and Rebel will end up together. It’s watching two stubborn people stumble, wrestle, argue, and flirt their way toward choosing the bond they initially resent. By the time their twins are turning the tavern into a supernatural daycare, their romance feels like part of a much larger family story. The ending delivers a warm, unruly happily-ever-after while setting up Garrick’s future book, making Gallow’s Rebel Wolf feel like both a complete romance and an enthusiastic invitation to spend more time with the Reeper brothers.
Pages: 317 | ASIN : B0H7XFKZXX
Lifestyle: Trust Fall
Lifestyle: Trust Fall by Kasey Fallon is a dark, psychologically charged romance centered on Lexi, a fiercely independent gym owner and skilled fighter, and Grayson, a dominant co-owner of Philadelphia’s exclusive Lifestyle Club. Lexi is drawn into Grayson’s plan for a Reverse Gladiator arena, where submissive women fight on behalf of their dominants, but their business arrangement quickly becomes far more personal. The novel’s BDSM setting provides plenty of heat and spectacle, while the emotional core comes from two stubborn people trying to decide what trust, surrender, and control actually mean to them.
Lexi is the book’s strongest element. She’s funny, combative, observant, and deeply guarded, with a traumatic childhood that still shapes her reactions to confinement, dependence, and physical vulnerability. Her strength doesn’t disappear when she explores submission, and the story treats that apparent contradiction as something worth examining. Grayson is compelling because his confidence frequently runs into the limits of his own understanding. He can be protective and thoughtful, but he’s also possessive, presumptuous, and accustomed to getting his way. Their chemistry comes from watching them challenge each other, misread each other, and gradually learn that trust can’t be demanded.
Fallon writes with an energetic, blunt voice that suits both the club atmosphere and Lexi’s personality. The banter is lively, the attraction feels physical, and the supporting cast gives the story a welcome sense of community. Eddie, Randy, Rio, Mama Troisi, and the rest don’t feel like decorative friends waiting to deliver advice. They have loyalties, concerns, and relationships of their own. The middle of the book spends considerable time on Lexi’s exhausting workload and Grayson’s attempts to care for her, which slows the larger plot but makes their growing intimacy more believable. The final pages deliberately leave a threatening thread unresolved, so the novel feels like the first stage of a continuing story.
I’d recommend this most to readers who enjoy high-heat dark romance, dominant and submissive dynamics, complicated heroines, protective heroes with controlling streaks, and relationships built through friction. It’ll especially appeal to someone who likes emotional caretaking alongside explicit sexual content and doesn’t mind ending with a clear hook for the next book. Readers sensitive to panic attacks, childhood trauma, coercive behavior, stalking, violence, breath play, or intense power dynamics should approach it with those elements in mind. For its ideal audience, though, Trust Fall offers a tense and involving introduction to Lexi and Grayson’s relationship, with enough unresolved danger to make continuing the series tempting.
Pages: 313 | ASIN : B0DM9P8ZFD
My Salvation – Literature & History
By Her Own Hand centers around two decorated soldiers haunted by civilian deaths, abandonment, and the fear that a single terrible moment has defined them forever. Where did the idea behind this novel come from?
To begin with, my own fractured upbringing where substance abuse and violence prevailed. Born as an empath, this environment was particularly painful to one of my nature. But irony emerges in strange places. My older brother tutored me at an early age to love literature and history, both ancient and contemporary. That was my salvation.
The novel contains elements of war fiction, psychological drama, romance, and thriller. What drew you to blending these genres?
In terms of war fiction, my extensive reading of conflicts in the Middle East. On a more personal level, the friends who died in the Viet Nam war and those who came back with the horrible affliction of PTSD. As far as psychological drama, the setting of the novel and the characters involved dictated high drama.
In reference to romance, most of my emotional responses would be classified as feminine. I relate to women’s feelings more than men’s. Thus, I write more directly to them. Moving on to thriller, once again, given the setting of high conflict and the personal inner conflicts of my characters, thriller was a necessary component.
Madeline’s relationship with Eliot and Mira reveal different aspects of her personality. What did each relationship teach readers about her?
Even as horrible as her family life was, she did not become hardened. She still has the will and the strength of character to open herself to vulnerability. In Eliot’s case, it led to an enduring love. In Mira’s case, Madeline’s nature was manipulated into lies and deceit. Yet, in the end, Madeline does not seek revenge. She knows that would only tarnish the real love she has found.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I do have a new novel in mind, but you know how superstitious novelists can be when it comes to divulging details too soon. Fortunately, I’m married to a loving and levelheaded wife who keeps her crazy writer in check!
I do promise you’ll be among the first to know when my next book comes out.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Amazon
She escaped one war—only to be hunted in another.
When Madeline Crowne flees an abusive home by joining the army, she rises from survivor to hero during her deployment in Afghanistan. But everything shatters when she’s falsely accused of a war crime and becomes the target of a global manhunt.
Saved by Mira, a survivor of Lebanon’s civil wars, Madeline finds comfort in their shared scars—until Mira’s dangerous double life as an illegal arms dealer turns obsession into betrayal.
Back in the U.S., Madeline crosses paths with Eliot Lange, another soldier on the run after being accused of desertion. Their chemistry is instant, their trust fragile. Together, they try to rebuild a future.
But the FBI is closing in.
And Mira wants revenge.
By Her Own Hand: War and Passion in a Woman’s Wounded Heart
By Her Own Hand is a sweeping blend of war novel, psychological drama, romance, and fugitive thriller. Jack Deveny centers the story on Madeline Crowne and Eliot Lange, two decorated soldiers carrying the moral injuries of Afghanistan into an uncertain life back home. Both are haunted by civilian deaths, abandonment, and the fear that a single terrible moment has defined them forever. Their growing love gives the novel its emotional center, while accusations of war crimes, an international arms trafficker, and a relentless pursuit keep the story moving. The book’s subtitle, “War and passion in a woman’s wounded heart,” captures its central tension beautifully.
Madeline is the novel’s driving force. She’s fierce, vulnerable, sexually candid, and burdened by guilt that reaches back to her childhood and her brother John’s suffering. Her relationships with Eliot and Mira reveal different sides of her hunger for safety, loyalty, and forgiveness. Eliot, meanwhile, brings a gentler energy to the story. His devotion to his traumatized friend Will and his tenderness toward Madeline give the romance genuine warmth. Their intimacy is presented as more than desire. It becomes a private language through which two damaged people recognize each other and begin imagining a future.
Deveny writes with emotional directness and a strong visual instinct. Combat scenes arrive in flashes of blood, smoke, confusion, and irreversible choices, while quieter moments linger over hands, scars, clothing, rooms, and treasured objects. The shifting viewpoints bring readers close to the characters’ thoughts, and the story moves confidently from Afghanistan to Sacramento, Libya, Beirut, and military courtrooms. At times, the intensity is almost unbroken, but that sustained pressure suits characters who can’t simply step away from their memories. The novel is deeply interested in moral injury, especially the painful distance between what a person intended and what their actions caused.
What stays with you is the book’s belief that remorse can become a source of purpose. Madeline and Eliot don’t erase their wounds. They learn to carry them toward service, compassion, and a life devoted to people suffering as they have suffered. By the closing pages, justice matters, but mercy matters more, and love becomes an active choice. By Her Own Hand is a fierce and intimate story of two wounded soldiers who discover that love can’t undo the past, but it can teach the heart what to do with it.
Pages: 351 | ASIN : B0H2HGZJPY
Signs of The Fall
Signs of The Fall is a Christian speculative thriller with strong paranormal, sci-fi, dark romance, and moral allegory elements. The story begins with Hogarth Hughes, a lonely teenage outsider in Salem, Virginia, aching for connection after another rejection, then follows a widening web of characters whose desires, secrets, faith, technology, and temptations pull them toward different kinds of “falls.” What starts as an awkward, intimate portrait of adolescent longing grows into something stranger and darker, moving through church life, sexuality, social media, gaming, military imagery, alien encounters, and spiritual warning signs.
The writing spends a lot of time inside hungry, restless minds, and sometimes that closeness feels almost claustrophobic. Hogarth’s thoughts are messy, repetitive, funny, lonely, crude, and sad, often all at once. I found that honest in a way. The author doesn’t smooth him into an easy hero. He’s needy, observant, resentful, sincere, and painfully young. That mix gives the early pages a raw charge.
The author’s choices are bold. The book blends genres without much apology, and that can be both its strength and its challenge. One moment I felt I was reading a coming-of-age story, then a critique of modern desire, then a church drama, then a supernatural warning tale, then something closer to sci-fi horror. It’s a lot. Still, the repeated language of signs, falls, fruit, stars, phones, games, and hunger gives the novel a clear moral gravity. The book is interested in what people reach for when they feel empty, and what those cravings cost when they go unchecked.
I would recommend Signs of The Fall to readers who like faith-inflected speculative fiction that is dark, strange, and morally direct. It’s not a quiet literary novel, and it’s not a clean genre piece either. It’s more like a storm system moving across several kinds of fiction at once. Readers who enjoy Christian thrillers, paranormal suspense, social critique, and stories about temptation will probably get the most from it. For me, it was uneven but memorable, and I respected its willingness to stare at uncomfortable desires rather than pretend they’re not there.
Pages: 338 | ASIN : B0GZYKTL8T
Modern New Adult Audience
Moonlight Desires, a Gothic retelling of Cinderella, follows a woman abused by her family who is lifted from drudgery by a royal figure who appears in spider form. What inspired you to retell this classic tale with a Gothic flair?
I’ve always had a thing for fairy tales, the kind we used to call “wonder tales” before they were sanitized. If you look closely at my work, the Brothers Grimm are almost always lurking under the surface. These are classic stories we all know by heart, which gives me a great foundation to build on. It allows me to focus my energy on reshaping those familiar bones into a Gothic fantasy retelling that feels gritty and real for a modern New Adult audience.
The imagery—especially the web, the dress, and the spectral coach—feels symbolic as well as aesthetic. What meanings did you intend behind those elements?
I actually used the Italian Commedia dell’arte as a sort of mental map for these characters. In that world, you have the “unmasked” lovers. These are the ones who are vulnerable and can actually change. And then you have the “masked” figures who are stuck in their ways.
In Moonlight Desires, Aurelia is the “unmasked” one. She’s going through loss and resentment, and she has to choose to forgive to find her path. Princess Kipira, though, is a “masked” figure. Her spider form isn’t just a choice; it’s a reflection of her own selfishness, trapped under a hideous curse. Then you have the Desires. These beautiful yet hollow spirits of the underworld only come alive in the moonlight. They’re yearning for a life they can’t have. By weaving these magical elements together, I wanted to create the kind of atmospheric writing and vivid world-building that fans of dark romance and monster fantasy are looking for.
Some readers have mentioned they wanted more technical details about the “Ingridelite Weave,” which is the pattern of Aurelia’s dress. But the weave is a metaphor of the story itself. In adult fairy tales, you don’t always need a manual for how the magic works and what makes it significant. You need to experience it. Kipira explains the Ingridelite Weave simply: every part of the pattern is connected to everything else. That’s how I see fantasy retellings across history: their patterns are endlessly moving, reshaped, and retold while staying recognizably themselves.
Just as the threads of the dress guide Aurelia’s movement when she dances, the inherited patterns of Ye Xian and Ashputtel guided my own hand as a writer.
What question did you most want readers to wrestle with after finishing the book?
I try to create a literary space where the symbolism does the heavy lifting. I don’t want to be a control freak and tell you exactly what questions to ask. I’d rather give you a dark, moody environment where you can find your own questions and answers within the frame of an adult fairy tale.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m currently finishing up Spider Sister, which is the sequel to my novel Spider Seeds. It’s part of the Spider Seeds Universe and links directly back to Moonlight Desires. You can expect a 2026 release, which will officially bring my spider horror series to a close.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
From her webs arise quiet works of fantasy: a gown, slippers, and a horse-drawn carriage, their threads quickened by moonlight and inhabited by the restless spirits of Hades.
Carried to Duke Andrew’s court festival, where jeweled crowns glint and his son must choose a bride, Aurelia steps into a world that finally sees her worth. Yet the curse gripping Kipira tightens, for she can only be freed through an act of true kindness, and even her best intentions are shadowed by self-interest.
As romance awakens, fate begins to stir.
Aurelia is about to discover that destiny is as fragile as threads of moonlit silk…and they are all woven into MOONLIGHT DESIRES
There Is Always More
Into the Arms follows a woman from her early days at a Catholic boarding school through a series of life-shattering experiences into womanhood, leaving her questioning everything she was taught and seeking a life filled with truth and joy. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I think as young children we see the world through a different lens than the adults around us. We have an innocence and grand awareness of what is happening, a wisdom and a sensitivity that actually allows us to see through things without the burdens, expectations, ideals and conditions on life that we seemingly pick up through our developing years. Yet this is crushed so very quickly and we are asked to jump aboard the treadmill of life with little to no concern of what may be true for us.
The staggering numbers of young suicides, teenage self-harming, drug and alcohol abuse is only but rising. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t questioned why we are here or what life is about in some shape of form throughout their years. With no answers, often a distinct lack of purpose, and only a show of hands pointing us in a direction other than what we are sensing from within, it seems we stop trusting ourselves and what we feel, usually at a huge cost.
I wanted to offer something more than the usual depiction of life, that may allow space for others to ponder on something grander than what is usually served up; to return to the innocence, wonder and sensitivity we all had as children; to not brush over all the daily irks but to acknowledge them for what they are, and to live untainted by their brutality, in the glory of who we truly are.
All of these factors and more were the inspiration.
I found Rei to be a very well-written and in-depth character. What was your inspiration for her and her emotional turmoil throughout the story?
Rei is a character that many, if not all, of us can relate to. A young being inquisitive, playful and eager to see the world and explore its people; a being craving to be seen and loved for who they truly are. It’s what permeates our skin and is often the basis for all that we do, whether consciously or not. We see each other as such vastly different characters on the world stage and in its playground, when in truth there is so much we have in common with one another. Despite this commonality we are taught to covet our insecurities which often creates further separation and emotional turmoil.
Our pathways through to, and including, adulthood are paved on our experiences at birth and as youngsters; these are often turbulent, rocky or laden with nuances that distort our behaviours moving forward. We are taught that there is something wrong with us and we react accordingly, when actually perhaps it is more than the individual stories and structures we have grown up with.
Bringing light to emotional turmoil such as this is important to help us all understand that intrinsically there is nothing wrong with any of us, we have just been encrusted with layer upon layer of brutality from everything around us. Unpacking this is wise, it’s no-one’s fault per se, yet the burdens we carry are often grossly unnecessary and harmful for all.
I feel we have a responsibility in life to live and share what is true. Unpacking and unpicking situations and experiences can be hugely healing and empowering and it gives us an awareness from which we can grow. Using Rei’s character, I felt able to give voice to occurrences that are often left unspoken about, and that felt great.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Abuse is such a huge word with many connotations and examples attached to it. Just as everything in life there are 50 shades (and more) of it. The novel touches upon this but I’m not sure in life we stop and give it much air time. Whilst it happens to ‘someone, way over there’ we are quite happy to go about our every day regardless. To add insult to injury, because we have these 50 shades of abuse, we often accept the so called lesser-scale abusive behaviours because there are far-worse versions out there, telling ourselves it’s not so bad, it could be worse. And so the behaviours go on, not being called out, not being stopped. For this reason we can see how we are all complicit enablers in the play out. This is an extremely relevant and important theme that runs through our daily lives that I felt was necessary to explore.
Love too was, and is, a biggie and is believe it or not linked to the abusive theme above. Without fully loving ourselves it is easy, if not second nature, to accept abuse, regardless of where it falls on the so-called sliding scale. Anything that is not loving is abusive. Simple. Why would, and do, we settle for anything in-between and call it something different? Why have we given up on ourselves and the love we truly deserve? We can’t expect the quality of anything to raise if we except lower standards ourselves; supply meets demand. I wanted to explore this too, because too often we bitch and moan about everything, without actually making the small, simple steps within ourselves that we are capable of making that could and would bring about huge and eternal change globally.
Were you able to achieve everything you wanted with Rei in the novel?
I think a character as universally relatable as Rei could continue on as a never ending story. There are so many experiences in every day life, minute-to-minute, moment-to-moment that highlight things that go on around, or to, us. Perhaps we have given voice to them, perhaps not, but they are all possible learnings for us. How can one possibly cover them all?
Rei’s journey had to have an end date (2025 in this story), but perhaps there could be more as the years unfold and she connects back to what came before and all that is left there to deepen into. Within the pages it felt complete, but as the story so beautifully depicts There is always more.
Author Website
Rei grows up on the fringes, taught by society from young to stay quiet and look pretty, not questioning life until it is too late. Escaping the clutches of family and relationships she builds a life free from everything she’d known, but at a cost.
Could losing everything be the richest lesson of all or was it merely a delay tactic from living all that was there to begin with?
A magnificent story, with lightness and dumbfounding truth all over it.
Into The Arms
From the very first page, Into the Arms throws you straight into the storm. This isn’t a story told, it’s lived. We follow Rei, a girl clawing through her youth with an aching heart and sharp eyes, struggling to understand love, shame, and survival in a world that often turns its back on innocence. Author Angelica Lamb’s novel is part memoir, part emotional reckoning, a raw and lyrical unraveling of trauma, told through flashbacks, poetic fragments, and brutal honesty. We’re led from Rei’s early days at a cold Catholic boarding school through a series of shattering, formative experiences into womanhood. What holds it all together is a quiet inner light, dimmed but never out. The writing itself is jagged, unfiltered, emotionally dense, and it works.
Angelica Lamb doesn’t give you time to warm up or settle in. You’re tossed into Rei’s mind. Her pain, her longing, her awkward, tender, and often horrifying moments, every one of them slices through you. Some scenes, especially with Rei’s father or the grotesque acts at boarding school, made me physically squirm. And yet I couldn’t stop. The writing is wild. Sentences swerve, thoughts bleed into each other, and punctuation comes second to rhythm. It reads more like memory than fiction, fragmented, dreamlike, vivid. Lamb’s greatest gift might be how she makes trauma feel both intensely personal and alarmingly universal. I saw my younger self in Rei more times than I care to admit.
There’s barely a plot in the traditional sense, but the emotional thread? Oh, it’s there. It pulls you under and doesn’t let go. I loved the way Lamb lets Rei be a contradiction. Sweet and angry. Lost and wise. Scarred and still somehow soft. Her journey is filled with abuse, abandonment, awakening, and through it all, this persistent, haunting whisper: “You are love.”
If you’ve ever felt silenced, if you’ve questioned your worth, or carried shame that didn’t belong to you, then Into the Arms might just feel like someone seeing you. I’d recommend it to women healing from emotional or sexual trauma, to lovers of poetic memoir, and to those who find power in pain. It’s a hard read. A beautiful one. And one I won’t forget.
Pages: 416 | ISBN : 1036966186
