Blog Archives
The Phantom Bugatti
The Phantom Bugatti is part mystery, part romantic suspense, and part love letter to a bygone era of automobiles and Americana. It follows Jack Reinhart, a Cleveland-based graphic designer, who inherits a dilapidated farm from his grandfather and discovers a dismantled, underground Bugatti car hidden beneath the old barn. The novel blends the nostalgic pull of family legacy with a mystery involving rare cars, obscure histories, and the slow unraveling of a hidden past. As Jack digs deeper, literally and emotionally, he confronts the ghosts of family, identity, and choices that echo across generations.
What I appreciated most about this book was how the writing pulled me in without any pretentiousness. It felt honest. The dialogue sounded real, especially between Jack and his wife Sally, whose strained marriage gave the story a low, constant hum of tension. There’s an understated rhythm in the pacing, nothing too fast or flashy, but it works. It gave me time to care about what was unfolding, to really picture that creaky barn, that dirt road, and the fragile history buried beneath it. Some scenes felt cinematic, even though they were described in such simple terms.
Sally’s bitterness grated on me after a while, and I found myself wanting her to surprise me. But what really stuck was Jack’s mix of curiosity and quiet stubbornness. His conversations with Mickey Mishne, the Bugatti expert, were highlights, touching and nerdy in the best way. The book’s heart lies in its obsession with craft; restoring a car becomes a metaphor for repairing memory and self-worth. I was surprised by how emotional some passages made me feel. The whole thing has this dusty, lived-in feel that reminds you of how deeply things from the past can matter, even if they’re rusted and half-forgotten.
I’d recommend The Phantom Bugatti to readers who like stories that unfold slowly, with detail and care. Car lovers will get a kick out of the vintage vehicle lore, but you don’t have to be a gearhead to appreciate what’s here. It’s also for people who’ve ever felt a pull back to a place that shaped them, or wondered what secrets their family didn’t pass down.
Pages: 260 | ASIN : B0D94SLZM6
The Devil In Fine Print
The Devil in Fine Print, the first book in The Cipher Conspiracy series by Jhani Mills, is a genre-blending thriller that stitches together high-stakes conspiracy, speculative science, and personal legacy. At its center is Elias Maddox, a brilliant but reluctant author whose bestselling novel, The Gravity Cipher, seems to mirror a terrifying hidden truth more than mere fiction. When patterns from his book begin echoing in reality, Elias finds himself on the run, tangled in a centuries-old secret society, the Order of Thael, that manipulates power through hidden clauses and engineered silence. With the help of investigative journalist Jessa Kade and his twin brother Drake, Elias must decide whether unearthing the truth is worth the cost of his family and possibly the world.
The writing, especially in the prologue and early chapters, is haunting and lyrical. Mills knows how to wield tension like a scalpel, and every line feels soaked in dread, urgency, or both. The language is sharp without being overdone, and the pacing is a tightrope walk between action and revelation. Some parts had me flipping pages like a madman, while others made me pause and just sit with it. Mills’s biggest strength is how she plays with ambiguity, never quite letting you know what’s real, what’s imagined, or what’s been buried so deep we forgot it ever existed. And that ambiguity? It lingers. In a good, itchy way.
I felt something for the characters. Elias isn’t your typical reluctant hero. He’s fragile, sometimes maddeningly hesitant, but never false. And Jessa? She’s brilliant, sharp, curious, and relentless, without being a trope. Their dynamic had real weight, built on mutual recognition rather than forced romance or plot convenience. I did think some of the science jargon in the middle dipped a little too far into “decoder ring needed” territory, especially in Drake’s storyline. But even that had a payoff once the themes began to echo through history, family, and fate, but not every thread is fully tied off by the end.
The Devil in Fine Print left me stirred up. It’s a smart, shadowy read that lives in the gray areas—between fiction and truth, control and freedom, inheritance and rebellion. I’d recommend it to readers who like their thrillers dense with mystery and meaning, especially fans of Dan Brown, Neal Stephenson, or even Silo-era Hugh Howey. It’s not always comfortable, but that’s the point. If you’ve ever looked at a contract or a government headline and felt a flicker of unease—this book is calling your name.
Pages: 325 | ASIN : B0F3BGHTHN
Before Becoming the Villain
In The Bleed-Through Effect, a convicted man and his estranged savant wife navigate parallel realities manipulated by a shadowy, government-backed organization. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The events in the first book in the series, Periphery, and the magnetic pull of the villain, combined to make the perfect set-up for the complex, thrilling ride in The Bleed-Through Effect. I was really inspired to dive not just into the morality of accessing alternate selves in the multiverse, but also take a deep psychological look at the driving forces and motivations of each character. The ultimate question in The Bleed-Through Effect is how far can you go to save the one you love….before becoming the villain?
What is the most challenging aspect of writing a series?
The first book in the series, Periphery, had a romance-driven plot, with the speculative elements only making their debut toward the last quarter of the book. With The Bleed-Through Effect, the speculative elements take center stage alongside the romance, in addition to being written in muti-POV and spanning two separate realities. The characters are deeply fleshed out, which was important in order to develop a seamless plotline that spanned two books, multi-POV, and two realities, all while keeping the reader invested in all the intricate moving parts. I’m delighted to learn, through early reviews, that readers feel really emotionally invested in the character arcs and storyline!
What inspired Jared and Charlotte’s traits and dialogue?
The Bleed-Through Effect is a profoundly character-driven plot. Jared and Charlotte and Simon are deeply layered characters, and despite whether they’re “good” or “bad” there’s relatability in each character. I wanted the reader to be both fascinated and afraid of how each person is one circumstance away from becoming the villain. Each character falls on an extreme somewhere, and it’s those extremes that propel the plotline and keep the reader engaged in what’s going to happen next.
Can fans look forward to a third installment in the Periphery series? Where will it take readers?
At this point, the Periphery series is set to be a two-book series only. My next release is a standalone contemporary military romance, forthcoming in 2026.
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In a dual timeline between the main reality and the Periphery, Charlotte and Simon must confront the blurred lines between strength and weakness, love and loyalty, and their past and future.
As they struggle to regain control over their lives, a catastrophic secret is revealed, a vengeful lover on a quest for power closes in, and Charlotte must figure out a way forward…even when the past refuses to let go.
Where Truth Lies Waiting
Where Truth Lies Waiting is a moving and deeply introspective novel that follows Tina, a woman caught between life and death, as she reflects on her past, her relationships, and the truths that shaped her existence. After a traumatic accident leaves her hovering in an out-of-body state, Tina watches her own life unfold from above, visiting memories, conversations, and unresolved moments with a keen emotional eye. As her spirit wanders through these reflections, the story reveals the intricate ties of love, friendship, and grief, especially the ways honesty and truth both heal and hurt. Layer by layer, the novel uncovers the weight of unspoken truths and the surprising ways clarity can surface when we let go of control.
The writing has a slow, poetic rhythm that draws you in, even when the subject matter is heavy. I was struck by how intimate Tina’s thoughts felt like paging through someone’s private journal. Tanja Davia Tucker does a beautiful job of painting Tina’s inner world with honesty and raw emotion. The early chapters, especially the ones about Tina’s childhood and the death of her father, resonated with me. It made me pause and think about the things we carry from childhood that quietly shape us well into adulthood. The writing is calm and clean, but there’s real power in its simplicity. Every sentence feels deliberate. You can tell Tucker poured her soul into this story.
There were moments where switching perspectives from Tina to others pulled me out a little. Some of the flashbacks were so vivid and moving that I wanted to linger, but the pace often moved me forward. Still, I can’t fault the book for that. It’s reflective and careful, like Tina herself. What hit me most was the recurring theme of truth. How it’s not always simple, not always kind, but still necessary. It made me rethink moments in my own life where I either held back or pushed too hard in the name of “being honest.” The book doesn’t pretend that truth is easy. It shows how it can crack things wide open, or quietly save us.
I would recommend Where Truth Lies Waiting to anyone who’s ever grieved deeply, loved fiercely, or struggled with what to say when words feel too small. It’s a quiet book, but it echoes long after you close the cover. If you’re the kind of reader who enjoys stories that make you feel something real, especially those that sit in the emotional in-between, this one’s for you. It reminded me that sometimes we find peace not in having all the answers, but in being brave enough to ask the questions.
Pages: 220 | ASIN : B0F7GRHNR6
The House on Chambers Road: A Ghost Story
C.J. McGroarty’s The House on Chambers Road is a haunting and richly layered novel that weaves historical fiction, supernatural mystery, and emotional healing into a single narrative. It’s the story of Libby Casey, a grieving widow who stumbles across a colonial-era Georgian house that seems to call to her in unexplainable ways. As she peels back the layers of the house’s past, she also confronts the secret weight of her own guilt and sorrow, both of which refuse to stay buried. The novel dances back and forth in time, from present-day Pennsylvania to 18th-century colonial life, slowly knitting together the lives of those long gone with the living.
Reading this book felt like stepping into a fog and watching ghosts take shape—slowly, deliberately, with elegance and dread in equal measure. McGroarty’s writing is lush without being showy. Her descriptions pull you in gently and don’t let go. I loved the way the house became almost a character of its own, whispering through the walls, sighing through the floorboards. There’s something beautiful and sad about the way McGroarty captures grief—how it lingers in quiet rooms and unfinished conversations. Libby felt real to me in a way that made her struggles hit close to home. Her grief isn’t tidy. It’s jagged and painful, and that’s what makes her story compelling.
Some scenes stretched a beat too long, and I found myself wanting the plot to move faster, especially during moments of introspection. But then McGroarty would reel me back in with a sudden, eerie detail—a glove that doesn’t belong, a name whispered in the night, a dream that bleeds into memory. These small, chilling touches reminded me why I was hooked in the first place. The historical chapters, in particular, were vivid and emotionally resonant. Hugh and Miranda’s story added a quiet gravity, grounding the supernatural in something relatable.
The House on Chambers Road is a gentle, unsettling, and beautifully told story about memory, loss, and the way the past lingers just beneath the surface of the present. It’s perfect for readers who enjoy ghost stories with depth, character-driven fiction, or novels that explore the thin veil between history and now. If you’ve ever loved a house so much it felt like it loved you back, this book is for you.
Pages: 286 | ISBN: 1956615490
The Keeper’s Code
Barb DeLong’s The Keeper’s Code, the second book in her Keepers of Magic series, is a romantic urban fantasy that mixes danger, desire, and a secret magical world just beneath the surface of Manhattan. It follows Skye Parker, a determined journalist with a haunted past, and Ash Hunter, a reluctant magical enforcer tasked with protecting the secrecy of the mage society. When their paths collide after a strange street incident and Skye begins investigating her mother’s suspicious death, they become entangled in a web of secrets, surveillance, magical politics, and unexpected feelings. The story builds on DeLong’s rich world of modern magic, complete with familiars, portals, memory wipes, and a hidden society trying to stay off the grid in a world of nosy journalists and viral videos.
I really enjoyed the character work here. Skye is fierce, smart, and emotionally raw. Her skepticism, fire, and relentless need for truth make her so easy to root for. I liked how DeLong let her flaws stand alongside her strengths. Ash, on the other hand, is this brooding, conflicted mix of noble and guarded. The dynamic between them felt fun, a little sexy, and believable. They get under each other’s skin in all the best ways. The writing is snappy with flashes of humor, especially in the dialogue, and I found myself smiling often. Soot the cat was a quiet standout for me, witty, magical, and the emotional glue in a lot of scenes. The pacing moved fast, sometimes almost too fast, but never dull. The romance had that slow-burn, “we definitely shouldn’t but we definitely will” vibe that I love.
The magical world-building can get a little heavy with exposition. There were a lot of terms, secret bureaus, memory wipes, shadow organizations, and portal jargon that could overwhelm readers not familiar with the first book. The story doesn’t shy away from pain and moral gray zones, either. Ash’s internal battle over saving lives versus staying hidden hit hard, and Skye’s grief is raw and real. DeLong didn’t just write a love story; she wrote a story about choosing what matters most when the stakes are personal and magical.
The Keeper’s Code is a great read for anyone who enjoys magical realism, romantic tension, and stories with hidden societies and ethical dilemmas. I’d recommend it especially to fans of Leigh Bardugo, Deborah Harkness, or early Buffy vibes with more grown-up edge. If you love snarky banter, a healthy dose of longing, a bit of mystery, and magic that crackles just beneath the surface of reality, then this book is for you. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for book three.
Pages: 318 | ASIN : B0DZ6X6FJ1
Scam at Higgins Canyon Road
Scam at Higgins Canyon is a fast-paced thriller set in modern-day San Francisco, where Jack Rhodes, a forensic data analyst with a past riddled with personal tragedy, is drawn into an investigation that blurs the lines between conspiracy theory and criminal fact. After being approached by Tommy Griggs, a former military man grieving the suspicious death of a close friend, Jack finds himself navigating murky dealings involving construction companies, veterans, shady bar staff, and a patchwork of old friendships and new threats. The story unfolds with scenes ranging from dive bar brawls and emotional reckonings to intricate digital sleuthing and philosophical musings about loyalty, justice, and memory.
Mackay’s voice is dry, often funny, sometimes poetic, and surprisingly introspective. He doesn’t just tell a story, he sits with it. The dialogue is snappy and real. The prose veers between gritty and lyrical, painting San Francisco with a worn, lived-in brush that feels nostalgic and alive at once. The characters are layered, flawed, often a bit lost, and it works. Jack isn’t your typical hard-boiled hero. He’s sharp and measured, but there’s a sadness beneath all that quiet competence. And the side characters from the chaotic Madam Li to the old army guys drowning their grief in tequila feel like people you’ve met in a bar at 1 a.m.
The plot feels realistic. There’s no grand twist, no explosive climax, just the slow, methodical piecing together of something quietly wrong. And that’s where Mackay leans into an idea I appreciated: that real scams, real deaths, real betrayals, don’t need Hollywood endings. They just need someone to pay attention. It made me think more than it thrilled me, which, to be honest, I didn’t expect, and ended up liking.
Mackay’s writing style reminded me of early Michael Connelly mixed with the gritty introspection of Raymond Chandler and the modern, character-driven pacing of Tana French. If you like character-driven mysteries with heart and grit, stories that hang out in the gray areas and don’t rush the truth, then Scam at Higgins Canyon is a gem. It’s a book for people who don’t mind sitting with uncertainty, who appreciate when a mystery’s biggest revelation isn’t about a killer but about the world we live in.
Pages: 341 | ASIN : B0DTFLZMNC
Readers Wanted More
Rise of the Hunter follows a man who was thrown into a pit and supposed to be dead, who escapes, igniting a war between good and evil. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I was prepared to end the series with the previous book in the trilogy but over 150 readers sent me emails wanting to know more about what could’ve happened if the Tall Dark Man had more of a role. Readers in my Blood Prophecy Saga love the Tall Dark Man and after thinking about it, The Dark Prophecy Series in the saga was born. Rise of the Hunter is the first installment of the Tall Dark Man’s Trilogy in which he could be seen as the protagonist from the villain’s perspective. I tend to love my villains in all my books so this was a perfect way to bring evil back to life in the Blood Prophecy Saga.
What were some driving ideals behind your character’s Tall Dark Man’s development?
The main idea about the Tall Dark Man is that you will never get a complete description of his face. I will bring out bits and pieces of certain characteristics but because evil can come in many different forms, this was a perfect way to bring him to light. In the next book, Fate of an Angel, readers will learn that he looks different to different people. Evil has many different forms. The Tall Dark Man is also a man, but an evil one. He is not a supernatural being but can possess supernatural abilities. The premise of evil and how it evolves is what gives the Tall Dark Man his edge, his nature and the persona that my readers embrace.
When you first sat down to write this story, did you know where you were going, or did the twists come as you were writing?
I never know how my story will begin or end. I just tend to write and let my characters do the talking. The twists and turns come naturally to me, allowing my creativity to dominate. I can’t sit down and plot my stories, but I definitely do research and travel to locations I write about.
Where does the story go in the next book and where do you see it going in the future?
Fate of An Angel is the next book in the trilogy, The Dark Prophecy Series and will focus on the relationship between the Tall Dark Man and Zaraquel, the Avenging Angel. She is under his spell and faces the turmoil of giving into evil to be with him or to choose the light and save her family. Together, they embark on a journey that the Tall Dark Man learns could be his undoing or his success in overthrowing the queen.
There will also be novellas on the Tall Dark and his witches, just like I had done in the Blood Prophecy Series.
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Website
The queen and her friends threw me into the dark pit three years ago, and I sought a way out, having used the power and life force of the others who were also thrown in. Today, I am free and planning my vengeance against her and the others.
In a supernatural world filled with vampires, werewolves, witches, demons, and angels, I will have my revenge against them. I am the epitome of evil and didn’t die like they thought. There’s a third prophecy with a nice little catch! This prophecy is meant for me; my revenge will turn the tables on the queen and her friends. I will turn them all against her, and according to the prophecy, the avenging angel be mine. Forever. As for the others, they will serve me.
It’s time for me to rise, beginning with the birth of a new hunter, new demons, and an angel that will be mine. Vengeance against the queen will be mine.
Rise of the Hunter is the fourth book in the Blood Prophecy series and is the first book of a new trilogy for the Tall Dark Man. It is full of dark magic and vengeance with a twist of good vs. evil but will good win this time? This supernatural book is set in the modern-day world between supernaturals to control the world and unleash evil as the world prepares for peace.
LITERARY TITAN 