Blog Archives
Childhood’s Hour: The Lost Desert
Childhood’s Hour: The Lost Desert by E.E. Glass unfolds in a dark and unnerving world where memory, identity, and survival constantly collide. At its heart is Loste, a man who emerges from the mysterious Fray with no clear past, only fear and a desperate drive forward. He stumbles into a land of sapphire sands, uncanny creatures, and strange sentient companions like Nadhez, whose furred presence and bound loyalty blur the line between guide and hallucination. The novel draws heavily on the clash between what is real and what is illusion, blending cosmic dread with intimate moments of connection. Every page balances wonder against horror, and every encounter threatens to dissolve into the static haze of madness.
The prose is lush, almost dreamlike, yet it never lingers too long on beauty without reminding me of the lurking terror beneath. I felt caught in the same paranoia as Loste, scanning every moment for the telltale crackle of the Fray. That immersion was brilliant, though it sometimes left me exhausted, like I had trudged through the dunes alongside him. The rhythm of fear and relief, tension and stillness, worked on me in waves, and I admired how the author never let comfort last for long.
What I liked most was how human the book felt despite its alien setting. Loste’s fractured identity, his mistrust of others, and his fragile hope for connection all hit me in the gut. Nadhez, with his easy laughter and sharp teeth, became a figure I wanted to trust, even when I doubted his reality. The dynamic between them gave me flashes of warmth, then snatched it away with reminders of cruelty and despair. That tension felt real, and it left me questioning my own instinct to trust. I also appreciated the playful absurdity woven through, the honking seal pup, the comic relief of bodily mishaps, which gave the darkness a sharper contrast.
Childhood’s Hour is not a book for the faint of heart. For readers who enjoy strange, surreal fantasy that bends toward horror while still offering moments of raw human tenderness, it is unforgettable. I’d recommend it to readers who like their fiction unsettling and immersive, who don’t mind being disoriented, and who find beauty in the uncanny.
Pages: 550
When Hearts Heal
When Hearts Heal sweeps us back into Milford-Haven, a small coastal town brimming with secrets, passions, and the quiet hope of second chances. At its center is Miranda Jones, now married to her astronomer husband Cornelius, as the two begin their new life together. Their story intertwines with those of her sister Meredith, her friends Sally and Samantha, and the wider cast of townsfolk who grapple with family tensions, lingering grief, and the possibility of forgiveness. Underneath it all runs the unsettling mystery of a missing journalist, a thread that lends the story a sense of urgency amid the slower rhythms of daily life on California’s Central Coast.
I enjoyed how lived-in this world feels. The writing carries a warmth that makes Milford-Haven less like a backdrop and more like a character itself. I found myself pulled into the streets and cafés, listening in on conversations, feeling the salt air press in from the Pacific. Purl’s prose is unhurried yet never flat. It’s like being invited into someone’s home where the pace of life is measured not by deadlines but by the shifting of tides and the turn of seasons. At times, some of the details were drawn out, but then I’d be caught off guard by a tender moment or a surprising twist that reminded me why I cared about these people in the first place.
What I loved most, though, were the relationships. They’re messy, often painful, yet also full of grace. Miranda and Cornelius radiate a quiet kind of joy that feels earned, while Meredith’s struggles hit a rawer note. Sally’s story, balancing motherhood and her own wounds, moved me deeply. And then there’s Samantha, whose journals cut to the heart of the novel’s themes: healing, forgiveness, and the uneasy dance between past and present. There is a tangled web of characters and that’s exactly what gives the book its richness. Life isn’t tidy, and neither are these lives.
When Hearts Heal left me with the sense of having visited old friends and walked away with a little more compassion for how complicated and beautiful people can be. I’d recommend this book to readers who enjoy stories steeped in community, where character and setting matter as much as plot. It’s for anyone who wants to sink into a small-town saga that doesn’t shy away from heartache but ultimately points toward hope.
Pages: 390 | ASIN : B0FFZZVQ3H
A Cry for Vengeance
The story begins in Tucson in 1968 with a hospice nurse who records a dying man’s confession. He reveals that his true identity is Franz Dietrich, a Nazi officer who escaped justice and lived under an alias in the United States. What follows is a tense unraveling of secrets. A writer, Bryan De Luca, is drawn into the mystery and begins tracing the threads of Nazi war criminals who were protected after the war. Along the way, he uncovers government complicity, survivor testimonies, and chilling reminders of how the past refuses to stay buried. The novel blends history, moral questions, and suspense into a gripping narrative that moves across personal stories and larger political shadows.
I easily sank into the flow of the writing. The conversations feel natural, almost like eavesdropping on people with something heavy on their hearts. There is a rawness in the way guilt, regret, and fear are drawn out, yet it never tips into melodrama. At times, the pacing slows, almost deliberately, as if to make me sit with the weight of what is being revealed. That worked for me. It made the moments of tension sharper and more unsettling. I’ll admit, though, there were times I wanted things to move a little quicker, but then I’d be pulled right back in by a revelation or a moral dilemma that felt too real to ignore.
I felt anger at the injustice, sadness at the lives lost or scarred, and frustration at the bureaucratic indifference that let murderers live quietly in suburbia. There’s a thread of hope in the survivors’ voices, but also a deep weariness. I appreciated how the author didn’t try to tie everything neatly with a bow. Life, especially life touched by atrocity, rarely allows that. At times, I found myself thinking not just about the characters but about my own willingness to look away from uncomfortable truths. That kind of reflection is what makes this story powerful.
I’d recommend A Cry for Vengeance to anyone who likes a blend of history and thriller, but also to readers who don’t mind being left with hard questions. It’s not just about chasing old ghosts. It’s about the cost of silence, the burden of memory, and the uneasy choices people make in the name of survival or justice.
Pages: 191 | ASIN : B0FJ5257B6
The Grotesque
The Grotesque is a dark novel that dives headfirst into trauma, obsession, and the blurred edges between reality and delusion. The story shifts perspectives between characters who are each broken in their own ways. Katrina, a dancer clawing through rejection and danger. Jared, a haunted figure battling inner demons and visions that blur into nightmares. And Michael, a man desperate to control his own narrative. Their paths intersect in a cityscape soaked with menace, hallucination, and fleeting moments of hope. What begins as a tense character study unravels into something stranger, almost dreamlike, where memory and horror bleed together and nothing feels entirely safe.
The writing has a raw, abrasive energy, like it’s trying to peel back a layer of skin. I couldn’t look away. Foy writes with an eye for the grotesque, both in the literal violence that shadows the characters and in the quiet cruelties they turn inward on themselves. Some scenes made me tense up, almost angry, but that anger was directed at the world he was showing me, not at the prose. The language is sharp, cynical, often bitterly funny, and it fits the mood. It’s not elegant in a polished sense, but it’s alive, and I felt its pulse.
There were moments I loved too. Small sparks of connection, odd flashes of warmth, even in the middle of so much darkness. Those moments felt like stolen breaths, like someone opening a window in a suffocating room. They didn’t last long, but they mattered.
Reading The Grotesque felt to me like stepping into the fractured, hallucinatory world of American Psycho, only with more aching humanity flickering beneath the horror. I’d recommend The Grotesque to readers who aren’t afraid of stories that claw under the skin. If you want tidy resolutions or comforting escapes, this isn’t your book. But if you’re drawn to characters who stumble through shadow and survive in fragments, and if you’re willing to sit with unease, you’ll find something here that lingers.
Pages: 348 | ASIN : B0FPLW71S1
Corsair and the Sky Pirates
From the first page, Corsair and the Sky Pirates drops you straight into a swirl of history, imagination, and high-flying adventure. It starts with Jules Verne and Nikola Tesla in a café in France, dreaming up impossible machines and strange new power sources. That meeting sparks a chain of events that explodes into a world of airships, sky pirates, secret plots, and the dangerous lure of comet fragments with world-changing energy. At the center of it all is Corsair, a rogue pirate who’s as much a freedom fighter as he is a thief, and his diverse crew of outcasts who take on empires, corporations, and tyrants in an age where science blurs into fantasy.
I found myself grinning at how much fun the writing is. The prose is quick, like a stage play mixed with pulp adventure, and it leans hard into spectacle. The characters are bold and colorful, each with their quirks, backstories, and weapons that are almost as wild as their personalities. There were moments where I rolled my eyes at how dramatic some scenes were, but I also loved it. It felt like the book knew it was larger than life and leaned all the way into that spirit. I kept turning pages because I wanted to see what trick or twist would come next.
At the same time, the ideas underneath the adventure stuck with me. There’s a real push and pull between invention for progress and invention for profit. The way the story frames Edison, Tesla, and ERP as forces shaping the world gave me something to chew on between the swashbuckling fights. I felt frustrated at the greed and cruelty shown by the corporate powers, and I rooted for Corsair even when his choices were brutal. The story isn’t subtle, but sometimes that’s the point. It makes its villains nasty, its heroes daring, and its stakes almost absurdly high, and that gave me the freedom to just sink into the ride.
When I closed the book, I thought about who would enjoy it most. If you like steampunk worlds, if you enjoy a good pirate tale with a twist of history and a lot of flair, or if you just want to escape into something that’s fun, fast, and fearless, this book will be right up your alley. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants adventure with heart and a lot of imagination.
Pages: 303 | ASIN : B0BRX8SBVM
Fairy Lights: Bed Time Poems & Gallery of Fairytale Art from Yesteryear
Fairy Lights is a wonderful collection of bedtime poems interwoven with fairy lore, myth, and timeless art. Moving through the seasons of the year, the book gathers stories of spirits, shape-shifters, ocean dwellers, elven royalty, and everyday enchantments. It draws from Irish, Nordic, Greek, and New World traditions, blending them into verses that feel both ancient and freshly spoken. Each section carries its own mood, from the playful revels of spring to the melancholy mysteries of autumn and the haunting stillness of winter. Alongside the words, the author curates a gallery of fairytale art from past centuries, which adds a lovely echo of history to the poetry.
What struck me most was the way the poems refused to be pinned down. They could be lyrical and delicate in one breath, then strange, even eerie, in the next. A piece like A Piece of Amber felt tender and tragic, like a whispered legend by firelight, while something like The Baallad of Blaackie Coal made me grin with its folkloric humor and Scots cadence. I loved how the writing carried me away from reason into a place where fairies still dance, seashells sing, and even the smallest bird is mourned with reverence. The language is musical and sometimes unpredictable. At times, I found myself rereading lines not because I needed to but because I wanted to savor the rhythm.
The author clearly delights in layering metaphor upon metaphor, which creates a rich tapestry. This very quality also gives the book its dreamlike atmosphere. It reminded me of wandering through a forest at dusk, you don’t always know what you’re seeing, but the mystery is the point. I also appreciated how personal some of the poems felt. Knowing that pieces like To Wee Russet Tuft came from real experiences gave the collection an intimacy that balanced out the more mythic material.
Fairy Lights feels like a gift for anyone who still listens for magic in the quiet hours. I would recommend it to readers who love fairytales, folklore, or poetry that doesn’t mind breaking free from neat structure. It’s especially suited for those who want to share stories aloud, whether with children at bedtime or with the inner child who still believes in hidden worlds.
Pages: 181 | ISBN : 0473742454
Dig Two Graves: A Noir Thriller of Revenge
Dig Two Graves is a hard-hitting noir tale about a man just out of prison, stumbling back into the world with nothing but a Bible, some rage, and a whole lot of unresolved history. Von Martin is bitter, raw, and desperate. He wants to see his daughter, reclaim his place, and claw back respect in a world that seems determined to keep him down. What unfolds is a tense ride through betrayal, revenge, and the messy business of survival, with every page steeped in grit and sweat.
I felt torn while reading. On one hand, the writing is sharp and immersive. The author captures the voice of Von with uncanny precision. It feels like you’re right there with him, stuck in his head, tasting his anger, hearing his rationalizations, even when you know he’s full of it. That intimacy made me uneasy, but in the best way, because it’s rare to find a book that commits so fully to the flawed perspective of its main character. On the other hand, Von is not an easy guy to root for. He’s selfish, volatile, and often cruel, and I caught myself rolling my eyes at his self-pity while also sympathizing with his hunger for dignity. That push and pull kept me hooked.
The ideas in this book hit harder than I expected. It’s not just a revenge story. It’s about the weight of time wasted, the way choices narrow your life, and the slow decay of trust. There’s this constant tug between the possibility of redemption and the lure of destruction, and I felt that tension every step of the way.
By the time I turned the last page, I was impressed. Dig Two Graves is not for someone looking for a comforting read. It’s for readers who want to wade into murky waters, who can handle being close to a character that repels as much as he fascinates. If you like crime stories with grit, moral ambiguity, and a voice that sticks in your head, then this one is worth your time.
Pages: 214 | ASIN : B0FRD5R9L7
LITERARY TITAN 