Blog Archives
The Influencer’s Canvas
Julia Zolotova’s The Influencer’s Canvas follows the story of Miss X, a nail artist in London who moonlights as a secret observer of the influencer elite. Through her eyes, we’re pulled behind the glittering façade of social media perfection into a shadowy, often absurd retreat called Elysian Fields. The book begins with her being invited to this exclusive Maldives getaway, not as a guest but as staff, which provides the perfect cover for her ongoing project of documenting influencers’ hidden lives. As she paints nails, she extracts confessions, each one staining her metaphorical canvas. The novel is part satire, part social critique, and part psychological thriller. It starts like a sly comedy of manners and gradually spirals into something darker, with undertones of surveillance, manipulation, and existential dread lurking beneath the pastel filters and hashtags.
I found myself laughing at the sharp wit in Zolotova’s writing, especially when she skewers the hollowness of influencer culture. The exaggerations feel absurd yet somehow believable, and the sarcasm keeps the prose lively. At the same time, there’s a humanity beneath it all that surprised me. The influencers are ridiculous, but they’re also broken and vulnerable. Watching them unravel during the so-called digital detox was oddly moving. I caught myself sympathizing with characters I initially rolled my eyes at, which I didn’t expect.
There were moments when the cynicism felt relentless. Sometimes the satire veered so sharply it almost cut through the story itself, leaving me more amused than invested. But then a line of vulnerability or fear would slip in, and I’d be pulled right back. The pacing was also unusual, swinging from slow, detailed observations to sudden bursts of drama. At first, I thought it was uneven, but eventually I realized it mirrored the chaotic rhythm of online life, the lulls, the surges, the constant undercurrent of performance.
The Influencer’s Canvas is clever, biting, and unexpectedly tender. It’s a book for anyone curious about the machinery behind the glossy feeds and hashtags. I’d recommend it especially to readers who enjoy satire with teeth, people fascinated by social media’s impact, and anyone who likes their fiction served with equal parts glamour and grit.
Pages: 104 | ASIN : B0DFX3Q3VC
Only Ann Knows
Months after losing her only son in the Virginia Tech shooting, Ann Miller remains consumed by grief. The tragedy is made all the more jarring by her profession; she works for a gun rights organization. When she receives an AK-47 to deliver to her boss, the weapon inexplicably discharges, killing 13 people in a single, horrifying moment. Ann insists it was an accident. But was it? Or did the sorrow of losing her son drive her to a calculated act of violence?
In Only Ann Knows, Baird Smart crafts a riveting crime and mystery novel that unfolds with measured intensity. The courtroom drama echoes the legal tension of John Grisham’s best work, yet Smart’s voice remains distinct. The narrative hinges on a single, devastating question: Did Ann pull the trigger on purpose?
What elevates this novel is its commitment to character. Ann is an enigma, vulnerable, composed, inscrutable. Smart reveals just enough of her inner life to make her real, while withholding enough to keep her mysterious. She is, in every way, the novel’s anchor.
Smart manipulates reader expectation with impressive precision. Just when you think you understand Ann’s motives, new details shift your perspective. This is not a story that offers easy answers.
Equally compelling are the two FBI agents assigned to the case, distinct in temperament and method, yet both indispensable to the investigation. Their dynamic adds further layers to a narrative already thick with ambiguity and moral complexity.
Timely in theme and meticulous in execution, Only Ann Knows is a masterclass in suspense. Few novels manage to maintain this level of tension without veering into melodrama. Fewer still offer a conclusion that feels both shocking and entirely earned. Smart delivers both.
Only Ann Knows is a gripping, immersive thriller that doesn’t let go. A standout in the genre, thought-provoking, emotionally charged, and impossible to predict.
Pages: 371 | ASIN : B0D8R9LRB2
Timeless
Anne Hart’s Timeless is a sweeping time-travel spy novel that blends espionage, politics, and personal struggle with a sharp eye for historical detail. At its heart is Anne, a seasoned field agent who slips between eras to manipulate history in ways that serve shadowy powers. The story unfolds across Geneva, Eastern Europe, and shifting political landscapes on the brink of war. Hart threads in rich settings, complex moral dilemmas, and characters caught between loyalty, survival, and personal desire. It is both a taut spy thriller and a meditation on the costs of living outside the normal flow of time.
Hart’s prose is crisp, direct, and atmospheric. I admired the way she captures small gestures and passing moments, the flick of a lighter, the hush of a closing vault door, a careless smile at the wrong time. These details made the story vivid. At times, the dialogue felt a little formal, as if it was doing double duty to explain the world as well as move the story forward. Still, the pacing carried me along. I wanted to know not just what would happen to Anne and Markus, but how Hart would weave together the politics of nations with the intimacy of two people’s lives.
What struck me most was the emotional undercurrent. Anne is a fascinating lead: hard-edged, sharp-tongued, cynical, yet deeply human in her weariness and longing for peace. Her smoking habit, her resistance to being told what to do, her flashes of humor, all of it made her feel alive. There were moments when I felt a kind of ache for her, as if she carried the weight of too many lives, too many timelines, too many compromises. The novel’s treatment of history, like how fragile and malleable it can be, left me unsettled, in the best way. It made me think about power, morality, and the human cost of decisions made in shadows.
Timeless is a book I would recommend to readers who enjoy spy fiction, political thrillers, or alternate history with a touch of melancholy. It will speak most to those who like their stories gritty yet reflective, where action and atmosphere go hand in hand.
Pages: 257 | ASIN : B0FQ1KJB66
Kamp Kromwell: A Novel
The novel follows Joey Carpenter, a teenage boy caught between the ordinary trials of growing up and the monstrous legacy of Kamp Kromwell, a summer camp haunted by tragedy, folklore, and something darker that won’t stay buried. It weaves Joey’s personal journey of survival, identity, and trauma with the eerie history of Jasper Mill and the cursed land it sits on. The story blends horror, coming-of-age, and queer self-discovery into a narrative that feels both chilling and raw, moving from gothic lore about the crooked oak tree to Joey’s painful memories of abuse and his attempts to reclaim his life.
Reading this book stirred up a whole mess of feelings in me. The writing is sharp and biting, like it wants to cut the reader open just to show what bleeds underneath. Other times it lingers in the shadows, letting dread seep in slowly. I was unsettled more than once, not just by the supernatural elements but by the human ones. The portrayal of Sam Barnes made my skin crawl, and the way the author shows Joey’s shame and survival felt almost too close for comfort. But that’s what hooked me. It’s horror that doesn’t rely only on monsters in the woods, but on the monsters we know too well.
The story moves from ghost stories to camp drama to deeply personal confessions, and yet that unevenness feels true to life. Memories don’t line up neatly, trauma doesn’t follow a straight path, and the narrative mirrors that jagged rhythm. Grea’s style veers between gritty and tender, and I loved the shifts. There were moments of humor that broke through the darkness, and they mattered because they reminded me that life is never just one thing. I also admired how unapologetic the book is about queerness. It doesn’t smooth over the rough parts or wrap them up in platitudes. It leaves the edges sharp, and that honesty made the story feel alive.
Kamp Kromwell reminded me of a strange marriage between Stephen King’s It and Boy Erased by Garrard Conley. Like King’s work, it builds its terror through folklore, small-town legends, and the slow creep of something monstrous hiding in the shadows, yet it also grounds itself in the personal anguish of a boy dealing with abuse and identity. Where Conley’s memoir is brutally honest about the shame and secrecy of growing up gay in a hostile environment, Grea filters that same raw vulnerability through a horror lens, giving the trauma both a literal and supernatural shape.
Pages: 294 | ASIN : B0FHC149LJ
Furniture Sliders – A Max Calder Mystery
Furniture Sliders is a post-war spy-fi romp that kicks off The Bureau Archives Trilogy with a smoky, rain-slicked bang. Set in 1947, it follows Max Calder, a former intelligence officer with holes in his memory, who is pulled back into the shadows by a mysterious woman named Artemis. A cryptic file, a vanished scientist, and a strange device known only as “the Mirror” set the stage for a chase that spans seedy New York bars, crowded transatlantic ships, and the broken glamour of Vienna. The novel threads together espionage, noir atmosphere, and science-fiction intrigue, with time manipulation simmering under its cloak-and-dagger surface.
I loved how this book felt. The writing drips with mood. Fog curling down city streets, cigarette smoke blurring the edges of a room, the distant hum of jazz over clinking glasses. The pacing dances between languid observation and sudden bursts of violence. Bentley’s style pulls you into Max’s fractured mind. We’re not just following a spy, we’re feeling the tug of his half-buried memories and the unease of not knowing which shadows to trust. Sometimes the dialogue leans into pulp, almost like a wink to the genre’s roots, and it works. It kept me grinning even when the stakes turned deadly.
The ideas themselves are a bold mix. The “Mirror” concept, which is a device that remembers rather than reflects, opens the door for paranoia, philosophical tangents, and deliciously weird possibilities. Bentley resists over-explaining it, letting the mystery breathe. The interplay between Artemis and Max is sharp, edged with mutual suspicion and unspoken history. There’s a lot of world-building baked into their exchanges, which I appreciated, though now and then I wanted the plot to lunge forward faster. Still, I was hooked. Even the side characters, like the poison-bead-wielding Bishop, feel like they’ve stepped out of their own fully formed novellas.
Furniture Sliders is a strong start to what promises to be a stylish, time-twisting spy trilogy. It’s a book for readers who love their thrillers with a noir heartbeat, for fans of John le Carré who won’t mind a dash of science fiction, and for anyone who likes peeling back the layers of a protagonist who isn’t even sure of himself. It’s atmospheric, it’s clever, and it leaves you wanting the next mission right away.
Pages: 314 | ASIN : B0FF6RD921
Lover’s Lies & Family Secrets
Lips: Kiss the Lips that Lie follows an English au pair with hidden secrets who meets a reserved CPA, and they have an instant connection that quickly turns into a tangled web of deception. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Lover’s lies and Family Secrets. I started to think about all the harmless (and not so harmless) lies lovers tell each other, and the private mythologies which armor families down through the decades. Also about the ways people know others in their lives. In real life most people don’t have plausible backstories.
Technically, LIPS grew out a desire to capture in prose style a feeling of hush or quietude. A breath caught and held. Waiting and anticipation. The Prologue introduces the nighttime silence of the big lake, then Selene’s first visit to the cottage and the exploration of various objects which reveal a kind of cloistered family history. At it heart of the novel is a love story of the resolution of opposites—Selene’s exhibitionism paired with DB’s voyeuristic tendencies.
What character did you enjoy writing for? Was there one that was more challenging to write for?
With LIPS, there was so much writing and rewriting, and adding and deleting of characters, that I became very attached to all of them. Glory and Gillian were great fun to write, and Miss Addy was a constant surprise. Of course, Selene is the key to the kingdom, and she was tricky.
Looking back, I think DB was the most difficult to write. I believe he is the most internalized and enigmatic. He is a man trapped by conditions most of which are not of his own making. He is privileged but bound hand and foot by the expectations of others. I think he deals with it by withdrawing. He feels Selene is the only one who truly sees him. It is hard to write someone who doesn’t say much.
I felt that there were a lot of great twists and turns throughout the novel. Did you plan this before writing the novel, or did the twists develop organically while writing?
Once a story gets rolling, it develops organically. All my planning occurs in my head. That approach requires a lot of backtracking and do-overs. Characters show up and then leave. Bits of backstory crop up in unexpected places. Many a day I ended up wishing I had patience for some serious planning.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
I’m currently working on a sequel to “SEREN” (working title AIX) which takes place in France, and also a fun project about 1970s Detroit called “The Vitruvian Murders” which has some witchery in it.
I hope AIX will be ready by next year. The Detroit book may or may not be ready by summer next.
Author Links: Goodreads | Instagram | Website
Selene Ormond, a striking English au pair, has finally met her match in Davis Beckwith—a reserved CPA and heir to his family’s prestigious firm. Their chemistry is irresistible, each sharing a taste for secrets. Yet, their romance is shadowed by Davis’s formidable mother, Miss Addy, and the messy past Selene thought she’d left behind in Britain.
As their lives intertwine, so does the web of deception holding them together. Against a backdrop of eccentric relatives, posh ex-pat friends, and vicarious liaisons, the pair must navigate betrayal, ambition, and their damaged pasts. LIPS unravels the tangled threads of family, desire, and deceit on a treacherous journey to keep love alive.
Leftwich Blues/Elfwitch Rules
Leftwich Blues/Elfwitch Rules is a sweeping fantasy tale woven into the struggles of a fractured family. It starts in myth, with vows made under the moon and curses that shake kingdoms. Then it jolts into the present, landing in the Ozarks with two twins caught in the fallout of their parents’ broken marriage. From there, the story keeps folding back and forth between a mystical Realm of hunters, owls, and ancient metals, and the harsher modern reality of courtrooms, social workers, and family strife. The twin narratives eventually bleed together, blurring what is real, what is allegory, and what is memory.
The writing bounces between old-world fantasy language and down-to-earth small-town chatter. That clash can be jarring, but it also gives the book a unique energy. One minute I was caught up in quicksilver necklaces glowing under a full moon, the next I was listening to kids argue about video games and crackheads. Sometimes I found myself laughing at the dialogue, other times I felt weighed down by how bleak it could get. The swings were sharp, but they kept me reading.
What hit me hardest wasn’t the magic or the battles. It was the raw mess of family life. The fights between Mom and Dad felt too familiar, too close to real arguments I’ve overheard in my own life. The kids’ tug-of-war over which parent to trust felt honest, painful, and sad. The fantasy parts worked like a mirror, twisting those personal struggles into epic stakes. When the twins lost their footing in the “real” world, it was like the Realm itself was cracking apart. That connection between worlds gave the story its punch.
The sudden shifts might throw some readers. But for people who like fantasy mixed with real grit, who don’t mind faith and scripture tucked into the corners, and who can handle a story that cuts close to the bone about family, it’s worth the ride. I’d recommend it to readers who like their myths messy, their heroes flawed, and their stories willing to sit in both wonder and heartbreak.
Pages: 435 | ASIN : B09CD1D958
Breaking Barriers
Breaking Barriers follows Declan and Alex, two people carrying the weight of their pasts and trying to figure out what kind of future they deserve. Declan has sacrificed his dreams for family, building walls around himself while trying to find meaning in his work and his life. Alex is fiery, bold, and fiercely independent, but underneath that strength is a woman scarred by her own struggles and wary of letting anyone close. When their lives collide in what begins as a one-night encounter, they’re both unprepared for the connection that sparks. What starts as chemistry soon turns into something deeper, tangled with family ties, secrets, and the need to finally stop running from themselves and each other.
This book left me feeling a lot of things at once. I’ll be honest, at times I wanted to shake both Declan and Alex for being so stubborn, but I also couldn’t look away. The writing pulls you into their heads, showing not only the heat between them but also the doubts and scars they’ve carried for too long. Author Nikki Lamers has a knack for making the banter sharp and funny, then hitting you with a moment of raw vulnerability that catches you off guard. Some of the dialogue feels a little over the top, but in a way, it matches the heightened emotions of two people who’ve lived with walls up for years. I liked how messy and imperfect they were, because it made them feel real.
I liked the push and pull between independence and needing someone. Alex especially jumped off the page for me. Her mix of sass and fragility, the way she covered hurt with boldness, hit close to home. Declan, too, felt achingly human in the way he struggled between being the family protector and admitting he wanted more for himself. The book isn’t shy about showing both their flaws, and that’s what made their eventual growth satisfying. It’s not just a romance. It’s about forgiveness, breaking cycles, and finding the courage to build a life you actually want instead of one you think you’re stuck with.
Breaking Barriers is perfect for readers who want more than just a love story, who want to see characters wrestle with family, identity, and their own fears. If you like strong heroines, protective but flawed heroes, and romance novels that balance heat with heart, this one is worth picking up.
Pages: 352 | ASIN : B0F9Z4FQDS
LITERARY TITAN 