Blog Archives
Witness to Tribulation
Liz Finnegan’s Witness to Tribulation is a reflective historical novel about inheritance, grief, and the strange pull of Gettysburg. The story follows Emily Tomaso, a young woman who leaves a tense home life behind after inheriting her grandmother’s family house in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. What begins as a fresh start becomes something deeper when Emily finds an old Civil War diary and starts sensing that the past in this town is still very much alive.
The book blends family drama, romance, history, and ghost story in a way that feels personal rather than flashy. Emily’s connection with Peter Sanders gives the story warmth, but the heart of the novel is really her growing relationship with the people who came before her. The Civil War material is woven into the plot through Gettysburg itself, through the diary, and through the emotional residue left behind by ordinary people who had to survive extraordinary suffering.
Finnegan’s strongest idea is that history doesn’t stay sealed away in textbooks. It moves through families, houses, memories, and even silence. That idea comes through beautifully in the repeated use of candles, bells, old rooms, and remembered voices. One line captures the spirit of the town especially well: “If you were to put a candle in every window in this town, it still wouldn’t be enough to acknowledge all of the suffering.” That sense of reverence gives the novel much of its emotional weight.
Emily’s journey also works because it’s grounded in everyday hurt. Her strained relationship with her mother, Mandy, gives the story an intimate tension that balances the larger Civil War history. As Emily uncovers the pain carried by her ancestors, she also begins to understand her own family with more tenderness.
Witness to Tribulation is a heartfelt novel about memory, forgiveness, and the ways a place can shape the people who live there. Finnegan writes Gettysburg as more than a historic site; it becomes a living space where sorrow, faith, love, and reconciliation meet. Readers who enjoy family-centered historical fiction with a spiritual atmosphere will find this book thoughtful, sincere, and easy to settle into.
Pages: 324 | ISBN : 978-1637777749
A Reckoning in Mercy
A Reckoning in Mercy by T. E. MacArthur is a classic Western ghost story set in 1888 northwestern New Mexico, where Eli Mercer, a haunted drifter with an unwanted connection to the dead, rides into the town of Bendición during a violent storm and finds himself pulled into a fight involving corrupt lawmen, racial tension, old land claims, a condemned Hispano man named Don Santiago de Álvarez, and a determined woman doctor, Eleanor. What begins as a desperate search for shelter turns into a supernatural reckoning, with ghosts, guilt, and human cruelty all pressing in from every side.
MacArthur doesn’t treat the setting like painted scenery. The desert, the river, the storm, and the town all feel alive, and often hostile. I could feel the grit, the damp heat, the pressure in the air before something bad happened. The book leans into the Western side of its genre, with horses, guns, gallows, land disputes, and frontier politics, but the ghost story elements are woven in as something more than decoration. The supernatural feels tied to memory and violence, not just jump scares. That worked for me because I felt like it gave the story weight.
Mercer could have been a familiar wandering gunman, but he’s more interesting than that. He’s scared, guilty, proud, and trying very hard not to care until he clearly does. Eleanor is another strong point. She’s brave without feeling polished into perfection, and her presence sharpens the book’s ideas about who gets power, who gets believed, and who is allowed to stand in the way of injustice. The book is candid about prejudice and social hierarchy in the Old West, sometimes bluntly so, and while that can make parts of the story uncomfortable, but I think that discomfort is part of the point.
The prose is big and stormy, matching the story’s mood. Some scenes use heightened, dramatic language, especially during the action and supernatural moments, but that intensity fits the story because this isn’t a quiet little ghost tale. It’s dusty, bloody, strange, and restless. I would recommend A Reckoning in Mercy to readers who enjoy Western fiction with a paranormal edge, especially those who like morally wounded heroes, strong historical atmosphere, and ghost stories that are really about what refuses to stay buried.
Pages: 288
Margaret Ann and the Reckoning
In Margaret Ann and the Reckoning, Cindy Cortez Prieto drops readers into a cemetery where death is not an ending so much as a strange continuation: Margaret Ann, a dead girl living among other spirits with her grandpa and her friends Hazel and Marco, investigates the suspicious death of wealthy Florence Mason while also facing the return of the Gazer, a malevolent force hunting her essence. The book braids a murder puzzle with a supernatural struggle, and that combination gives it an unusually lively pulse for a ghost story aimed at younger readers.
What I liked most was the book’s tonal oddity in the best sense. It can be eerie, then playful, then unexpectedly tender. Prieto has a real affection for her cemetery world, and that affection keeps the novel from turning merely grim. I liked the way the dead still squabble, joke, investigate, worry, and form makeshift family bonds. That emotional logic matters more than strict realism here, and it gives the story a homespun sincerity that I found winning. Hazel, in particular, adds warmth, and Margaret Ann’s mix of bravery, irritation, curiosity, and vulnerability keeps the novel from feeling embalmed in sweetness.
I also appreciated the novel’s willingness to be melodramatic. The wicked voices, the family greed, the spectral menace, the sense that a child detective can step straight from library research into metaphysical peril, none of it is shy. Sometimes the prose is a little blunt, and some scenes land with more earnestness than polish, but there is energy in that directness. The book doesn’t smirk at its own haunted premise. It commits. And because it commits, the spooky set pieces and emotional beats have a kind of old-fashioned crackle. And that makes the story vivid.
I would hand this to middle-grade and young YA readers who enjoy paranormal mystery, ghost adventure, supernatural suspense, cemetery fiction, and kid-detective stories with a strong streak of heart. Readers who like Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book may recognize a similar fascination with childhood among the dead, though Prieto’s novel is less lyrical and more openly earnest, with a warmer, more familial glow. This is a spooky-hearted mystery that prefers soul to slickness, and that is its own kind of magic.
Pages: 143 | ASIN : B0GQ6V5D7P
Influenced By The Supernatural Forces
A Mother’s Torment follows a mother going through a divorce who moves back to her parent’s home and encounters supernatural elements and family secrets. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Spoilers ahead!
In 2018 I came down with some sort of bug. Over the course of a week, I got maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep in total. During this time, my wife and I were watching a lot of The Dead Files on the Travel Channel. This blended with an HGTV show we’d watched about a New York family that had converted an 18th Century National Guard armory into a home. The characters grew from there; a mother and daughter who were both being influenced by the supernatural forces present on the property.
I mixed in a few things that’s stuck with me since childhood. The first was the disappointment watching the original Scooby Doo series. I always wanted the monster to turn out to be an actual monster and not some old guy in a cheesy rubber mask. While I give the reader a scientific explanation at the end with the Munchausen by Proxy diagnosis, the narrative truth is that this character has always been trapped by the darkness that lives in the house.
And like Scooby Doo, the choice of Munchausen by Proxy was because of a childhood memory. I remember my parents watching a 60 Minutes or 20/20 story Marybeth Tinning in the eighties. I was 10 when she was charged with murder and 12 when she was convicted. The horrific allegations left a mark on my memory.
Your characters express a wide range of emotions and deep thought processes. Were you able to relate to your characters while writing them?
I was able to relate to them, especially June. I poured a lot of my own experience into the prologue where she attempts suicide. The method she chose and manner in how her attempt was interrupted may be different, but the temporary surrender to despair that she experiences is one that I’ve felt myself. Along with her propensity to self-mutilate.
In high school there was the “eraser test” of one’s manhood. You’d let a friend rub a pencil eraser on your arm and if you told him to stop before you were bleeding you lost. I don’t remember ever saying stop and came home with bleeding wounds from it. Fast forward to the mid-2000s when I was recovering from a serious bout of depression a new version was going around but substitute cigarettes for erasers. I had this need for an external expression of my inner pain, so the game evolved from others doing it to doing it myself. Thankfully, someone intervened and helped me put a stop to it.
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?
When I started the story I knew both the prologue and epilogue; what I didn’t have was a middle. I jotted some ideas down in a chapter outline that was about 18 to 20 chapters. This gave me a map of possible causes and effects that would link the beginning with the end. Then as I began to write the first draft the magic of writing happened.
The characters developed into their own persons. I found myself stopping to think: “how would June act in this situation?” and “what would Lillian say when she wasn’t getting her way?” By the end of the first draft, my 18 to 20 chapters had expanded to just over 40 as the answers to the questions about how my characters would behave led me down some rabbit holes that expanded and enriched the story.
After the first draft was complete, I used my GI Bill to enroll in Emerson College’s online Popular Fiction Writing and Publishing MFA. There I would go through several drafts and end up writing an entirely new second act that introduced the character of Sara-Lyn. Which introduced a whole new set of twists and turns along with even more complexity and depth. The workshop and editing experience of this novel impressed upon me how much of a collaborative effort good storytelling and writing is.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
It’s a novel titled Pea Ridge and it’s based on a trilogy of stories I wrote with the same title for the creepypasta podcast Fear From the Heartland. My pitch for the novel:
What if, after being stranded on an alien world, a mother’s son is killed by a creature that should’ve been her prey?
Familiar gray aliens are relocating semi-sentient creatures from a dying world. These creatures hunt based on telepathic connections—think A Quiet Place but with emotions. On their way to an interstellar wildlife preserve, their ship crashes in rural Missouri. There they are unleashed on the human population who transmit strange new emotions such as anxiety, depression, and guilt. They can no longer distinguish between physical illness and emotional distress. So, if you’re feeling sad or stressed, you’re on the menu.
I don’t have a firm release date in mind at the moment. I’m going to query two agents I met at the 2023 Between the Pages Writers Conference in an effort to get this novel traditionally published. This could push publication to 2025 or 2026. However, if I don’t get representation I’ll publish it in late 2024 or early 2025.
During this time I’ll also be focusing on writing for Fear From the Heartland and maybe starting a YouTube channel.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Lillian appears to have it all. A successful career as an ER doctor. A committed, loving husband. A beautiful, if troubled, daughter and a precocious grandchild. All reunited under one roof, a Nineteenth Century National Guard Barracks refurbished and turned into a dream home.
As the family settles into routines both old and new, June realizes she needs help dealing with the supernatural. After all, it’s easier than getting her mother to open up about her biological father. Recruiting the aid of the local eccentric, she begins her investigation. The hidden truths she reveals about the family may tear it apart more than any specter…
Create Their Own Ghost Story
Gothic Revival takes some inspiration from the creation of Frankenstein. Where did the idea for your original take on this novel come from, and how did it develop over time?
I’ve always been a fan of the classic, gothic stories like Frankenstein, Dracula, Jekyll & Hyde, House of Usher and such. Sometime last year I came across a reference to Mary Shelley and the Villa Diodati and started poking around, refreshing my memory of that fascinating story.
In researching the novel, I dove into more of the genre and time period, including re-reading Frankenstein (of course!) and the collection of German stories translated to French then English, titled Fantasmagoria. This was the book Byron read to his guests that summer, inspiring them to create their own ghost stories.
My last novel is a modern-day retelling of Hamlet, so I found myself starting there. What would a retelling of this real-life event be like? Of course, Gothic Revival is not a retelling. The host character, Eric, inspires his old friends to write ghost stories, which proved to be a good set-up for my readers. I knew I could write about adults who got MFAs in Creative Writing long ago, because I’m one of them.
Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?
I fictionalized certain dynamics from my marriage, and I borrowed from experience when crafting the different ways the characters tackle (and procrastinate from tackling) the task of writing a short story. Also, at times Chris is a kind of a skewed exaggeration of what I know about being an independently published author.
What scene in the book did you have the most fun writing?
The one I can talk about without spoilers is the first night at the villa in which Eric reveals his obsession to his friends/guests. His plan for the weekend comes out in a creative way. (One of the other characters actually figures it out beforehand.) His pitch and everyone’s reaction to it were definitely fun to write.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m writing my next novel which is titled Owned. It’s another psychological thriller in which a poor, impulsive decision made by a group of friends attracts the attention of a serial killer the media is obsessed with. The story is based on a screenplay I wrote years ago, so the project has become a reverse adaptation of sorts. Some interesting challenges have already come up. If I could have it out by summer 2024, that would be great. But there’s really no way of telling.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Chris, Anne, Fiona, and Lauren were inseparable friends while earning MFAs in Creative Writing. Years later they’ve grown apart and are surprised to receive an invitation to a reunion from the fifth member of their group, Eric, a successful screenwriter. Eric flies them to a remote lake villa where he reveals his new obsession: their group is a modern version of the famous one from Villa Diodati in 1816, the iconic literary event during which Frankenstein was created. Chris and Anne are their Percy and Mary Shelley. The free-spirited artist Fiona is like Claire Clairmont. Instead of Dr. Polidori, they have Lauren, PhD in Victorian History. That leaves Eric, the Hollywood player, as Lord Byron. Like Byron, Eric proposes they write ghost stories, an homage to their famous predecessors. Laughter, creativity, and reminiscence are soon replaced with deceit, suspicion, and fear. What is the self-proclaimed clairvoyant Fiona seeing and hearing? Why does Eric lie? What does the creepy old housekeeper know about their host? Tensions grow as relationships are tested until a shocking discovery reveals the true intention for the reunion.
Fans of Gillian Flynn, Alex Michaelides, Lisa Jewel, and Alice Feeney will love the suspense and intrigue of Gothic Revival.
Broken Hearts & Other Horrors
In Broken Hearts & Other Horrors, readers embark on an extraordinary journey that delves into the devastating aftermath of heartbreak. Through a skillful interplay of diverse timelines and universes, this book offers a profound exploration of the universal experience of having one’s heart shattered, while venturing into chilling realms where the consequences of love’s demise take an unsettling turn.
Within the pages of this captivating work, Xavier Poe Kane artfully transports us to 17th-century Hungary, where hardened mercenaries grapple with the anguish of lost love amidst a backdrop of violence and chaos. Simultaneously, in present-day Missouri, a transplant embarks on a treacherous path towards healing, only to discover that heartbreak can manifest in unimaginable and gruesome ways.
Kane’s writing style is utterly captivating, further enriched by the inclusion of eerie drawings throughout the various sections and chapters. This unconventional approach to storytelling seamlessly weaves together multiple narratives that explore personal horrors spanning years, even decades. Such a refreshing approach effectively captivated my interest, keeping me enthralled until the very last page. The array of diverse stories serves as a testament to the author’s ingenuity, continually captivating the reader’s attention and leaving them yearning for more. Kane’s vivid details expertly painted vivid pictures in my mind, reminiscent of watching a compelling and spine-chilling movie. Although the stories are concise and conclude abruptly, they are meticulously crafted, offering a terrifying glimpse into the depths of heartbreak and horror. The author’s decision to incorporate several short stories into a single volume, each brimming with heartbreak and terror, showcases an unparalleled stroke of creativity. The unpredictable nature of the stories, always taking unexpected turns, adds an element of excitement and anticipation to this thrilling read.
By spanning different eras and centuries, Broken Hearts & Other Horrors masterfully keeps the reader engrossed, eagerly yearning to uncover more spine-chilling tales. The author’s unique writing style, combined with the chilling images throughout the book, breathes life into each story, further enhancing their impact. Undoubtedly, this book is a true masterpiece that merits revisiting, and I eagerly await future works from this talented author.
Pages: 280 | ISBN : 1087963362
