Blog Archives
Everyone Deserves Love
The Secret Daughter follows a woman who discovers a letter from her late mother revealing family secrets involving Beethoven and giving her life a new purpose. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
After studying Beethoven’s life and music, I was fascinated by his personality and the trajectory of his life, especially the notion that he had a secret love whom he called The Immortal Beloved, choosing to never reveal her real name. I also felt a little sad for the great composer. His life was fraught with disappointment and rejection. The central theme of the book is that everyone deserves love, even those who are labeled as “others” because of some societal bias. I wanted to give Beethoven the love story he deserved. By creating a fictional lineage of descendants cumulating with Marie, his story unfolded.
Marie is a fascinating character who undergoes a great deal of growth and self-discovery in this story. What scene was the most interesting to write for that character?
I feel very connected to the story of Marie’s childhood. As she reflects on her life in the limo ride back to the winery, watching the lights of the city whir by, the couples kissing in cafes, this is where Marie begins to acknowledge her life is lonely, and that she is not happy. For me, this is a quiet moment of change for Marie. She longs to bring joy and love into her life and now, far away from Boston and the inexplicable loneliness of her childhood, she allows herself the freedom to shed the past and courageously begin a new chapter.
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 writing?
I started with a rough outline of where I wanted the story to go and how it would unfold. But in truth, the characters led me to some of the twists and turns along the way. There’s magic in allowing a story to unfold without editing yourself. I like to get it all down and then go back in and edit, several times, filling in the gaps, and adding structure where needed. The challenge is finding a good balance of conflict and rest. I didn’t set out to write a suspense novel, but as I wrote the story, it organically evolved the way it was meant to do. There would have been no story without exploring Marie’s struggles to accept her extraordinary lineage and to find purpose and love in her life.
What is the next book that you are working on and when can your fans expect it to be out?
My next book, The Enchantment of Elisha Gray, is something entirely different but still in the historical fantasy genre. It is an alternate take on the history of the invention of the telephone. I discovered a lot of controversy surrounding the true ownership of the design of the first telephone, and who got to the patent office first on Valentine’s Day in 1876. The gaps in the truth of what may have happened inspired me to write the story. With the addition of a bit of witchcraft and magic, it became a gothic take on the curious events surrounding the actual history. I have just begun to shop it to agents so there’s no telling when it will be out. Keep your fingers crossed it happens soon!
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Selfless Sacrifice
A Place More Dark follows a Lance Corporal in WWII who is forced to join the march across Central Europe, where he risks his life to save someone from the SS. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
With a grandfather who was a POW in World War Two, I have a natural interest in the subject. When researching the topic, two things struck me: firstly, how ill-prepared the British army was at the start of the war and how, in the debacle leading to the famous evacuation at Dunkirk, many of the less well-trained troops were sacrificed to allow others to escape; and secondly, those same men, held in captivity for the war’s duration, were often considered to have ‘sat out’ the conflict, avoiding the dirty but heroic business of fighting and earning victory. This double body-blow to their reputation is inherently unfair and so I was inspired to present them in a more heroic light and do justice to their memory. Beyond the escape story, POWs have had limit representation in fiction. With my Jock Mitchell series, I want to show other aspects but also demonstrate they were still in the war, fighting battles of a different kind and winning by surviving.
I enjoyed the depth of the main character, Jock Mitchell. What was your process to bring that character to life?
Jock is an everyman, leading an unassuming life before the war, but he now finds himself in a dramatic, complex world of conflict where simple survival shapes his every action. He clings to the nostalgic, balanced world he recalls in better times with his family, drawing strength from those memories to do the right and heroic thing when chaos and cruelty threatens. But equally, he finds anger, pain, or self-preservation driving him in other situations. He has little control, dragged and thrown by the currents and crashing waves in this tempest. Emotions, risks, and friendships are intensified by the war: stoic determination mixing with fragility and despair, laughter blending with tears. It is trauma played out in a world with no time or opportunity to succumb to it.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
A Place More Dark is literally about a journey across Europe from one hell into another, but at its heart is the journey into the human spirit. From cruelty to selfless sacrifice, the spectrum of basic human behaviours is explored using the stage of a war. I was keen not to present conflict one-dimensionally: of just good against bad. Each character is stripped raw and shown to be flawed, being extraordinary as monsters or saints, sometimes both, because order has collapsed, and survival is the name of the game. In this primitive landscape, it is light that leads them out of the darkness: the camaraderie, acts of kindness, sacrifice, and humanity.
Where does the story go in the next book and where do you see it going in the future?
Book one in the series, Triumphant Where it Dares Defy, left a few threads dangling that need tying up and so I intend to bring Jock back in a post-war world, exploring the impact of five years of captivity on a man in peace-time. Did the war ever truly end for them? There was also a new world order taking shape and so that will provide a perfect stage for a new adventure. At some point I will return to the start of the war, a prelude to Jock’s captivity, and find out his story in those confused and terrifying weeks as the British and French armies collapsed, and the free world hung in the balance.
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Already half-starved, disease-stricken and brutalised, the last thing the prisoners of Stalag XXa need is an order to pack their meagre belongings and begin marching through the harsh winter of early 1945. Under the watchful eye of their guards and the SS, they walk into the unknown, facing the bitter cold across hundreds of miles of Central Europe, while the dangerous frontline between the Wehrmacht and Red Army followings close on their heels.
Lance Corporal Jock Mitchell, a POW of five long years, leaves Stalag XXa with a hole in his boot and a sledge converted from his old bunk. It doesn’t take long for Jock to realise fighting nature, as well as the Nazis, will be his greatest challenge ever. With blizzards and an empty stomach, just placing one foot in front of the other is hard enough, but when Jock steps in to save someone from the barbarity of the SS, his march westward takes on a greater importance and far more danger. From the hell of the prison camp, Jock finds himself in a place more dark.
Book Two in the Jock Mitchell Adventures continues the thrilling story of survival and danger for those whose war continued in captivity but who never stopped fighting.
The Miracle of Hanukkah
The Night Sky Lined with Silver follows four friends in the 1940s Catskills who must brave a snowstorm and rally their community to find a beloved hero, all while celebrating the traditions of Hanukkah. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration for the setup of my story is the miracle of Hanukkah, with eight days of light and only one day of oil, relating to the miracle of finding Uncle Morrie after he disappears in the terrible snowstorm. Following the struggle of searching for Uncle Morrie and his golden retriever, Honey, the four friends help prepare for Hanukkah. Making delicious latkes from my great-grandmother’s recipe is another ingredient of my inspiration when families and friends come together to celebrate the holiday. Frying the latkes (potato pancakes) in oil, we remember the Maccabees’ story and their lack of oil, and we connect to the traditions of past generations of our family.
To understand my influence on the setup of my story, I feel I should share the fascinating background of the Apple Tree Series. My son’s Bar Mitzvah teacher requested that I write a quality book for the Jewish High Holidays. I told her I was not the person to write this book. However, after an image of a twelve-year-old boy taking apples from an orchard came to me at one o’clock in the morning, I started writing a story for the holidays entitled Out of the Apple Orchard, based on the image I saw in my mind’s eye, set in the early 1900s. After my son’s request to create a series, the boy becomes Doc Bieman in Book 2, The Night Sky Lined with Silver. The Hanukkah story of the Maccabees deals with prejudice against Jews, and I included Bieman family members leaving Germany after Kristallnacht in 1938 and coming to America. I met a beautiful lady whose family had twenty-four hours to leave Frankfurt with only the clothes on their backs and one small suitcase. Her story moved me so much that I added elements of her real-life experiences to my historical fiction book.
How did you balance the suspense and intensity of Uncle Morrie’s disappearance with the warmth and festive spirit of Hanukkah for a children’s audience?
Snowball fight! The children also build a snowman that looks like Uncle Morrie with his signature hat and a long carrot nose with the tip turning up. They play catch in the snow with a baseball glove and ball and make latkes. A white cloud sprays back into Abbie’s face when she adds flour to the potato mixture. “The snowstorm is back,” cried Martin, charging with a wooden spoon. “Stay away! . . .The children laughed together.”
Are there any themes or lessons from the book that you hope resonate most with young readers?
Looking for the light in the darkness also echoes the theme of Hanukkah, and searching for the good that comes out of a bad situation can help young readers get through hard times. It is not easy, but looking for blessings in disguise proves a critical tool when dealing with life’s challenges. Read the book to find the blessing in disguise and look for a similar incident in your own life. Soaking up the Hanukkah festivities, where families and friends come together, is even sweeter after the struggles. A further lesson found in this book is to show how Eliot acts with courage in spite of his fear. He overcomes his dread of taking chances when the winter storm hits, as he must find the lost Uncle Morrie. Eliot enlists the help of the Bieman Buddies, whose motto is never to leave anyone behind. His younger sister, Abby, becomes the heroine. She is spunky and brave, adorable and caring. “I have a feeling that Honey will bring me back to him. She is a retriever, after all.” . . . Abbie looked up at her brother with knowing eyes, “I’m a good finder.”
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I have completed Book 3, but it needs a major rewrite. Writing historical fiction requires much research, especially when deciding which historical references to include. I shall work on the next draft of Book 3, set in Mountaindale, New York, in the Catskills, which takes place in the springtime in the early 1950s. Abby and Eliot will feature in this book, as will Doc Bieman. It will be available in a year.
Author Links: Facebook | Website | Apple Tree Series
Contending With the Aftermath
To Bloom Like a Tulip follows a family separated by two continents during WWII and their efforts to survive as a Jewish family. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I have known quite a few people who survived World War II in Europe. One of the toughest aspects of the war was that people didn’t always know where their relatives were, or what was happening to them if they were separated in different countries by the war. Communications between warring Allied and Axis nations were completely stopped. So in this story, the mother had taken her two youngest children to America to settle her late father’s estate. Her three oldest children and their father stay behind in the Netherlands so the kids can go to school and the father can run his business. They think their country is going to remain neutral as it did in World War I, so they’re not initially worried, although the Nazis are already gearing up to be on the march. Settling the estate takes longer than the mother thought it would, the war comes to Holland when the Nazis invade, and then, they can’t be reunited for years. Right there, that’s a cause for a lot of concern and worry on both sides. So that was the initial setup. Add to that, this is a Jewish family, so the ones under Nazi occupation are in peril. Imagine being in America and having to wonder what’s happening to them! Horrific. Yet it’s exactly what went on with a whole lot of families during that war.
What were some ideas that were important for you to personify in your characters?
The time period of this story is completely crazy so that in itself adds a lot of intriguing drama into the mix. Nazis turned normal life on its head in every one of the countries they took over, and, worse, state-sanctioned murder was legal. The Jewish characters are a nice family that’s just trying to survive and they find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. There are some very good people in this story, like the ones who hide the three children in a movie theater when matters become worse, and there are also some absolutely atrocious folks, hideous ones. A lot of prejudice came to the surface after the Nazis arrived on the scene, and the worst of the civilian characters suddenly think they have a green light to persecute others, in their own small ways. Others are just nosy and are watching their neighbors to see what they’re up to, but that’s terrifying to those they’ve got under scrutiny. So there was a lot to work with there.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I’ve heard that for many, many people who survived the war, the worst part of it wasn’t the war itself, incredibly, but contending with the aftermath. In this case, some of the characters are betrayed. They don’t know by who, and they don’t know why. Imagine making it through, yet having to live with a question like that! It would be like the “whodunit” from Hell, and it happened, for real, to scores of survivors. So that’s the big question they’re all trying to answer in this story, once the hostilities are over and they’re trying to go forward. Who did it?
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m in the middle of writing another mystery, and this one is set in the neighborhood where my dad grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The characters in this one are Catholics. Two little boys find a baby abandoned on the steps of their church. It’s also set during World War II, but on the American homefront. I’m enjoying writing it to the hilt because my father grew up in a very colorful area with a lot of interesting personalities and I was told so many wonderful stories about it. The book should be available sometime this winter. Stay tuned!
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The Van Der Graafs, Bram and Charlotta, took the risk of hiding Rika, Henk and Kees Spranger, concealing them in their movie theater. All went well – until they were betrayed. Who could have done it?
TO BLOOM LIKE A TULIP is the unforgettable story of good people in a bad time, their efforts to survive the war, and their ultimate determination to find out the identity of the informer.
To End the Night: Julius Caesar’s Secret War
Julius Caesar, a man of ambition and unparalleled intellect, stands at a pivotal moment in his quest to shape Rome’s future. Driven by a profound love for the Republic, he aims to secure its prosperity while navigating treacherous political landscapes. Yet, beyond the schemes of mortal adversaries, a darker force emerges: Vampyres—supernatural beings of insatiable hunger and ruthless intent. Confronted with threats both human and otherworldly, Caesar must wield his military genius and strategic brilliance to safeguard not only Rome’s destiny but also his enduring legacy. Success could immortalize his name, while failure would condemn him and the Republic to oblivion.
In To End the Night: Julius Caesar’s Secret War, LLuew Grey masterfully blends historical fiction with gothic horror, delivering a unique narrative reminiscent of Anne Rice’s evocative prose and Seth Grahame-Smith’s inventive Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The novel offers a rich tapestry of historical detail interwoven with macabre elements, creating a gripping tale that feels both familiar and refreshingly original. Grey’s deep understanding of Roman history shines through, with authentic references to pivotal events and figures from Caesar’s life. At its core, the story hinges on Caesar himself—a figure as formidable in battle as he is in political maneuvering. Beset by visible political intrigues and shadowy supernatural foes, he becomes the axis on which this darkly imaginative tale turns. Watching him navigate these dual threats provides both tension and satisfaction, as his resourcefulness and resilience are tested to their limits.
The novel’s pacing is bolstered by thrilling set pieces that keep the action brisk and compelling. Meanwhile, the dialogue is sharp and purposeful, breathing life into the characters and grounding the fantastical elements within a credible framework. Though the book may not aspire to the sweeping grandeur of epic historical fantasies, it doesn’t need to. Grey understands the specific tone his narrative demands and approaches it with precision and confidence, ensuring an entertaining and cohesive reading experience.
To End the Night succeeds as a captivating blend of history and horror. With its intriguing premise, compelling protagonist, and intelligent execution, the novel carves out a unique space in the realm of historical fiction. It’s a brisk, enjoyable read that delivers on its promise to entertain and surprise.
Pages: 95 | ISBN : 978-1998315123
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
Sweet Sorrow- Book 3 in The Jungle War series by Kregg P.J. Jorgenson
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Silver Book Award December 2024
Celebrating the brilliance of outstanding authors who have captivated us with their skillful prose, engaging narratives, and compelling real and imagined characters. We recognize books that stand out for their innovative storytelling and insightful exploration of truth and fiction. Join us in honoring the dedication and skill of these remarkable authors as we celebrate the diverse and rich worlds they’ve brought to life, whether through the realm of imagination or the lens of reality.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
The Power to Heal
The Aftertime follows a Monacan boy and an English boy who develop a complicated friendship in 18th-century Virginia at a time when cross-cultural friendships were looked down upon. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Many years ago, my youngest son asked me, “What if you had a weapon that had the power to heal if it was never used in anger?” The question blew me away, especially since it was coming from an eight-year-old. It started me thinking about we all have this “weapon” inside of us, such as our words or actions. Which hand do we hold this weapon in, the hand of retribution or the hand of healing?
When I started outlining the story, I liked the idea of these two boys, who could not be more different becoming friends. It was because of this friendship, that the knife in the story becomes empowered with the ability to heal. Hate is handed down from generation to generation in many cases. With this knife, it was a physical reminder that anger, and hate are sometimes the easy option. Restraint is harder but if we take a moment to try to understand another person it can sometimes lead to healing.
The historical aspect really came from my father. He was a history buff, so growing up I spent a lot of time going to battlegrounds and historical sites. I also studied American Civilization in college, so that helped.
What was the inspiration for the relationship that developed between the characters?
This really came from watching the relationship my children had with each other. Each of them, has such vastly different personalities and interest so observing my eclectic family was all the inspiration I needed for character development.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I like that friendship can just develop organically. It doesn’t need to be forced on children. Whatever issues the parents or adults in their lives may have with each other, children often will overlook that. Adults sometimes will stop on the surface of a person because of past experiences. Whereas children can feel or sense what another person is like on the inside. I believe that is because children haven’t developed preconceived notions about groups of people yet.
I also, like the struggle of Zack in the book. He is the baby of the family and is in that in-between stage of liking being the baby of the family but not wanting to be treated like a baby. He is frozen mid-step so to speak. Zack wants the freedom that comes with growing up. Yet he does not want to take responsibility for his actions nor face the consequences of them either.
What is the next book that you are working on and when can your fans expect it to be out?
I am working on an early reader chapter book. I can’t go into too much detail, but it deals with a child’s first encounter with life changes. I am so excited about it! We just signed on a wonderful artist to work on the project, and I cannot wait for its release. I am hoping around summer of 2025.
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LITERARY TITAN 