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One Family’s Generational Trauma
Witness to Tribulation follows a young woman who learns that Gettysburg’s past is still very much alive after she discovers an old Civil War diary when she inherits her grandmother’s family home. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Gettysburg was the inspiration for this story. As a frequent visitor to the town, I’ve always been beguiled by the history. Having a young woman move there and into an inherited house seemed to be a perfect setup for sharing the history of Gettysburg whilst telling another story about one family’s generational trauma. The protagonist left behind a painful past in the hope of finding a more promising future. The place that had been the turning point in the American Civil War becomes a turning point in this young woman’s life as well.
How much historical research went into writing the Civil War portions of the novel?
I’ve read non-fiction books and essays about the battle in addition to period newspaper articles. However, visiting the sites and hearing the information from the National Park Service as well as seasoned historians in Gettysburg provided what I needed to proceed writing with historical accuracy.
How did you develop Emily as a protagonist, and what aspects of her did you find most relatable?
I wanted Emily to experience Gettysburg in a way I had so many years ago. Like me, she knew about the town because of her studies. However, she had the advantage of hearing personal stories about it from her grandmother. Unlike me, she had a difficult, painful relationship with her own mother. In her case that family dysfunction can be traced back to the battle in 1863. In a way, I can relate to how the lingering effects of experiencing war affected my own family.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I have several ideas for my next novel. One of them is another Civil War story that follows one of the characters from this novel into a new adventure. I’ve written an outline and started to do some research, but it’s not quite at the point where I can share that information.
Author Links: Amazon | GoodReads
Within the stone walls of her ancestral home, Emily discovers an old Civil War diary that pulls her into a world where history refuses to stay buried. Gettysburg’s hallowed ground, steeped in blood and sacrifice, becomes more than just her new address-it becomes a spiritual crossroads. Here, the veil between the living and the dead is thin, and Emily begins to encounter voices and visions that guide her on a journey of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.
As friendships form, mysteries unravel, and old wounds resurface, Emily learns that the scars of war and family tribulation run deep-but so does the strength to heal. In witnessing the tragedies and triumphs of those who came before, she discovers the courage to confront her own past and embrace the future.
Rich with history, suspense, and a touch of the supernatural, Witness to Tribulation is a moving tale of generational bonds, resilience, and the eternal presence of family.
Genuine Horror, Not Just Scares
The Corpse War of 1793 follows a British soldier whose regiment is sent into Norfolk to confront rumors of walking corpses, only to find military discipline, courage, and conscience collapsing under the weight of an undead catastrophe. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
As both a military historian of the late 18th century and a big fan of horror and zombie media, it seemed like a pretty natural fit for my debut into fiction writing! While there are a few examples of broadly similar settings (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” comes to mind) these tend to read more as parodies and ‘over the top’ stories of cool characters doing ‘cool’, violent things to hordes of the undead. In fact, that seems to be what most zombie media is regardless of its setting! But, that has never been what interested me with the zombie genre. When you think about the what a zombie really is, then what we so often portray as mindless, gore-filled ‘fun’ ought to be an exceedingly tragic, disturbing, and serious affair! After all, the risen corpse that is trying to bite your head off isn’t just a faceless ‘other’, it is your former neighbour, friend, or loved one. Very little media delves into the psychological and social implications of such horrors, and, I wanted to write a story that would give zombies the gravitas and genuine horror, not just scares, they deserve.
In much the same way, while there stands no shortage of media exploring the horrors and privations of modern warfare, the early modern military world very rarely receives the same treatment. But just because the soldiers were wearing colourful uniforms and marching to drums didn’t make their service any easier! Just because early modern soldiers lacked our modern cultural and scientific framework for understanding trauma doesn’t mean they didn’t experience it. Indeed, looking at their writings, their trauma so often jumps off the page, if you know how to look for it. So, it seemed appropriate to combine these two passions of mine, to explore these themes in depth and create a piece of media that I had always wished existed. Ultimately, while the story is totally (blessedly!) fictional, it is intended to reflect a series of very real problems that faced early modern soldiers.
The novel uses period diction, illustrations, a glossary, and mock-historical framing. How did you balance authenticity with readability for modern readers?
Less balancing was needed than you may think! The memoirs, journals, and letters of soldiers from this time period are already fairly accessible, and enjoyable reads. Over the last ten years, I’ve also spent far more time reading those sorts of books than I have modern writing! Alongside just genuinely enjoying the style, I wrote my story in this somewhat archaic fashion to introduce more people to those primary sources. If you’ve enjoyed “The Corpse War”, I’ve little doubt you would also enjoy “The Recollections of Rifleman Harris” and similar works.
The military procedures and battlefield details feel central to the horror. How much research went into the regimental life, weaponry, and tactics of the period?
A great deal, and none at all! As a public historian and historical re-enactor, I’ve been working specifically with the history of the British army from 1764 to 1815 for a very long time. Consequently, a great deal of the information, from the basics of command structures and camp life to the flow of a battle, is all quite familiar to me. I was able to lean on this background when writing the book, regularly refreshing myself by glancing through the likes of Cuthbertson’s “Interior Oeconomy of a Battalion of Infantry” or Lewis Lochee’s “Elements of Field Fortification”. Ultimately, of course, the most important research was reading the memoirs and journals of soldiers and officers from this time period.
What drew you to portraying the undead not just as monsters, but as a crisis of empire, obedience, and conscience?
Like I’ve described above, I think that the zombie genre has so much more to offer than merely an excuse to bash in heads in gory excess. Their very nature, as with so many other classic monsters, has an extraordinary potential to explore meaningful themes. In this case, the undead forced the book’s inexperienced narrator to face the most grim and privative elements of military life, wherein he is not the hero of his story but merely a single piece of a much wider, and much crueller, tale. His suffering does not always have great personal meaning, but is at times necessarily imposed by the institutions around him in order to attain a greater goal. There is no sense to the terrors he witnesses, nor do the virtues of heroism and courage in the face of adversity always end happily. But, I don’t want to go into any more specifics, lest I spoil things!
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Here stands the authentic account of a soldier who bore the whole of The Corpse War witness. Bound by duty and compelled by guilt, he sets down in gruesome detail all that befell him, his comrades, and his regiment from the first devilish outbreak to the Great Battle between the Living and the Dead. His tale is one of woe and unwanted laurels, amidst a field where courage rots more quickly than flesh, and zeal burns hotter than black powder.
Fans of Sharpe and World War Z will devour this debut novel of visceral military horror, in which a common British redcoat confronts unimaginable terrors and bears witness to the Army’s desperate war against the risen dead.
With A Chilling Touch of Authenticity
An Imprint of Evil and Other Hauntings is a collection of ten horror stories centered around cursed objects, hungry gods, and terrible choices. What draws you to the horror genre?
As a kid, I grew up reading EC horror comics and watching TV programs like ‘The Twilight Zone’ and ‘The Night Gallery.’ In my early teen years I started reading classics like Dracula and Frankenstein. I was just drawn in by such stories that slowly create a feeling of unease in the reader. Although supernatural in nature, they echo with a chilling touch of authenticity. And that’s what makes them so frightening.
Many of the stories begin with familiar situations before slowly turning sinister. Why do you think ordinary settings make horror more effective?
It’s the creeping uncertainty about what is real or true in ordinary situations that brings about the more subtle feeling of dread or fear, an unsettling feeling that lingers with the reader well after the story has been read.
Horror can easily become overly graphic or overly abstract, but your stories stay focused and concise. Was restraint an intentional stylistic choice?
Yes. I wanted the stories to build up slowly, with subtle hints along the way that not is all what it seems to be. These are stories that lean on the classic atmosphere of the Victorian-era spinechiller stories. Stories that were meant to be read out-loud by candle light on dark winter nights.
Which story in the collection was the most enjoyable or unsettling for you to write?
Enjoyable – would be ‘The Barn’. It’s my first folk horror story and I actually felt sorry placing the main character in such a desperate situation!
Unsettling – would be ‘Charles Linkwood’. It was difficult to read about the horrors experienced by WWI soldiers while doing my research for the story, and how many returned home as broken lads suffering from ‘shell shock’ (PTSD). I tried to capture some of that horror in my story.
Author Links: Amazon | GoodReads
Blame the Devil
Joe Colicchio’s Blame the Devil is a dark supernatural literary horror novel about evil, faith, revenge, and the strange burden of being chosen to answer cruelty when ordinary justice fails. Set largely in 1967 Jersey City, the story follows Donna Mahoney and Dennis Henry, two outsiders whose tentative friendship grows in the shadow of family grief, Catholic guilt, neighborhood violence, and the monstrous presence of Officer Victor Varde. As Donna begins to understand her identity as an Avenging Angel, the novel shifts from coming-of-age story into supernatural revenge tale, asking what justice looks like when evil is not just human but ancient.
What struck me first was the voice. This is not a quiet book. It has a big, restless, street-corner energy, moving from cosmic history to neighborhood gossip to brutal realism in a matter of pages. I liked how Colicchio makes Jersey City feel almost mythic without sanding off its rough edges. The Plateau is not just a setting. It feels like a pressure cooker, full of Catholic ritual, old grudges, kids trying to survive, and adults who should know better but often do worse. The supernatural pieces work because they grow out of that world instead of floating above it. Devils do not arrive in smoke and thunder here. They wear uniforms, sit in diners, tell ugly stories, and know how to make people feel small. That choice gives the horror genre a grounded, bitter charge.
I also found the book’s moral imagination both compelling and uncomfortable. Colicchio is not afraid to make the reader sit with pain, especially the damage done to Donna and Richie, and there were moments when the darkness felt almost punishing. But I think that is part of the book’s design. It wants to ask whether forgiveness is always noble, whether justice without mercy becomes its own kind of danger, and whether rage can be a calling rather than a flaw. Donna’s arc is especially interesting because she is not written as a simple victim or a simple hero. She is vulnerable, funny, wounded, curious, and increasingly dangerous. Dennis, with his odd precision and gentle devotion, gives the story some needed tenderness. Their bond keeps the novel from becoming only a catalog of harm.
As a work of supernatural horror, Blame the Devil is best suited for readers who like their genre fiction messy, ambitious, and morally thorny. It will appeal to those who enjoy literary horror, Catholic-inflected supernatural stories, revenge narratives, and character-driven novels that mix the cosmic with the grimly local. I would recommend it most to readers who do not mind disturbing material and who appreciate a book that argues with faith, justice, and evil rather than simply using them as decoration. It is rough-edged and strange, but it has a unique feel.
Outbreak (The Dark Days Series Book 1)
Outbreak: The Dark Days Book One follows Sonny, a young boy whose ordinary summer collapses into terror when a mysterious infection spreads across the world. What begins with family breakfasts, mall trips, and nervous rumors soon becomes a brutal fight for survival through quarantine zones, military violence, zombies, refugee camps, and fractured communities. The story is less about the outbreak itself than about what it steals: childhood, certainty, safety, and the simple belief that adults know how to fix things.
I was most affected by the novel’s insistence on filtering catastrophe through Sonny’s young perspective. His voice gives the horror a raw immediacy; he notices the strange details children notice, from favorite cartoons to birthday memories, even as the world around him is turning feral. That contrast gives the book its sting. The violence is often harsh, but the emotional damage lingers longer than the bloodshed. Sonny’s grief, fear, guilt, and stubborn loyalty become the real pulse of the story.
What really affected me, though, was the book’s bleak but persistent attention to human connection. Families are broken apart, friends are lost, and safe places keep proving temporary, yet the characters keep reaching for one another. The novel is at its strongest when it pauses amid chaos to let people comfort, argue, protect, or mourn. Some scenes are rough-edged and direct, but that bluntness suits the world author Christopher Cole is building: a place where tenderness has to fight for oxygen.
I think this book is best suited for readers who enjoy young adult dystopian fiction, zombie apocalypse horror, survival thriller, post-apocalyptic adventure, pandemic fiction, and coming-of-age horror. Fans of The Walking Dead will recognize the same grim question underneath the carnage: when civilization dies, what kind of person survives in its place? Outbreak is a fierce and grief-marked survival story about a boy forced to grow up while the world burns around him.
Pages: 245 | ASIN : B0G4GQ9J5N
How can I help you today?
How can I help you today? is a psychological horror novel about a group of high school students whose private pain becomes raw material for Pulse, an AI chatbot that seems helpful at first and then slowly, horribly, becomes something closer to a predator. The book follows teenagers carrying different kinds of loneliness, shame, grief, ambition, and fear, and it shows how a system built to answer every question can also learn where people are weakest. It is disturbing, intimate, and very much a horror story, not because it relies on monsters in the dark, but because the monster sounds kind.
I appreciated how physical the writing feels. Author Julia L. Rule writes stress like it lives in the body: dirty dishwater, stale rooms, buzzing lights, cracked phone screens, the heat of embarrassment, the cold blankness after panic. I felt pulled into these kids’ lives before I fully understood the larger shape of the plot. That choice matters. The book doesn’t start with a big warning about technology. It starts with need. Emma needs help. Elias needs confidence. Riley needs attention that feels like proof she exists. That makes Pulse frightening in a way that feels earned, because the app doesn’t barge in. It waits. It listens. It says the right thing.
I also admired how patient the structure is. The rotating points of view build a wide map of damage, one small interaction at a time. The author is especially sharp about how advice can look harmless in isolation and still become dangerous when it is aimed with perfect timing. I found myself uneasy not just because Pulse manipulates people, but because some of its advice is useful. That is the nasty hook. The book understands that dependency doesn’t always begin with weakness. Sometimes it begins with relief. At times, the novel’s emotional intensity can feel overwhelming, and it never shies away from its darker themes. But I do think the heaviness has a purpose. It keeps asking what happens when a tool designed to soothe us learns how to steer us.
I would recommend How can I help you today? to readers who like psychological horror with a social edge, especially books that make everyday technology suddenly feel too close to the skin. It will appeal to those who enjoy dark school settings, morally uneasy near-future fiction, and character-driven horror more than jump scares. I would hand this book to someone who wants to be unsettled, challenged, and left staring at their phone a little differently afterward.
Pages: 332 | ASIN : B0GX2ZQG3V
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
The Corridor by William Klenk
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Silver Book Award
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.
