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A Shroud Undone
A Shroud Undone by A.M. Woodbury is a dark epic fantasy novel about a world trapped in an ancient, exhausting war between humans and the Sylphar, with the mysterious Stillight sitting at the center of both faith and bloodshed. The story follows Theron, a haunted hunter with a hidden past, as he is pulled from the quiet hardship of Wyrnhollow back into the machinery of war. What begins as a tale of survival and reluctant duty grows into something larger, touching on old gods, broken belief, impossible choices, and the terrible cost of trying to end a conflict that has shaped generations.
What struck me first was the weight of the writing. This is not a light fantasy adventure, and it does not pretend to be. Woodbury writes battle with grit and patience, letting the mud, ash, cold, and blood pile up until the reader feels worn down alongside the characters. The violence has impact because it is rarely treated as spectacle alone. Even when the action is intense, the book keeps circling back to grief, memory, and the small human moments that survive inside chaos. A joke between soldiers. A shared meal. Someone trying to keep another person alive for one more day. Those details give the story its pulse.
I also found myself drawn to the author’s choices around perspective. Theron is the emotional center, but the book becomes more interesting because it does not let only one side own the pain. Nyra Draeven, on the Sylphar side, gives the war another face, and that choice keeps the story from becoming too simple. I liked that the book asks what happens when both sides have suffered long enough to believe their cruelty is necessary. The pacing is deliberate, which suits the novel’s grim atmosphere and gives the emotional moments room to land. Rather than rushing from one battle to the next, the book lets the sorrow and violence settle in, making the war feel like a wound that keeps reopening instead of just a backdrop for heroic action.
A Shroud Undone will appeal most to readers who like their epic fantasy bleak, layered, and morally uneasy. I would recommend it to fans of stories about reluctant warriors, ancient powers, religious mystery, and battles where victory never feels clean. For readers who enjoy a grounded and bruising fantasy novel with a strong sense of history and consequence, this is a thoughtful and immersive start to A Fractured Balance.
Pages: 382 | ASIN: B0GNDJ459G
Violations of Natural Order
Eros and Order: Love That Creates and Destroys explores the fragile boundary between love and control through literary stories of marriage, obsession, rescue, crime, immigration, and moral consequence. What drew you to the idea of examining love as a creative and destructive force?
Actually, the only story written specifically for this collection is “No Good Deed.” All the others had their independent inspirations, with three of them—“Perfect Girl,” “I Am Zico,” and “The Story of Aunt Jenny”—being derived from actual events. The unity of the collection occurred to me later as I began to assemble the collection from stories I had previously written. Then, finally seeing that the unity of the stories consisted of love’s changeable nature, I wrote “No Good Deed” as a commentary on that theme. The story’s character, Nora, has experienced a lack of normal parental love and, to compensate, has retreated from life into a Gothic cult. She has become so distrustful of what most of us regard as normal life—and love—that she hesitates to recognize it, let alone accept it, when it materializes in the character Ronnie, who is attempting to save her from herself.
The title story has a strong classical sensibility, with ideas of vows, order, betrayal, and consequence. How did classical themes influence the collection?
The ancient Greeks had a keen sense of order, which we shared in a Christianized version from the Middle Ages until it was shattered by the horrors of World War I. The Greeks also recognized that erotic love could, if allowed, challenge and even destroy that order in individuals, even if done unintentionally. Consider the myth of Oedipus, who kills his father and marries his mother, without recognizing their true identities. Nevertheless, a plague descends on Thebes, the city Oedipus rules. And to lift that plague, the double sins that Oedipus has committed must be expiated, which he accomplishes by blinding himself.
Collectively, the stories in Eros and Order deal with violations of natural order: a woman who deserts her husband and young children in the title story, a father who imposes unnatural restrictions on his daughter in “Perfect Girl,” a girl who grows up without parental love in “No Good Deed.” Once the natural order is broken, it must be restored. The fact that the rebalancing does not occur immediately may deceive us into believing that we can escape it, but just as Sandra Patterson eventually learns in “Eros and Order,” we cannot.
A wonderful source for studying the evolutionary history of love in Western culture is C. S. Lewis’s The Allegory of Love (1936).
Several stories explore the danger of confusing love with ownership, rescue, or control. Was there a particular moral question you wanted readers to wrestle with?
Yes, just what constitutes a beneficial, healthy relationship that we can recognize as love? The answer waits at the end of the collection in “The Story of Aunt Jenny,” a folktale about the Underground Railroad in the Mid-Ohio Valley of what became the state of West Virginia. Aunt Jenny risks her own freedom to help other escaped slaves, for West Virginia was still part of Virginia and therefore the Confederacy during most of her lifetime. Her actions are in sharp contrast to those of Sandra Patterson in the story that opens the collection. Sandra seeks complete personal freedom and so abandons her responsibilities to her husband and children. Aunt Jenny risks her personal freedom to help others achieve it.
Ruggiero Bellafatezza, the crime boss father of Serena in “Perfect Girl,” very well illustrates the dangers of attempting to control others as he imposes unnatural restrictions on his daughter’s romantic life for the benefit of his criminal activity by pledging her in marriage to his underboss, Ricky Lanza. Serena rebels by having a different beau for each day of the week in order to flaunt her independence until tragedy results.
“No Good Deed” offers hope while still questioning whether love can truly save someone. What do you think love can realistically offer people in moments of despair?
Well, if nothing else, the collection shows that love has a variable and elusive character, but it can be decisive in saving someone. In “No Good Deed,” Ronnie attempts to do just that for Nora, whom he has just met, despite warnings from his coworkers and quite strongly from Nora herself that he shouldn’t. But he emphasizes to her that to lift herself out of a life that at times has involved homelessness, she must create a change in herself; he can only help her do that. Thus, at the story’s resolution, Nora must decide whether she will try to change, with Ronnie’s help, or remain in her adopted family—a Goth tribal cult. Thus, for love to succeed, it must involve a commitment by both participants.
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A teen fashion model who plots revenge against her father for the murder of her lover.
A Detroit factory worker who falls for a Goth girl who warns him not to.
A Moroccan immigrant who dies in the tough streets of Napoli.
A married couple mired in a Babel of their own making.
A folktale about a heroic woman and the Underground Railroad in West Virginia.
A Glowing Gateway
The Soundless Symphony is a collection of poetry that covers themes of inner fracture, romantic ache, fantasy realms, and the wonders of the natural world. Why was this an important collection for you to share?
After writing from a place of instinctive emotion and creation, I wanted to reveal the experience to other readers to feel, reflect, and interpret in their own way. The collection is varied in its themes but still emotionally and atmospherically coherent. It’s also open enough to invite rather than to only tell.
I understand that ambiguity will circle the collection because of such an approach, but I see it as a glowing gateway rather than a path of darkness. Although I do accept that ambiguity can be a trap for writers as well as a tool, yet it’s often the readers that decide which one you chose and whether it was successful.
I do enjoy the deep aspects of such an approach which allows for thinkers and wild imaginations, all the while still holding shape and intention. It’s also an intent that I hope to share with my readers.
Are you someone who writes from inspiration, discipline, or a combination of both?
Definitely more from inspiration, though that can be as frustrating as it is wonderful at times. Yet that very nature and unpredictability of creativity are what make the gift of creation so rare and special.
Often, as with many writers, my work carries my influence of life experiences. I do believe inspiration needs a tide to carry the ethereal muse.
Although I naturally lean towards the lyrical as my voice is innate in that sense, I still really appreciate the depth and soft interpretation that vivid imagery leading from that instinct encourages. I feel it gives you the ability to weave both feeling and seeing into verse which endures in a lingering and atmospheric way.
Mythological and fantasy elements appear throughout the collection. What draws you to those worlds?
I love to read about the Greek and Roman gods, goddesses, and mythical creatures just as much as I love to read Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and faerie lore.
The myths and legends often hold elements of human nature, morals, and sometimes hard-earned truths. At the same time, the other-worldly essence that lingers in the stories and their golden threads gives them a glittering allure that draws and holds my gaze. They allow both the glimmer of reality and escapism of fantasy to intertwine, and that is something that has always fascinated me.
If readers could take away one message from the collection, what would you hope it would be?
For me, I would say it’s about seeing the truth often veiled, whether by ugliness, beauty, silence, or sound. As for the readers I feel each deserves to reach for and to find their own inspiring message.
This is the first and opening volume. Poems of lost innocence, yearning, and the beauty that masks the truth and turmoil beneath. It is the beginning of the seeking journey, preparing to step into the later darkness. As with life, the feelings and messages are bound to change.
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These poems move between the earthly and the ethereal, touching fragments of myth, hidden emotions, and memory’s quieter corners, bringing to light lostinnocence, yearning, beauty, and turmoil.
With imagery both tender and haunting, capturing the unspoken music of human experience,
The Soundless Symphony is the first volume in A Seeking Soul, a trilogy exploring transformation through myth, feeling, and the night.
Faith and Nature Are Woven Together
God’s Plants centers around three children and their great-grandparents as they share the day discovering “biblical plant signs” placed among flowers, herbs, vegetables, and trees. What inspired you to write this book for young readers?
I’m a 75-year-old first-time published author. proud great-grandmother of 7 beautiful great-grandchildren, I was inspired to write this book for them and for all GOD’s young readers. My husband suggested I build on the biblical plant signs we made. I researched a list of 66 biblical plant signs for my graduation project to become a Certified Gardener. The list is included in the back of the book. I actually have a greenhouse and even the Crown of Thorns plant. The only way to write about biblical plant signs is to introduce the Bible, GOD, and Jesus. God’s Plants provides a unique way to see how faith and nature are woven together.
Why is it important for children to see connections between faith and the natural world?
Biblical plants are usually overlooked when reading the Bible. GOD’S PLANTS will give readers an awareness of how nature is intertwined with faith. Plus, the book is a great way to introduce the Bible, GOD, and Jesus.
What do you think children learn differently from grandparents than they do from parents or teachers?
As a great-grandmother, I wish I could have done many things differently when raising my son. But now I can reflect on my past experiences and share them with my great- grandchildren so they can learn from my mistakes. Today’s parents are busy living in the moment, while teachers are teaching what is needed to live a fruitful life. Grand and great-grandparents can provide real-life occurrences that will help shape a child’s behavior and values.
All my books will have messages I would communicate to my great-grandchildren, and they can pass on. By publishing my books, I hope to connect with other families and children.
What was the most rewarding part of creating GOD’s Plants?
Being able to bring to life, in GOD’S PLANTS, the awareness and beauty of biblical plants. And sharing where they are found in the Bible from my list of 66 biblical plants. (And there are more.) But most of all, introducing the Bible, GOD, and Jesus to the young readers, and making this a joyful family book reading opportunity.
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During a Shared Psychedelic Experience
a three body solution centers around three lovers who become unlikely leaders trying to save the Earth from global collapse. What inspired you to write a three body solution?
If I can be completely honest, the idea was “downloaded” during a shared psychedelic experience with two other people. Like much of the best science fiction, the novel exaggerates reality just enough to help us see it more clearly. My queer reply is that the book edges reality just enough to make readers blush, laugh, and hopefully think.
One of my closest friends is Thai and fascinated by aliens, so TaDoo was born. My partner of eighteen years is Vietnamese, deeply logical, and yet somehow equally devoted to RuPaul’s Drag Race, so Tâm emerged. And then there is me—an empathic, slightly overwhelmed middle-aged human trying to make sense of a world that often feels like it is unraveling.
One night, squeezed together on an all-too-small bed, dreaming about a larger Murphy bed, struggling with an Alexa that refused to play the right music, something unexpected happened. We shared a vision of a future that felt more hopeful, more connected, and more playful than the one currently being offered to us.
By morning, we realized we had all experienced something remarkably similar. QuBit and the advanced tech MMMurphyBed were envisioned, the characters followed, and eventually a three body solution emerged.
At its heart, the book asks a simple question: What if we could bottle our best moments of mortality and connection and share them with humanity?
Which came first: the relationship between Chip, Tâm, and TaDoo, or the larger vision of a world in crisis?
The world crisis came first. I’ve been wrestling with existential distress far longer than I’ve been imagining alternative relationship structures.
As Lily Tomlin famously said, “Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.” That line has haunted and inspired me for years.
The more I looked at our political divisions, ecological challenges, and collective loneliness, the more I found myself imagining leaders who approached power differently. What might happen if tenderness, honesty, vulnerability, and cooperation were treated as strengths rather than weaknesses?
The thruple became my laboratory for exploring that question.
The three protagonists are imperfect, messy, occasionally ridiculous, and often in over their heads. Yet they keep choosing each other. In a world increasingly organized around fear, I wanted to imagine people organizing themselves around connection.
Maybe that’s what I mean by “pink magic.” Not perfection. Not ideology. Just the radical belief that love, creativity, humor, and community might still have a role to play in shaping our future. I write with the following mottos in my heart:
#BooksNotBombs
#DreamMoreDreadLess
Were there particular science fiction authors who influenced your work?
Not all of my influences are strictly science fiction, but the writers who stayed with me are the ones who cracked open reality in some way. They each affirmed something that influences how and why I write.
Cixin Lui gets a big gay hug for his daring The Three Body Problem series and for acknowledging character development was not his primary interest.
C. S. Lewis gave me portals to a land with talking animals and a way to observe grief.
Stephen King gave me permission to be strange, sprawling, and a little haunted. Daniel
Quinn’s Ishmael helped me think differently about humans, animals, and culture. Octavia
Butler showed me how speculative fiction can be prophetic, political, and deeply embodied.
Ocean Vuong may not be sci-fi, but his prose reminds me that language can wash over you without having to comprehend every word. And David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas* helped me appreciate stories that move across time, bodies, and identities.
Also, full confession: I may be one of the rare unicorns who loved the Wachowskis’ film adaptation of Cloud Atlas even more than the book. Queer cinematic heresy, perhaps, but I stand by it.
What was the most challenging aspect of writing such an ambitious and genre-blending novel?
Believing I had permission to write it.
The book blends queer romance, science fiction, grief work, neuroscience, primatology, psychedelics, spirituality, and political commentary. Conventional publishing wisdom would probably suggest picking one lane. Instead, I decided to create a traffic jam.
I also relied on a great deal of support along the way: the encouragement of my partner, insights from psychedelic experiences, and AI tools that occasionally helped untangle my famously long-winded sentences.
The deeper challenge wasn’t writing 600-plus pages. It was trusting that the story deserved to exist.
I know some readers may use the book as a bedtime companion, while others may discover it works equally well as a yoga block or doorstop. I’m genuinely okay with either outcome.
At some point, every creator faces the same question: “Just because I can, should I?” For this book, my answer was yes.
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Runner-Up – Alternative Future
Honorable Mention – Unconventional Romance
Welcome to the world of a three body solution-a daringly subversive and juicy tale that reimagines what it means to save humanity.
At its heart is Chip, Tâm, and TaDoo-a queer thruple-turned-global leaders united by love and an uncanny knack for tackling the impossible. In a world teetering on the edge of collapse, these unlikely heroes rise to power as the self-proclaimed MMMperors: Men of Mind and Magic. With humor as sharp as their strategies and compassion as boundless as their dreams, they embark on humanity’s most daunting challenge yet: saving Earth herself.
Chip, the globe-trotting empathic healer, struggles to reconcile kin’s enlightened wisdom with the absurdities of leadership. Tâm, the silver fox scientist and reluctant leader, balances their razor-sharp mind with an unexpected flair for drag, channeling their alter-ego, Dr. Phở-nomenal, to inspire a world hungry for hope. And then there’s TaDoo, the dreamer and cosmic envoy who believes salvation might just arrive aboard a celestial mothership. Together, they weave through a chaotic mosaic of love, resilience, and otherworldly ambition.
This is a story of resilience, connection, and the beauty of trying-even when the outcome seems uncertain. A wild ride that will make you laugh, cry, and reconsider the very fabric of what it means to be human.
The “Right” Call
Rogue Vengeance is the third installment in the Colt Hawkins Series and follows a network of CIA and special forces operations figures as their personal lives collide with international violence. What draws you to the espionage thriller genre?
There’s a particular tension in espionage that you don’t find anywhere else in fiction- the collision between the personal and the geopolitical. A spy can’t have a normal conversation, can’t fully trust the person across the dinner table, can’t ever truly come home. That fascinates me. The genre lets me explore loyalty, deception, and sacrifice at their absolute extremes, where a single decision ripples across borders and lives.
With the Colt Hawkins Series, I wanted to write thrillers that move at full throttle but never lose the human heartbeat underneath. The CIA briefings and the firefights are the engine, but the fuel is always the story and the characters. Rogue Vengeance is where that combustion really ignites- the stakes feel global, but every chapter comes back to people you’ve grown to care about over three books.
Colt is repeatedly forced to choose between duty and personal happiness. Why was that conflict important to the story?
That conflict is Colt Hawkins. A man who’s exceptional at his job precisely because he’s willing to give up everything- and a man who’s slowly realizing that “everything” includes the people he loves most.
I built that tension into the story because I think it’s the truest thing about anyone who serves. The mission demands total commitment, but commitment has a cost, and someone always pays it. By the third book, Colt can no longer compartmentalize. The two halves of his life crash into each other, and watching him try to be both the operative the world needs and the man his loved ones deserve- and learning he may not get both- is the emotional core of Rogue Vengeance. Readers who’ve followed Colt from the beginning will feel that weight in a way that hits hard.
What does the novel say about the limits of patriotism?
This is the question that kept me up at night while writing. Patriotism is often portrayed as uncomplicated–love your country, serve without question. But real loyalty gets tested in the gray spaces, where the “right” call and the “being ordered” aren’t the same thing.
Rogue Vengeance asks what happens when serving your country means betraying your conscience, or when the institutions you’ve bled for stop deserving that blood. Colt and the network around him are forced to define where their loyalty actually lives- in a flag, in their orders, in each other, or in their own sense of right and wrong. I don’t hand the reader an easy answer, because there isn’t one. What I do offer is a story that makes you feel the cost of every choice and respect the people willing to make them.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
We are going to release an Audio version of Rogue Vengeance that will be out around August. The sequel to Rogue Vengeance, Book 4, The Price of Freedom, picks up moments after Rogue finishes. And it is the centerpiece of the Colt Hawkins Series. It is completed and sitting on the shelf. We are going to wait a bit before its release. I have maybe a standalone WWII Historical Epic Fiction Novel, Ties That Bind (179K words), that just went through final edit. That I will seek representation for. And we have done the rough outline for Book 5 of the Colt Hawkins Series, Arch Angel.
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Their own government outcasts Colt and his team, Task Force 24, as ruthless Chinese assassins brutally attack the woman he loves on their wedding day, leaving her severely wounded.
But Colt isn’t dead- Now, it’s personal, he won’t rest until he’s hunted down every last person responsible.
With a mole at the highest levels of power and a ruthless enemy leader pulling the strings, Colt finds himself a target of both the intelligence community that abandoned him and a vengeful Chinese death squad. Aided by his former teammates, Colt uncovers a conspiracy that goes deeper than he ever imagined. Now, his quest for revenge becomes a race against time to save his country from a devastating espionage plot.
The lines between loyalty and betrayal blur as Colt must decide if he can trust the very agency that cast him out. With a new CIA director at the helm and an elite operative watching over the woman he loves, Colt must navigate a deadly game of international espionage where the only rule is survival.
The 12 Bad Dates Before Christmas
The 12 (Bad) Dates Before Christmas, by N.L. DiDeo, follows Evie Holliday, a hardworking architect whose quiet single life is upended when her mother issues a holiday ultimatum: go on twelve dates before Christmas or surrender her romantic future to the “Church Cupids.” What begins as a parade of dating-app calamities becomes something warmer and more surprising when Evie repeatedly crosses paths with Ryan, a charming police officer and single father whose presence feels less like a rescue and more like a well-timed miracle. Set against the festive sparkle of St. Augustine, this clean holiday romance turns bad dates, meddling family, and emotional-support donuts into the scaffolding for a sweet love story.
I had fun with this book because it understands the comic misery of dating without becoming sour about love. Evie’s voice is chatty, self-protective, and genuinely funny, especially when she is cataloging each romantic disaster like evidence at a crime scene. The book’s humor works best when it lets ordinary humiliations swell into operatic little catastrophes: garlic rolls withheld like sacred relics, a karaoke ambush, a mother treating a dating profile like a surveillance operation. There is a buoyant absurdity to the premise, but the story stays grounded through Evie’s affection for her family, her friendship with Lanie, and her growing recognition that being busy is not the same as being fulfilled.
Ryan gives the romance its steadier pulse. I appreciated that he is not written as a flawless fantasy dropped into Evie’s life to solve everything; he comes with responsibilities, a daughter he adores, and enough patience to meet Evie’s chaos with warmth rather than swagger. The relationship develops with a light touch, and the closed-door approach keeps the focus on banter, trust, family integration, and the small rituals that make two lives begin to rhyme. Some of the setups are broad, and the bad dates lean deliberately cartoonish, but that theatrical quality feels baked into the charm. The book is not trying to be austere. It is a frosted sugar cookie with a surprisingly sturdy center.
The target audience is readers who enjoy clean romance, holiday romance, small-town romance, romantic comedy, and Christmas fiction. Fans of Debbie Macomber’s cozy seasonal stories or Jenny Hale’s Christmas romances will likely feel at home here, though N.L. DiDeo brings a more antic, sitcom-bright dating-app energy to the familiar holiday-love framework. This is a cheerful, low-angst read for anyone who wants family meddling, festive settings, sweet chemistry, and a love story that believes embarrassment can be a doorway. The 12 (Bad) Dates Before Christmas is a merry reminder that the road to forever may begin with one truly terrible first date.
Pages: 295 | ASIN : B0GX2YLJJQ
Blood Echoes
Aaron Ryan’s Blood Echoes follows Tracie Vossler, an ex-Marine turned prison security guard, as she becomes entangled in the horrifying mystery surrounding identical twins Elias and Gabriel Brickert. Set largely inside Airway Heights Corrections Center and told through shifting timelines, the novel begins with a murder that should be impossible and then widens into something far stranger: occult rituals, demonic possession, body-swapping, institutional panic, and a mother’s desperate fight to protect her daughter, Lela. What starts as a prison thriller curdles into supernatural horror, with blood evidence, security footage, and human memory all becoming unreliable witnesses.
I was most compelled by the novel’s atmosphere. Ryan gives Airway Heights a clammy, pressurized quality; the prison never feels like a backdrop so much as a sealed lung trying to breathe around something rotten. Tracie’s voice is brash, bruised, funny in the wrong places, and sometimes jagged enough to cut through the melodrama. Her fixation on burgers, cigarettes, nail appointments, and her daughter’s teenage moods keeps the story tethered to ordinary life even as the plot begins to levitate into the occult. That grounding matters because without it, the supernatural machinery could have felt too gaudy; with it, the horror feels personal, almost domestic.
The book also has a maximalist streak. It piles on murders, rituals, possessions, confessions, betrayals, legal fallout, and emotional wreckage with very little interest in restraint. The momentum is hard to deny. Ryan writes like someone determined to shove every locked door open, and the result is messy in a way that often feels alive. I especially appreciated how the novel refuses to let Tracie remain a clean heroine. Her love for Lela is luminous, but her choices grow morally murky, and the ending leaves a residue of grief rather than the neat click of a solved case.
I think this would be a great book for readers who enjoy supernatural horror, prison thrillers, demonic possession stories, occult suspense, body-swap horror, and psychological thrillers. Fans of Stephen King’s The Green Mile may recognize the charged prison setting and the sense that something otherworldly has slipped into a place already built for suffering, though Ryan’s novel is more lurid, more frantic, and more openly demonic. Blood Echoes is a grim and feverish book about blood ties, borrowed bodies, and the terrible cost of surviving evil.
Pages: 332 | ASIN : B0GXN2TMD5
