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My Land, My Nile
My Land, My Nile, by Maria Zeinab, is a sweeping and multi-generational tale that threads together history, myth, and personal memory along the Nile’s banks, from the Abyssinian Highlands to the Nubian Valley. It blends the oral traditions of Nubian culture with vivid depictions of displacement, political tension, and familial bonds. Through interwoven narratives, crocodiles as sacred guardians, the fall of the legendary Yahodi Nog, and the odyssey of Nabra-Isat Soliman returning to her ancestral land, Zeinab paints a textured portrait of a people’s resilience against the tides of time, politics, and water. The novel drifts between the past and present, memory and vision, often blurring the lines between the real and the mystical.
Reading this book felt like stepping into an old Nubian home where the walls are lined with family photographs, some faded, some vivid, each whispering a story. Zeinab’s writing is drenched in sensory detail like the smell of sandalwood, the glint of green crocodile eyes, the oppressive hush of a summer noon, and that attention to the tangible pulls readers deep into the narrative. Her characters are layered, never reduced to tropes, and their conversations carry the weight of centuries. That said, the lyrical style can be somewhat demanding. The shifts between timelines and voices require patience, but for me, that challenge was part of the reward. The story never panders. It trusts the reader to wander, to get a little lost, and to return richer.
What moved me most was how the novel treats loss, not just the loss of people, but the erasure of land, language, and ways of life. Zeinab doesn’t rush to offer hope. Instead, she lets grief sit in the room, lets it breathe beside the characters, until its edges soften into something like acceptance. I felt my chest tighten during the moments of cultural theft, like when Nubian names are stripped from official documents, because it’s not just fiction; it mirrors real wounds that history keeps opening. Yet even in the heaviest passages, the story never forgets the beauty of what it’s trying to preserve. It’s a rare balance of lament and love.
I would recommend My Land, My Nile to readers who appreciate historical fiction that leans into poetry and myth, and to anyone who has a soft spot for intergenerational sagas rooted in place. For those who have ever felt the pull of an ancestral home, whether visited or only imagined, this book will feel like a homecoming, with all the joy, ache, and ghosts that it entails.
Pages: 352 | ASIN : B0FH2Q9KQT
Connections Make the World Go Round
Before We Arrived follows three people, each marked by loss, resilience, and quiet strength, who seek refuge at a goat sanctuary; they find not only healing but also a found family. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
First I’d like to thank Literary Titan for the interview. I absolutely loved writing this novel and am thrilled it’s resonating with people on a deep level.
The idea for the rescue sanctuary came easily. I adore animals and the notion that they have the power to aid in the healing process for humans. ‘Herd’ species—goats, donkeys, horses, and alpacas—were chosen because they need each other as well as their human caretakers. It was also a way to inject a bit of fun into the mix with their shenanigans. I was keen to have the work volunteers live on-site, enjoying shared meals and private sleeping spaces. I’ve had personal experience with various forms of communal living and it made sense to incorporate that. I wanted King Solomon Sanctuary to serve as an interactive setting that chunks of the story arcs could pivot around. The workers have the option to come and go as they please during off-hours but most choose to stay in close proximity to one another and the animals—it’s their own special tight-knit community of second chances.
Henry, Rivka, and Jayce all come to the sanctuary for different reasons, holding onto trauma that has kept them closed off until now. What was the inspiration for the relationship that develops between the characters?
Connections make the world go round. In Before We Arrived we witness the interactions within each of the biological families, as well as between the narrators and secondary characters as new friendships are forged and old ties change shape. All three families have struggled through adversity, and we learn the details of their backstories as the chapters progress. The world can be harsh and cold, relationships complicated and messy. What are the multitude of elements that guide our path and our decisions? Can we build a meaningful life after experiencing tragedy? How do we best care for ourselves and each other? These are the kinds of questions that motivate me to create stories.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I’ll preface this answer by noting that I did not set out to write a book specifically about grief and resilience; that just happened organically as the outcome of each character’s story and their relationships with one another.
The novel explores questions about race/culture/identity, the short and long-term effects of personal and generational trauma, family dynamics, and issues around marginalization. I’ve also had a perennial fascination with ancestral memories, so that was layered in, along with the underlying truths about the universality of suffering and the value of connection and empathy. Naturally some of these themes overlap.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
Before We Arrived was recently released and I’m not quite ready to think about beginning a new project. Writing does energize me so another novel is within the realm of possibilities.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
In the summer of 2005, three dissimilar people—Henry, a grieving Black landscaper; Rivka, a restless Jewish social worker; and Jayce, a guarded Indigenous archaeologist—find their lives colliding in quiet, powerful ways.
From New England to Vietnam, this lyrical novel traces their search for peace, meaning, and joy amid the rubble of personal and ancestral trauma. Lush, moving, and deeply human, Before We Arrived is a celebration of resilience, found family, and love in its many forms.
Before We Arrived is a soulful, literary journey through grief, healing, and unexpected connections. Fans of James McBride and Lily King will feel right at home.
Before We Arrived
Jodie Pine’s Before We Arrived spins a beautiful tapestry of interconnected lives across time, grief, and healing. Told through alternating chapters set between 1975 and 2005, the story traces three families—each marked by loss, resilience, and quiet strength—as they find each other through fate and a shared sanctuary. A former archaeologist, a social worker, and a man recovering from injury and trauma become unlikely kin under the roof of a goat sanctuary, of all places. But it’s more than goats. It’s about second chances, and third. It’s about holding sorrow in one hand and still reaching out with the other.
As a widow, I didn’t expect this book to hit me like it did. From the very first chapter with Henry and his mangled hand, I felt my heart slide into that familiar hollow space. The line—“trying so hard to keep things light”—caught in my throat. That’s exactly what it’s like when you’re walking around with your grief zipped up under your coat. Henry’s story reminded me how healing doesn’t look like a movie montage. It’s awkward, reluctant, even a little muddy. His growth is slow but steady, like learning how to breathe again after forgetting for a while.
Then there’s Rivka. Oh, Rivka. I adored her. The way she stepped into Nina King’s quiet, grief-soaked apartment, dripping wet and uninvited, but still offering help with a kind firmness—it was deeply moving. Her voice felt familiar to me, like someone I would’ve met. Her compassion for baby David, and her refusal to flinch in the face of Nina’s silence or mistrust, showed the kind of stubborn kindness I’ve come to cherish in my own life. The moment when Nina finally lets her hold the baby? That nearly did me in.
Jayce’s chapters, especially the funeral scene and the pact he makes with his mother, stirred something in me. We can’t disappear with our dead. I loved how his archaeology background tied into the theme of digging—literally and emotionally—for what’s been buried. His arc wasn’t flashy, but it was profound. Quiet endurance. I know it well.
What Jodie Pine does so beautifully is show how people can be shattered and still be whole. There are no villains here, just folks doing their best with their pain. The prose is warm and alive, sometimes messy, just like real conversation. I chuckled more than once—especially during Henry’s first day with the goats—and found unexpected joy in the ordinary moments: Rivka eating Fig Newtons at her desk, David fixing a bike, a fox sculpture on a table. These small details made the world feel lived-in, like someone left the light on for you.
This book is for anyone who’s ever been broken open and needed help stitching themselves back together. It’s for people who are lonely but not hopeless. For readers who don’t mind stories that move like real life—with detours, overlaps, long silences, and sudden beauty.
Pages: 395 | ASIN : B0FG3L2V5Q
Conflict Over the Centuries
Whispers Through Time follows a successful writer whose life is upended when a former lover reappears with a stack of photographs and a secret about her origins, leading her on a journey of cultural identity and into a decades-old mystery surrounding the American Indian Movement. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration for Whispers Through Time came from a trip my husband, Kevin, and I made in 2000 to South Dakota, which is a truly magical state. While there, we visited, among other historical places, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the Wounded Knee Memorial, and the American Indian Movement (AIM) Museum, which commemorated AIM’s 1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee. As I stood beside the Wounded Knee Creek, near where the original massacre had occurred, I had a strange, empathic experience that changed my life…and gave me the most important kernel of truth to build on in Whispers Through Time: Heroine Sierra Masters learns that through her newly-discovered Lakota maternal bloodline, she can receive visions that help her ‘see’ historical mysteries and solve them.
The supporting characters in this novel were intriguing and well-developed. Who was your favorite character to write for?
That’s a really hard question because I love them all, but I think – outside of Sierra Masters – my favorite character to write had to be Nathan Winterhawk. He was based on several Lakota elders I met while on our vacation, or have followed over the years. He came to life immediately. His humor and optimism were interspersed with his love of tradition, and his right-below-the-surface, always-simmering rage was almost eerie in its truth. His dialogue and unusual way of expressing his feelings wrote themselves, as did his compassion for Sierra’s situation. He was certainly the easiest character to write because I felt like I knew him intimately after 20 years of research.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
These are really great questions – thank you so much! More than anything else, I wanted to tell a really great story.
But I also wanted to show both sides of the White/Indian conflict over the centuries and to explore the vantage point of both ethnicities, from a historical view as well as from the White, without making the novel a political commentary of left vs. right. I think we’ve had enough of that. I also wanted to illuminate to people of all races across the US and the rest of the world the truth about the 1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee, and what AIM was trying to illustrate by taking it over. Finally, I wanted to create a real, honest-to-God love story between a man and a woman that was long-lasting with real heartache that had occurred many years earlier, but still affected them now.
When will Book Two be available? Can you give us an idea of where that book will take readers?
I’m nearly finished with the first draft of Journey of the Heart, Book Two of the Whispers Through Time series, so I don’t know at this time when it will be out. It will take readers into Comanche Indian territory on the Llano Estacado of Texas, a centuries-old treasure hidden in a canyon located on a Panhandle ranch belonging to Sierra’s best friend’s grandfather, and the final truth about a young girl with red-gold hair captured by Comanches during the 1860s.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Ronni Hoessli | Website | Amazon
Hunter Davenport realizes the evidence he’s shared with Sierra could indeed destroy her—but it could free her as well. The decision is yanked from her hands when the past and present collide through a historical portal on sacred Native American land. Will she take the gift that is offered? And will Hunter do what he didn’t do twelve years earlier—stand by her? Only time will give them their answers.
Whispers Through Time
Whispers Through Time follows Sierra Masters, a successful historical fiction writer whose life is upended when a former lover, Hunter Davenport, reappears with a stack of photographs and a secret about her origins. What begins as a deeply personal reunion quickly spins into a tale of political resistance, cultural identity, and a decades-old mystery involving the American Indian Movement, the 1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee, and Sierra’s true parentage. As Sierra navigates her family’s past and her own shattered sense of self, the novel shifts seamlessly between romance, mystery, and historical fiction, creating a rich and emotionally charged story.
What struck me most was the emotional honesty in Hoessli’s writing. Her prose is straightforward and often stark, but that works in her favor. There’s just raw, heartfelt truth. Sierra’s breakdowns, her self-doubt, her fury, and her quiet moments of awe are painted vividly. I felt like I was sitting in that dusty adobe house in Big Bend, Texas. The pacing can feel slow at times, especially when the backstory expands into historical context, but the emotional payoff is worth every beat. The dream sequences and flashes of past trauma are especially affecting.
Sometimes characters drop into exposition mode and sound more like history teachers than people talking. But even then, the ideas they’re exploring, identity, betrayal, legacy, are weighty enough to hold my attention. The relationships, especially between Sierra and her mother, are what really gave the book its weight. Also, Hunter. He’s a classic storm-you-can’t-look-away-from kind of guy. I didn’t always like him, but I couldn’t stop watching him.
Whispers Through Time is a powerful blend of historical fiction, romantic suspense, and contemporary drama. A story about finding the truth, even when it hurts. It’s perfect for readers who crave novels full of long-buried family secrets, emotionally raw relationships, and a deep dive into forgotten corners of American history.
Pages: 276 | ASIN : B098278M38
LITERARY TITAN 