Blog Archives
Doing the Right Thing
Clifford’s War: Redivivus follows a seasoned private investigator pulled into a snowbound search for a missing young girl, only to find that this case goes far deeper than just a kidnapping. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration came from two ideas that simply worked well together. I knew I wanted to bring back the family he helped in Bluegrass Battleground. I felt that there was still meat on that bone. Without giving too much away, I will just say I also wanted to introduce someone from the past that no one, not even Clifford Dee, would see coming. They’re first mentioned in Bluegrass Battleground, and I wrote a callback to it in Redivivus for the hardcore fans to gasp at.
Clifford has that classic investigator steadiness but also feels observant and human. What kind of detective did you want him to be?
Clifford Dee is the kind of detective who values humanity and doing the right thing. He’s resourceful and treats everyone like they matter. There’s not enough of that trope in today’s “Thriller Hero,” and I wanted to really champion that type of character, the flawed moral compass that is Clifford Dee. He doesn’t need or want to be praised for the work he does. He elevates those around him to be better people and fights for them to be recognized.
The story grows to include tech, networks, conspiracies, and layered alliances. How did you keep the plot from collapsing under its own weight?
I believe that character development, dialogue, and action sequences help with the heavy-lifting. There was an immense amount of polishing to get it just right, but I think my editor, Elliot, and I nailed it.
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
There will be more to the Clifford’s War Universe. Without End and Redivivus left us with a lot of story still needing to be told. Additionally, my co-author for Tye, Elliot J. Emerson, has begun writing her own series set in the same universe, which highlights some of the side characters introduced in Bluegrass Battleground. She is helping craft this world, and it’s shaping up to be something for the ages. We are both very excited for the future of Clifford Dee, his friends, and this continuing “War.”
Just “being” Is Enough
Flicker and the Beleaf Tree follows a fox living in a magical tree that shakes a leaf when someone needs help, who helps a little boy who is overwhelmed by the noise and rush of school. What inspired the idea of a tree that holds children’s worries, hopes, and “beleafs”?
Honestly, it came from my own experience as a kid. I was kind of a weird kid. I felt things deeply, but I didn’t really know how to process them or explain what was going on inside me.
A lot of the time, I just held it in because I didn’t have a place to put those feelings.
I knew that I wanted a visual anchor for the world of Flicker and I thought a big magical tree would be the perfect icon. I went through many iterations of the tree and what it could do or what it meant to the world. I eventually landed on the idea that each leaf was a magical entry for modern families learning to grow and thrive in the world.
The Beleaf Tree became the place I wish I had as a child, and still as an adult. Somewhere to put a worry, a hope, or even just a feeling I didn’t fully understand yet and know it’s okay that it exists. That it can be okay to sit with that feeling and explore it.
The artwork plays a huge role in creating calm and understanding. How did you envision the visual tone?
I wanted it to feel like the opposite of overwhelm. I come from a design background so many of the early conversation with the Illustrator, Nina Millen, were about the tone and visual language of the story. I knew I wanted a lot of negative white space to center and focus the illustrations. What developed was a calm and safe environment that fit perfectly with the story.
As we continued to develop the illustrations a flower motif began to emerge and I asked Nina to really lean into that. The story itself is about a child growing, as well as the parents and we thought flowers were a great example of what it takes to bloom in to a better version of yourself. You’ll see this in the family’s home or in the shadows when the parents pick up the child from school. Their shadows are towering trees, while the child is a small tree beginning to grow.
The goal was to create a space where a families could slow down for a second and feel safe, even if just for a few minutes.
The story doesn’t “fix” the child’s struggle but supports him through it. Why was that important?
Because sometimes real stories don’t have a solution, they have more questions than answers. I wanted modern families to reflect on the fact that we don’t have all those answers as adults and maybe it’s okay to sit in the in between for a while and be okay with that.
So I didn’t want the story to solve the problem. I wanted it to sit with it. To show that support matters more than having all the answers.
What do you hope children who feel overwhelmed will take from this story?
That they’re not the only one who feels that way. And that their struggles can be their super powers.
When you’re a kid, and even as adults, you can feel overwhelmed, it can feel like something’s wrong with you. Like everyone else has it figured out and you don’t.
I hope this story helps everyone realize that’s not true. That the feelings are valid, and that they don’t have to hide them or rush past them to be okay. That just “being” is enough to grow and thrive in the world today.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
Tachyon Tunnel 4
Tachyon Tunnel 4 is a science fiction adventure that picks up after a devastating loss and turns its attention toward survival, rebuilding, and the next stage of humanity’s fight against the Daklin. Alex Durant, Shelby, Megan, Emily, Zander, and the surviving Pronimos refugees retreat to Mars, where grief quickly becomes engineering, strategy, terraforming, and preparation for a larger galactic conflict. The book blends space opera stakes with hard science fiction ideas, especially around faster-than-light travel, Mars, planetary restoration, and the Kardashev scale.
I liked how this fourth entry in the Tachyon Tunnel series feels bigger but also more wounded. The opening is brutal. It doesn’t let the reader glide past the destruction of Pronimos as just another plot event. There’s grief here, and the book keeps returning to the question of what people do after their world has been burned away. Gorton’s instinct is always forward motion. Loss becomes a city plan. Trauma becomes a defense grid. Mars becomes New Pronimos. I found that both moving and very true to the series. These books have always been fascinated by the idea that smart people, given enough nerve and imagination, can punch through impossible walls.
I enjoyed the scenes where characters talk about terraforming Mars over food and drinks. One minute you’re thinking about magnetospheres, oxygen levels, tachyon tunnels, and galactic empires. The next, someone wants Mexican food. It works because the characters have history together. Their jokes, grief, irritation, and loyalty carry some of the heavier science. The author also makes a clear choice to lean into explanation. This is idea-driven, optimistic, high-concept science fiction with a big heart and a tool belt.
Gorton isn’t just asking whether humanity can survive an enemy. He’s asking whether we can think large enough to deserve survival. That is where the genre work really lands. The faster-than-light travel, Mars terraforming, ancient civilizations, and Kardashev-scale thinking aren’t just shiny science fiction furniture. They’re tied to a moral argument about imagination. The book basically says that the future belongs to people who refuse to stay trapped in small thinking.
I would recommend Tachyon Tunnel 4 most to readers who already like the series, especially those who enjoy science fiction with space opera momentum, big engineering solutions, ancient-civilization mysteries, and characters who solve problems by building something audacious. For returning readers, it’s a strong continuation.
Pages: 364 | ASIN : B0GYT6YQP4
Kick Back, And Have Fun!
Suzy & Roxy Go Camping follows two best friends with very different personalities who learn important lessons in friendship and flexibility while camping during a thunderstorm. Where did the idea for this story come from?
Definitely from camping with my Dad when I was a kid! He was very organized and packed what we needed. Now me…that was a different story! I packed so much stuff, it was literally falling out of my Dad’s truck when we opened the door! We would have so much fun even though we both definitely had different ideas about what was “necessary” to pack!
Even now, as an adult, I tend to pack a lot when I go camping with my husband and family. I honestly have to laugh when I think about it! A weekend camping trip looks like a 2-week excursion through ALL the elements imaginable when I pack!
Suzy is very organized, and Roxy is more spontaneous—what do you love most about each of them?
I love that they both make it work as a team, just like me and Dad did when camping! I love how Suzy doesn’t get upset at Roxy; she may wonder what she’s up to packing all this stuff, but she accepts her for who she is! I also love how Roxy likes to take it easy, kick back, and have fun! I feel they both complement each other.
How do you balance teaching a message while still keeping the story fun and light?
I think this is so important! You want to have fun, but you also want to make sure you weave a little lesson or take-away into the mix. I think that’s important in Suzy & Roxy Go Camping. These are two best buddies, with different personalities, who make the most out of a rainy day at the campgrounds. They roll with the punches and I think that’s a great life lesson. Sometimes you have to just do your best and make the most out of a situation.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
Yay! So excited to be working on my next book! I’ll be including a new character in the next “Suzy & Roxy” book! I’m hoping for a Spring/Summer 2027 release! Stay tuned, Suzy & Roxy friends!
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Instagram
The Write-In
The Write-In by James A. Brandt is a political fiction novel with strong elements of inspirational drama and political thriller. It follows Jake Kilthread, a retired Army colonel turned local news anchor in Lawton, Oklahoma, whose offhand suggestion that voters write in his name for president turns into a national movement. What begins as frustration with two deeply flawed candidates becomes a surreal rise to the White House, complete with legal challenges, family strain, faith, public pressure, and the early tests of leadership.
I liked how earnest the book is. It wears its heart right on its sleeve. Brandt isn’t trying to write a cynical Washington novel full of smoky rooms and clever betrayals. He’s writing about what leadership should feel like to ordinary people: honest, service-minded, grounded in family, and willing to speak plainly. I enjoyed that. Jake is almost idealized at times, but that seems intentional. He’s less a messy antihero and more a wish cast into fiction, the kind of leader people imagine when they are tired of being disappointed.
The writing is big, direct, and emotional. Sometimes it leans on grand descriptions and affirmations of Jake’s goodness. I found myself wanting a little more friction inside Jake himself, more doubt, more moments where the answers were not so clear. Still, the author’s choices make sense for the genre. As political fiction, the book isn’t just asking “what if?” It is asking “what if the country remembered its better self?” That question gives the story its pulse.
One other thing I liked about the book was the way it keeps Jake’s family close to the center of the story. His rise is national and dramatic, but the scenes with Carol, Keith, and Kyle make the book feel warmer and more personal. They remind us that Jake isn’t just a symbol or a candidate. He’s a husband and father trying to stay grounded while the world around him gets louder.
I would recommend The Write-In most to readers who enjoy patriotic political fiction, faith-informed storytelling, underdog narratives, and stories where family values sit beside national stakes. Readers who want a hopeful, sincere, and very American fantasy about a regular man being called into extraordinary service, this book will be a great read.
Pages: 222 | ASIN : B0GSSJNCT7
The Legend of Leanna Page
In The Legend of Leanna Page, Volume One, author Cedar Flyte opens a deliberately old-fashioned fantasy saga in the World Within the Woods, where Masor, Pavoline, and the fairy nation of Alquoria are knotted together by grief, political suspicion, inherited hatred, and dangerous magic. At the center is Leanna Page, a servant’s daughter with dream-born powers and a fierce bond with the fairy Kennedy; as rulers scheme, a drought spreads, and the Jewel of Nebulous becomes a weapon of power, Leanna moves from hidden child to moral force, challenging kings and kingdoms that have mistaken prejudice for wisdom.
I was taken by the book’s insistence that wonder should carry ethical weight. The fairies aren’t merely decorative wings in the trees, and the kingdoms are not simple chessboards of good and evil. Flyte gives the world a parchment-and-ivy texture: songs, epistles, maps, courtly titles, family grudges, and little ceremonial gestures accumulate until the setting feels less invented than unearthed. The prose asks the reader to slow down. Its archaic turns will not suit every taste, but I found that, once my ear adjusted, the language gave the story a pleasingly lantern-lit cadence.
What stayed with me more than the spectacle was Leanna’s particular kind of bravery. She isn’t brave because she is untouched by fear; she is brave because fear keeps arriving and she keeps answering it with tenderness, wit, or defiance. Her relationship with Kennedy gives the book its warmest pulse, and the political plot gains bite because the personal stakes are so intimate: fathers, mothers, servants, monarchs, and children all pay for the stories their societies choose to believe. The pacing can feel slow, but that slowness also lets the emotional and philosophical consequences settle instead of simply rushing toward the next marvel.
I would recommend this to readers of epic fantasy, YA fantasy, fairy lore, queer romantic fantasy, and coming-of-age adventure, especially those who enjoy immersive worldbuilding and prose with an antique shimmer. It may appeal to fans of Tamora Pierce’s moral clarity and courtly adventure, though its diction and legendary framing also bring to mind older Arthurian retellings. The Legend of Leanna Page is a lush, earnest, many-chambered beginning: a fantasy that believes peace is not naïve, but arduous, luminous work.
Pages: 342 | ASIN: B0G26ZL86L
A Taste of Madagascar: Culinary Riches of the Red Island
Emmanuel Laroche’s A Taste of Madagascar: Culinary Riches of the Red Island is a work of narrative nonfiction that uses food as its organizing lens for understanding Madagascar’s people, landscapes, economy, and cultural memory. Built from Laroche’s travels between 2022 and 2025, the book blends field reporting, interviews, culinary observation, and personal reflection into a sustained portrait of an island often reduced to a few familiar images. Its central strength is that it treats ingredients not as curiosities, but as entry points into work, history, ecology, and identity.
The book’s structure gives it breadth without losing its human focus. Chapters move through Antananarivo, vanilla production, cocoa terroirs, caviar farming, voatsiperifery pepper, zebu, honey, rice, perfumery, contemporary Malagasy cooking, and deforestation. Laroche is especially effective when he connects global flavor markets to the people behind them, including farmers, chefs, beekeepers, entrepreneurs, and conservationists. His statement that “Madagascar’s cuisine is a mosaic woven from its rich history of migration and cultural exchange” captures the book’s wider method: every ingredient is placed within a larger story of movement, adaptation, and local knowledge.
Laroche’s professional background in flavor gives the book a precise sensory vocabulary, but the writing is strongest when technical insight serves storytelling. Vanilla, cocoa, pepper, honey, rice, and aromatic plants are presented with attention to production, taste, trade, and meaning. The rice chapter is a good example, since it turns an everyday staple into a cultural subject. As one passage puts it, “Rice is a staple. Few countries honor rice like Madagascar does. It’s not just a side dish; it’s a centerpiece.” That kind of observation gives the book its grounded authority.
The book also makes room for Madagascar’s environmental stakes without shifting away from food. Deforestation, biodiversity, climate pressure, and agricultural fragility are woven into the culinary narrative as lived realities rather than abstract concerns. This approach gives the book depth: flavor becomes a way to discuss livelihoods, conservation, colonial history, tourism, and the pressure placed on land and communities. Laroche’s tone is curious and respectful, and he generally lets people and places carry the meaning instead of forcing the reader toward a predetermined conclusion.
A Taste of Madagascar is a culinary travel narrative with the reach of cultural reporting and the texture of firsthand encounter. It’s professionally researched, generous toward its subjects, and attentive to the links between what people eat, what they grow, and how they imagine the future. Readers interested in food systems, culinary history, travel writing, conservation, or Madagascar itself will find a book that’s informative without feeling detached and personal without becoming self-centered.
Pages: 400 | ASIN : B0FHWTHS9D
Tattle Tails
Tattle Tails, written by Stacy Byous, Ph.D., and illustrated by Maddie Kimber, is a thoughtful, charming, and surprisingly relatable story about sibling squabbles. It helps children understand the difference between “tattling” and truly asking for help. At its heart, the book follows two siblings who cannot seem to stop telling on each other over the smallest things. Over time, they begin to learn a kinder and healthier way to handle everyday frustrations. As an older sister myself, I found this story adorably familiar.
Skylar and Brodie spend their days doing what many siblings do best: getting on each other’s nerves. They argue over toys. They point out every tiny mistake. They complain about who forgot to close the refrigerator door and who took an extra cookie. The tattling never seems to end, and their constant back-and-forth slowly begins to hurt feelings at home and at school. Through all of this chaos, Maddie Kimber’s absolutely adorable illustrations shine. Her warm, expressive art style was easily my favorite part of the book. The bright colors, playful details, and lovable family pets make each page especially inviting for younger readers.
What I appreciated most about the plot is how real it feels. Families with young children will likely recognize these small, everyday arguments right away. Instead of simply scolding Skylar and Brodie, their parents explain the difference between “telling” when someone is hurt or unsafe and “tattling” over something small. The turning point comes when the siblings discover a “Tattle Tail,” a fluffy stuffed companion they can talk to about little frustrations. I loved how child-friendly this idea felt. The story does not dismiss big feelings. It gives children a practical, gentle way to express them.
The language is simple and repetitive in a way that works beautifully for younger readers. The message is easy to follow. The illustrations also help move the story forward, especially for children who are still learning to read independently.
Tattle Tails is a warm, engaging book with a genuinely useful lesson at its center. It teaches kindness, communication, and emotional awareness in a way that feels practical rather than preachy. This would be a perfect read for families, classrooms, or any child learning how to navigate those everyday little frustrations.
Pages: 40 | ASIN: B0G2383NRC
