Blog Archives
Long Leg: From the Blighted Earth: Book II
R.M. Tembreull’s Long Leg: From the Blighted Earth: Book II is an ambitious work of environmental fantasy that blends mythic adventure, eco-fiction, and climate fiction into a sweeping speculative tale. Set in a damaged world where the Natural Order struggles against Chaos and the Force Corrupted, the novel moves north into the Great Plains and centers its conflict on drought, water, ecological collapse, and the fragile bonds that connect all living things. It’s a book with large stakes, but its emotional pull comes from small, unlikely heroes carrying the fate of the world on their shoulders.
At the heart of the story is Long Leg, a Gifted burrowing owl whose loyalty to the earth elemental Okaraxta gives the novel both intimacy and purpose. Through Long Leg’s journey, Tembreull turns animals, elementals, fungi, water, wind, and land into active participants in an ongoing struggle for balance. The result is a richly imagined mythic fantasy world where the natural world isn’t just scenery; it’s alive, wounded, watchful, and capable of resistance. The book’s use of Lakota-inspired themes, especially the idea that all beings are related, gives the story a spiritual framework that feels central to its identity.
The novel’s strongest quality is its sense of scale. Tembreull writes with the scope of epic fantasy while grounding the story in recognizable environmental concerns: drought, wildfire, overuse of water, disappearing habitats, and humanity’s troubled relationship with the planet. Water becomes both a sacred presence and a force of renewal, which gives the adventure a clear emotional and thematic current. The prose is often expansive and philosophical, but that style suits a story designed to feel like a legend, a warning, and a quest all at once.
Readers who enjoyed Richard Adams’s Watership Down may find a familiar appeal here: animal protagonists move through a dangerous world shaped by forces larger than themselves, and their courage matters because they’re vulnerable. Tembreull’s book is more overtly supernatural and environmental in its focus, but it shares that sense of small creatures becoming central to a vast struggle. The journey also carries the feel of an eco-fantasy quest, where survival depends not on domination, but on cooperation, memory, sacrifice, and respect for the living world.
Long Leg is a thoughtful and imaginative speculative fiction novel for readers who appreciate mythic worldbuilding, animal-centered adventure, and environmental themes woven into epic fantasy. It’s not simply a story about a broken world; it’s a story about connection, responsibility, and the possibility of restoration. Tembreull delivers a distinctive continuation of the Blighted Earth series, one that invites readers to care deeply about the smallest beings and to see the natural world as a powerful, sacred community.
Pages: 338 | ASIN : B0GVPT5DMM
Sacred Crossroads: The Path Appears When You Take The First Step
Sacred Crossroads, by Mitch Russo, is a metaphysical fantasy novel about Noble Manning, a practical hardware store owner in Cedar Springs, Massachusetts, whose carefully ordered life begins to crack open when the family store reveals itself as something far more mysterious than a small-town business. Through Noble, his daughter Sarah, Jenny Martinez, Rosa’s legacy, and the strange pull of Manning’s Hardware, the book explores grief, family inheritance, spiritual awakening, and the courage it takes to step into a larger truth.
What I liked most is that the novel treats transformation as both magical and deeply human. Noble’s resistance feels familiar. He wants numbers, ledgers, systems, and proof. Honestly, I understood him. There is comfort in shelves being labeled and life behaving itself. But the book keeps pressing against that comfort, asking what happens when the world is bigger than the tools we use to measure it. The hardware store is a smart central image because it keeps the story grounded. Hammers, keys, wood, registers, and old ledgers. Ordinary things. Then Russo lets them hum with meaning. That mix gives the book its strongest texture.
The writing leans into wonder, sometimes so much that the message comes through very clearly. This is not a quiet literary novel that hides its themes in the shadows. It wants to talk about awakening, purpose, fear, and becoming. Still, there is sincerity here, and that counts for a lot. I was especially drawn to Jenny and Rosa’s thread because their wisdom feels lived-in rather than abstract. Their story gives the novel heart and history, and it helps balance Noble’s more internal struggle with a wider sense of community and inheritance.
As spiritual or visionary fantasy, Sacred Crossroads will most appeal to readers who like fiction with an open heart and a clear sense of purpose. It’s a good fit for people drawn to stories about awakening after loss, small towns with hidden magic, family legacies, and the idea that everyday places can become thresholds. Readers who enjoy reflective, meaning-driven fiction will likely appreciate its warmth and invitation. I’d recommend it to anyone standing at a personal crossroads, especially someone who wants a novel that feels less like an escape and more like a nudge toward courage.
Pages: 218 | ASIN : B0GGNRK2TC
One Cathartic Moment
Sage of the Mountains follows a broken blacksmith who journeys into the mountains in search of a sage, hoping to get a fresh start, and discovers that the path to healing requires confronting the self he’s been trying to escape. Why did you choose to tell this story as a fable rather than a traditional self-help book?
I chose to tell this story as a fable because real change doesn’t come from information alone. It comes from lived experiences. The journey Folly takes through the mountains is a mirror of our own inner journey that we all face when we’re trying to let go of the past and find peace.
I’ve always been drawn to self-help, but I’ve noticed something: even when the advice is excellent, it often doesn’t stick. It stays in the mind, but it doesn’t change me. A story, on the other hand, goes deeper. It allows us to feel the struggle, the resistance, and the transformation.
It’s like sitting in a classroom. After a few months, most of us won’t remember the bullet points the teacher says will be on the test. But we will remember an interesting story from the teacher about the topic. That’s what I wanted to create here. Instead of telling readers what to do, I wanted them to walk the path with Folly, experience it for themselves, and hopefully carry those lessons into their own lives.
What does the mountain represent to you beyond the obvious symbolism, and do you believe everyone has a “mountain,” and if so, how do we recognize it?
The mountain isn’t just the thing we are trying to avoid. It represents who we are capable of becoming.
Everyone has a mountain to conquer, but each person’s will be different. Some are about loss, failure, or even a realization that something isn’t working anymore, while for others, it can represent striving to be the best version of themselves.
We recognize it by what we resist the most. It’s the thing we keep avoiding but know we need to face. That tension, that pull and resistance that we feel, that’s the mountain we must face.
What is the most misunderstood idea about healing that you wanted to address?
To me, it’s that we believe too much in the Hollywood ending, that one cathartic moment brings a person back to reality. It doesn’t. Healing is gradual, and relapses are ever-present.
What do you hope someone in a difficult season takes away from Folly’s story?
That what they’re going through may have some purpose, even if they can’t see it yet. Sometimes it’s just realizing how much other people truly show up when everything has fallen apart.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Instagram | Website | Amazon
A story about losing everything…and finding yourself.
After losing the life he worked so hard to build, Folly finds himself in ruins with no direction, no certainty, and no map of where to go next. Drawn by whispers of a reclusive Sage that dwells high in the mountains, he sets out on a journey that he hopes will piece him back together. What he doesn’t yet understand is that transformation demands he face the very things he has tried to outrun and question the identity he constructed to protect himself.
Sage of the Mountains is a modern inspirational fable for those standing at a crossroads. In the spirit of symbolic journeys like The Alchemist, Siddhartha and The Celestine Prophecy, it unfolds slowly—inviting reflection, stillness, and a deeper listening in a world that rarely pauses.
We all have a mountain that we must conquer in our lives, something that is holding us back from becoming who we wish to be. For readers navigating loss, doubt, or the courage to begin again, Sage of the Mountains is more than a story—it is a mirror for your own path.
Your climb begins here.
The Sage and the General
The Sage and the General is a thought-provoking spiritual fable. Author B. A. Agha builds the book around a Himalayan village torn apart by violent swarms of bees, then uses that conflict to tell a larger story about fear, power, revenge, and the hard work of choosing peace. At the center are two opposing figures: the Sage, who believes compassion and understanding can break cycles of harm, and the General, who answers danger with force and control. What follows is less a literal battle story than a moral and philosophical one, where the village becomes a testing ground for how communities think, panic, divide, and either harden or heal.
I enjoyed how direct the writing is. Agha doesn’t hide the book’s intentions behind irony or fancy prose. The story is clean, simple, and deliberate, which fits the fable form. I felt that clearly in the way the bees, the village, and the two leaders are set up, almost like living ideas, but still given enough human tension to keep the book moving. The dialogue can feel more symbolic. This book is not really chasing realism in the ordinary novelistic sense. It’s trying to make moral conflict visible. It wants the reader to stop and consider how quickly self-defense turns into identity, and how easily leadership can start feeding on fear.
I was especially interested in the author’s decision to make the General more than a simple villain. The book could have settled for an easy contrast between wisdom and aggression, but it pushes further and shows how conflict can become its own system, with followers, rewards, habits, and a logic that keeps reproducing itself. The sections where force only creates a tougher enemy felt pointed and uncomfortably familiar, and the later movement toward transformation gives the novel its real weight. When the villagers begin to see that victory might mean something other than domination, the book opens up. It stops feeling like an argument and starts feeling like an invitation. That shift worked for me. It stopped feeling so rigid and gave the story more room for reflection and possibility, and it made the ending feel earned rather than merely hopeful.
I would recommend The Sage and the General most strongly to readers who enjoy spiritual fiction, allegorical novels, and reflective moral tales that are more interested in ideas than plot twists. It will speak most to people who like books about peacebuilding, inner change, and the psychology of conflict, especially if they appreciate fiction that reads almost like a parable. For readers open to a clear-eyed, sincere, and thoughtful spiritual fable, this book has something real to offer. It feels like a conversation about how people lose themselves in conflict, and how they might still find a way back.
Pages: 146 | ASIN : B0CW19TSDM
Freya the Deer
Freya the Deer is a literary coming-of-age novel with the strange shimmer of a fairy tale. It follows Freya Rubenstein, a young woman with autism who moves from Cambridge to a small college in the woods of Washington, carrying with her an intense love of animals, a restless curiosity about the soul, and a way of moving through the world that other people constantly misread. What unfolds is part campus novel, part moral reckoning, part dark fable: Freya falls into love, politics, and danger while trying to hold onto her own fierce sense of truth.
Author Meg Richman writes Freya with real conviction, and that matters because this book could have so easily turned her into a symbol, a lesson, or a bundle of quirks. Instead, she feels singular. Odd, funny, tender, literal, and sometimes almost severe in the way she sees things. I loved how the novel lets the world arrive through Freya’s mind rather than forcing her to translate herself into something more familiar for everyone else. The prose can be lush, but it is not showing off for the sake of it. It feels attached to the character. At its best, the book has that rare quality where the imagery actually deepens the person on the page instead of decorating her. The fairy-tale texture really worked for me. The woods, the red cloak, the animal imagery, the sense that menace and wonder are always standing close together. It gives the novel a charged atmosphere without floating away from real harm.
It was interesting, and at times unsettling, how the book handles morality. Freya is not written as innocent in a simple or sentimental way. She is perceptive, but her perceptions do not always line up with the social scripts everyone else is following, and that makes the novel ask harder questions than I expected. About consent. About ideology. About cruelty dressed up as righteousness. About whether love and truth can survive each other. The campus politics and arguments about justice, Israel, capitalism, race, and activism could have felt schematic, but Richman keeps dragging them back into lived experience, where ideas stop being neat. Some choices are messy on purpose. Some conversations feel jagged. I admired that, even when I was wincing. The book trusts the reader to sit in ambiguity, which I respect. It also made me think about how often people mistake clarity for coldness, especially in someone like Freya, when in fact her honesty may be the most morally serious thing in the room.
I’d recommend Freya the Deer most to readers who like literary fiction that takes risks, especially if they’re drawn to coming-of-age stories with a darker edge, socially engaged novels, or modern fairy tales that are more thorny than cozy. This is not a breezy read, but it is a memorable one. I think it will land best with readers who are willing to follow an unusual protagonist without needing her to become easier or more legible by the end. For me, that was the point. The book asks for patience, openness, and a little courage. I think the right reader will be grateful for all three.
Pages: 206 | ISBN : 978-1578692156
Cultural Imperialism
Talismans: Quathiels Dance follows the son of a potter whose ability to complete a Water talisman determines the fate of not only his betrothed but ultimately the land. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
My experience with the inspiration of stories is deeper than one incident. I’ve been an avid reader of fantasy and science fiction since primary school. I’m not sure if there was a single inspiration. Some elements were purely reactionary. I can’t recall a single fantasy story based in the Southern Hemisphere. As an Australian, I’m subjected to a huge amount of Northern Hemisphere cultural imperialism. Down here, when the north wind blows, it’s hot, full of dust, and a likely precursor to bushfires. There’s no snow at Christmas – but all the shops are decked out with mock snow crystals and fake frosting.
Another aspect of living in the antipodes is the history of colonization. While I did not want to focus on that aspect, it is an underlying element in the Quathiels Dance world building. Living in New Zealand for many years, I saw how indigenous and colonizers could live in harmony (but only after the British had their imperial noses bloodied).
Is there a particular scene or passage in this book you are particularly proud of?
I’m proud of any section that was good enough to escape the editor’s red pen. 😁 Although not a major dramatic moment, I’m pleased with Maeve’s introduction while she’s out on the hunt with Sqwarker.
In many coming-of-age novels, authors often add their own life experiences to the story. Are there any bits of you in this story?
The story is all me!
All the characters are drawn from either who I am or who I hope I’m not. I’d love to be an experimentalist, like Ross, and a hunter like Maeve. I’ve fantasized about being a warrior, like Damon, and a sorcerer like Hallen, and a careful, caring person like Elam who can keep her anger in check.
Can you give us a peek inside the next book in this series? Where will it take readers?
It is difficult to give a peek into book two without spoiling the climax of book one.
East! Go east, young man! 🙃😁
There is mud. Ross builds on his success despite his failures and the increasing burdens the Quathiels lay upon him.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Although helpless to stop Salena, his betrothed, from being dragged away and Bound to the sorcerer, Ross held to a glimmer of hope. What could be done, could be undone.
Legend and the law said only death could free the sorcerously Bound, but Ross refused to relinquish the bright spark of his belief even though learning the sorcerous arts came at a high price: exile and enslavement, or death. But if he could learn enough to save his beloved, he could release the land from the bloody nightmare that dealing with the Bound presented.
The Quathiels, ancient elemental beings, had a plan. Steps were laid before Ross’s feet and the cadence set. To save the woman he loved, Ross must learn this new dance—and risk becoming the very thing the world feared.
NICK and CLANCY – A Tale of Nine Lives
NICK and CLANCY – A Tale of Nine Lives tells the story of Nick, a gentle and wounded man recovering from severe heart trauma, and Clancy, the sharp, funny, deeply devoted dog who enters his life at exactly the right moment. The narrative moves through years of shared life, illness, dreams, small victories, and fear, often told from Clancy’s point of view. At its core, the book is about survival, companionship, purpose, and the strange ways love shows up when life feels fragile and uncertain.
The writing feels intimate and conversational, almost like someone sitting across from you and telling you a story late at night. I laughed more than I expected. I also felt a quiet ache settle in as the pages went on. The dog’s perspective could have felt gimmicky, but it does not. It feels earnest and oddly wise. Clancy’s humor, guilt, loyalty, and protectiveness landed hard for me. I felt protective of Nick, too, even frustrated with him at times. The writing is messy in a relatable way. It rambles. It lingers. That worked for me. Life rarely moves in neat arcs, and this book does not pretend otherwise.
The theme of borrowed time runs through everything. Illness hangs over each chapter like background noise that never fully shuts off. I felt the anxiety of waiting for the next medical crisis. I also felt the stubborn hope that keeps Nick moving forward anyway. The story made me think about purpose in small terms. Not destiny. Not grand success. Just showing up for someone else. Just staying. There is a tenderness here that caught me off guard. Some sections felt repetitive, and a tighter edit could help in places, but I did not mind lingering with these characters. I cared about them. That matters more to me than polish.
I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy character-driven stories and emotional honesty. It is especially well-suited for animal lovers, people who have faced serious illness, or anyone who has felt unmoored and searching for meaning. This book is reflective and heartfelt and sometimes sad. If you like books that feel personal and lived in, and you do not mind getting a little misty-eyed along the way, this one is worth your time.
Pages: 288 | ASIN : B0FMTS6KZK
Riddles of the Ancestors
Riddles of the Ancestors is a mythic fantasy novel rooted in Arthurian legend and spiritual fiction. The story follows Merlin and his sister Ganieda across timelines, from a magical Foretime to modern-day London, as they protect the secrets of the Round Table and work to activate an ancient star-coded template called Logres. Along the way, druids, goddesses, healers, and everyday people are drawn into a larger unfolding meant to heal the Earth and usher in a new age of balance.
This book felt less like racing through a plot and more like being invited into a long, winding conversation with myth itself. Sullivan’s writing moves gently, often lingering on gardens, sacred landscapes, and quiet moments of recognition between characters. I found myself slowing down as I read. The author seems less interested in suspense than in atmosphere and meaning. At times, the story reads like a modern-day fairy tale layered with Celtic lore, astrology, and goddess wisdom. If you enjoy mythic fantasy that feels devotional rather than dramatic, this book leans into that space.
What stood out most to me was Sullivan’s choice to center Ganieda and other feminine figures alongside Merlin. The emphasis on healing, collaboration, and remembrance gives the book a softer pulse than traditional Arthurian retellings. Some scenes feel almost ceremonial, like stepping into a candlelit room where symbols matter as much as actions. Occasionally, I wished for sharper tension or more restraint with exposition, especially when spiritual concepts were explained directly rather than shown. Still, there is sincerity here. The book believes deeply in what it is saying, and that conviction carries it forward.
Riddles of the Ancestors will resonate most with readers who enjoy mythic fantasy, spiritual fiction, and reimagined Arthurian legends infused with goddess traditions and New Age themes. It is for readers who like to wander, reflect, and sit with big ideas about time, memory, and the living Earth. If you enjoy stories that feel like modern myths meant to be felt as much as understood, this book is worth your time.
Pages: 375 | ASIN : B0FW9G2ZVN
