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Lord, Lord – a heavenly mystery
Lord, Lord – a heavenly mystery tells the story of Liza, a small-town reporter who suddenly finds herself in Heaven after her untimely death. What follows is not a harp-filled, cloud-floating afterlife but a layered, curious introduction to eternity where angels sip tea, Heaven looks like an Ivy League dean’s office, and “tourists” are given soft landings before judgment. Through conversations with Michaela, her welcoming angel, Liza begins to unpack her life, her choices, her loves, and her mistakes, all while navigating the strange mix of humor and gravity that this version of the afterlife offers.
Author Kathleen Cochran writes with a conversational ease, almost like sitting down with a sharp-witted friend who isn’t afraid to poke at your doubts and faith. The dialogue carried most of the story, and it was both quick and playful, though sometimes it wandered so much I caught myself rereading passages to stay grounded. Still, there were moments that stopped me in my tracks, like when Michaela explained the Bible as a kind of recruiting tool.
Liza’s questioning sometimes circled back on itself, and a few of the explanations felt a little more direct than I expected. Still, the story would then shift into a tender memory or drop in a line of humor that caught me off guard in the best way, and those moments made me appreciate the guidance rather than resist it. The balance between skepticism and belief felt real. I never doubted Liza’s cynicism because it sounded so much like my own inner voice when I wrestle with faith.
By the end, I felt like I’d been through both a lighthearted play and a quiet sermon. It isn’t a book for someone who wants tidy theology or a straight path to answers. It’s better suited for readers who like their mysteries with a side of laughter, who don’t mind Heaven being described with Persian rugs and Waterford lamps, and who want to explore faith without losing the messiness of doubt. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys thought-provoking fiction with a spiritual edge, especially if they don’t mind a story that feels more like a conversation than a plot-driven march.
Pages: 168 | ASIN : B0161ZHCWQ
The Grotesque
The Grotesque is a dark novel that dives headfirst into trauma, obsession, and the blurred edges between reality and delusion. The story shifts perspectives between characters who are each broken in their own ways. Katrina, a dancer clawing through rejection and danger. Jared, a haunted figure battling inner demons and visions that blur into nightmares. And Michael, a man desperate to control his own narrative. Their paths intersect in a cityscape soaked with menace, hallucination, and fleeting moments of hope. What begins as a tense character study unravels into something stranger, almost dreamlike, where memory and horror bleed together and nothing feels entirely safe.
The writing has a raw, abrasive energy, like it’s trying to peel back a layer of skin. I couldn’t look away. Foy writes with an eye for the grotesque, both in the literal violence that shadows the characters and in the quiet cruelties they turn inward on themselves. Some scenes made me tense up, almost angry, but that anger was directed at the world he was showing me, not at the prose. The language is sharp, cynical, often bitterly funny, and it fits the mood. It’s not elegant in a polished sense, but it’s alive, and I felt its pulse.
There were moments I loved too. Small sparks of connection, odd flashes of warmth, even in the middle of so much darkness. Those moments felt like stolen breaths, like someone opening a window in a suffocating room. They didn’t last long, but they mattered.
Reading The Grotesque felt to me like stepping into the fractured, hallucinatory world of American Psycho, only with more aching humanity flickering beneath the horror. I’d recommend The Grotesque to readers who aren’t afraid of stories that claw under the skin. If you want tidy resolutions or comforting escapes, this isn’t your book. But if you’re drawn to characters who stumble through shadow and survive in fragments, and if you’re willing to sit with unease, you’ll find something here that lingers.
Pages: 348 | ASIN : B0FPLW71S1
Dig Two Graves: A Noir Thriller of Revenge
Dig Two Graves is a hard-hitting noir tale about a man just out of prison, stumbling back into the world with nothing but a Bible, some rage, and a whole lot of unresolved history. Von Martin is bitter, raw, and desperate. He wants to see his daughter, reclaim his place, and claw back respect in a world that seems determined to keep him down. What unfolds is a tense ride through betrayal, revenge, and the messy business of survival, with every page steeped in grit and sweat.
I felt torn while reading. On one hand, the writing is sharp and immersive. The author captures the voice of Von with uncanny precision. It feels like you’re right there with him, stuck in his head, tasting his anger, hearing his rationalizations, even when you know he’s full of it. That intimacy made me uneasy, but in the best way, because it’s rare to find a book that commits so fully to the flawed perspective of its main character. On the other hand, Von is not an easy guy to root for. He’s selfish, volatile, and often cruel, and I caught myself rolling my eyes at his self-pity while also sympathizing with his hunger for dignity. That push and pull kept me hooked.
The ideas in this book hit harder than I expected. It’s not just a revenge story. It’s about the weight of time wasted, the way choices narrow your life, and the slow decay of trust. There’s this constant tug between the possibility of redemption and the lure of destruction, and I felt that tension every step of the way.
By the time I turned the last page, I was impressed. Dig Two Graves is not for someone looking for a comforting read. It’s for readers who want to wade into murky waters, who can handle being close to a character that repels as much as he fascinates. If you like crime stories with grit, moral ambiguity, and a voice that sticks in your head, then this one is worth your time.
Pages: 214 | ASIN : B0FRD5R9L7
They Are An Odd Couple
The Case Files of GG Michaels follows Guenevere Michaels and her pragmatic partner as they unravel eerie mysteries with wit, suspense, and a razor-sharp blend of folklore and modern investigation. What inspired you to pair paranormal lore with modern investigative techniques in this collection?
I think it began early on beginning with Scooby-Doo before proceeding to other series like the X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stranger Things, and the TV show, Friday the 13th the Series.
But it also stems from something that has always perplexed me, that is how various paranormal investigative shows find something out of sorts but then largely do nothing about it. These investigators may document something and be even be frightened by it but they do nothing about it. By contrast, GG & her friends (depending on the story,) do something about the ghosts, monsters, and cults the run across. They leave a situation better than they found it.
Guen and Janet’s dynamic is both witty and heartfelt. How did you develop their contrasting voices and chemistry?
They are an odd couple, but they deal with odd scenarios, so it jibes. They’re both brave in their own ways. Their backgrounds influenced them with GG’s idealism contrasting with Janet’s pragmatism. Often the approach of one is better suited to the scenario than the other. I love writing dialogue and work hard at developing unique voices for my characters. Often, a reader may not remember a book’s plot but they will remember a character that they loved by what they said and did and how they said and did it.
I’m also developing a third member of GG Michaels Investigations, Izaak, whom we meet in the story, The Padded Cell.
Many of your settings feel like characters themselves. Do you draw inspiration from real locations or create them entirely from imagination?
As a kid I was pretty good at scaring myself. My imagination was, and continues to be, vibrant. My locations are a combination of real experience and researched with a lot of ideation as to how I could make them even spookier. To paraphrase Stephen King, I do my best to “be there.”
Some stories resolve quickly, leaving readers wanting more. Do you see yourself expanding any of these cases into longer novels?
I have so many ideas on the drawing board, most of which I think will pan out. In order to write them all, I will continue to write in the short story/novelette length, but one never knows how a story will develop and if it requires novella or novel length space to tell the tale adequately.
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Ghosts
Vampires
Evil Cults
Monsters
Haunted Asylums
Or…you could go with GG Michaels and experience them all.
So…safe & boring?
Or Supernatural Adventure?
Choose adventure!
The Dangers of Time Travel
Furniture Sliders follows a former intelligence officer who is pulled back in to discover what has happened to a classified project and the people working on it, which controls time, memory, and identity, and is now missing. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I have always been a fan of both film noir and espionage novels plus I have a tech background and a fascination with quantum mechanics. I wanted to write a story that felt like a 1940s Cold War spy thriller written in noir style—then break it wide open with the addition of speculative science fiction. I had a question: what if you take the characteristics of quantum mechanics such as superposition and entanglement and instead of applying them to atomic particles, you applied them to human beings? To spies? Can you be in two places at once or two timelines at the same time? Firstly, apply the ability to manipulate space and time and then take it even further by playing in panpsychism – the concept that every inanimate object can be sentient. Of course, you would have to have some form of technology to do all of this – the Mirror is exactly that inspired by the one in my hall at home. The title literally came from a box of plastic furniture sliders that were on the table at home with the box looking like a paperback book – Furniture Sliders on the spine! Sliders was a perfect description for agents moving through space and time and their organization is called the Bureau, along with the Mirror, giving the initial tongue-in-cheek furniture connection.
I found Max Calder to be an intriguing character. What was your inspiration for this character?
Max Calder is the kind of character I love; deeply broken but still pushing forward through the fog. It isn’t about a single character or character flaw but about weaving influences together. I guess Max carries echoes of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Graham Greene’s morally ambiguous operatives. He isn’t polished like Bond, but weary, suspicious, and prone to moral compromise – a man affected by the machine he serves. I tried to deliberately write against cliché by grounding him in history and psychology. His gaps, duplications, and doubts reflect not only the dangers of espionage but the fragility of identity itself. Unlike many spy archetypes, Calder isn’t defined by conquest or success, but by survival, mistrust, and fear of irrelevance — hopefully making him come across as human, flawed, and complex. In many espionage novels, agents and spies are unaffected by what they do and are amazing at executing their role. In the case of Max, I wanted him to be very affected. Remorse, regret, and inner demons.
What themes were particularly important for you to explore in this book?
Primarily the consequences of messing with time and how doing so can also mess with you physically, potentially drive you insane and affect your memory while creating echoes or even doppelgangers as time threads overlap. All caused by, or underpinned by, the human-applied characteristics of quantum mechanics. It was important to explore relationships especially between protagonists and antagonists and between espionage agents and technology pitching various spy agencies against each other – even if they are supposed to have great relationships. I also wanted to introduce fictionalized real-life characters to the storyline which in this book includes Alan Turing, Hugh Sinclair and William Stephenson.
Where does the story go in the next book, and where do you see it going in the future?
There are two more books coming in the series. Angus Sliders and Cuban Sliders. Angus Sliders is planned to publish on the 15th December. One of the challenges with quantum-based technology like the Mirror is that many want to get their hands on it in many cases for various nefarious reasons. In Furniture Sliders it was the Russians and ex Nazis. In Angus Sliders, Max Calder discovers that some major occurrences in Furniture Sliders didn’t really happen and that MI6 is very involved. Even a fictionalized Kim Philby is involved as is Charles Fraser-Smith who was the inspiration for James Bond’s Q. Max Calder is more and more affected by what the Mirror can do to you. In Cuban Sliders the Russians are back in the game and so is the CIA. Through all of this the Mirror becomes even more difficult to control or destroy. The big question is – can it be destroyed at all or even stopped and who gets to control it? Are there more storylines past the initial trilogy? Yes indeed!
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The Bureau is chasing a secret called the Mirror—a project so classified that even its architects have vanished or been silenced. It’s said to control time, memory, even identity itself. As Calder tracks the Mirror’s echoes across empty safehouses and wartime graveyards, the lines between hunter and hunted begin to blur.
Artemis may be an ally. Or she may be a weapon. And Calder? He may not even be who he thinks he is.
As bodies pile up and truths unravel, Calder must navigate a world where nothing stays still—where every room slides just a few inches sideways when you’re not looking. In the end, he’ll face one impossible choice:
Burn the truth… or become it.
The Gift
The Gift follows Emery, a young woman pulled into a strange dimension where voices, shadows, and visions drag her into a fate she never asked for. The novel is about her journey to rescue her mother, uncover hidden truths about her powers, and navigate an ancient and perilous world that teeters between myth and science. There are black holes that bend time, creatures that lurk in slithering shadows, and tribes that live by instinct and survival. But underneath the cosmic spectacle, it is really about one woman’s fight to hold on to family, identity, and purpose in a reality that constantly shifts beneath her feet.
The writing surprised me. It has a dreamlike quality in places, flowing almost like waves, then suddenly crashing into moments of raw grit and pain. The descriptions of the void, of light turning into memory, of bodies disintegrating and reforming, made me pause and reread because they were so vivid. But then the author would drop Emery into the dirt, into hunger and thirst, into stumbling mistakes, and it grounded everything. That combination kept me engaged. Sometimes the prose was a little heavy, but the emotional weight pulled me through. I found myself caring about Emery’s stubbornness, her doubts, her messy humanity, even as she was tasked with saving more than just herself.
What really stayed with me was the emotional pull of Emery’s relationships, especially her bond with Visla. Their friendship felt tender and real, the kind of connection that lights up even the darkest setting. I loved how their language lessons became a bridge between two worlds. I felt warmth reading their moments together, and sadness knowing Emery’s destiny might tear them apart. Emery’s constant second-guessing sometimes slowed the story, and I wished she trusted herself more. But then again, maybe that’s what made her believable. She wasn’t some perfect heroine. She was clumsy, scared, and hopeful, and that made me root for her all the more.
I felt like I’d been on a strange and exhausting journey right alongside Emery. The Gift is not just for fans of science fiction or fantasy. It’s for readers who want to feel the clash of fear and hope, who enjoy sci-fi stories where survival is as important as destiny, and where the heart matters as much as the universe. I would recommend it to anyone who likes their adventure raw and relatable, layered with both cosmic wonder and everyday struggle.
Pages: 381 | ASIN : B0FM77FD39
Deep Freeze
Anne Louise O’Connell’s Deep Freeze is a suspenseful mystery set against the unlikely backdrop of Dubai’s indoor ski slopes, posh neighborhoods, and glossy hospitals. At the heart of the story is Susan Morris, an American ex-pat nurse whose curiosity and compassion pull her into the chaos following a tragic ski lift accident that nearly kills her friend’s husband, Dr. Barry Thornton. What begins as a personal favor to comfort a friend quickly spirals into a dangerous investigation involving hospital coverups, cryogenic experiments, and the exploitation of domestic workers. The book moves briskly, balancing cultural detail with medical intrigue, and it doesn’t take long before Susan realizes she’s in over her head.
I was hooked from the start. The writing has a straightforward flow that makes it easy to slip into Susan’s world. What really grabbed me was the way O’Connell built tension through ordinary settings. A shopping mall ski slope or a hospital hallway doesn’t sound like a thriller, but the unease creeps in, and before you know it, you’re bracing yourself for the next turn. I found myself both frustrated and impressed with Susan. She’s stubborn, she pushes too far, but she’s also brave in a way that feels relatable rather than superhero-like. At times, the dialogue felt a little stiff, but the energy of the plot kept me flipping pages late into the night.
Emotionally, the book hit me harder than I expected. The parts dealing with exploited domestic workers left a knot in my stomach. It’s not just about crime or corruption, it’s about people living in the shadows of luxury and power. That gave the story real weight. I also felt for Susan as her marriage slowly unraveled in the background. Those quieter moments balanced out the faster-paced mystery, and I found myself caring as much about her personal struggles as the central investigation. The suspense had my pulse up, but the human side of it tugged at me even more.
Deep Freeze is a gripping read that I’d recommend to anyone who enjoys mysteries with both heart and grit. If you like thrillers that blend cultural insight with medical drama, you’ll find a lot to love here. It’s especially for readers who want a strong but imperfect female lead, someone who feels like a real person caught in extraordinary circumstances.
Pages: 244 | ASIN : B0DTLY26YZ
LITERARY TITAN 