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Release & Be Free: An Enlightening Erotic Anthology
Release & Be Free is an erotic anthology, but it isn’t interested in eroticism as spectacle alone. I think what the author is really writing about, again and again, is liberation: sexual, emotional, spiritual, generational. The book moves through poems and stories that treat desire as revelation, whether that’s the surreal, shape-shifting mythology of “Mow Me Down,” where a supernatural sexual curse becomes a story about tenderness breaking inheritance, or the more intimate pieces that turn toward self-worth, patience, motherhood, and the ache of becoming someone freer than you were taught to be. Even when the book is at its most explicit, it keeps reaching for something deeper, and that tension gives the collection its identity.
Angelica Stevenson writes with almost no ironic shield at all, and I found that disarming. In “Mow Me Down,” the wildness of cursed women, levitating lawnmowers, and men who only prove worthy when they slow down long enough to ask, to listen, to please, could have tipped into pure camp, but there’s real feeling underneath it. The emotional logic is clear even when the plot is gloriously excessive. I felt that same pulse in the poems too. “Patience’s Patient” and “A Soul Kiss” shift the mood completely, but in a way that makes the anthology feel fuller rather than scattered. They bring in healing, motherhood, self-regard, and the painful work of learning how to receive love without losing yourself. That emotional openness gave the book its strongest moments for me.
Stevenson has a bold voice. She likes intensity, repetition, declaration, and heat. Sometimes, the prose can be rough or more direct than elegant. But there’s also a raw immediacy to that style that suits the material. The book’s best scenes aren’t polished into cool perfection. They’re vivid, impulsive, strange, and emotionally exposed. I especially liked how often the ideas beneath the sex were about agency rather than conquest. Rebel’s refusal to be pulled in too easily, the sisterly ache between Zaphena and Ragina, the self-recognition in “The Art of Roses,” even the charged chaos of stories like “Murderous Intimacy,” all of it suggests a writer trying to fuse body and spirit instead of pretending they live in separate rooms.
I found Release & Be Free: An Enlightening Erotic Anthology sincere, imaginative, and unexpectedly heartfelt. What it offers is emotional candor, erotic fantasy with a spiritual undertow, and a voice that feels genuinely personal. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy erotica with mythic flair, emotional directness, and a strong interest in healing, transformation, and feminine power. It left me feeling that Stevenson’s real subject isn’t sex by itself, but what sex can uncover when a person is finally ready to be honest.
Pages: 235 | ISBN: 9798233384141
The Progression of Women’s Rights
The Crones’ Tales gathers five women from different eras of the feminist movement in a cottage to drink wine, trade stories, debate ideas, and retell a classic fairy tale through the lens of their own generation. What inspired the idea of gathering women from different feminist eras into one story?
The short answer is that it evolved. A few years ago, I had an idea for an anthology of fairy tales written by different female authors. I talked to the women in my local writer’s centre. There was a lot of interest but no action so I decided to move on to other things. Still, the idea of fairy tales told by different voices stayed with me and then last year I set myself a challenge – I would publish a short story every two weeks on my website. During this challenge, I wrote the story What’s In A Name and realised that that story had a distinctive voice. That made me wonder if I could return to my original idea but instead of different writer’s voices, I would write with different story teller’s voices. That meant that I needed to figure out what these women had in common and what would bring them together. I considered story telling frameworks like the travellers (Canterbury Tales), the strandees (The Decameron), the desperate (The Thousand Nights and One) and then I remembered a movie called My Dinner With Andre. The plot sounds terribly dull – two men eat dinner and talking – and yet it’s one of my favourite movies. With this idea of a dinner conversation in mind, I remembered reading about Mary Wollstonecraft attending dinners thrown by her publisher, Joseph Johnson at 72 St Paul’s Churchyard Lane in London. It was the Age of Enlightenment, an age when men were focused on their rights and freedoms. Johnson invited these radical thinkers to sit around his dining table, eating, drinking, talking. Mary wasn’t the only woman to attend these dinners, but it was her Vindication of the Rights of Women that made her stand out. She didn’t want to only be a woman who wrote, she wanted to be a woman who could support herself with her writing. While she never achieved her goal, her voice came to represent that of the movement that would much later, become known as feminism. It was this slow progression in the fight for women’s rights, the progress and the regression, that led me to ask the question – how have women’s ideas of ‘their rights’ changed over time.
How did you approach representing different waves of feminism through the five women, and what tensions between generations were most interesting to explore?
That’s a great question. Beatrice is modelled on Mary W — only mellowed a bit with age — because she pre-dated any formal movement. Women before and during the Enlightenment, were like lone voices struggling to create their own lives. She witnessed the women of the French Revolution being murdered for demanding the same rights as men. She never achieved the financial independence she longed for and she died, like so many women of her age, in childbirth. While her daughter, Mary went on to become famous as a writer, Mary W and her treatise and her life were debased by her husband William Godwin. Her treatise lay dormant for years until it was revived by the Seneca Falls Convention which produced the Declaration of Rights and Sentiment written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Magret is not based on Stanton alone – but perhaps her prickliness is — because she was part of a movement. That movement for women’s rights was an off shoot of the abolitionist movement which not only pushed to free the slaves but also pushed for black men to receive the right to vote. In 1870, black men won that right, but women wouldn’t get the same right in America until 1901. That’s a 30-year gap. In those 30 years, WW1 wiped out so many young men that women had to fill the gap. Then WW2 again asked women to take the place of men. Each time they stepped up, they gained confidence in their ability to keep the home fires burning. So why did they abdicate their newfound freedom in the post-war years? The simple answer seemed to be that women were told they were no longer needed and that coincided with the media building an image of a fairy tale life in the suburbs. Initially I planned a Rosie the Riveter character, but I didn’t think that adequately portrayed why so many women retreated to home and hearth. Women, especially those who knew what men endured during the war, were much more complex than that. So what, I wondered would convince that woman to take up the role of the traditional housewife? The solution was to choose a woman who knew exactly what she was giving up. Someone who understood that it was an act of sacrifice. For younger women today, I think the 50s of America looked like a peaceful, domestic age when women vacuumed their immaculate houses in heels and pearls while their husbands went to work in the cities. Ginger isn’t that woman. If anything, she and her husband strive jointly to create their own safe haven. I think, that’s why she has a vested interest in upholding that image. As for Verna, the 70s feminist, she is the one who’s internally most conflicted. Her generation demanded the same sexual freedom as men while also railing against being treated as sex objects. They entered the work force demanding the same jobs as men but settled for less pay, thus reducing worker’s wages. They changed divorce laws and found themselves raising children on their own. They toppled the male dominated house of cards but failed to provide a firm foundation for the next generation of men and women. That internal conflict, that desire to have it all, Verna pushes onto her millennial daughter. It’s Chloe who is told she needs a career to feel fulfilled but also feels the need to be the wife and mother that the boomers traded for success in the boardroom. Verna’s fairy tale speaks for both her and Chloe. And finally, there is Florence, the Gen Z woman. While the storm rages outside and she sits in her cosy cottage, she wants a world without conflict – one that gives everyone an equal chance. The question is, will she hide in her cosy cottage or will she step outside and face the storm?
What do you hope readers take away from the conversations between these women?
The current backlash against women’s rights, places the rights of all people in jeopardy. And that is frightening and demoralising. What I want readers to take away is that we have weathered such storms before and in the process become stronger. We’ve encountered schisms in our movement and learned from them. And finally, in terms of my writing, I want readers to take away that the current night may have come to an end but there are more evenings to come.
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Eroded by Power
The Book of Unforgivable Sins follows a resurrected immortal and a reluctant archaeologist who must recover a forbidden spell before a cult performs a ritual that could reshape the modern world. What inspired the Five Ancient Elements series and the mythology behind it?
The inspiration for the dangerous, thrill ride across the globe to cheat death and unravel arcane riddles came from where the inspiration for such things usually comes from: children’s literature.
A decade or so ago, I was working on a serialized novel for middle readers that would eventually appear in a national Celtic dance magazine. The novel, The Irish Witch’s Dress, required that I research Celtic mythology, and in the process, I came upon an apocryphal history of Ireland written centuries ago entitled Lebor Gabala Erenn, which translates roughly into The Book of Invasions. One particular myth grabbed my attention, and I wondered whether I might use it as the core of a Dan Brown-style global thriller for an adult readership. The idea seems to have been a good move, as The Book of Invasion, the first chapter in the Five Ancient Elements series, earned a Kirkus Review Starred Review and spawned two additional titles.
Ricky carries five thousand years of trauma and survival. How did you approach writing a character with that kind of history?
Awkwardly. In my first draft, Ricky was a very different character. In fact, she wasn’t even “Ricky.” She was “Ciara,” which my beta readers suggested would be mispronounced by virtually everyone. (The correct pronunciation is KEE-ruh.) And in my first draft, Ricky had it all together: attractive, physically appealing, no baggage. It bothered me until I figured out I’d given her character no room for growth or need to grow. The “new” Ricky was broken in a variety of ways, but events force her to step outside the perverse comfort of her misery to confront people, puzzles, and danger that have an equal capacity to heal or destroy her.
The book raises questions about immortality and moral responsibility. Why were those themes important to you?
I think it’s a fascinating question. If you could live forever, would this change you for better or worse? Immortality can be regarded as a placeholder for any sort of absolute (or near absolute) power. How would you change if you suddenly won $100 billion? Became the supreme ruler of a country? Possessed the nuclear codes and the world’s funkiest, most secure fallout shelter? Our political dialogues often focus on power dynamics and whether shifting it in one direction or the other would be more or less moral. I’m a bit of an idealist, and so I’ve always enjoyed the notion of a mostly moral David standing up to a Goliath whose morality has been eroded by power.
Are there other mythological traditions or historical periods you would like to explore in future books?
In addition to the Celts, the mythology of Ancient Egypt has fascinated me, which one can appreciate after reading The Book of Invasions and the others in the Five Ancient Elements series. The connection? In Lebor Gabala Erenn, a woman from the Middle East supposedly fled to an uninhabited island in the north, which led to the settling of Ireland. I wouldn’t mind writing more about Ancient Egypt. But history of all sorts draws me like a magnet.
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Who is left to stand against evil?
The sorceress Cessair is dead. But her cruel mentor, Shendjw—the last king of Predynastic Egypt—lives, having been made immortal by the power of the five ancient elements. He has dispatched his enemies, and now, after thousands of years, he hungers to rule the modern world. Yet five words whispered in a tomb fifty centuries ago stand between him and the enslavement of humanity. Words whispered to a dying woman by a woman already dead. Words that lead to a mysterious library of the arcane.
And to a small town in the American heartland where doom is promised and the clock is ticking.
The Book of Unforgivable Sins is the final chapter in the Five Ancient Elements Series, in which Celtic myth and Egyptian mysticism collide in a battle to decide the fate of the world.
The Crones’ Tales
The Crones’ Tales gathers five women from different eras of the feminist movement in a single stormy evening, as they converge on Florence’s cottage to drink mulled wine, argue, and trade re-imagined fairy tales. Beatrice, a Mary Wollstonecraft stand-in from the Enlightenment, sits beside suffragist Margret, suburban housewife Ginger, second-wave firebrand Verna and their younger host Flo, whose politics stretch toward intersectional, eco-minded justice. Between courses of food and history, each woman tells a tale, Rumpelstiltskin from the miller’s daughter’s point of view, a reworked royal romance, a twist on the maiden-in-the-tower myth, and more, each story refracting the struggles and contradictions of her own generation, until their shared night edges toward both reckoning and renewal.
Reading it, I felt as if I’d been invited into a book-club in a liminal cottage at the edge of a wood: cosy, candlelit, but with the wind of social change rattling the windows. The frame narrative is warm and talky, yet undercut by real unease, about backlash, about violence, about Chloe, Verna’s absent daughter. I especially loved “What’s In A Name?”, the miller’s daughter’s first-person retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, where questions of naming, contracts, and ownership of labour get teased apart with sly humour and mounting rage. The way the narrator realises she’s been letting everyone else do the thinking for her, and then literally walks herself out of the castle to reclaim her life, landed for me as both a fairytale catharsis and a contemporary wake-up call.
I also enjoyed how unabashedly the book nerds out about language and history: the etymology of “spinster”, the politics baked into fashion, the colour codes of suffragist sashes, the quiet sabotage of knitting. Those passages risk feeling like mini-lectures, but the characters’ squabbling keeps them alive, Verna’s sharp, sometimes defensive quips bouncing against Margret’s earnestness and Beatrice’s reflective gravitas. Every so often, I felt that the moral is stated a touch too plainly, and I wished for a bit more narrative subtlety or ambiguity. Still, the overall effect is a kind of polyphonic tapestry: stories within stories, threaded with grief, missteps, and stubborn hope that the sisterhood, however frayed, can re-stitch itself.
I’d hand The Crones’ Tales to readers who love feminist fairytales, mythic retellings, historical fantasy, and speculative fiction that talks back to tradition. If Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber had a gentler but no less incisive cousin who wanted to sit you down and argue through several waves of feminism, it might look a lot like this book. For anyone who has ever felt both indebted to earlier feminists and exasperated with them, these crones offer a generous, sometimes prickly, but always human conversation. I think, in the end, The Crones’ Tales reminds us that the stories we inherit are only the beginning of the stories we’re allowed to tell.
Pages: 132 | ASIN : B0GH57ZXM2
The Ancient Moon Goddess, Crushed by Patriarchy, Buried by Judaism, Hidden in Christianity
The Ancient Moon Goddess by Dale W O’Neal tells a bold story. The authors argue that early humans saw menstrual blood as “moon blood” and as the raw stuff of life, so the first religion centered on a powerful moon Goddess. From there, they follow a long “blood trail” through Stone Age animism, sacrificial rituals, castration and circumcision, and then into Hebrew scripture and finally Christianity, where the Goddess gets pushed underground but never quite disappears. The book mixes myth analysis, archeology, and close readings of biblical texts to claim that many familiar doctrines about sin, sacrifice, and salvation grew out of this older Goddess religion.
The core idea was gripping and unsettling for me. The link between menstrual cycles and the moon seems obvious once they lay it out, and the way they build a whole religious worldview from that simple pattern has real power. I felt drawn in when they described ancient people living in a “spirit-filled” world, where every hill and river had a soul and where the moon’s waxing and waning set the rhythm for life, death, and rebirth. Their account of how sacrificial systems grow from imitation of the moon’s self-emptying cycle hits hard emotionally, because it turns grim stories of blood and death into a kind of tragic misunderstanding of nature rather than pure cruelty.
The writing is clear, direct, and often vivid, and the authors do a good job explaining ideas like sympathetic magic, animism, and “as above, so below” in plain language. The personal backstory of Dale O’Neal’s exit from evangelical Christianity gives the project emotional weight and makes the stakes of the argument feel very real, especially when he wrestles with doctrines of hell, female subordination, and blood atonement. The tone carries a clear, unapologetic conviction that readers may find energizing, and its strong critique of patriarchy keeps the argument sharp and focused. The authors write with such confidence in their perspective that the book often feels like a manifesto, which will especially appeal to readers who prefer bold, decisive interpretations over cautious academic debate.
I would recommend this book to readers who are curious about the deep roots of biblical religion, who enjoy mythic thinking, and who feel ready to question standard church teachings about sacrifice, sin, and gender. I think it will especially resonate with ex-believers, feminist readers, fans of Joseph Campbell or Marija Gimbutas, and anyone who likes bold “big picture” narratives about religion’s origin and evolution. For me, it was a provocative and emotionally charged read that I will keep turning over in my mind for a long time.
Pages: 322 | ASIN : B0FRN9PNXL
A Summer in Normandy Started It All
Falcon of the Faroe Islands follows the prophesied Son of the Dragon, as he earns his place as a noaidi and sets off on a destiny shaped by gods, ancestors, and a prophecy. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I’m a former French teacher and language professor, and during my undergraduate program, I spent a summer in Normandy, where I became fascinated by the Viking influences in that region of France. When I recently decided to write a trilogy set in the White Chalk Cliffs of Normandy, I began doing lots of research into Norse mythology and the geography of Norway, where the Vikings came from before settling into France. I discovered the Lofoten Islands of Northern Norway and the Sámi people who lived there during the Viking age, so I decided to have my character Skjöld become a noaidi and spirit walker through water.
What were some ideas that were important for you to personify in your characters?
My male protagonist, Haldor Falk–the Falcon of the Faroe Islands–is a Viking vitki with the ability to transform into a falcon and summon winged creatures at his command. I wanted to include spectacular battle scenes for him to use his this avian magic, bestowed upon him by the goddess Freyja. My female protagonist Úlvhild is a Viking völva, so I wanted her to use seiðr magic and foresee important events which would transpire in the story. And, since Haldor and Úlvhild are lovers, I made sure to include a strong romantic thread between them throughout the novel (and the entire Valiant Vikings trilogy).
What kind of research did you do for this novel to ensure you captured the essence of the story’s theme?
I did extensive research into the history of France, Denmark, Norway, Frisia (a region in the modern-day Netherlands), and the Orkney and Faroe Islands. I also researched the Viking chieftains and kings during the 10th century, since I wanted actual historical events and characters such as Sweyn Forkbeard, Sigurd Hlodvirsson, Richard the Fearless, and King Lothaire of West Francia to interact with my fictional characters. I also did a tremendous amount of research into Norse mythology, the geography of northern Europe and Scandinavia, blending it all together into a Viking historical fantasy.
How do you feel now that this trilogy has ended? Is there anything about these characters that will stay with you?
I am immensely proud to have woven together an epic Viking fantasy blending real history, characters and places, Norse mythology, Celtic legends, and steamy romance. Yes, my characters have a very special place in my heart and always will. They are very real to me.
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With his acolyte’s training now complete, Haldor intends to return to the Viking stronghold of Normandy. But when a vision reveals an imminent attack on a dwarf guarding a hidden treasure trove in a secret cave, Haldor and Skjöld gain Dwarven-forged weapons and an unexpected, invaluable ally.
Úlvhild, a völva of formidable seiðr magic and Haldor’s lover of nearly twenty winters, foresees that the Dökkálfar Dark Elves will strike to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy. When the Norns unveil the terrible price of her fate, Úlvhild must confront a crimson-eyed witch to save her beloved Falcon and ensure that the prophesied Son of the Dragon fulfills his destined path.
Falcon of the Faroe Islands is the sweeping, epic conclusion to the award-winning Valiant Vikings trilogy set in tenth century Normandy.
A sizzling blend of historical fiction, paranormal fantasy, Norse mythology, and steamy Viking romance!
Falcon of the Faroe Islands
Falcon of the Faroe Islands sweeps through a world filled with northern lights, ancient magic, Viking rage, and quiet wonder. The story follows Skjöld, the prophesied Son of the Dragon, as he earns his place as a noaidi and sets off on a destiny shaped by gods, ancestors, and a prophecy that ties him to dwarven treasure, dangerous raiders, and a future crown. His journey intertwines with that of Haldor Falk, a falcon-shifting vitki whose past is as heavy as his magic is strong. Together, they navigate fjords, visions, and battles while the story spins between spirit realms and rugged northern shores.
I was pulled into the author’s rhythm. The writing feels lush and earnest, almost mythic at times, and it leans hard into atmosphere. At moments, the prose slows down and swells with detail, which sometimes made me pause, but I liked how it wrapped me up. It felt like the story didn’t rush me. Instead it asked me to settle in and breathe with the land, the gods, and the characters. That kind of pacing made the emotional beats hit harder for me, especially when the story dug into the grief these characters carry.
I also loved how the book blends cultures and mythologies. Norse, Sámi, and Celtic traditions fuse in ways that feel warm and purposeful. I found myself rooting for Skjöld as he wrestled with the weight of prophecy. Haldor’s backstory surprised me with how tender and raw it felt, especially the parts about his bond with Úlvhild. The magic itself, whether tied to water or wings or visions, is written with a sense of reverence that made even quiet scenes feel charged. The mix of spirituality and brutal Viking life gave the book a tone I honestly didn’t expect. It felt both fierce and soft at the same time.
This is the third book in the Valiant Vikings series and is a great pick for readers who enjoy Viking worlds filled with mysticism, lush sensory writing, and emotional weight. If you’re into character-driven fantasy with romance, grief, prophecy, and a whole lot of heart, this one will definitely hit the mark.
Pages: 462 | ASIN : B0FXT8KJCB
Bloodless We Go Buried: An Earth Mother Horror
Bloodless We Go Buried unfolds as an Earth Mother horror story that blends myth, ancestral memory, and a feeling of something old waking beneath the everyday world. The book moves through dreamlike scenes where the natural world feels alive and watchful. Its language carries a poetic rhythm, and the Proto Celtic threading through the chapters adds a strange and ancient pulse. The story works like a long walk through dark woods where every shadow seems to breathe, and where the characters find themselves caught between fear, kinship, and something that feels like a summons from the deep past.
The voice of the book has this raw and intimate quality that made me feel like I had stepped into someone’s private ritual. The writing style is bold and emotional. It plays around with language in ways that sometimes made me pause and reread, not because it was confusing but because it felt like I had stumbled into a hidden doorway. I liked that the horror leans more toward mood and spirit than monsters. It creeps instead of jumps. Every time I thought I knew where the story was going it would slide sideways and make me rethink what I thought I understood about the characters and the land.
At times, the prose leans into its own intensity, and I found myself both loving it and wanting to come up for air. Some passages feel almost like a personal journal or a field notebook. That mix made the book feel alive. I appreciated that the author was not afraid to be weird or tender or blunt. There is humor tucked between the shadows, too. A kind of self-awareness that kept me grounded while the story tried to lift me into stranger places.
In the end, I walked away feeling stirred and a little haunted. I would recommend Bloodless We Go Buried to readers who enjoy literary horror, mythic fiction, poetic language, and stories that feel more like a dream you carry with you afterward. If you like books that make you slow down and sink in, this one might be exactly what you are looking for.
Pages: 324 | ASIN : B0F463PNKY
