Blog Archives
Lies, Lust, and Larceny
Lies, Lust, and Larceny, by Lisa Marie Shankles, is a satirical novella about twin sisters, Lilah and Laylah Larceny, whose retirement plans spiral into jealousy, identity theft, petty crime, Norwegian prison fantasies, and an unexpectedly strange adventure involving aliens, a mysterious cat named Dyngus, and a trip to Scandinavia. At its heart, this is a comic crime adventure with satirical and light sci-fi elements, built around sibling rivalry and the wild places envy can take a person.
What stood out to me first was the book’s sheer willingness to be odd. It doesn’t ease into its weirdness. It jumps. One moment I was reading about Dyngus Day in Buffalo, family tension, retirement, and salon life, and the next I was following a plan to use Norway’s humane prison system as a retirement strategy. That’s a bold premise, and I appreciated how fully Shankles commits to it. The humor is broad and often deliberately ridiculous, but there is an energy to it that keeps the story moving. It feels like the kind of tale someone might tell over coffee after saying, “You will not believe where this goes.”
I also found the contrast between Lilah and Laylah to be the book’s strongest engine. Lilah is more open, curious, and impulsive, while Laylah is driven by resentment and the ache of always feeling second-best. That emotional thread gives the absurd plot something real to stand on. The writing can be uneven at times, with long explanations and some jokes that land harder than others. It’s going for chaos, color, and momentum. The author’s choices are playful and unafraid, especially in the way she blends crime comedy, travel fantasy, paranormal touches, and alien strangeness into one offbeat package.
Lies, Lust, and Larceny is a light, eccentric satire for readers who enjoy strange premises, flawed characters, and humor that leans into the outrageous. I would recommend it most to fans of quirky novellas, comic crime stories, and anyone who likes their fiction a little unhinged, a little mischievous, and not too concerned with staying inside the lines.
Pages: 182 | ASIN : B0C9S88LGB
Journey Into Romance
A Is for Amy follows a widowed mother of three who stumbles back into romance, desire, and selfhood through a chaotic alphabet of flirtation, exhaustion, and second chances, discovering that opening your heart again is both ridiculous and necessary. What was the inspiration for your story?
I wrote this novella when my two youngest children were under 3. Though I loved being a parent, I felt my prior self was completely submerged in the care of my kids. So, I decided to write something quick with a big heart, something for grown-ups to explore. A journey into romance grounded in the real-world of parenting young kids. I wanted to capture the economy and directness of short fiction with the ability to follow the significant development of a main character that comes with the novel.
The novella never treats motherhood as separate from desire. Why was it important to keep those parts of Amy’s identity intertwined?
She is a whole person. Her sexuality is a part of this wholeness. Her loss and suffering have affected how she perceives herself and her life. Her negativity at the beginning can be reductive and limiting. Sexuality is one way we can awaken to our true spirit. Amy is awakening in this novella.
The idea of Amy naming her life one piece at a time: Attraction, Baby Bartlette, Freedom, and Nutella, gives the structure emotional meaning. Did those specific entries arrive early, or did they accumulate through drafting?
Those are names that I choose, not Amy. Amy would see them as part of the ebb and flow of her life. They are details, not necessarily stages. They are on the cover to engage the reader. I see the cover as the beginning of the book, the beginning of the adventure for the reader. These words are welcome, mystery, and invitation. A tease if you like.
The alphabet format also makes the book look like a children’s picture book from the outside. Was that visual misdirection intentional — and what do you want a reader to feel when they open it and discover what’s actually inside?
Yes, the cover is deliberately deceptive. So parents, grandparents, and any caregivers can read the book incognito as they care for the children. The deception is clearly stated on the back cover. The inside design is quite different, too. It is for grownups. Like the story. I wanted the reading experience to be a refuge for the reader. A world grounded in the reality of parenting, but free from it at the same time. This is a book for the person every parent was before they were a parent. A place to laugh and cry and engage with a compelling character – to celebrate and suffer with her. To read not for a child, but for themselves. I hope the readers feel at their ease as they journey. My goal is to delight them.
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Amy Dellaconta Franklin is an independent mother of 3 kids under 5. Her life is often exhausting and isolating. Then, one day, love comes knocking at her front door.
Amy is a sassy, charming, yet lonely young widow who unexpectedly finds herself on the path of finding love again. Surprises overturn expectations at nearly every turn in this novella, which tells the story of how a life that seemed trapped in the too-hard basket became a voyage of romantic discovery.
A is for Amy tells it fast, straight and funny. From negativity to bliss. With no fluff and no wasted words.
Do you like reading but never seem to have enough space to start (or finish) a book? Each chapter in this romancecan be enjoyed in the time it takes to drink a good cup of coffee.
This is a great gift for parents or parents-to-be. It looks like an alphabet book for children. But inside, it’s a romantic adventure for grown-ups with a surprise ending that will touch your heart.
A is for Amy
A Is for Amy by Steven Crandell is a romantic comedy novella about Amy, a young widowed mother of three trying to find her way back into desire, confidence, and choice after grief, betrayal, and exhaustion have narrowed her life. The story follows her alphabetically through encounters with Charlie, an alluring ex-milkman with his own wounds, and Quentin, a gentler surprise who eventually becomes the more grounded romantic possibility. It’s funny, messy, and deliberately intimate, a romance that is less about being rescued than about remembering that wanting something is allowed.
I really liked the voice. It’s sharp, playful, and sometimes outrageous, but underneath the jokes there is real loneliness. Amy’s thoughts move the way a tired parent’s mind moves, bouncing from breast-feeding to unpaid bills to sex to self-help books to the weird emotional weather of being seen again. I liked that the humor doesn’t polish her life into something cute. It lets the house be chaotic. It lets grief be ugly. It lets motherhood be loving and boring and gross and sacred, sometimes all on the same page.
Crandell makes a bold choice with the alphabet structure, and I think it works because the book itself feels like Amy trying to name her life one piece at a time. Attraction. Baby Bartlette. Freedom. Nutella. Yes. The structure gives the novella a quick, bright rhythm, almost like flipping through snapshots. I did sometimes feel the comedy pushed hard, especially with Bart and some of the broader side characters, but even then, the excess seems tied to Amy’s way of surviving. She turns pain into punchlines because otherwise the pain would just sit there, heavy and unmoving.
As a romantic comedy novella, A Is for Amy will probably appeal most to readers who like love stories with bite, warmth, and a little domestic chaos. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys character-driven romance, especially stories about second chances after loss. This book has sass, it has crumbs on the floor, kids at the door, and a heart that keeps choosing to open.
Pages: 95 | ASIN : B0GL9VKNXS
Be Wary of Wishes Gone Awry : Tales of Horror and Dark Fantasy
Be Wary of Wishes Gone Awry is a horror and dark fantasy collection that gathers six shorter pieces and a longer three-part novella, moving from sea-haunted myth and biotech dread to grief-soaked domestic horror. Across stories like “Sailor’s Warning,” “The Aberration,” “Dearest Diary,” and “The Enhancement,” author M. Ainihi keeps circling the same uneasy question: what happens when people reach for relief, certainty, progress, or love and get something warped in return. The book’s structure, split into “One-Shot Shorts,” “Slightly Bigger Bites,” and the closing “Miracle Baby,” gives it a steady build, with the final section carrying the heaviest emotional weight.
The book understands one of horror’s oldest pleasures: dread lands harder when it grows out of something ordinary. A sailor wants to finish a voyage and go home. A woman makes a greedy decision she cannot morally outrun. Someone wants the pain to stop. Someone wants to be more productive. Those setups are simple on purpose, and that works. The writing is often most effective when it stays close to a character’s physical unease, the heat of a fever, the sting of a wound, the metallic shock of blood, the hush before something awful fully shows itself. “Sailor’s Warning” especially caught me with its mix of folklore and fatalism, while “The Aberration” and “The Enhancement” feel like sharp modern horror, interested in guilt, ambition, and the cost of trying to correct what should maybe be left alone.
I also found myself noticing the author’s choices around control. That feels like the live wire running through the whole collection. These stories keep putting people in situations where they think they are making a practical choice, a smart choice, maybe even a loving one, and then the ground shifts under them. Sometimes that works brilliantly. It gives the book a clear identity and makes the horror feel grounded rather than random. I stayed interested because Ainihi is good at building atmosphere and at letting shame, grief, superstition, and obsession do part of the frightening work. The collection isn’t just creepy for the sake of being creepy. It wants to poke at human weakness.
I’d recommend Wishes Gone Awry most to readers who enjoy horror and dark fantasy that lean more toward mood, moral consequence, and unsettling imagery than nonstop shock. It should work well for people who like short fiction with a gothic pulse, creature horror with a human center, and novellas that sit in the uncomfortable space between sorrow and nightmare. I would especially recommend it to someone who enjoys horror that feels reflective after the scare.
Pages: 173 | ASIN : B0GN3KCB59
Find The Part That Wants To Live
Teach Me How to Die follows a small group of strangers who gather in a New York rehearsal studio to attend a class on writing suicide notes and explore the situations that lead them to this point. What sparked the idea of a master class devoted to writing suicide notes?
The idea of placing everyone in obviously impossible circumstances is the basis of the novella. This artistic method is known as mystical realism, in which mystical elements are incorporated into a realistic picture of the world. A master class on writing suicide notes is impossible by definition. But everything that happens during it is incredibly realistic. The characters in the story don’t question how this is possible. At first, the reader might briefly think it’s a joke. But the characters’ behavior convinces the reader of the authenticity of what’s happening. We conducted a survey of audience members who had seen a production of the play of the same name Off-Broadway, asking whether such a master class was possible. The overwhelming majority answered affirmatively! For me, this meant the approach had worked. In many ways, this determined the desire to publish a novella “Teach Me How to Die” based on the play of the same name.
Each character is identified by an archetype rather than a name. What did that choice allow you to explore?
Not so much an archetype, which, as we know, provides a collective image. Rather, we analyze temperament types and personality traits characteristic of a particular profession or occupation. All people are different, but certain types have their own behavioral, responsive, and thought patterns. By replacing their first name with a nickname, the members of this temporary group presented themselves as they saw fit. Thus, some identified with their occupation—Violinist, Accountant, Poet. Others identified through self-esteem, for example, Loser. A participant whose purpose in life was to get even with those who had offended him called himself a Hunter. And someone prone to “philosophizing”—a Philosopher. In him, both his profession and a unique way of perceiving the world merged.
The idea of suicide can occur to almost anyone at some difficult moment in their life. We exclude individuals with mental illness or those under the influence of acute traumatic circumstances or psychoactive substances. Suicide is essentially a destructive way to resolve an intrapersonal conflict. Throughout the narrative, we see how individual personality traits shape reactions to external factors, leading to hopelessness, disillusionment with life, and, consequently, a desire to leave it all behind… The encounter of a certain personality type with an obstacle to satisfying their most important needs leads to a suicidal decision. To help others, firstly, suspect the presence of such thoughts in their loved ones, and secondly, provide all possible assistance in understanding the situation, thereby offering a chance to prevent a tragic outcome. The novella presents various personality types in crisis. Suicidal tendencies are transient and ambivalent, a fact well known to psychologists.
This means that the decision can be influenced. You just need to find the key to that part of the personality “that wants to live,” while blocking the one “that wants to die.” It’s difficult, but possible. And it’s always worth trying, because the stakes are too high – a human life.
Suicide is handled with seriousness but without sensationalism. What boundaries did you set for yourself while writing?
In the foreword, I explain that the novella “Teach Me How to Die” is based on real events from my life. It so happened that one of my classmates was going through a difficult period of finding and accepting his gender identity, facing rejection from his family. He regularly called me late at night and shared his plans – his desire to end his life. At first, this frightened me very much, but then I realized that these were just “lingering” thoughts spoken aloud, and I started distracting him with stories about methods of suicide and the content of suicide notes. I gleaned this information from a book I accidentally bought at a street market, written by a pathologist; I think it was called “101 Ways to Take Your Own Life.” It also included examples of suicide notes with thier analysis. Quite soon, I realized that this spontaneously developed form of communication was exactly what he was ready to accept at that moment. Fortunately, the part of his personality “that wanted to live” prevailed: he is alive, healthy, successful, and quite happy with his life.
At the very beginning of that story, I considered the conversation on such a sensitive topic to be a boundary I shouldn’t cross. Then my boundaries of what was permissible expanded, convincing me that any red line can be crossed if it helps save someone’s life. When writing the novella, I took into account the opinions of people who had such negative experiences in their families. Both for the would-be suicides themselves and their family members, despite the “sensitivity” of the topic, there is a clear understanding of the need to talk about suicide as a preventive measure.
If a reader struggling with dark thoughts picks up this book, what do you hope it offers them in that moment?
The main message of the novella is: “Share your dark thoughts, don’t keep them to yourself! You will be heard!” And a call to those around people whose world has narrowed today to the obsessive thought of ending their lives: “Don’t pass by, find the ‘right’ words, work together to find any way out of the impasse, even the most unusual and phantasmagorical ones will do!”
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The collection of nine short stories addresses the issues of gender identity, finding one’s place within society, problems of empathy for loved ones, and overall, how to stay on the side of Good in the age of “inverted” values. A look into the future allows us to believe in the possibility of preserving such human values as love, mercy, kindness, mutual assistance, self-realization, and personal and professional development from a historical perspective.
Death in the Long Shadows
Death in the Long Shadows is a slow-burn, immersive novel that follows Paul Thayer, an American hunter on safari in Namibia, as he confronts dangerous game, personal fear, and the moral weight of killing. What begins as a traditional African hunting story steadily deepens into a psychological and ethical reckoning. The plot moves through camp politics, tense stalks, and encounters with buffalo, crocodiles, and men who hunt for the wrong reasons. By the end, the book feels less about trophies and more about identity, restraint, and the thin line between respect and destruction.
What I noticed right away was the way Flavin takes his time on the page. He doesn’t rush anything. He sits with moments longer than most writers would, and surprisingly, it worked for me. The opening scene under the baobab tree, with the shadows stretching across camp and the obnoxious hunter bragging by the fire, immediately sets the mood. The prose is dense but deliberate. You can smell dust and gun oil. You can hear insects and distant lions. At times, the descriptions run long, especially during travel scenes or landscape passages, yet they also ground the story in place. Africa here isn’t romantic wallpaper. It feels watchful and indifferent. I found myself slowing down as a reader, which felt intentional, like the book was forcing me to adopt safari time instead of rushing ahead.
The characters are where the book really clicks for me. Paul Thayer is not a swaggering hero. He doubts himself constantly. He second-guesses shots. He reflects on past hunts and missed kills. That internal tension made him feel real. The contrast with Dirk, the loud, cruel client who shoots a tame lechwe named Rufus, is sharp and effective. That scene bothered me in a good way. The casual cruelty of it sticks. Johan, the professional hunter, is another standout. He balances patience, anger, and duty in a way that feels earned. His quiet disgust after the hippo incident and his reaction to Rufus’s death say more than any speech could. I felt frustration alongside him.
The ideas in the book stayed with me longer than the action. Flavin keeps circling the difference between hunting and killing. He does it through dialogue, memory, and comparison. Paul’s reflection on the Idaho deer that eat human-salted grass is a small moment, but sticks with you. So does the recurring discomfort around buffalo, the so-called Black Death. The buffalo are not monsters, yet they are not symbols either. They are just there. Dangerous. Alive. When Paul finally faces them, the tension feels earned because of all the buildup, fear, and hesitation layered before that point. I appreciated that the book never rushes the moral questions or tries to tidy them up.
By the end, I felt quiet rather than thrilled. That feels right. This book isn’t for readers looking for nonstop action or easy heroics. It’s best for people who like reflective fiction, ethical gray areas, and vivid settings. Hunters will recognize the details. Non-hunters who are open-minded will still find a lot to chew on. If you enjoy novels that take their time, ask uncomfortable questions, and let landscapes shape the story, this one is worth the read.
Pages: 98 | ASIN : B0G5LFMBXG
Teach Me How to Die. A Novella and Other Stories
Teach Me How to Die opens with a quiet but striking premise. A small group of strangers gather in a New York rehearsal studio to attend a master class on writing suicide notes. Their teacher, Professor Scott Mirrormord, runs the class with a mix of dry humor, unsettling calm, and sudden flashes of emotion. Each character carries a private storm. The Violinist trembles under his own sensitivity, the Hunter bristles at the world that has rejected him, the Accountant clings to order like a life raft, the Poet aches for beauty, the Loser sinks under the weight of lifelong disappointment, and the Philosopher hovers above them all with cool detachment. Across several sessions, their stories unravel in ways that feel surreal, funny, raw, and sometimes painfully honest. The novella blends this unusual setup with short stories that explore gender identity, empathy, loneliness, and the strange ways people hold themselves together when the world feels inverted.
The writing feels theatrical in the best sense. Scenes move with quick beats, like spotlights snapping on and off, and the dialogue carries a rhythm that made me imagine the characters speaking just inches away. Sometimes the tone shifts fast. One moment I laughed at Scott’s odd habits. The next I felt a sharp ache when the Poet revealed the quiet desperation behind her romantic bravado. The emotions hit hard because author Lisa Monde does not overcomplicate them. She keeps them human. There were times I wanted the prose to hurry because the tension between characters felt so tight it made me restless. Still, that uneven pulse worked. It mirrored the way real people think when they are standing at the edge of something dark and trying to talk themselves back toward the light.
The book treats suicide with seriousness and compassion. It does not glamorize it. It does not trivialize it. Instead, it asks why a person might arrive at such a thought and what might pull them away from it. The Poet’s loneliness shook me the hardest. She sees beauty everywhere, yet cannot see herself reflected in anyone else. I also found myself oddly moved by the Accountant, who tries so hard to appear composed while cracking open from the inside. Even the humor carries weight. It softens the darkness without hiding it. The stories that follow the novella expand the book’s themes in unexpected directions. Some felt warm. Some felt strange. All of them carried a heartbeat that stayed with me after I closed the pages.
Teach Me How to Die would be a meaningful read for anyone who enjoys character-driven stories that ask real questions about why people suffer and how they heal. It is also a good fit for readers who appreciate theater and intimate ensemble pieces. For readers willing to sit with tough emotions and still look for hope, this book will land with force.
Pages: 216 | ASIN : B0FXNNRLR3
True Prosperity and Abundance
Son of Osivirius follows a young pilot who crashes near a rebel base and forms a connection with the family that saves him, leaving him to decide what side of the battle he wants to be a part of. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
It was one of those serendipity moments. I was struggling to come up with an idea for a scene writing exercise where the prompt was ‘three characters, all with different goals’. I was getting super frustrated, beginning and discarding idea after idea. Imagine a ‘rip the paper out of the typewriter, scrunch it into a ball, then toss it into the pile littering the floor’ scenario. I’d actually given up for the day and was cooking dinner when I suddenly remembered a short story idea I’d jotted down months before:
“A helicopter pilot in a WWIII scenario crash-lands near a valley belonging to some people who are a bit like the Amish and refuse to be a part of the war effort, but the government is trying to force them into it. They look after him, and when the government eventually comes to their valley, he has to decide what to do.”
Suddenly, neurons were firing in all directions. I combined that premise with the vibes of Avatar, and boom! I had my scene mapped out. Not only my scene, but almost the entire book.
I find the world you created in this novel brimming with possibilities, especially the Masu. Where did the inspiration for the setting come from, and how did it change as you were writing?
I live in a rainforest, and have always been drawn to forest settings, and although I LOVE dragons, I wanted to do something a bit different. Big cats have always fascinated me–their power, elegance, and how they seem to stare into your soul–so giving them wings just seemed like the perfect choice. The intricacies of the world-building took several drafts to refine, but the Masu were the foundation for all the other elements.
I tend to discover things in the process of writing, and it was during the drafting of some dialogue in what was then chapter threed that I had Jayden ask, “How did you tame them?” In that moment, I knew what kind of creatures these were, and I had Flint respond, “We didn’t. They tamed us.” It was definitely not part of my original plan, but it just felt so right, and with those two lines of dialogue, my climax became crystal clear.
The dead zones evolved over the course of drafting. They were there from the start, but I encountered logic problems as I went along. At first, I ‘patch-fixed’ them, but that became more and more convoluted and complicated, which is never a good thing. It was during the beta reader stage that I talked to my daughter about the issues I was having, and that conversation opened up the simple, elegant solution that really brought the world alive.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
It was really important to me to highlight a more connected way of living with the world, and letting it be our teacher. We tend to prioritise our comfort above all else, but that comes at great cost. So I really wanted to explore the idea of contentment, and what true prosperity and abundance look like.
I also wanted to explore how fear can subconsciously control us, and that it manifests in different ways depending on things like status, childhood trauma, and personality. Exploration of fear responses also naturally led into exploration of trust and betrayal.
The idea of worthiness was an interesting thing that came up in the process of writing. I know a lot of people struggle with thinking they’re not worthy, but I discovered my characters were acting from a belief that they did deserve more, but their worthiness was unrecognised. That seems to me how all revolutions begin.
Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out, and what can your fans expect in the next story?
There is potential there for a series, but I don’t have any clear plans yet. Right now, I’m switching my focus to a romantic fantasy trilogy. The world-building there also has a great emphasis on connection with the natural world and features a musical magic system.
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Fledgling pilot Jayden is one of the first generation to be born on the newly colonised planet of Osivirius. Now he’s determined to get his family out of ‘Wormsville’, the part of the colony where people are little more than numbers. So when Commander Tun offers a huge reward for finding the location of the rebel base, he jumps at the chance.
Nettle hates everything to do with the colony-especially the military arm-and is fiercely protective of the simple, grounded ways of the rebels. So when she and her brother Flint discover Jayden after he crash-lands, she’s ready to slit his throat without a second thought. But as Flint nurses him back to health, Nettle’s antipathy turns to empathy, and then an unwanted attraction.
Jayden, meanwhile, has made secret plans to escape on a Masu, one of the giant flying cats the rebels ride, but when his chance to escape presents itself, he feels torn. His blood family still need him, but the lure of the valley might just prove stronger.
The connection to nature of Avatar and the dystopian political struggle of The Hunger Games meet in this action-packed and thought-provoking science fantasy novella.
