Blog Archives
Righteous Anger
In Silence follows a woman who is no stranger to violence, who returns home to find the dynamic she once knew vastly different, and finds herself opening her heart in ways she never intended. Where did you find the inspiration for Zara’s traits and dialogue?
I think there was an aspect of Zara that mirrored my own experiences (I was not almost murdered in the snow, but I have had multiple times when I thought I was going to die for health reasons). The difference was that I gave Zara the support and comfort I was never brave enough to reach out for. I think part of Zara’s silence was inspired by my own when I was at my most frightened. I refused to seek out comfort or help because I thought it made me weaker, and I think you can see that in Zara.
The story widens from a tight survival narrative into something closer to a sweeping character drama. How did you manage that expansion in scope?
A part of me wanted to write this thriller and have the bad guy get what he deserved in the end, with a lot of action and righteous anger. When I took a step back, I realized that, in real life, you can spend months or years (like Zara did) fighting for justice, and then it takes like ten minutes to wrap it up, and it usually happens without drama. I always knew I was going to write the capture of the bad guy in a somewhat unsatisfying way, but I wanted to give the readers Zara’s story, not just her survival.
The novel balances brutality with tenderness. How did you ensure one didn’t overwhelm the other?
By asking my betas where it felt like too much, and by keeping in touch with how the scene made me feel when I listened to it versus when I read it. Some parts may feel slightly overdone, but I think those were the ones I decided were worth it because, in the end, it is fiction, and I get to do what I want.
Was there a particular scene that was especially difficult—or especially important—for you to write?
Honestly, I’ve gotten some comments along the lines of Zara’s family being too much. And, while I can agree that it does prolong the story, it was necessary for me. My family is such a huge and important part of my life, and I was kinda tired of reading books where the found family was found because the real family was terrible. I wanted to write something where family mattered as much as action, without dramatizing the family. The last chapter also kinda hurt. I reworked it so many times, trying to come up with a different ending, but it just didn’t happen.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
In darkness, I was seen
Bella had expected things to be different when she came home for her grandma’s funeral, but nothing could have prepared her for how different it would be.
Not only had her grandparents taken in a local Park Ranger, their lives had been filled with people and traditions Bella is no longer a part of.
Despite her surprise, Bella is immediately taken with the ranger whose scars run deeper than the eye can see. Her sympathy and grief war with her desire to know everything about the mysterious stranger.
Before she can learn more, the man who haunts Zara’s past returns, and Zara descends into silence.
With bodies piling up and threats escalating, will Bella’s attraction put her in danger, or will it be the lifeline Zara so desperately needs to keep her past from pulling her back into the shadows?
Shadows in the Creek (A Dante Villehart Novel)
In Shadows in the Creek, author Michael H. Balfour drops Dante Villehart, a disgraced former journalist, into Edenvale, a polished small town with rot under the lacquer, then sets him on the trail of Lila Summers’s murder. What begins as a local mystery widens into a tangle of money, family grievance, civic theater, and buried loyalties, with Dante trying to solve the crime while also confronting the damage of his own past. The novel’s real engine is not just the question of who killed Lila, but whether truth can survive in a place that has spent years learning how to dress a lie in respectable clothes.
I liked this book most when it leaned into atmosphere and moral abrasion. Edenvale has that unnerving neatness some towns wear like a church coat, and Balfour is good at making its diners, archives, lawns, and charity rituals feel faintly accusatory. Dante is a strong center for this world: bruised, observant, self-distrusting, and just vain enough to be human. I never felt I was reading a puzzle assembled by machinery; I felt I was following a man whose conscience kept snagging on the same nail. The prose often reaches for a sentence with a little burr on it, and I appreciated that. It wants texture, not just speed.
What stayed with me, though, was the book’s earnestness. This is a murder mystery, but it’s also a story about reputations, class insulation, and the almost liturgical way communities protect their own mythology. The novel can be a touch melodramatic. But even then, the book kept its grip on me because it believes in the stakes of telling the truth, and that belief gives it voltage. I found myself reading less for the neatness of the solution than for the emotional weather around it, the guilt, the vigilance, the old humiliations, the sense that one dead young woman is exposing an entire social ecosystem.
I’d hand this to readers who like small-town murder mystery, amateur sleuth, crime thriller, investigative mystery, and domestic noir elements with a strong atmospheric streak. Readers who enjoy Tana French, or who liked the social unease and layered suspicion of Big Little Lies, will probably find familiar pleasures here, though Balfour’s book is more straight-faced. Its best audience is the reader who wants secrets, class tension, grief, and a damaged narrator with a notebook and unfinished business.
Pages: 361 | ASIN : B0FSCLFMK2
Unseen Adversaries
Fade to Blue follows an Alzheimer’s researcher who is being hunted and manipulated after accidentally creating a drug that can almost instantly wipe out all brain activity. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
In 1998, I was working at a steel mill. One evening during a break, a coworker suggested we write a short story together. While considering ideas, I remembered that an annealing line had crashed because a computer controlling its speed and torque had lost all Random-access memory. I said, “How about this: a scientist creates a drug that can erase a human’s memory.”
How much research went into the neuroscience and Alzheimer’s elements of the story?
My father was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease when I began writing Fade to Blue. That had a huge impact on me and the story.
Regarding the research, neuroscientist Dr. Brian Cummings invited me to his UC Irvine laboratory, where I saw firsthand the experiments and brain research being done by his students. The Memory Research Institute depicted in Fade to Blue is the result of my visit to UC Irvine. And it was Dr. Cummings who explained how a brain-destroying drug like T-3 could be created.
I later went to New York City at the invitation of Dr. Bernardo Rudy, head of the Rudy Lab at NYU Department of Neuroscience, to get a tour of his laboratory and discuss the science in my book.
The novel builds tension through small, everyday moments—driving, showering, simply being alone. Why was it important to show fear in those ordinary situations?
I wanted to infuse fear into normally mundane aspects of Sarah’s life so a reader could identify. We all drive a car and receive phone calls from friends. Those events shouldn’t stoke fear or panic. They do in Fade to Blue because unknown and unseen adversaries are following Sarah’s every move and listening to her every sound. This fear is omnipresent, but she must maintain a happy façade and keep her friends in the dark. At the same time, she channels her fear into courage, cunning, and resolve.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
Unfortunately, I’m not planning to write more books at this time. It took me 25 years to write Fade to Blue.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Sarah Brenalen, a frustrated researcher, secretly tests experimental Alzheimer’s drugs, only to create a brain-destroying compound. Marcel, an international operative, sees its potential.
Fade to Blue plunges you into a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game. Is Sarah a pawn, or can she outwit Marcel and prevent global catastrophe?
Uncover a dark conspiracy
Experience a fast-paced thriller
Explore the ethics of scientific discovery
For fans of Robin Cook and Michael Crichton, this medical thriller blends cutting-edge science with heart-stopping suspense.
Fade to Blue
In Fade to Blue, author Hank Scheer delivers a story that begins with a scientific trespass and spirals into international coercion. Sarah Brenalen, an exhausted Alzheimer’s researcher at the Memory Research Institute, secretly tests an outlaw idea, accidentally creates T-3, a drug that can wipe out nearly all brain activity in moments, and then finds herself hunted, monitored, and manipulated by a highly organized crew that wants the formula, the sample, and eventually her life. The book opens with Sarah being cornered on a California beach by Marcel, a courtly and sinister operative, then backtracks to show how her desperation to do something meaningful about Alzheimer’s set the whole mechanism in motion.
What I liked most is that the novel understands panic as something granular. Scheer does not merely tell me Sarah is scared; he gives her a humiliating, intimate form of surveillance and lets the dread creep into ordinary acts, driving home, showering, smoking again, trying to think clearly while someone may be listening to her breathe. The early chapters also give Sarah a real civilian life, with her music, her overwork, her boyfriend Rogelio, and her stubborn hope of doing useful science, so the thriller machinery has something human to grind against. That matters. Without that ballast, T-3 would just be a nifty premise. With it, the book has moral friction: ambition curdles into guilt, and guilt becomes a trap.
The prose is clear and propulsive, and that serves the story well. The novel’s sheer narrative commitment kept me turning pages. Once Sarah’s ordeal widens from Bay Area laboratories and freeway gambits to Paris, false deaths, and tactical reversals, the book develops a pulpy momentum that I found hard to resist. I especially appreciated that Sarah is neither saint nor fool; she is culpable, intelligent, frightened, improvisational, and sometimes magnificently stubborn. That blend gives the novel its voltage. Marcel, meanwhile, is the kind of polished monster thrillers need: controlled, fastidious, and all the more venomous for seeming civilized. By the ending, with Sarah alive in Paris and preparing to tell Rogelio the full story of T-3, I felt the book had earned its final note of battered continuation rather than neat closure.
I’d recommend Fade to Blue to readers of techno-thriller, medical thriller, science-fiction thriller, and suspense fiction who like high-concept danger tethered to an ethical mess rather than abstract spectacle. Fans of Michael Crichton will recognize the pleasure of a scientific idea turning predatory, though Scheer’s book feels more intimate and less clinically detached, with a stronger emphasis on surveillance, coercion, and personal fallout. This is a book for readers who want momentum, menace, and just enough laboratory plausibility to make the nightmare feel uncomfortably near. Fade to Blue proves that one bad experiment can cast a very long shadow.
Pages: 283 | ASIN : B0BS4DXMFJ
Blank Checks
In Blank Checks, author Genevieve Marshall drops a clean, addictive “what-if” into the modern world: an app that lets anyone enter, then, once a month, chooses one person to receive a literal blank check and write any amount, “tax-free,” for whatever dream they dare to price. The book moves in a kind of braided mosaic: we watch different lives in different places tilt on the hinge of possibility, while a quiet thread of investigation runs underneath, who built this thing, how it knows so much, and what the game is really doing to the people it touches.
What I liked most was the book’s globe-trotting energy. The scenes keep changing temperature, from silvery San Francisco fog to glossy Singapore opulence to European glamour, so the story never settles into a single neighborhood’s problems. Even when the premise flirts with pure wish-fulfillment, the author keeps tugging it back toward character; the money isn’t a magic wand so much as a spotlight. I found myself enjoying how the book treats “Dream BIG” as both an invitation and a test, because the most revealing moments aren’t the winners’ numbers, but their private logic for choosing them.
I also appreciated the author’s willingness to let the game misfire in ways that feel almost mythic. The standout example for me was the Düsseldorf model, who swings for an absurd amount and gets smacked by the bluntest message imaginable, “Insufficient Funds,” a little morality play delivered by touchscreen. That beat sharpens the whole book: it sets a boundary around the fantasy, and it hints that the “mastermind” isn’t just tossing money like confetti; there’s intention, constraint, maybe even a philosophy hiding behind the theatrics. When the curtain starts to lift on the tech (identity verification, location checks, the dart-at-a-spinning-globe randomness), the story shifts into a more conspiratorial key without losing its travelogue gloss.
I think Blank Checks is for readers who like mystery, suspense, techno-thriller intrigue, and contemporary adventure with a strong travelogue sheen, plus anyone who can’t resist a premise that asks, “What would you write, and what would it reveal about you?” The unraveling of the game’s machinery gave me a faint Dan Brown flavor, jet-setting secrets and engineered revelations, though Marshall’s tone is warmer, more interested in lives rerouted than puzzles solved. Blank Checks gives readers a glossy dream, a hidden hand, and the delicious question beneath it: what does your number say about you?
Pages: 480 | ASIN : B0G9B99VTY
The Great Question of Life
Army of Three follows two brothers bound by loss and impossible power whose fragile alliance is shattered by the murder of the woman they love; grief drives one brother to gamble with time, destiny, and reality itself. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration for Army of Three began with the most tragic day of my life. At age twenty‑one, I lost my father in a deeply traumatic way. Shortly afterward, I went through my first serious heartbreak. Axel’s great loss in the story represents these two events combined into one tragic incident. There were very few people who could understand the weight that had suddenly been cast over my life. My three brothers and my two closest friends became a new kind of brotherhood. Anyone who has lost someone close has wrestled with the great question of life: What if? What if I could have saved them? What if there were a way to go back?
As for the brothers and the family dynamic, my family was always a “family first” kind. Growing up the third of four, and moving constantly, left us with only each other more times than I can count.
A major part of my inspiration was J.R.R. Tolkien. Although my stories differ greatly from his, the creation of these tales came from the same logic: to write something meaningful enough to change how a reader thinks and feels. That kind of power can truly influence—and, God willing, make a positive impact on—a struggling world. I believe the call to writing isn’t simply enjoying books or earning an English degree. Those may help, but the calling runs deeper. The true call to writing is experiencing life in a way that shapes you, and feeling inspired to use that experience and knowledge to help others.
Axel’s choices can be frustrating yet understandable. Were there moments when you struggled with his decisions yourself?
Yes and no. Most of Axel’s choices reflected the tenderness of the human spirit. The idea is that true love is so powerful it defies logic, and the idea that love can be dangerous lives in that same space. The struggle didn’t happen when my pen pressed into the paper. It happened when I made the poor decisions that inspired Axel’s—when I was wrestling with them myself.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Love, Loss, redemption, and brotherhood. Most importantly, in real life it isn’t always a happy ending, but there can almost always be happiness found in the ending. When my father passed, it felt like we had lost. Eleven years later, I reflected on that feeling again and realized I had grown into a far greater man than I ever could have imagined if I hadn’t suffered and endured what I have.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
Psychic Kids: The Secret of the Orphanage will exist within the same universe but following a completely new set of characters. It is fairly early in development and the earliest you could expect it would be January 2027.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
Axel and Karl Fassbinder were never meant to live ordinary lives. One survived a fall no human should endure; the other grew into a man strong enough to take on armies. Together they became a whispered legend — the Army of Two.
Everything changes when Azrael joins them. Scarred by tragedy and bound to a terrifying ritual where blood costs blood, she turns their duo into the Army of Three.
But her murder rips their world apart. Axel’s grief twists into a relentless drive that hurls him into conspiracies, android ambushes, and a future drowning under rising oceans. Desperate to undo the moment that broke him, he turns to the only force more dangerous than his enemies: a machine that can bend time.
Every step threatens the world he’s trying to save, and every choice pushes him toward one unescapable truth:
Some destinies can only be changed through sacrifice.
Inside these pages:
Two brothers shaped by impossible wounds — and the woman whose death may unravel time itself.
A future swallowed by storms, corruption, and shadows no one dares name.
Silent android killers, buried conspiracies, and a forbidden ritual that demands a soul in exchange for power.
Battles that defy logic, escapes no one should survive, and technology capable of bending reality.
A descent into grief, vengeance, and loyalty — and a dangerous question echoing through every chapter: How far would you go to rewrite fate?
Warning: This book will steal your sleep. Once you step into Axel’s world, the hours disappear, the pages won’t stop turning, and you won’t escape until the very last word.
Raw, cinematic, and unflinchingly emotional, Army of Three tears open a world built on broken promises and impossible choices — and refuses to let you look away.
Not just science fiction. Not just action.
A story about what we sacrifice for the people we love — even if it destroys us.
This is the book that grips readers while everyone else is still sleeping on it.
Buy Now and don’t be the last one to feel what everyone else is losing their minds over.
No Redemption, No Recovery
Because of His Heart centers around the strained marriage between a journalist and a doctor, and the psychological maze that tests their limits. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
It is not uncommon for an author to find inspiration in a dream. This was the case with Because of His Heart. The dream, quite a few years ago, provided the basic conflict, sexual abuse in marriage, but also the overwhelming uncertainties that attend when strong emotions are present. Much like “the fog of war” that is often described, there are several characters who know each other to varying degrees, but invariably make critical errors of judgment as well as indulge in half-truths in communicating. No single character understands the whole, and the reader must bring it all together.
What were some of the trials that you felt were important to highlight your characters’ development?
I believe that a thoughtful, competent, successful individual (in this case, Erica Seames) would suffer profoundly if all that she worked for, all that she created for herself, was to steadily fall away, beyond her control. So much that we believe of ourselves hinges on a feeling of agency, that our choices and actions are efficacious. If this sense collapses, the alienation and sadness may be overwhelming. In Because of His Heart, Erica Seames’ loss of trust in her husband, in her work as a physician, and finally in her own body, is her trial. Erica’s reason does not fail her, but she is led by a malign influence to depression and resignation. Her recovery is achieved by regaining her world. It is, finally, a joyous thing. In contrast, Nathan Milo chooses pain in love and deception in his progress, leading to further evil choices, including the destruction of others as he rationalizes. He too loses agency, but as it was his choice, there is no redemption, no recovery. Unreliable narratives compound uncertainties. Secondary characters, Constable John Deuter, student poet Dale Jeffer, and arts promoter Dorothea Lunnery, add to the density of the interwoven community, and the continuing uncertainty in moral choices of the main characters.
When you first sat down to write this story, did you know where you were going, or did the twists come as you were writing?
I began writing Because of His Heart with the core conflict in mind. (see above)
Honestly, I can’t remember how or when the other characters emerged, though I outlined each one as I wrote. Elements and characters from two other proto-novels entered the plot over time as the three-part structure settled in. Note: Because of His Heart took almost ten years to write, not because of uncertainties, but because I was working as a classical musician and had limited time for writing. I cut over 30,000 words from the final drafts because the length and focus became too broad over the years of writing. Some of this material may have value in itself. I am considering publishing some extra segments on my website if there is interest in the future.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I am an older fellow, so I may not work on another new novel. However, I have another novel complete right now. Its title is: Francis. It is quite different in design, an adventure in northern Kenya (where I have spent some time over the years). The character, Philip Stroud, who is an important figure in Because of His Heart, makes his appearance in Francis as a young man. We get the back story on Stroud and his fiancée, psychologist Jaye Stevens, in what might be considered a prequel novel. Francis is ready for publication, but my plan is to promote Because of His Heart, which I call my magnum opus, for at least a year before moving to publish Francis.
Author Links: GoodReads | Substack | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Erica is losing her identity and purpose. How could she have been so wrong about her husband? Charles is shocked by this personal tragedy, but as a reporter who knows his beat, he is determined to understand. “I am not a bad man, I am not.” He had acted foolishly, even meanly, but as he considers his joyful marriage of eight years, he discovers that there is something vital he is missing.
As Erica flees New York for her childhood home in Toronto, an anonymous blog is her creation and refuge. She is never alone. Yet when Charles discovers Erica’s online diary, he no longer recognizes his wife or himself in her anguished assertions. To whom can he turn?
In this chilling psychological thriller, abuse, infidelity, psychological manipulation and calculated malice draw a group of near-strangers together to save Erica―in pursuit of elusive justice.
Trolling in Social Media
BLOATER follows a neurosurgeon devastated by his wife’s sudden death who experiences a psychological collapse and makes it his mission to enact justice on the world by killing off sinners. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I felt it would be interesting to weave a tale of retribution for those who use social media platforms to spew hate and prejudice upon innocents. My intention was to create a deranged vigilante to exact vengeance. I spent many years in the operating theater as a surgical device representative for several Fortune 500 medical manufacturers, so a medical setting felt comfortable.
Dr. Jeremiah Nowak is a fascinating character, watching him transform and justify his killings. What scene was the most interesting to write for that character?
I endeavored to subtly display Nowak’s increasing obsession with killing, and the satisfaction he derived from it. My favorite scene to write was the finale, where we witness his lust for mutilation and murder, but then ride along as it all comes apart.
I felt that BLOATER delivers the drama so well that it flirts with the grimdark genre. Was it your intention to give the story a darker tone?
Yes. It was important for me to help the reader understand that although trolling in social media is hurtful and can be harmful, it pales in comparison to a maniacal quest for blood.
What is the next book that you’re working on, and when can your fans expect it out?
I am writing a sequel that delves into another Camby and Lanquist investigation. I hope to complete the book by March of 2026. My original plan was to develop a series of three novels for the duo, but I am open to more depending upon the response from your readership.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
The man who once repaired the human brain begins to dissect the human soul… one sinner at a time.
His victims don’t just disappear.
They float—bloated, ballooned, grotesquely smiling—left drifting like obscene warnings across the city skyline.
Each murder is a flawless surgical performance.
Each body a message carved in flesh.
Each kill more daring than the last.
And Nowak tells himself it isn’t vengeance.
It’s justice.
