Blog Archives
Eerie Depths
In Assimilation, a lonely young woman’s life is forever altered after a disturbing lake encounter that forces her to confront the secrets of her parents, her own biology, and the terrifying presence haunting the waters. What inspired the eerie beauty of the Soshone Islands, and how did you balance calm with dread in the landscape?
Spending many summers fishing the sprawling waters of Canada, I have always been spellbound by the ancient allure and unspoiled beauty of that timeless land, history and mystery written into every boulder, bog, and tributary. It was inevitable that eventually a story would emerge from those clear, eerie depths, the way all those countless submerged boulders silently watched from below as my boat passed soundlessly above them. It was exhilarating to merge my memories and awe with the haunting narrative of Kercy’s plight.
The lake scene is both surreal and intensely physical. How did you approach crafting an encounter that feels simultaneously dreamlike and traumatic?
Boating on a vast body of water for me is both physical and surreal, and doubly so at night. I drew upon my personal experiences with this inscrutable medium. How it can hold up a craft weighing hundreds to thousands of pounds, while allowing a tiny pebble to penetrate its surface without hesitation. And while that same surface can appear calm, familiar, just beneath it is a boundless, unseen world teeming with life. How can one not be excited by that!
Kercy’s emotional landscape is so rich and painful. What part of her character came to you first when writing her?
Kercy’s horrid beginnings, her trials, her struggle to survive. She was born damaged, vulnerable, an outcast in a world she knew early on she was not designed for. It was her strength and determination that pushed the story forward, along with the resolve of her mother, who felt both responsible for Kercy’s ordeal and eternally grateful for her birth.
What guided your decisions about how far to lean into each element and genre, and were there versions of the story that were more (or less) “alien”?
The storyline and characters always guide my decisions. The characters, if I’m being totally faithful to them, define where the story will take me. The circumstances around Kercy’s birth, which has taken place before the story begins, have already set the course for what she must learn about her life. Then the only question becomes how; how does she unveil her past, how will her current situation be revealed? From that point, I open myself to discovering the story, allowing it to unfold naturally, with my fidelity to Kercy and the other characters always at the forefront.
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Kercy Powell loves spending summers at their secluded island cottage in Ontario; a place where her birth defects and wheelchair are never on display. Just before her eighteenth birthday, Kercy is shocked to learn her mother sold their island paradise, offering only this grave warning, “Don’t ever go back there!”
The ensuing years bring Kercy a miraculous metamorphous, making her wheelchair unnecessary. Upon her mother’s death, she inherits the family fortune and buys back her most treasured getaway. Kercy is soon plagued by old nightmares; strange beings who visit in her sleep. One night, two men boat out to her cottage and try to assault her. She manages to escape, only to witness the unholy cries of her attackers being savagely killed.
The inexplicable murders trigger a visit from Special Agent Mallory, a cagey FBI officer who is only interested in how the two men died. But Kercy has no idea, until she comes face to face with her “protectors,” creatures who live beneath the deep, icy waters of Georgian Bay. And while they’ve rescued her before, Kercy can’t shake the notion that their intentions are nefarious.
[CONTENT ADVISORY: Intended for adult readership and contains scenes of violence, sexuality, aliens, and language that may be uncomfortable for some readers.]
[TRIGGER WARNING: Rape]
Trail of Buried Evidence
In The Mourning Locket, an empath confronts the owner of a unique agency comprised of sentient heirlooms capable of remembering their owners and seeks to uncover its long-buried secrets. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
The idea started with my own family heirlooms. I grew up around old photographs, jewelry, keepsakes — things that didn’t look like much from the outside but held entire histories inside them. I always wondered what they’d “say” if they could talk.
When I started writing The Mourning Locket, it was my way of honoring those stories that get lost between generations. I wanted to capture that feeling of holding something that once meant everything to someone who isn’t here anymore. The book grew out of that love for family history and the questions we never get to ask the people we miss.
How did you go about capturing the thoughts of the heirlooms?
To write the heirlooms, I imagined them the way we imagine the stories behind things we inherit. When you hold something that belonged to someone you loved, you automatically think about what it meant to them.
That’s the energy I wrote from. Their thoughts come through impressions, not sentences — a heaviness, a chill, a warmth, a pull. The emotional tone of the object shows up long before the mystery does. It made them feel alive without ever stepping outside of realism.
Were you able to relate to your characters while writing them?
Absolutely. I related to my characters in different ways, sometimes in ways I didn’t even expect. Rowan’s determination, Piper’s anxious overthinking, Cassian’s quiet intensity — those all come from real emotions I understand. And then there’s Sable, whose sarcasm and perfectly timed humor felt like the pressure valve everyone needed.
I relate to her a lot — that instinct to lighten a tense moment, or to say the thing everyone else is only thinking. Writing her was almost like letting the honest, unfiltered side of myself onto the page.
Each character carries something human and familiar, and that connection made writing them feel less like creating fictional people and more like spending time with versions of myself and the people I love.
Can you give us a glimpse inside Book 2 of The Inheritance Bureau series? Where will it take readers?
Book 2, The Music Box from Ashford, drags the Bureau into its darkest investigation yet. What begins as a simple heirloom assessment turns into a trail of buried evidence, altered records, and a past that someone worked very hard to erase.
The music box at the center of it all isn’t just an antique — it’s a trigger. And once it resurfaces, everything the Bureau thought it understood about its own origins is shaken.
This book pulls readers deeper into the hidden corners of the Bureau: the cases that never made it into the official files, the mistakes no one was supposed to uncover, and the people who paid the price for trying. Rowan gets pulled into the heart of it, Piper and Sable uncover secrets that were never meant to see daylight, and Arden is forced to confront what leadership really costs.
The investigation reaches back more than a century, and the past refuses to stay quiet this time.
Without giving too much away — Book 2 opens a door the Bureau can’t close, and what waits on the other side changes everything heading into Book 3.
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Empathic appraiser Dr. Cassian Vale can feel a person’s final emotions through touch—an ability that makes him invaluable, and dangerous. Investigating an 1860s mourning locket, Cassian relives a woman’s death and uncovers a conspiracy linking grief, immortality, and bloodline control.
As the echoes grow louder, the team must decide whether to silence the past—or listen before it consumes them.
Think Critically and Deeply
In Beyond Power, you present the idea that Western society is departing from its moral core and the ideas on which democracy was founded. How long did it take to research and compile this book?
I developed it over a period starting when there were severe tensions in Israel over democracy 2022 and strong anti-Israel post October 7th, 2023.
Did you learn anything while writing Beyond Power that surprised you?
Many of the issues plaguing society seem to have a common conceptual cause.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from your book?
To think critically (and deeply) about all we see, hear, and are told.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
At first glance, these may seem like separate struggles, political, cultural, or geopolitical yet they are deeply connected.
By tracing the tensions between power and ethics, this work explores how successful democracies evolved, why politics so often devolves into hostility, why societies fracture, understanding more deeply the progressive agenda and why Israel in particular stands at the center of so much global controversy. It examines how democracies are corroded from within, how oppressive regimes weaponize ideology, the dynamics of geo political tensions and how Western progressivism redefines compassion.
Rather than despair, the book points toward renewal, offering diagnoses, practical proposals, within the context of a profound conceptualization of the notion of state itself, one capable of transcending today’s divisions.
The Kirkwood Killer
Justin Foster’s The Kirkwood Killer is a brutal, fast-moving horror-crime novel that follows Brandon Walls, a man shaped by violence from childhood and unleashed into a quiet golf-club community where his killing spirals into something almost mythic. The story moves from one shocking act to the next, weaving in twisted alliances, bizarre loyalty, and a growing sense that no one in this place realizes the monster living among them. It’s a grisly, relentless ride, and it never pretends to be anything else.
The writing is blunt and unfiltered, almost like someone telling you a wild story they shouldn’t be telling. At first, I wondered if the simplicity was intentional, but the more I read, the more it felt like the right fit for this kind of horror. The murders are vivid and disturbing, not in an artistic way but in an uncomfortably direct way, which honestly makes them land harder. The book doesn’t linger on psychological depth; instead, it barrels forward with raw energy, like the narrative is sprinting to keep up with Brandon’s impulses. It’s not graceful, but it is gripping in that “I shouldn’t look, but I can’t look away” kind of way.
What surprised me most was how strange and darkly fascinating the world around Brandon becomes. This isn’t just one man doing horrible things. The people around him, especially the cart-girl twins and later even the chef, get pulled into his orbit in ways that are unsettling and weirdly believable in the logic of this book. There’s a twisted humor to some scenes, the kind that makes you question whether you should be laughing. And while the plot is outrageous, it’s paced in a way that kept me turning the pages because I truly didn’t know what boundary the story would cross next. Sometimes it felt like watching a late-night slasher film with a friend where you keep elbowing each other with “Are you seeing this?” energy.
The Kirkwood Killer is not subtle. It’s pure horror with a crime-thriller backbone, told in a voice that’s bold enough to commit fully to its own chaos. If you’re someone who loves slasher stories, extreme horror, or villains who are monsters without apology, you’ll probably have a wild time with this. It’s definitely for fans of gritty, bloody, over-the-top horror.
Pages: 130 | ASIN : B0F9ZZCZ4K
The INCARNEX Rebellion
The INCARNEX Rebellion, by A.J. Roe, is a dystopian sci-fi adventure about a fractured Britain, a world reshaped by a mind-transferring technology called INCARNEX, and two people trying to survive its aftermath. We follow David, a reluctant scientist carrying the weight of his past mistakes, and Celia, the sharp, stubborn girl he’s raising in hiding. When Celia runs away to confront the man responsible for destroying their lives, everything spirals into a collision with rebels, corrupt leaders, and a system built to keep ordinary people powerless.
The writing stays close to the characters, especially in the early chapters, where we see the quiet rhythms of life at the cottage and the messy push-and-pull between David’s fears and Celia’s hunger for freedom. I liked that the writing doesn’t feel rushed. It lets moments breathe, even the simple ones like a missed step on the stairs or the silence between two people who care but can’t quite say so. When the action hits, it hits hard. There’s a grit to it that matches the world: street gangs armed with acid, labour camps, and collapsing governments. The scenes are vivid without feeling showy, which kept me invested rather than overwhelmed.
What stood out most was how the author handles the ideas behind the plot. The INCARNEX technology could’ve easily become a cold, high-concept gimmick, but instead it’s tied to identity, memory, grief, and the messy ways people try to fix what’s broken. David’s guilt and Celia’s anger feel real because they’re rooted in that same question the book keeps circling: what do we owe each other when the world falls apart? The political threads, especially the growing fractures between cities and the power struggles after Julius’s downfall, add a believable weight to the stakes without losing the human focus. Even the final scenes feel grounded.
By the end, I found myself caring about these characters more than I expected to. The story balances tension with warmth, and even in its darkest moments, there’s an undercurrent of stubborn hope. If you enjoy character-driven dystopian science fiction with a mix of action, moral questions, and emotionally messy relationships, The INCARNEX Rebellion will sit comfortably on your shelf. It’s a great pick for readers who like stories about rebellion but want them told through the eyes of people who never planned on becoming heroes.
Pages: 315 | ASIN : B0FX3F2C3W
Losing Mom
Losing Mom, by Peggy Ottman, is a memoir about a daughter walking with her mother through the last stretch of her life. The story moves through medical crises, small moments of grace, old family rhythms, and the shifting power dynamic between parent and child. It opens with years of near misses, each one convincing Ottman that maybe her mother would never actually die, and then follows the final days with an honesty that feels both intimate and strangely universal. At its heart, it is about love, caretaking, and the long letting go that comes when a parent fades.
The writing is simple, direct, sometimes almost breathless in the way it tumbles forward. That works for this kind of memoir. The scenes of crisis feel sharp because they are told the way we remember trauma, in fragments and quick flashes. I appreciated how she didn’t try to polish herself into some perfect caretaker. She shows the guilt, the second-guessing, the resentment, the deep tenderness. Her relationship with her sisters adds texture, too. They each carry different responsibilities, and you can feel the family history in every conversation.
What struck me most was the author’s honesty about fear. The fear of losing her mom, yes, but also the fear of doing the wrong thing, of missing a sign, of not being strong enough. Those moments felt very emotional. Some scenes hit hard, like when she speaks nonsense during what might be a stroke. Other moments are quiet, almost gentle, like the nurse patiently washing her mother’s hair. The memoir doesn’t try to turn grief into something tidy. It lets it stay messy and human, which makes it more powerful.
By the end, Losing Mom feels like a long exhale. It doesn’t offer big lessons. Instead, it gives you the feeling of having walked alongside someone through something real. I’d recommend Peggy Ottman‘s story to anyone who gravitates toward memoirs that deal with caregiving, aging parents, and the complicated love that sits underneath family stories. Readers who value emotional honesty over dramatic storytelling will appreciate it most. This is a memoir that keeps you thinking, especially if you’ve ever watched someone you love slowly slip away.
Pages: 300
The Concept of a Living World
Claw & Ember follows a young rider bound to her saber-tooth black panther companion as she navigates treacherous politics, tangled loyalties, and a power simmering under her skin that could remake the world. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Fantasy has always been a genre that appealed to me. As I grew older – and some, not many, would say wiser – I also noticed that a lot of it was quite naive, typically written for a very child-like audience, with very morally black and white characters and situations that are not very “sticky.” I decided that I wanted to tell this story in a Romantasy genre, where you still get the elements from fantasy, but scaled up for adults. That was the first part. The second part flowed from there. I could’ve written a whole series on Nyra’s time at the Academy and have it as a Harry Potter quasi-clone, but I was more interested in discovering and exploring the world, not has a teen in a school setup, but rather as a young adult discovering that the world is not simple and that outside of the walls of the Academy there are situations and people that are not as clean cut as one might think.
Nyra is an intriguing and well-developed character. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
I wanted a strong female. That was important. Someone who takes no bullshit from anyone. She’s her own person. I also wanted someone who had a very strict – but good – upbringing; someone who knew that hard work and sweat were important, even though the easy path is sometimes easier. I also wanted someone who was not ashamed of herself or her thoughts. Someone who would process them and not necessarily assign a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ epithet to them, but rather “these thoughts are me; they are part of me, let’s see where they go.”
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Uniqueness. Friendship. Desire. Politics. Sexuality. Each by itself and intertwined with the others (especially in the subsequent books). There’s also the concept of a living world. Not everything that’s important happens to – or when – Nyra is there. Some events that change the story happen in the background, even though they have a major impact on Nyra.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
Flame & Veil. It is currently on pre-order on Amazon and will launch November 28th, 2025. Then in 2026, we will have Ash & Oath and Crown & Covenant. There are many strings that will lead us to many more stories in this world in the future. We’ve seen this world through the eyes of Nyra from the Felinar Empire which is centered around big cats, but there’s The Voruun around canines, the Glyptan Kingdom around bears and armored Glyptodons, the Keshari Dominion with its woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos, and the Skyborne on their birds, there are other segments as well, mages, nobles, etc. Expect many more stories.
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Riders are made to obey. To patrol the line. To bleed without question.
Nyra’s done her part, bonded to her panther, trained to serve, and hardened to survive.
But when a strange heat stirs beneath her collarbone, it isn’t duty calling. It’s desire, and it answers to Kaedric, the silver-eyed Voruun rider with a voice like a blade and a dire wolf at his side.
One glance, and something ancient wakes.
Forbidden magic. Dangerous hunger. Power that shouldn’t exist in her blood.
If the Towers find out, she’ll be caged… or worse, claimed.
And with war looming, secrets won’t stay buried for long.
For fans of slow-burn tension, shadow-bound magic, and fierce heroines who refuse to kneel. Perfect for readers of Rebecca Yarros, Sarah J. Maas, and Carissa Broadbent. This is your next obsession.
A Clean Slate
A Mother’s Promise follows a fed-up thirteen-year-old boy who runs away after his mom’s partner starts drinking again, and witnesses a brutal attack on a helpless stranger, where he steps in to help. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I always wanted to write a story that combined both magical, fantastical elements with real-life, everyday occurrences that a lot of families experience around Christmas. I wanted to show the harsh truth that leaving a volatile relationship like that is extremely difficult for some people, but with enough courage, it can be done.
Grace and Dylan are both looking for a Christmas miracle and find it in different ways. What were some of the emotional and moral guidelines you followed when developing your characters?
Throughout my life, I grew up knowing friends who are in the same position as Grace and Dylan. There are female friends of mine who wanted to remain loyal to a very flawed partner who, only when circumstances become dire, they see as very selfish. I wanted to keep the story grounded within reason and make the fantastical scenes feel a bit more real.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Hmm…that’s a tough one to answer because there were a lot. I guess if I were to narrow it down, the main themes were: the courage to do what’s right and knowing when to leave a bad situation. So courage, forgiveness, and redemption. Forgiveness is very important around Christmas time because nobody knows how much time we have left on Earth. So the one question I always ask is: do you want to leave here bearing a grudge and have others hating you? Or do you want to leave here with a clean slate and a clear conscience?
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
The next book I’m getting ready is the final, action-packed book in the YA horror series, The Hopps Town Quadrilogy. That will be released in April 2026. Then I’m finishing, When Worlds Collide, the third book in my YA epic fantasy series, The Zargothian Saga. There are a number of screenplay scripts I’m working on, as well as making AI movies. So 2026 will be pretty busy, but I’m very grateful to be able to do all these wonderful things.
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Dylan Sanchez used to love Christmas. But for the last three years, the holidays have been anything but festive. Like clockwork, Greg – his mother’s partner – gets intoxicated and spirals from awkward jokes to tense, needling arguments that drain the joy from the season. Every year, his mother says it’ll be different. Every year it isn’t. When Greg slips back into old habits just days before yet another Christmas, Dylan can’t take it anymore. He grabs his coat and walks out, leaving behind the wreckage of promises too thin to stand on.
But when he witnesses a brutal attack on a helpless stranger out in the dark streets, his split-second choice to intervene sets off a chain of events unlike anything he could have imagined — something that’s nothing short of a Christmas miracle.
Sometimes, a thirteen-year-old boy’s fierce heart is exactly what the world needs to remember the true meaning of Christmas.
LITERARY TITAN 