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Fatal Castle
David Boito’s Fatal Castle is a vivid blend of historical fiction, mystery, and modern suspense. The novel begins in 1850, as Queen Victoria receives the fabled Kohinoor diamond, a gem steeped in blood and superstition. The scene, rich in imperial detail, establishes the diamond’s dual identity as both a symbol of conquest and a vessel of curse. From there, Boito shifts to 2023, where the story follows Ashley Bellamy, an American graduate student researching British history, and her father, Clive, the Chief Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London. When Ashley handles the same diamond that once adorned Victoria’s crown, the quiet rhythms of her life and her father’s duty-bound existence are disrupted by echoes of the past.
Boito’s command of setting is remarkable. The Tower of London is rendered as more than a historical monument; it becomes a living organism, filled with its own shadows and echoes. The description of the “castle amidst skyscrapers” evokes both reverence and unease, as if the past refuses to die beneath the modern skyline. The opening chapters, particularly those involving Queen Victoria and Lord Dalhousie, are grounded in historical authenticity while introducing the supernatural undertone that ripples through the rest of the book. The contrast between the 19th-century grandeur and contemporary London life creates a fascinating tension between legacy and change.
The novel’s strength lies in its emotional core: the strained but tender relationship between Ashley and her father. Clive’s old-world devotion to tradition clashes with Ashley’s modern independence, creating a dynamic that mirrors Britain’s own struggle between history and progress. Their exchanges, especially the scene in which Ashley presents her father with an AI-powered informational kiosk, only for him to perceive it as a threat to his calling, reveal Boito’s sensitivity to generational conflict. Through them, the novel suggests that inheritance is not only material or historical but deeply personal.
Though the pacing shifts between the historical and modern storylines, these transitions ultimately enhance the novel’s rhythm. Boito’s seamless fusion of factual history and imaginative suspense creates a narrative that remains consistently engaging, both intellectually stimulating and genuinely thrilling.
Fatal Castle will appeal to readers who enjoy historical thrillers with intellectual depth and emotional resonance. It offers a compelling meditation on how relics, whether jewels, buildings, or memories, continue to shape those who guard them. Poised between history and haunting, Boito’s novel is an ambitious and evocative exploration of the legacies we cannot escape.
Pages: 264 | ASIN : B0FSC9MWXS
A Confluence of Factors
Father Lost Child Found follows three amateur sleuths — one searching for answers about her father’s death, one searching for a mystery woman who left a child in her basket, and one searching for extraterrestrials. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
As is often the case, a confluence of factors shaped the development of the story. Some ideas were sparked by things I’d heard or experienced personally, while others came from readers of Alone with a Tasman Tiger.
The opening scene of Father Lost Child Found was directly inspired by a conversation I overheard at Brisbane railway station while waiting for a train. A young man, freshly released from jail, was talking about his experiences. He mentioned that his father wasn’t in the picture anymore. I felt for him — his honesty, his observations — and thought he’d make an interesting character. He became the unlikely hero of my opening chapter.
I also received feedback from readers who wanted to know what happened next to Galina, the heroine of Alone with a Tasman Tiger. She wasn’t (spoiler alert!) the winner of the survival competition, but she won readers’ hearts. That encouragement got me thinking about her future.
Around the same time, I heard a radio segment about eulogies — those speeches at funerals where people sometimes say things they perhaps shouldn’t. I had great fun researching this and knew I wanted to weave a scene like that into the book.
Expanding the synopsis a little… Galina’s father died in an accident on an oil platform twenty-four years ago — on September 11, 2001, in fact. During a eulogy for one of his former colleagues, doubts are raised about the true cause of Aleksandr Ivanov’s death, setting Galina on a dangerous search for the truth.
I was also reading two brilliant novels by Terry Hayes — I Am Pilgrim and The Year of the Locust. Both are fast-paced thrillers, the latter edging into science fiction. They made me want to write something equally pulse-pounding.
Then there was an interview I heard on ABC Radio’s Conversations, where Sarah Kanowski spoke with a radio astronomer about the possibility of life on other planets. That definitely fired the neurons. And, over coffee one day, a friend and I started talking about the mysterious crop circles near Tully, first reported sixty years ago — circles that can’t easily be explained away by pranksters. That conversation sealed it.
What aspects of the human condition do you find most interesting — the things that make for great fiction?
Loss is something most of us experience at some point. You never really get over it — you just learn to manage it, if that’s the right word. Certain triggers can bring the pain rushing back.
Loss often leads to vulnerability, which is another universal theme. When we feel vulnerable, we become risk-averse — but without risk, it’s hard to escape an unhappy or stagnant situation.
And then there’s forgiveness. When someone wrongs you, the question becomes: can you forgive them? That decision always carries consequences for both sides.
What themes were important for you to explore in this book?
Identity – Who am I? I even toyed with calling the book Daughter. Drummer. Sailor. Spy. — a nod to John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Spying – What it requires, what it costs, and what it demands of a person. The secrecy, the deception, the time away from home — and the toll that takes.
Secrets – Discovering that someone you thought you knew was living a double life. Perhaps they weren’t an oil worker after all, but a spy.
Connection and relationships – With family, and with doing what you love. Galina leaves the survival competition in a new relationship forged under extraordinary circumstances. Can it survive the real world? Seb has already taught her to swim — now he wants to teach her to sail.
Motherhood – For Charlotte, it’s about what it truly means to care for a child, and the sacrifices and choices that come with that role.
Where do you see your characters after the book ends?
Each of the three amateur sleuths undergoes a profound transformation through the events of Father Lost Child Found. They’ll each carry those experiences into their futures — but you’ll have to wait for the next book in the series to see how those changes shape their careers and their lives.
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Charlotte Wyatt-Harmon has taken a break in cycling from Hua Hin to Phuket. While shopping at markets near the border with Myanmar, someone leaves a child in her basket, sending Charlotte on a frantic search for the mother.
Mason Murray is a journalist with a personal interest in crop circles. Some believe these patterns were created by extraterrestrials and Mason is determined to find out for himself.
These amateur sleuths learn that everyone is hiding something: a secret, a spy, even an alien presence.
FATHER LOST, CHILD FOUND delivers a twisty-turny plot until the very last page.
Father Lost Child Found
On the surface, Father Lost Child Found is an espionage thriller that opens with a daring rescue on a Brisbane train platform and spirals into a global chase across Estonia, Thailand, and beyond. Beneath that, though, it’s the story of Galina Ivanof, a woman trying to untangle the mystery of her father’s death while confronting the ghosts of her past. What begins with crop circles and whispers of buried secrets soon collides with questions of family, loyalty, and truth. The novel blends spycraft with a touch of science fiction, weaving personal heartbreak into a much larger tapestry of conspiracies and otherworldly puzzles.
The writing caught me off guard in the best way. The style is brisk and punchy, yet the author lingers at just the right moments on small sensory details. A crutch abandoned on a train platform, the cold smell of snow-soaked pine, the weight of silence between mother and daughter, these flashes made the story breathe. Sometimes the prose veers into melodrama, but I didn’t mind. In fact, I found myself leaning into it. I liked the mix of high-stakes action with quiet, vulnerable scenes, especially the strained relationship between Galina and her mother. It gave the thriller bones a very human heart.
On one page I was in the thick of a spy story tangled with oil companies, government secrets, and drones. On another, I was reading what felt like a family saga about loss and reconciliation. And then there’s the sci-fi layer with crop circles and UAPs, which added a lot of intrigue and gives readers a break from the emotional threads. I appreciated that the author took risks. It’s rare to see a thriller that dares to stretch across genres and landscapes in such an ambitious way.
I’d recommend Father Lost Child Found to readers who like their thrillers to swerve off the predictable highway. If you’re open to a story that mixes spy games with family wounds, political secrets, and just enough science fiction to keep you guessing, this book will be a ride worth taking. It’s heartfelt and surprising, and that’s what made me keep turning pages.
Pages: 186 | ASIN : B0F7JTL4SJ
Deadly Vision
Deadly Vision starts like a high-tech thriller but unravels into something much deeper and darker. It follows Dr. Taylor Abrahms, a driven ER doctor whose research into virtual reality medicine collides with political greed, corporate secrets, and moral decay. From a Silicon Valley conspiracy to a presidential campaign in chaos, author T. D. Severin stitches together the worlds of science, power, and human frailty with an eerie sense of realism. The story opens with a murder and keeps up a relentless pace, jumping between operating rooms, campaign dinners, and backroom plots. At its heart, it asks one big question: how far would we go in the name of progress?
Severin’s writing has a cinematic quality. Scenes move like quick cuts in a film, filled with blood, urgency, and political swagger. The dialogue feels authentic, sometimes clinical, other times sharp enough to draw blood. The medical details are vivid and intense, almost uncomfortably real, and the moral tension keeps you off balance. Abrahms is compelling, but he’s also hard to love, too focused, too numb from exhaustion. And that’s the point, I think. Severin doesn’t romanticize science or heroism. He shows their cost.
What struck me most wasn’t the tech or the politics but the fear under it all. The fear of losing control, of letting machines replace human touch, of progress turning against its maker. The book hums with that dread. It’s ambitious and messy and alive. The villains feel terrifyingly real because they believe they’re doing the right thing. And Severin has a knack for making every ethical question feel personal. There’s a sadness that lingers after the last page, the kind that stays with you longer than the plot itself.
I’d recommend Deadly Vision to readers who like their thrillers with brains and bite, people who enjoy Michael Crichton’s scientific tension or Robin Cook’s medical intrigue but want something a bit grittier. It’s not a light read, and it doesn’t hand you easy answers. But if you like stories that make you squirm, think, and wonder what’s really possible when science meets ambition, this book will grip you from start to finish.
Pages: 468 | ASIN : B0DZ3JWVYX
Happy Sun Farm: Behind the Facade
Berry comes home from college carrying fresh knowledge and heavy grief. Her father has died, and while mourning, she clings to the belief that her degree in agricultural economics might help turn the struggling family farm into a success. That confidence shatters quickly. The land she expected to inherit has already been sold; her mother signed it away to a corporate behemoth called Sunny Happy Farm. Even more unsettling, Berry discovers that her father had been resisting their advances, a battle he didn’t live to win. Determined to uncover the truth, she begins investigating the company, only to find that every new discovery points to something darker, something calculated. The question isn’t just what Sunny Happy Farm wants, but how far it’s willing to go to get it.
Happy Sunny Farm: Behind the Façade by Deven Greene is a genre-bending tale that wears many disguises. At times, it feels like a Stephen King narrative rooted in small-town unease; at others, it channels John Grisham’s legal-tinged suspense. Instead of feeling scattered, the shifting tones enhance the novel’s energy. Thriller mechanics mix with black comedy, while undercurrents of romance soften the edges. The result is unpredictable; just when you settle into one rhythm, the story pivots, demanding fresh attention.
At the center stands Berry, a heroine both wounded and formidable. Her grief never feels forced; instead, Greene peels back layers of her relationship with her father, making her pain not just visible but palpable. That emotional foundation fuels her fury at a faceless corporation that grows more ruthless with every revelation. Berry’s fight becomes personal for the reader, too, as Sunny Happy Farm emerges less as a caricature of corporate greed and more as a disturbingly believable machine.
Perhaps the novel’s greatest strength lies in that believability. Greene treads into territory that, in lesser hands, might feel exaggerated. Here, it lands with chilling plausibility. The cynicism woven through the plot isn’t sensational; it’s sobering. Readers may want to dismiss some of the book’s implications as extreme, yet Greene makes it impossible. The scenarios echo too closely with reality to ignore.
This is, in every sense, a page-turner. Deven Greene delivers a sharp, multifaceted story, both entertaining and unsettling, carried by a strong feminist voice and anchored by a protagonist worth rooting for. Happy Sunny Farm: Behind the Façade is a bold achievement, one that refuses to be easily categorized, and one that lingers long after the last page is turned.
Pages: 356 | ASIN : B0FGKQ2HSL
Prophets of War
Prophets Of War follows Alex, a young financial advisor who stumbles onto a horrifying truth: his own father has created a shadowy business empire that bankrolls Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What begins as a Wall Street career quickly spirals into a nightmare of offshore shell companies, secret deals in Tortola, oligarchs with bottomless bank accounts, and a sprawling conspiracy called the “Business of War.” The story stretches across years, peeling back layers of betrayal, greed, and the way capital can be twisted into a weapon. It is a thriller about money and morality, but also about family, ambition, and the unbearable weight of knowing too much.
Reading it was both exciting and unsettling. I found myself drawn to the writing in a way that made it difficult to put down. Jack Brown’s prose is sharp, direct, almost conversational, and it has this raw energy that carries you forward. The emotions are messy and real. The narrator swears, second-guesses, and drinks too much, and it all makes him feel believable. Still, the style can be over the top, even exhausting, with its constant intensity, but that relentlessness matches the chaos of the world he’s describing.
The central concept that war itself can be commodified, that it thrives not on ideology but on profit, is chilling because it feels close to the truth. The book doesn’t come across as a lecture, though. It’s more like watching someone wake up to a nightmare and realizing you’re in it too. There were points where I laughed bitterly, other times where my chest tightened with dread. And then there’s the father-son dynamic, which added a gut-punch of personal betrayal on top of the political corruption. That made the story hit even harder for me, because it wasn’t just about governments or faceless corporations, it was about blood ties and the price of silence.
By the time I finished, I felt both drained and oddly hopeful. Drained because the world it paints is so dark. Prophets Of War is best for readers who like fast-paced thrillers that are unafraid to mix politics with personal stakes. People who enjoy the works of John le Carré or Robert Ludlum but want something grittier and more contemporary will likely appreciate this story.
Pages: 174 | ASIN : B0FL2YB474
LITERARY TITAN 