Blog Archives
Friendship and Abandonment
High School Epic follows a teenage girl through her high school years in the early 1990s who struggles with issues of abandonment and with discovering who she is and who she wants to be. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
My own life is definitely the inspiration for High School Epic. I had a friendship and boyfriend breakup at the onset of high school that resulted in a type of heartbreak that only emphasized the feelings I had buried of abandonment from when my father left us (the first time) when I was six. Although he did return and remain with my mother for another 11 years, their relationship was shaky at best. Deep down, I was always anticipating when he would leave again for good.
In many contemporary coming-of-age novels, authors often draw on their own life experiences. Are there any bits of you in this story?
Yes! Every event is based on real events from my middle and high school years. Characters are derived from real friends and classmates. The main character has traits that are similar to me, but she really is her own person and not me.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Friendship and abandonment are the most important themes in the book, even within the context of the romance that happens.
What is the next book that you’re working on, and when can your fans expect it out?
I have a current project that is part memoir and part short story collection, all with the themes of relationships, love, loss, and heartbreak. I’m hoping it will come out sometime by the end of next year.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Left behind, Dani meets Kevin Martin, an outsider who seems to give her everything her world is missing. Until betrayal cuts deep, leaving her reeling once more. Dani’s circle keeps reshaping again and again: new friends like Ryan O’Leary offer comfort, while old wounds resurface.
Through each season of high school, Dani is tested through heartbreak, mistakes, and hilarious missteps, as she wrestles with who she is and who she wants to be.
Told in a unique blend of letters and chapters, Hannah R. Goodman’s HIGH SCHOOL EPIC captures the chaos of teenage life in the early 1990s with raw honesty, humor, and heart.
Victim and Villain
Raven follows a deeply flawed woman whose love affair leads her down a road of dangerous secrets, obsession, and self-destruction. Where did the idea for this novella come from?
Raven is one of, if not the most, intense books I’ve ever written. Delilah was first introduced in EverGreen, the first book in the EverGreen Trilogy, years ago. At that point, she was kind of a classic mean girl character. But even then, I knew that she had a troubled background. Raven is a companion novella that gives the reader some insight as to what was happening to Delilah before the events of Fallen Snow, the last book in the trilogy. It sounds a bit cliché, but sometimes my characters play a part in writing their own stories. Delilah knew what her backstory was, and she led me down the path of writing Raven.
I always take a lot of inspiration from my personal life. Raven is no exception. Abuse and sexual violence are topics that are very close to my heart. Unlike in Fallen Snow, I wanted Raven to feature an imperfect victim that was also a villain. However, I wanted to make it clear to the reader that Delilah’s actions and the way she treated others do not justify or excuse what happened to her. As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people. Like I said, I’m not necessarily trying to make the reader feel sympathy for Delilah or make them view her as less evil. At the same time, I do want to reflect that victims of abuse and sexual violence aren’t always (or even usually) perfect, and that’s completely normal. We can acknowledge that what happens to Delilah in Raven is a tragedy without revoking her status as an antagonist in the EverGreen Trilogy.
Delilah is an incredibly well-crafted character. What was your inspiration for her traits and dialogue?
I am extremely proud of being able to create a character that is as complex as Delilah. The more I wrote and planned the storyline, the more fleshed out and fascinating her character became. As I said before, she started out as your typical high school bully that took things way too far. But as I kept writing, I continued to follow her journey and realized where that ultimately led her. In Raven, we see Delilah at the lowest points in her life. Throughout the story, she thinks that her choices are acts of self-preservation, but they’re actually the opposite. She’s typically a very calculated individual, but her obsession with Silas (which I will make clear is an obsession, not real love) completely throws her off. In Silas, she’s met her match in terms of ability to manipulate. The two of them being in a relationship was never going to work, no matter how hard they tried. In a relationship, there has to be concern and respect for the other person. Neither of them had that. Her traits are those I imagine a person diagnosed with an extreme case of psychopathy, or antisocial personality disorder, would exhibit. All of her dialogue stems from that. Similarly, Silas is a malignant narcissist. Neither of them should be in a relationship, and certainly not with each other.
What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of writing a trilogy? What is the most rewarding?
The most challenging part of writing a trilogy is remembering little details. This can be something as simple as a character’s eye color, etc. The most rewarding is being able to watch them grow. I love seeing my characters transform into what is typically a better version of themselves. Obviously, that wasn’t the case for Silas or Delilah.
Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?
I recently completed my first adult romance, titled Crazy For You. It’s a clean billionaire romance with an antihero MMC (main male character) and a sweet female protagonist with a heart of gold. They are actually one of my favorite couples I’ve ever written. I’ve never encountered a clean billionaire romance before, so when the story came to me, I decided it was definitely worth writing. I’m currently contemplating a sequel focusing on some of the side characters from Crazy For You and getting an idea of what that might look like. It’s definitely something I see myself writing in the future, but no promises.
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Delilah Banks was never the type of girl to let herself be manipulated by a man. But when she becomes involved with a tempting stranger, Silas, everything changes. Between the events of Moonlit Skies and Fallen Snow, Delilah discovers that no one is above having their heart broken. After all, we are each the hero in our own story.
Raven
The book follows Delilah, a striking and deeply flawed woman whose tangled love affair with Silas drags her into a spiral of obsession, violence, and dangerous secrets. Set between Moonlit Skies and Fallen Snow from the EverGreen Trilogy, the novella shows events through the eyes of a character who is more often the villain than the victim. What makes the story gripping is the way it refuses to soften Delilah. She is not portrayed as misunderstood or redeemed but as fully aware of her own dark choices. Through pregnancy, manipulation, and power games, we see her fight to hold on to Silas while also grappling with her own sense of control, vulnerability, and twisted love.
Reading this book felt unsettling and fascinating at the same time. I found myself both repelled by Delilah and unable to look away from her story. The writing style is sharp and vivid. I could practically hear the click of her stilettos on the floor or feel the electric crackle of her faerie power humming under her skin. The tension in her relationship with Silas is raw, messy, and at times horrifying. I appreciated how the author leaned into that darkness rather than pulling back. It made the whole experience feel more honest, even when it was uncomfortable. At times, I caught myself feeling sympathy for Delilah, only to be reminded moments later of just how ruthless she could be. That push and pull kept me hooked.
What struck me most was how much the book made me reflect on the nature of love, control, and power. There were moments where the drama felt almost theatrical, yet the emotions behind it rang true. The writing doesn’t dress up Delilah’s cruelty with excuses, and that made her inner conflicts more powerful to watch. The pacing leaned on confrontation and spectacle, which left me craving a deeper look at the cracks in Delilah’s armor. But maybe that was the point. She doesn’t allow herself to be fully exposed, even to the reader.
Raven is an intense and dramatic read that doesn’t shy away from the darker corners of human desire and obsession. It’s not a comfortable book, and I don’t think it’s meant to be. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy morally complex characters, stories that blur the line between villain and protagonist, and tales that pulse with danger and passion.
Pages: 158 | ASIN : B0F4RR5L5M
Split
Split, by Michael Swartz, is a haunting story about Ethan, a boy born with genetic chimerism, carrying two sets of DNA and the confusion, pain, and strength that come with it. The novel follows him through a gauntlet of bullying, identity crises, and family wounds, all while his body betrays him with asthma, and his mind struggles with the fear of becoming like his violent father. Along the way, friendships bloom, love steadies him, and the truth of his condition forces him to question who he really is and who he wants to become. It is both a coming-of-age tale and a raw look at survival when the world tells you that you are broken.
The writing is sharp and urgent, with scenes that left me squirming in discomfort, not because they were bad, but because they were so brutally real. The cafeteria humiliations, the suffocating asthma attacks, the relentless bullying, all of it dropped me straight back into the shaky insecurity of youth. Swartz doesn’t soften the edges. He makes you sit with the pain, and in that pain, I found a strange kind of beauty.
At the same time, there’s a tenderness here that surprised me. Moments with Mo and Aia glowed like little lanterns in the dark, and those relationships kept the story from sinking into despair. I loved how the book didn’t give easy answers about identity or fate. Ethan’s split nature felt like a metaphor for all of us who feel divided between who we are and who we’re supposed to be. I kept thinking about genetics versus choice, destiny versus defiance, and it made me restless in the best way. I didn’t agree with every decision Ethan made, but I understood them, and that made the story hit harder.
I would recommend Split to readers who want more than just a story, to anyone who likes books that dig under your skin and refuse to let go. Teenagers who feel out of place, adults still wrestling with family scars, and anyone who has ever carried the weight of being different will find something of themselves in these pages.
Pages: 264 | ASIN : B0F9MWLMNY
Open Your Heart
Color Me Skye follows a 12-year-old girl battling fear, grief, and a distant stepfather following the car accident that leaves her mother in a coma. Where did the idea for this story come from?
This story came partly from my own experience of losing my father, who served in the military when I was very young, and then dealing with the addition of a stepfather to our family. I would have loved to have had a book like this when I was growing up, to know that there were other kids like me experiencing the feelings I did. That’s my hope for this book, that it will reach kids who’ve lost a parent, or are dealing with a new step-parent, that they’ll see themselves in the story and learn that healing is possible and there are resources available to help them.
When creating Skye, did you have a plan for development and character traits, or did they grow organically as you were writing the story?
I wanted Skye to grow and change into someone who was more other-centered at the end than she was at the beginning. But some of the specifics, like her being unable to sit in the front seat after the accident, weren’t planned.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
People are seldom who you think they are, healing doesn’t always look like what you think it will, and it comes when you open your heart to new possibilities.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m working on a middle-grade fantasy in which the main characters are fairies who must go on a quest to save their forest and insect friends from destruction by humans. I have no idea when it might get published, but I’m enjoying the journey of writing it.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Then last year her mom married a quiet, distant guy who Skye calls Dim Tim. He doesn’t seem to be interested in having a stepdaughter. And that’s okay with Skye; she doesn’t want a stepfather, either.
But now, a car accident has left her mom in a coma. Which means she and Dim Tim are going to have to figure out how to do all the stuff her mom did. To actually talk to each other. Worst of all, one question is tearing Skye up inside: What if her mom never wakes up?
Told in free verse, with color filled words and sketches, Color Me Skye follows the emotionally charged journey of Dim Tim and Skye as they navigate their new normal. Along the way, Skye discovers a best friend who is funny, feisty, fabulous, and the perfect antidote to Skye’s troubles. For ages 9-12.
Color Me Skye
Color Me Skye follows twelve-year-old Skye as she navigates the aftermath of a terrifying car accident that leaves her mother in a coma. Stuck with her emotionally distant stepfather, Dim Tim, Skye battles fear, loneliness, guilt, and grief all while slowly learning to open her heart again. Through days spent at a hospital daycare called the “Fun-ny Bone,” she meets Star, a larger-than-life friend who helps Skye rediscover joy, hope, and strength in unexpected ways.
The writing is lyrical but raw. Adams paints Skye’s emotions with texture and depth, layering them like strokes on a canvas. It doesn’t pull punches. The pacing is fast, the chapters short and sharp, often written in free verse that mirrors the chaos and swirl of grief. Skye’s voice is crystal clear, funny, moody, honest, and incredibly relatable. There were pages that made me laugh and others that cracked my heart wide open. What moved me most, though, was how the story treated pain not as something to run from but something to live through. And how beautifully it shows that healing doesn’t always look like you think it will.
I also really appreciated how the book handles relationships. Skye and Dim Tim’s dynamic is awkward and strained at first, which feels true. He’s no superhero. But he tries. That matters. Watching them slowly fumble toward understanding was as satisfying as it was believable. And Star? What a sparkplug. She bursts into the story like a firework and stays lit the whole time. I wanted to bottle her energy. Their friendship gave the story warmth and color just when it needed it most.
If you’ve ever lost someone or felt like your world was tilting sideways and couldn’t seem to right itself, this book will feel like a soft place to land. It’s ideal for middle-grade readers and anyone who’s dealt with grief, change, or feeling like the odd one out. I’d recommend it to parents, teachers, and counselors, too. It’s the kind of story that starts conversations.
Pages: 184 | ASIN : B0FBKYS69R
Confront the Darkness Within
Forever Boy follows two high school students intrigued by a new student whose origins are a mystery and whose demeanor is most unsettling. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
Without giving away any spoilers, I envisioned an orphan boy outside of time and place who wants, more than anything else, what we all want—friends and a family—while at the same time hiding his true self for fear of rejection.
Do you have a favorite scene in this story? One that was especially enjoyable to write?
I loved writing the scenes with Isaac and the others filming their movie, harking back to my own experiences making low-budget horror films in my youth, but my favorite sequence is the film festival because this disparate group of teens who, when the book begins, don’t speak to one another, finally become the tight-knit found family that each of them desperately needs.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I’ve always been fascinated by what makes some humans monstrous and others not, and I wanted to explore that theme. Do we choose to become monsters and commit monstrous acts, or is monstrosity somehow thrust upon us against our will and we have no control over it? Growing up, I loved the old Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s that often explored this very notion of man/monster, and I wanted my teen characters to confront the darkness within themselves, and within the seemingly ordinary people of their small town.
Can you give us a peek inside the next book in this series? Where will it take readers?
The newfound friend group will be forced to split up in Book 2, but readers will still experience all of their lives, despite the separation.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Outcast Isaac and popular Stephanie have barely spoken in all their years in school. Now, in the ninth grade, their lives become intertwined with a strange boy from Eastern Europe named Drágan Albescu.
Everything about Drágan is exotic, from his vintage style of dress to his flowing long hair and delicate features. But he’s also shrouded in great mystery.
He reveals that he’s a fashion model, so Stephanie searches his image on the internet and discovers modeling photos dating back to the 1920’s. Then there’s the valise Drágan carries that’s so heavy Isaac can’t lift it.
Drágan also possesses more knowledge and wisdom than all the teachers at school, coupled with the uncanny ability to discern what others long to keep private, a power that particularly frightens Stephanie due to her own dark secrets.
Who is this enigmatic boy who becomes the best friend Isaac ever had? Why do bullies at school suddenly stop their bullying? And what about the dead deer found torn to shreds in the woods?
When Isaac and Stephanie learn the full truth about their new friend, they’ll almost wish they hadn’t.
The Whims of the Natural World
An Empty House Doesn’t Sneeze follows a 15-year-old boy navigating the challenges of adolescence while the world around him is engulfed in chaos. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Because my father was killed in WWII, the war has always been an interest. At some point, the idea of somebody lighting fires during the mandatory blackouts in Seattle captured my imagination. As a former sixth-grade teacher, I understand how inadequate we are at teaching civics and history, especially to young people, hence teenage readers became my target audience.
Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?
The novel is set in my Seattle neighborhood, which by the way, still looks almost exactly like it did in 1943. Much of the story reflects my own lived experiences, though slightly updated to the nineteen fifties. I grew up near the “wilds” of Ravenna Park – in terrain that shaped my mind as much as my appreciation of nature. This experience cultivated my habits of listening, observing, and yielding to the whims of the natural world.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The central idea of An Empty House Doesn’t Sneeze cried out to become a mystery. It was also a vehicle to portray the homefront in a way most young readers had not been exposed to. I merely hope readers enjoy An Empty House Doesn’t Sneeze and learn a little history along the way.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
The children’s stories I noodled around with years ago are brewing on the back burner, and I’m waiting to see if they spark my interest. An Empty House Doesn’t Sneeze follows my debut novel (published in September 2023) – River’s Reach: Coming of Age Amid the Fish War – a coming-of-age adventure (for “kids” of all ages) that highlights the tensions between the Washington State Game Department and the Nisqually Indians over tribal fishing rights in the Nisqually Valley. With River’s Reach, I hoped to open minds, encouraging people to question beliefs and prejudices that might otherwise settle in for a lifetime.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Into this fragile balance a neighborhood threat emerges: Someone is lighting fires during the mandatory blackouts. Scotty, whose father is an air raid warden, is soon caught up in the firebug mystery and tries to smoke the arsonist out. When the local bully throws suspicion on Scotty’s draft-age brother, and when even his best friend’s actions don’t seem to add up, Scotty must navigate a moral and ethical thicket while treading a path toward maturity. Even as scarcity slips into every nook and cranny, An Empty House Doesn’t Sneeze celebrates a youthful spirit and hearkens to simple pleasures, where free time and family abound.
David Scott Richardson’s An Empty House Doesn’t Sneeze is a work of historical fiction set in 1943 in the Pacific Northwest. A heartwarming and playful coming-of-age adventure, this novel is suitable for MG/YA and the young at heart. It contains no gratuitous language, but there are a few slurs that are true to the historical setting and swear words-in keeping with the characters and story.
LITERARY TITAN 