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If John Lennon Had Lived
Imagine follows a handyman living in New York City in 1980 who witnesses the murder of John Lennon before being engulfed in an orange ball of light and time-traveling to the year 2023. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration came from two sources. First, I love Stephen King’s novel 11/22/63 and always wanted to write something similar to it. My second inspiration is my father, who is a huge Beatles/Lennon fan, so this led to my story Imagine being written.
Joe struggles with the changes in society from his time travel and the loss of everything he knew and loved. What things do you find interesting about the human condition that makes for great fiction?
I find the way people can adapt to any situation fascinating. People always think they can’t handle a situation until they have no choice. It shows the power of being human.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I wanted to explore, of course, what the world may look like if John Lennon had lived. I always wanted to explore the bond of family, showing it both through the main character Joe and John Lennon’s family, as well.
What is the next book that you’re working on, and when can your fans expect it?
I am currently working on another time-traveling story. This time it’s a young adult novel that explores the history of the game of basketball through the main character, Braxton, who has to write a book report on basketball, and pass, or get kicked off the high school basketball team.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Website | Amazon
Joe Miller was just a regular handyman in New York City, trying to adapt to the city life after moving to The Big Apple from his small town in Pennsylvania.
On the night of December 8, 1980, Joe’s life changed forever. He witnessed the murder of his idol, John Lennon. What happened next was even worse. A strange orange ball of light in the sky surrounded him, rendering him unconscious. When Joe awoke, he was in the year 2023.
Now, Joe is stuck in a strange and unfamiliar world where everything he knows and loves is gone. He must find a way to return to his own time, but how?
Imagine
Imagine by Titan Frey sends you on a vivid tour of the past, future, and present, all churned up with science fiction, ’80s nostalgia, and the grieving psyche. The story stars Joe Miller, a New York City handyman, whose otherwise uneventful life takes a turn on the night of December 8th, 1980, when he watches his hero, John Lennon, being gunned down. Soon after, an orange light beams down and propels Joe forward through time, precisely 44 years, to 2024. Stranded in a future where nothing is familiar and nothing is as it should be, Joe must figure out how to get home to 1980.
It’s a compelling question. How would he get back to 1980, and what other secrets did this future hold? But, his journey becomes transfixing, harrowing, and disorienting. Joe reels under the shock of the distinctions between now and then, under the loss of so much he once held dear. Frey eloquently communicates Joe’s confusion and emotional pain, and Joe’s quest to return home becomes engrossing. Frey also demonstrates accessibility and immediacy in their style. Joe’s everyman narration and the story’s construction are something apart from the usual practices of science fiction storytelling. They drop us into a 2010 that Joe – and many NYC residents who are older than he is – simply cannot imagine, and the impact of that shock, that 1970 New Yorker’s experience of a 2010 that we see as normal, keeps the science fiction element under control. By the time Joe goes back to change history, the real tragedy is that even if he did achieve his goal, he would no longer have a home for all the people who loved him, including a man named John Lennon – a murder that is referred to at the end of the story. No special effects would have worked as well because Imagine is less an equal paradox of time travel than a tale of how time inevitably ‘fixes’ everything by grinding it into dust. The story’s strength and appeal lie in how it depicts the struggle for adaptation between the past and the future. This is a story about time travel as it is a story of identity and its reflection on memory and loss.
Imagine paves a unique path between science fiction and history and between science fiction and personal drama. It is an unforgettable tale about what it’s like to lose everything one has known and to what extent one man will go to recover it. Imagine reads at times like the Back to the Future trilogy of the 1980s and ’90s but with a much greater ability to philosophically integrate different dimensions of time and personality. Imagine is the kind of time-travel story that fans of the genre will absolutely love and, at the same time, is recommended to anyone interested in exploring the complex physiology between time and identity.
Pages: 315 | ASIN : B0CW2QQJYX
A Story About Life and Football
Titan Frey Author Interview
A Players Path follows a young athlete as he struggles to live up to his fathers dream after he passes away. What were some of your driving motivations while writing this book?
Well, I was asked by my publisher to write a sports-themed YA novel. And I was already planning on writing a story that involves kidney donation. I myself am a living kidney donor so this topic means a lot to me.
Andy is an interesting and well developed character. What were some ideas that drove his character development throughout the novel?
I basically tried to remember myself as a teen and how I may have talked or reacted to certain situations and I let the character develop himself during the writing.
This book dealt with issues like grief and loss. What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Like I mentioned before, I’m a living donor, I donated my kidney back in 2012, so organ donation and awareness is big to me. I wanted to bring that awareness while hopefully bringing an entertaining story to the reader.
What is the next novel that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m working on a bunch of projects but one of them is a time-traveling story that involves a historical event. I’m pretty excited about this story and as of now, there is no release date.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Website
Fourteen-year-old football phenom Andy McDonald was supposed to dominate high school football. Yet, just before the school year started, Andy’s family suffered a tragedy. His father, Jerry McDonald, was involved in a car crash on his way home from work… He did not make it.
The doctor in charge of organ transplants, Doctor Yang, wanted to transplant Jerry’s kidneys into two people who needed a kidney. Since Jerry registered himself as an organ donor, this was possible. Before taking Jerry’s kidneys, Doctor Yang wanted to get approval from the family. Andy’s mother wanted her son to make the final decision. Now facing a decision that would confirm the loss of his father (in his mind), Andy would soon find out this decision would not be the biggest of his life…
A Player’s Path
![A Player's Path (The /Legacy Series Book 1) by [Frey, Titan]](https://i0.wp.com/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51BMgYBU9oL.jpg?resize=251%2C377&ssl=1)
Andy McDonald dad taught him everything he knows about football. His father’s dream became his. After Jerry McDonald dies, Andy swears to live the dream for him. He feels his father’s presence throughout his journey. His high school football career is a blessing in so many ways. He even finds a good friend. Will he live life as DeAndre advised? Will he be able to save dear Chase? How will he be able to make a choice between two very important things in his life?
Titan Frey writes Andy’s story with passion and artistry. Written in the first-person narrative the book is about what is most important in life. It’s about making the right choices when it counts even when they are hard ones. I also enjoyed how this novel explores grief and how to survive it. It is about loving and losing but moving on nevertheless. Andy may have thought that his father was speaking to him while he was on that tree, but really (I think) it was his own consciousness disagreeing with the choice to get up there for that particular intention.
This is a simple book with a powerful message. I lost a loved one, and the pain is horrendous, A Player’s Path helped me relive those moments from a different perspective which I found ultimately healing. The writer executes with much emotion and intensity but maintains a simplicity that would appeal to people in a younger demographic. It is light and short, making it a quick read, but leaves the reader with a refreshed feeling of peace at the end of it.
I felt that the book could have benefited a bit from another editing pass to remove some redundant writings. Other than that, this book is simple enough while also communicating and keeping the reader committed to the story. I found it amazing how the writer has captured the voice of a teenage boy including all the stilted conversations teenagers engage in with older people. It is a delightful story albeit sad due to the struggles the characters go through. Alice McDonald, despite going having a tough time, shows up for her son when it really counts. I found her to be inspiring.
A Player’s Path is a story that gives readers a happy ending, but not so perfect that it is unbelievable. The team may have suffered a colossal loss on the field but all was not lost. A Player’s Path is exceptional and thought-provoking.
Pages: 130 | ASIN: B0841QSXQK
Life and Family
Titan Frey Author Interview
Reflection: The Paul Mann Story is the story of an elderly man retelling his life to his grandson through his journals. What was the inspiration for the setup to this intriguing novel?
I worked in a nursing home at the time I started to write this book. Seeing all the residents, seeing how their lives were going, made me understand how precious life and family is. This gave me the idea to come up with an elderly resident who would tell his story.
Paul lives an interesting life with twists I didn’t see coming. Was his story planned or did it develop organically while writing?
A few of his life moments were planned but most developed organically as I wrote through the story.
Throughout the story I felt that family and love was important. What were some themes you wanted to explore in this book?
Yes, I wanted to show that in the midst of life, good and bad, at the end of the day we all need our family.
What is the next book that you are writing and when will it be available?
I am currently writing a time-traveling story that will involve a real event in history. There is no release plan yet.
Author Links: Amazon | GoodReads | Facebook
![Reflection: The Paul Mann Story by [Frey, Titan]](https://i0.wp.com/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51AGUX1C5YL.jpg?resize=270%2C433&ssl=1)
When you’re old, tired, and alone, will you reflect on your life?
Well, one-hundred-and-four-year-old Paul Mann is. After not seeing his grandson, Marlin, for nearly five years, he reads to him from his journals. Paul relives his best moments with his late wife, Janet. He also relives the horrors he saw in the second world war, and from his crazy, murderer of a step-father.
Will you let Paul Mann read to you?
Reflection: The Paul Mann Story
Reflection: The Paul Mann Story by Titan Frey is an amazing work of fiction interweaving alternative history within it. Paul Mann is 104-years-old and in a nursing home. Every day he writes in his journal about his life and has a sack of journals that tells the story of his lifetime. He is reunited with his son and grandson in this book, where Paul tells his story through his journals. An intimate family relationship is born between grandson and grandfather where we see the hectic, heartbreaking, and even heartwarming life Paul Mann has led while also following his current adventures.
I love this book. It was intriguing and hard to put down. At first, I did not like many of the characters, but then I saw, as their story developed, that they were shaped by their pasts. The main characters are well-developed in that sense, and we get to know these characters as if they were complex, real-life people. It truly felt as if I was witnessing these events pass and getting to know them. I would have liked to understand the side characters motivations more, though, as they did seem cruel without real reason. Though sometimes, that is the harshness of the world, and this book’s theme seems to be how callous and brutal the world can be, but that love is still important.
The main aspect of this book was learning about Paul through the eyes of his past in the form of a journal, and it was done so well. I love how the journals truly seemed to be written by Paul Mann. It shows incredibly strong character development. I liked the idea of learning about someone through journals; it put me in the mindset of Marlin, the grandson, where I felt like Paul was my grandfather and I got to connect with him in that way. Frey does a marvelous at humanizing her character and allowing you to grow attached to them.
This book is an emotional roller-coaster with lots of twists and turns. Terrible things happen, but you get to see the love Paul has for his family, and that beauty shines through. The portrayal of the nursing home struck a chord with me and made it relatable; at least to me. It made me feel for the residents, especially Paul. In a way, this book made me feel more connected with my own grandmother.
I highly recommend this book. It puts you in the head of an older person by relaying their life experiences. It also shows how sometimes you do not really know a person or how they came to be who they are until you take the time to listen, or read in this case. The book also illustrates the importance of life and spending time with loved ones. In addition to valuable lessons, the book is also intriguing, thrilling, and mysterious. Marlin and his grandson truly have a special bond.
Pages: 186 | ASIN: B07MTSFWJG
