Tag Archives: book-reviews

There’s something peculiar about small towns. It’s not just the quiet streets or the coffee shop that closes at 6. It’s not the fact that everyone waves to each other—or knows what you paid for your new siding. It’s the invisible weight pressing behind smiles. The silences that stretch too long in the grocery aisle.Continue reading “The Psychology of Small-Town Secrets: Writing the Shadows of Hillfort”

There’s a certain point in writing a novel where the story becomes real—at least to you. You start hearing the voices of your characters in the shower. You wonder how they’d handle a situation in the news. And before long, the lines blur between imagination and lived experience. That’s exactly how it happened with TheContinue reading “The Real Fires Behind The Fiction: What Inspired The Smoke Eater”

(and Why You’ll Remember Them) Some stories are about plot. Others are about place. But the stories that stick—the ones that crawl under your skin and don’t leave—are the ones where the characters live and breathe. That’s what I set out to do in The Smoke Eater. Build a world where people don’t just playContinue reading “Five Characters You’ll Meet in The Smoke Eater”

There’s a certain point in writing a novel where the story becomes real—at least to you. You start hearing the voices of your characters in the shower. You wonder how they’d handle a situation in the news. And before long, the lines blur between imagination and lived experience. That’s exactly how it happened with TheContinue reading “The Real Fires Behind The Fiction: What Inspired The Smoke Eater”