Dear Reader, Love Johanna Frank

 

Dear Reader,

It has taken me well over a decade to piece together unusual happenings with God’s abundant sense of mystery. Fifteen years to be precise, since the passing of my teenage daughter, whom, for the purposes of this book, I refer to lovingly as Sadie.

This story you’re about to read is based on true events. The prologue reflects knowledge handed down through generations, from mother to child, over a century ago. Everything else—coincidences, dreams, and visions—happened as described. While I’ve fictionalized the characters and modified some timelines, conversations between the main characters have all been reconstructed from memory. Several exact and taken from preserved journals. Discussions among classmates within the final chapters were created to maintain the spirit and tone of my visit to the middle east.

My purpose for sharing this personal experience boils down to a simple message. God communicates in many ways. Often, he even catches us off guard. It’s when we crawl into that upper room inside ourselves that we can hear what he wants us to hear, see what he wants us to see. It’s there, with his Son in our hearts, we feel the breeze of his Spirit. We discover the business that he’ll go to great lengths to accomplish. He wants—deeply desires—our agreement to allow him to lift our souls, to join his family.

Compelled to share this, I present to you The Voice I Couldn‘t Ignore, a creative nonfiction work. When a window opens, the breeze can find you. Though don’t be misguided, sometimes it takes a whole lot of courage to accept the winds of change. Even so, we can wholeheartedly trust that God is already at work in our stories.

With gratitude that you have chosen to open these pages, I thank you for walking alongside.

Johanna

 

 

Johanna Frank is a Canadian author based in Southern Ontario, where she lives with her husband, and delights in time with her children and grandchildren. Her award-winning A Lifeline Fantasy Series includes The Gatekeeper’s Descendants (Readers’ Favorite 5-Star Medalist), Jophiel’s Secret (Winner of the 2023 General Market Suspense Fiction Award and the Christian Speculative Fiction Award), and Here Lyeth (finalist for The Word Guild’s 2025 Christian Speculative Award). 

In addition, Johanna has introduced a creative memoir, a deeply personal work that explores God’s abundant mystery and healing. 

Known for her lyrical, imaginative style rich in symbolism and spiritual depth, she invites readers into otherworldly adventures and real-life reflections that illuminate belonging, faith, and the unseen.

“Frank, one of Canada’s emerging authors in spiritual fantasy, walks a fine line between general fantasy and faith-based fiction. Her work aims to innovate and transcend traditional boundaries, catering to a hungry market of curious readers who don’t want to be preached to but are open to exploring spiritual themes through fantasy.” – Sheri Hoyte, Reader Views

Her latest book is the powerful Christian nonfiction, The Voice I Couldn’t Ignore.

Connect with Johanna at Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram and BookBub. 

 

The Voice I Couldn’t Ignore—a work of creative nonfiction, a story when God forewarned, held and healed.

In a vision, God told Hanna he was taking her child. Seven years later, he did.

This story leads the reader through an ancestral prophecy, profound visions, and a mother’s journey through symbolisms in the Holy Land. It shares how she guided her teenage daughter through a devastating diagnosis while wrestling with God, and reveals her spiritual rebuilding of an unshakable house of faith in the aftermath of loss.

Read sample.

The Voice I Couldn’t Ignore is available at Amazon.

Dear Reader, Love Paula Onohi Omokhomion

 

 

Dear Reader,

I hope this letter finds you well.

I wrote this book after two years of being faced with male leads that were held to zero standards and romance without accountability. 

There are so many questions a reader gets plagued with: What does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to be a villain? What will it feel like to read a book with romance, family saga, and inheritance drama?

Shape of the Sun was borne out of those questions, out of my quest, my need to make a difference, and to subvert expectations of what it means to read and to write and to be.

And there is no perfect letter without imperfect thanks.

There is no amount of roses or gifts that would impress an author as much as the presence of a reader. When I spent every day of eight months writing this book in my college dorm, I never imagined that over 4.5k people would read Shape of the Sun in its baby form on Wattpad, or the reviews on Kobo, or the DMs I get on Instagram without fail on how the book made them cry, or laugh, or feel something and nothing at once.

I never imagined that this book or news of it would get to you. And I still wonder, dear reader, what will you do? 

I anticipate your action, almost as much as I anticipated this secret letter being made public, my love letter to my benefactors and friends who are spread across the oceans or might be just around the corner.

It's the uncertainty of our bond that makes our love turn stronger. Because that is what writing Shape of the Sun was really, a labor of love to my passion for reading and a desire to write a book that would entertain as much as it spoke meaning to others.

I sincerely hope you like Shape of the Sun as much as I do. Regardless, I wish more to read your sincere and productive feedback.

There is a book that tackles romance as unraveling, dynastic rot, toxic masculinity as a cover and collapse, as well as class contempt masquerading as elitism. And there is an author who is made better by the intentions of a reader.

Please have a good day ahead, even as you always carry with you that in the Shape of the Sun and everywhere in the world, nothing is perfect, but everything is real.

Love,

Paula 

Paula Omokhomion is a Master of Public Policy student at the UC Riverside School of Public Policy, though she’s fairly certain that won’t be forever. She holds a B.S. in Public Health Nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill, where she also minored in Creative Writing (Fiction) and graduated with highest honors for her 120-page thesis novella, New Age Taffeta.

Paula developed her skills and love for writing fiction in a very, very interesting Nigerian boarding school, where the lack of television meant she had to invent entertainment for everyone else. She loves reading manhwa, watching Indian TV dramas, listening to music, and writing short stories.When not doing any of those or in the classroom handling R code, she’s refining her LinkedIn or taking Instagram selfies.
She lives in California with her family, including her two fellow triplets, and is currently dreaming of a future PhD in public health—and maybe another novel.

Visit her website or connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

 

 

In a world where novels defy conventions and heroes defy expectations, Shape of the Sun dares to ask: What if the one at the center isn’t kind? What if no one is misunderstood? What does it mean to be the hero or the villain?

Beware: this is not a love story. The author just likes meta-fiction a bit too much.
Rajkumar ‘Raj’ Reddy is top-tier Male Lead material. And a freaking DRAMA KING. 

He is a gorgeous, disgustingly rich, and ultra-confident Child Abuse Pediatrician. He’s also emotionally finished, a narcissist, and a scammer all but in name.

But what did it matter if he was soulless or morally bankrupt? Why should anyone care that he married someone only because of their money?

He was the Male Lead, right? Since when were Male Leads ever held accountable? 

And then he falls in love. Utterly useless. Very, very unnecessary. Annoyingly delicious for someone as self-aware as he is.

Raj knows he’s in love. He knows it every second he smiles when she talks to him or says good morning Rajkumar, in that sweet voice he dreams about more often lately.

So now, our Male Lead is on a mission to GET OUT OF LOVE. 

This relationship holds too many green flags!

Painful. Also doesn’t allow him to be hypocritical for more than three seconds. Horrid, really.

And in the background is the Reddy family. It’s not an easy home. It’s never been easy with all that power and wealth involved. There’s too much scheming and engineering in one place.

There’s an overlooked half-brother that literally descended from hell, a sweet twin sister that has more than her fair share of buried grudges to Raj (and vice versa), and a patriarch that might be loving father and enabler all rolled into one. 

There are traumas that our Male Lead wants to never remember. 

You see that’s the thing about Romance with Accountability. It can be sweet. It can be deadly. 

Will our Male Lead manage to protect his secrets and secure the inheritance, or will his deepening emotions force him to confront his inner demons? Can greed truly give way to love? Or is that just something we only see in the movies? 

Will he finally go to therapy? 

A gripping tale of love, family, the high stakes of inheritance, and the journey to self – Shape of the Sun explores what happens with leads in a world where the rest are left to silence. 

Read a sample here.

Shape of the Sun is available at Amazon, Kobo and Apple Books.

Dear Reader, Love Christine Amsden

 

Dear Reader,

Dear Reader…

 

Oh, you’re about to read my newest book, Knot of Souls! You’ve made a great choice, really. Don’t mind me looking over your shoulder to see how you’re reacting. Can you believe I still get a little nervous when I release a new book, even after twenty years? Every single time. 

 

Knot of Souls is something I’m really proud of. It’s unique – there aren’t a lot of body-sharing stories out there – and more than that, it’s written to be a ray of hope in otherwise bleak times. 

 

I got the idea at the end of 2020, after a grueling pandemic year spent working social media for two state senate campaigns. Politics is always fraught, and that year, I had a front-row seat to some hateful, trollish behavior that has become the hallmark of political discourse. I found myself thinking that we don’t’ even talk to each other anymore, we just try to score points. So after the election, I retreated to my computer and wrote three words:

 

Write something happy.

 

Joy got a name before she got a plot. :) 

 

As it happens, it’s hard to write a tone or mood you don’t feel, so “happy” was a bit of a stretch, but I did manage hopeful.  Specifically, I wanted to fan the flames of hope that two very different beings at cross-purposes can work together and even connect with one another. I want to believe that when we do that, we come out stronger on the other side. 

 

The relationship between Joy and Shade is the heart of what makes this story unique, and also what makes it so good. This story is not a romance – body sharing doesn’t lend itself to anything so straightforward – but it’s as intimate a relationship as I’ve ever dreamed. 

 

I loved writing this book, and I hope you love reading it, too. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Christine

 

P. S. Okay, fine, I’ll stop looking over your shoulder now! 

Christine Amsden is the author of nine award-winning fantasy and science fiction novels, including the Cassie Scot Series.

Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but Christine believes great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. She writes primarily about people, and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

In addition to writing, Christine is a freelance editor and political activist. Disability advocacy is of particular interest to her; she has a rare genetic eye condition called Stargardt Macular Degeneration and has been legally blind since the age of eighteen. In her free time, she enjoys role playing, board games, and a good cup of tea. She lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and two kids.

Author Links

Website ➜https://christineamsden.com/wordpress/

X ➜ http://www.x.com/christineamsden 

Facebook ➜https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christine-Amsden-Author-Page/127673027288664?ref=hl

 

Two souls, one body …

When Joy wakes up in an alley, she knows three things: she was brutally murdered, she has somehow come back to life … and she is not alone. She’s been possessed by an inhuman presence, a being that has taken over her dying body. That being is powerful, in pain, and on the run from entities more dangerous than he is.

Shade, a Fae prince on the run, didn’t mean to share the body he jumped into. Desperate and afraid, accused of a murder he didn’t commit, he only sought a place to hide—but if he leaves Joy now, he faces discovery and a fate worse than death.

Forced to work together to solve multiple murders, including her own, Joy and Shade discover hidden strengths and an unlikely friendship. Yet as their souls become increasingly intertwined, they realize their true danger might come from each other … and if they don’t find a way to untangle the knot their souls have become, then even the truth won’t set them free.

Knot of Souls is a stand-alone buddy love fantasy that forces two very different beings to work together … and come out stronger on the other side.

Knot of Souls is available at Amazon.

Dear Reader, Love Kate Damon

 

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your interest in my book Jury Duty is Murder. Some of you might know me as Margaret Brownley.  Under that name, I’m a New York Times bestselling author with more than forty-six romance novels to my credit.  You may wonder why, after all this time, I would change genres.  It wasn’t intentional.

I initially intended to write a courtroom romance about a sequestered jury set in the 1800s. However, after conducting research, I discovered that the first sequestered jury did not occur until 1907, which is quite late for stories set in the Old West. This knowledge led me to abandon the idea—or at least attempt to do so, but the characters kept popping up in my thoughts.  Finally, I gave in and began writing the story alongside my other projects.  What started out to be a historical soon turned into a contemporary mystery.

The story begins on the day the trial concludes, and the jurors—finally released after four grueling months—are free to return to their lives. But their relief is short-lived. One by one, jurors begin to die under suspicious circumstances. CeeCee, who served as juror number five, is convinced that someone is targeting them. She calls a meeting, but only three other former jurors—Harold, Helen, and Alex—show up. Ironically, the four who could barely tolerate each other during the trial are now forced to work together to uncover the truth before they also become victims. As their journey unfolds, so do powerful themes of friendship, betrayal, and the unforeseen cost of justice.

The book not only explores the suspense of tracking down a killer, but also the personal struggles each character faces after being sequestered for four long months.  Their journey reflects how a verdict can rip through lives in unexpected ways. 

For those who appreciate the humor in my romance novels, there's no need for concern. Our four amateur detectives will keep you laughing with their comical antics as they work to solve the mystery.

I really enjoyed writing the book, but it didn’t come about without a lot of headaches. Since the book is so different from what I normally write, I had to use a pen name.  That made me an unknown writer, and finding a publisher was no easy task.  I will forever be grateful to The Wild Rose Press for publishing the book.

I hope you enjoy the story and have fun attempting to unravel the mystery alongside the four jurors who have taken on the role of amateur detectives. The question is, who will arrive at the solution first? Them or you?

Love Kate Damon

When Kate Damon is not writing, she and her husband enjoy RVing, spending time with family and friends, raising Monarch butterflies, and playing a wicked game of bridge.

Writing as Margaret Brownley, she has published more than 40 novels and is a New York Times bestselling author. Known for her memorable characters and humor, she is a two-time Romance Writers of America Rita finalist.

Not counting the book she wrote in sixth grade, and the puzzle of the missing socks, this is her first mystery.

Website ➜http://margaret-brownley.com/

Twitter ➜https://www.x.com/katejuryduty

Facebook ➜https://www.facebook.com/MargaretBrownleyAuthor/ and https://www.facebook.com/p/Kate-Damon-61565155275435/

Instagram ➜https://www.instagram.com/katedamonbooks

BookBub➜https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kate-damon

Goodreads ➜ https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4072660.Kate_Damon and https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/163681.Margaret_Brownley

The verdict is in; a famed athlete is headed for prison. The jurors have done their job and are free to go back to their lives. But after being sequestered for four months, life as some knew it no longer exists.

HAROLD ASHMAN’s house is almost destroyed by a careless driver. Exotic dancer, CEECEE LAINE, discovers that her boyfriend is two-timing her, and she no longer has a job. Actor ALEX MANNING learns his career is down the tubes, and 72-year-old, HELEN RYDER, discovers her family is plotting to put her in an old folks home.

Then things take a turn for the worse. When former jurors start dropping like flies, CeeCee, Helen, Harold and Alex are convinced there’s a killer on the loose. Now the feuding foursome must find him before he kills them—or before they save him the trouble by killing each other.

Jury Duty is Murder is available at Amazon.

 

Dear Reader, Love Christopher Kaufman

 

Dear Reader,

I am a creative artist and a storyteller. I create books with vivid audio albums filled with cinematic/symphonic music, narration and sound design and which are also live theatrical shows. I compose music for the classical concert stage and film. I present multiple concert series’ and perform as reader, conductor and player. 

Looking back…I started writing fantasy books with illustrations when I was nine years old. Later, I discovered music and lived the life of a composer for many years. My stories never left me. In fact, I am the type of person who needs some kind of active imaginative world to get myself to sleep. I emerged from my schooling phase with a Doctorate in music composition (Cornell) and the complete event structure for Tales Of The Ocean City through book eight, which I am completing now. Of course, when I get to each new area of the story it burgeons out, grows new branches and new things happen from the early conceptions.

There is much autobiography in my stories.

In Tales Of The Ocean City is chronicled a young civilization turning the corner into the future. The main characters are young Harl’ut and his lifelong companion, Vispushin - she is a perianth (a kind of telepathic pegasus).  They are close, like family, and speak to each other mind-to-mind.

Before moving into the future, the citizens of The Ocean City must face their brutal and primitive past. This happens in multiple ways. For Harl’ut, he undergoes an initiation ritual adventure at the end of Book Two where he faces images and personifications from the past, resolves them and battles a terrible monster. The Ocean City itself, in the over-all five book opening series, must face an enemy from ancient times, The Vorm, with whom they co-evolved on the ancestral isle and who are now threatening their very existence. In books four and five, the heroes of The Ocean City engage in epic war with the Vorm and Harl’ut and Vispushin lead a cadre of young warriors into the Vorm Hive on a vital mission.

Much of this can be interpreted as a metaphor for our personal journeys. I emerged from much conflict in my youth to a very positive place filled with career and personal success and am moving forward as a storyteller. When writing TOC, I realized that there were specific things that relate to my childhood experiences and that certain characters relate to people of my past and present. I will save going into those specifics for another time - but am happy to report that the perianth race is based on my animal family - we call them pets…but they are so much more.

I believe in the transformative power of imagination, especially as demonstrated in the fine arts.  That’s why I like to use the word classical in defining TOC, i.e. Classical Epic Fantasy.  Much of my work is about feeding and growing imagination in one way or another. I hope people experience my work and then feel differently about how they experience the world around them.  Imagination is the highest function of the human mind - it gives us art, music and scientific theories…and helps us envision a better future for ourselves and our civilization. It has been damaged in many ways in our modern lives. Fantasy can help cure this.

I hope experiencing my work help you to see and experience life with imagination. Everything around you is alive, everything is a story waiting to be told.  Tell yourself these stories as you walk through life.

Keep reading fantasy! Live with imagination!

With love for my readers and fantasy,

Christopher Kaufman

Christopher Kaufman is an author, composer, presenter, illustrative artist and performer. He started imaginative fantasy books with illustrative art at the age of nine. During high school years he found music and attended The New Orleans Center for The Creative Arts and went on to major in music composition in college. He finished his schooling – earning his DMA in music composition at Cornell University where he studied with Pulitzer Prize Winning composers who prize his abilities as a composer.

Christopher is the type of person who needs imaginative fantasy scenarios to get to sleep. Therefore, he emerged from Cornell, not only with his degrees in music, but with the full event structure for his classic epic fantasy series Tales Of The Ocean City in his mind.

He began writing the story down in the early 2000’s, but it did not really come to life until he developed his home music ‘laboratory’ and started creating the music and text at the same time. Thus books one and two of TOC came about simultaneously as both graphically illustrated pages and effulgent audio albums filled with cinematic epic symphonic music.

They exist now as physical books and audio albums (that go together) and the new Video Book version.  He performs live tours with the music pouring through speakers, live narration and the colorful pages streaming on screen – a true immersive multi-media experience.

He also maintains his career as a composer for the concert stage with a full body of work, from solo works thru orchestral. He specializes as well in ‘environmental works’ which feature soundscapes crafted from hundreds of natural sounds, live musicians (from soloists, chamber groups and to full orchestra), videos filled with both natural and artistic images and readings from the works of John Muir and others.

Kaufman’s books feature full-page graphic illustration and go-with audio albums filled with epic cinematic music, narration and sound design.  All available, with generous discount packages, at kaufmantales.com (epubs and the new Video  Book version available there!).

His author page is talesoftheoceancity.com.

His you-tube channel is SOUNDARTUS.

Visit him at Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/talesoftheoceancity.

Christopher believes in the transformative power of imagination.

“Live with imagination!”

 

A young civilization is turning the corner into the future, but first they must face a terrible enemy from their deepest past – THE VORM.

The main characters are a young man named Harl’ut and his lifelong companion Vispushin – who is a perIanth, a kind of telepathic pegasus. Join them on this epic adventure as they lead a group of young warriors into the heart of the Vorm Hive.

Book One: Battle In The Sky is the first of five books which comprise the opening series of this epic tale. Here, Harl’ut and Vispushin and The Princess Bryn’lynn, engage in desperate battle over the southern plain with savage Vorm warriors. You will be uplifted by the passionate and thrilling conclusion of the first installment of this fantasy adventure. 

In Book Two: Descent Into The Abyss, Harl’ut recovers from his harrowing adventure from Book One: Battle In The Sky. He walks through the streets of The Ocean City, visits the Sculpture Garden and his friend, Elá, the bard, and engages in exciting training games with warrior/mentor, Calanctus. Then the story takes you down the throat of the vast volcano, Pla’than’taa, once worshipped as a god, where Harl’ut enacts a deadly initiation ritual, confronts the barbaric past of his people and battles a terrifying monster. 

Pick up your copies at https://kaufmantales.com/.

 

 

Dear Reader, Love Michael Okon

 

Dear Reader,

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking the time and reading what was in my head just a few months ago.

I’ve been writing as far back as I could remember, specifically screenplays. After I learned about self-publishing, I began turning my scripts into novels under a pen name. Specifically, for my book Monsterland, in 2015, I was watching an 80s & 90s movie marathon with my kids – The Goonies, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, etc… I wrote the ghost novels, I wrote the witches novels, but I wanted to write a monster novel. After watching all these films, it literally popped into my head – why isn’t there a theme park with zombies. I called my brother and told him about my idea and he flat out said no. It has to be a theme park with werewolves, vampires AND zombies. I started beating out the story that night. 

My mom is my publicity manager and she blitzed the bloggers with my book. That fall I was reading a book called Selling a Screenplay by Syd Field. In the book, there was an entertainment attorney named Susan Grode who seemed very knowledgeable about the publishing and film industry. I told myself, when I receive my first contract, I’m going to reach out to her to see if she could help me. About two months later, I received a post on Facebook from an agent in London who asked to represent me. I said sure and asked him to send me a contract. I emailed Susan and introduced myself and mentioned that I had someone who wanted to rep me and I was hoping she could read this contract. She told me before I sign with this London agent, why don’t I meet her friend in Brooklyn, an agent named Nick Mullendore with Vertical Ink Literary Agency. I met Nick for lunch and he signed me that day as his client. That evening, Susan brought me on as her client as well. Nick began trying to sell my book Monsterland to the big publishers and, as expected, it was rejected. Throughout his attempts of selling, he had a call with a film agent and he was pitching her a romance novel. She said she wasn’t really into romance and was looking for something with monsters. He sent her my book Monsterland, she read it over a weekend, and we had a call that Monday. She told Nick and me if we get the book published, she will get it into a producer’s hands to make into a film. Nick found a publisher called WordFire Press owned by Kevin J. Anderson, who has written all the Star Wars and Dune canon books. WordFire signed me to a two-book deal for Monsterland 1 & 2. After the deal was signed, my film agent did what she promised and got my book into the hands of a billion-dollar grossing producer who is now shopping my book to certain studios.  In two years, I went from a self-published author, to a published author with a literary agent, an entertainment attorney, a film agent, a two-book publishing deal, a publicist, and a producer who is interested in turning my book to a film. It’s been one wild ride, to say the least. 

Love, Michael Okon

 

Michael Okon is an award-winning and best-selling author of multiple genres, including paranormal, thriller, horror, action/adventure, and self-help. He graduated from Long Island University with a degree in English and then later received his MBA in business and finance. Coming from a family of writers, he has storytelling in his DNA. Michael has been writing from as far back as he can remember, his inspiration being his love for films and their impact on his life. From the time he saw The Goonies, he was hooked on the idea of entertaining people through unforgettable characters.

Michael is a lifelong movie buff, a music playlist aficionado, and a sucker for self-help books. He lives on the North Shore of Long Island with his wife and children.

Website & Social Media:

Website ➜ www.michaelokon.com

Twitter ➜ https://www.x.com/IAmMichaelOkon

Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/IAmMichaelOkon

 

Logan Osborne has spent his life chasing the shadows of the past.

As a child, he watched helplessly as his father was snatched from a fishing boat by what he swore was a mermaid. No one believed him then. No one believes him now.

Determined to prove that mythical creatures exist, Logan is drawn back to the small coastal town where his nightmares began after another mysterious disappearance stirs the waters.

Teaming up with his pragmatic colleague Elliot Sheppard and his fiercely loyal friend Penny Swanson, Logan dives headfirst into an adventure packed with danger and deception. As they dig deeper, the trio faces resistance at every turn—a secretive agency with its own agenda, a suspiciously unhelpful police force, and Logan’s old flame, who may know more than she’s letting on.

What they uncover is far darker and more terrifying than Logan ever imagined: the truth about his father, the secrets of Minatuck, and the horrifying reality of the Mermaid of the Hamptons.

Will Logan and his friends expose the lies that have haunted him for years, or will they be Dragged Down Deep into the swampy, secretive underbelly of a town that guards its mysteries with deadly intent?

Dragged Down Deep is available at Amazon.