A to Z Blog Challenge: N is for...

Nations of Peace book #10

Guardian of Dreams - a Lords of the High Council novel

SYNOPSIS

    At almost eleven centuries, Anoré D'Exelmante is the second oldest of the High Lords. Like his brothers, he has experienced nearly everything life and the universe have thrown at them. Yet beneath the weight of countless years, he carries a quiet longing for something he has never found: true love. Despite the close relationship with his brothers, Anoré feels the ache of solitude, and the need for connection. Unlike other human males, his mate has to have compatible abilities. As the guardian of higher mind abilities, like telepathy and telekinesis, he hadn't expected to find her so close to home.

    Allyson had struggled her whole life to live with her ability to sense others' thoughts and feelings. Constantly bombarded by what she couldn't control, it was her impending wedding that made her realise that her subconscious mind was her best defence against a life of unhappiness.

    Meeting the Lords of the High Council changed her life. Among their ranks, it was Anoré who stood out, his serenity and gentle insight resonating with Allyson in a way she had never experienced before. While the most powerful men in the universe welcomed her with warmth and respect, it was Anoré's presence that dissolved the loneliness that had always shadowed her. In his eyes, Allyson saw both acceptance and understanding, as if each unspoken thought bridged the gap between their worlds. For the first time, she felt her quiet, nerdy self seen and cherished by someone who truly understood her. The extraordinary bond that emerged between them uncovered a depth of happiness and belonging she had never imagined possible.

    Finding love with a High Lord revealed the secret of her abilities and drew out an old enemy, who seeks to use Allyson's gifts for his own ambition. He believes that corrupting her will unlock the power of an ancient prophecy, tipping the balance of the universe. He is determined to make her choose a dark path away from the faith that anchored her heart and soul.

    With her new family, she finds the courage to face that enemy, despite overwhelming odds. But she also learns that incredible challenges can be faced with faith, a commitment to relearn everything after a severe brain injury, and the love of a man with faith and commitment to duty to the Divine Trinity. As their connection deepens, both Allyson and Anoré must fight not only for each other but for the fate of the universe hanging in the balance.

The Guardian of Dreams will be available on 21 May 2026. Keep an eye out, because visitors to my blog will have a special pre-order discount code.

EXTRACT

Allyson didn't leave. Actually, she stopped the car and sat with her head in her hands. She was bone tired. Not work so much, although she had been busy of late, but it was the wedding, and she knew it. She had not been able to sleep for days now, and didn't need the little mirror in front of her to see the black circles around her eyes, which even makeup could no longer hide.

This was it, and she knew it. Knew that she couldn't marry Richard, no matter what her family said. No matter what her head told her. Her heart was not in it. In fact, she had come to the conclusion that she didn't care for Richard. Not as in not loving him, she couldn't care less as to what happened in his life or to him for that matter. It was a rather sobering thought, given that she had known him for two years before agreeing to the marriage.

This revelation was not so much of a surprise as she had perhaps wanted it to be, but somehow, her subconscious had been nagging her, and only now did she start to listen. Alone in the quiet of the breeze and the noise of the rough and tumble of the ocean below, her mind finally worked out what had been bothering her.

Aware that her family thought her talent something to be feared, hell, even though she thought it a curse, she had not used it to read him. But her unconscious mind did, and she didn't like what she found. Usually trying to respect others' privacy, she deliberately avoided reading him. Still, of course, telepathy was not always that easily switched off. Her subconscious mind wanted to know, and it got the information – even without her express permission.

Shaking her head, she lifted her eyes to the shadows around her. He had no real love for her either. Perhaps she had known this all along. Marrying into the family was a step forward in business, that's all. As a business adviser to her father, he would gain more influence once he was part of the family, and that was the most important thing. Her wishes and perceived happiness at present were just a means to that end. Something he did to win her family's affection.

Until now, she hadn't realised that it wasn't what she needed from a husband. Neither was she sure what it was, but her relationship with Richard didn't feel right. Probably never has, and she had just been too stubborn or cowardly to acknowledge that fact to herself. Wanting to please her parents was not the way to ensure her happiness in marriage. Damn, stupid coward that she was.

Clutching her hands into fists, Allyson hit the controls in front of her. She had been so stupid, and yet, deep inside, she had always wanted someone to love. Someone who would be just hers, as she would be his. She was the oldest sister and the only one not yet married, so she was easily persuaded to believe that Richard was the one for her. Smart, like her, he fitted into the family structure, and everyone liked him.

She grimaced. What was not to like? He was handsome, charming, and intelligent. And that should have been her cue. She was plain, average-looking, geeky Allyson, who seldom dated and avoided social situations as far as possible. So, how could she ever have believed that this could work? Aside from a similar type of job, she just applied her talents in research and outside the family business, they had nothing in common. Not a single thing.

She enjoyed reading, learning new things, and helping her clients because they needed what she could offer, but only if they agreed to keep her name and work out of the public eye. She didn't like the publicity companies sometimes gave their advisers, feeling that she did what they paid her for. It was their dedication and implementation of her advice that led to their success.

Richard loved the attention, especially if his client made headlines. He loved the social gatherings, the parties, and the way people made an issue of him.

Leaving her own business was not an option, ever, so there was no way she could think that this marriage could work, even if only based on logic and reason. They would be in competition with each other, or at least their clients would be, and that could not be a good thing.

She groaned. She was just going to have to gather her courage to face Richard and the family. It felt like a conspiracy that she was about to reveal, with her as the bad guy. Two days before the wedding. Perfect. Just what she didn't need. Now everyone is going to think she had cold feet, or wedding jitters, or whatever they were going to call it.

She took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy at all.

Resigning herself to another long night, one filled with arguments and fraught with attempts at emotional blackmail, she reached for the control key of the car.

Nothing. Just her luck. She groaned again. It has been days since she last recharged the fuel cells. Mobile. No signal either. Oh well, then she would just have to get out and walk.

It was almost dark, and there wasn't enough light to move the car back into the sun to charge with the solar cells. Securing the car, she stood and wondered which way to go. Back to the main road seemed prudent, but it may also take longer that way since she would have to go the opposite direction to get home. Home was simply too far away and too risky on foot after dark.

She glanced back towards the ocean. Perhaps there was a footpath of some kind along the cliffs. She had spotted a house or two while sitting on the cliffs and only hoped that people actually lived there, not just used the houses for holidays or occasional visits. Nodding to herself, she pocketed her mobile and key and turned towards the water.

˜ ˜ ˜

~~~

For the Letter O we will talk about feeling overwhelmed. Join the conversation and share your thoughts. Thank you for visiting today. Until tomorrow!

🇿🇦💜 Linzé

A to Z Blog Challenge: I is for...

In the Dollhouse We All Wait

by Amanda M. Blake - a book feature

Buy link: AMAZON

Synopsis

An extreme horror novel of privilege, cruelty, and survival—splatterpunk at its most unflinching.

“In the dollhouse, if you don’t play with Annie…she plays with you.”

Sam Frain thinks she’s found the perfect a live-in nanny position in a sprawling mansion owned by one of the wealthiest families in the country.

The job seems simple: Take care of Annie Lange.

Annie may look like a grown woman, but she lives inside a world built for a little girl—frilly dresses, scripted games, rigid rules, and what seems like every doll in the world.

As Sam learns the true nature of Annie’s games, she’s forced into a waking nightmare of psychological domination, grotesque excess, and carefully curated cruelty. In this gilded cage where money erases morality, survival means choosing whether to resist—or become part of the performance.

Blending the social unease of The Nanny Diaries with the ruthless brutality of Hostel II, In the Dollhouse We All Wait is a harrowing work of extreme horror that explores power, complicity, and the terrifying truth that the rich really are different.

Buy link: AMAZON

Excerpt

The gown on the mannequin in front of Sam enthralled her: gold brocade that wouldn’t have been out of place in Elizabethan costume, although this gown had more modern lines. The thread looked like it had been spun from real gold. For all Sam knew, it had been. Seed pearls of different sizes had been sewn to the bodice in an elaborate pattern, like lace from the irritation of gastropods. At the décolletage, there was even a diamond brooch—probably real, because why wouldn’t it be?

The mannequins came to a complete stop, skirts rustling like woods in a light wind. Sam stepped closer to the display case to get a better look at the details, the elaborate collar framing red ringlets and ‘Queen of Hearts’-painted lips and eyelids. Sam wondered if Annie had made the pearl headdress, too.

The quality of mannequin in the Dream House exceeded that of any boutique or department store. Most places deliberately tried to make mannequins look more stylized to keep them from entering the realm of uncanny. Either these mannequins had already been uncannily human or Annie had made them so to better display the quality of her gowns, similar to what she’d done with the altered Barbies.
Sam took another step closer. She didn’t want to leave prints on such beautiful art displays, but she wanted a closer look at that diamond brooch to figure out how real it was, how it caught the light…

The mannequin blinked.

Sam jerked back, just as another waltz started. She didn’t know the name of this one, and she barely heard it as the turntables spun the mannequins once more. She struggled to follow, trying to see if she’d seen what she thought she’d seen. A trick of light, maybe from the turntable starting, or maybe Sam herself had blinked, or maybe there’d been one of those stealth power surges that made her wonder if she or the lights had dimmed. 

Sam ran around the spinning turntable, daring herself not to blink if she could help it. Maybe it was just her panic and disorientation in basement sunlight, but it seemed like the mannequin’s face was sadder, brows low over the dark eyes. Was that a tear running down the mannequin’s face, or had the tear always been there, or was it just another trick of the light?

About the Author

A mass of tentacles and rose vines masquerading as a person, Amanda M. Blake is the author of horror titles IN THE DOLLHOUSE WE ALL WAIT, QUESTION NOT MY SALT, and DEEP DOWN, dark poetry collection DEAD ENDS, and the Thorns fairy tale mash-up series.

Alt-historical plague novel MASQUE releases in 2027 through Quill & Crow.

For more, visit amandamblake.com.

BOOK FEATURE: Beautiful, Once by Mia Dalia

 SYNOPSIS

From acclaimed author Mia Dalia comes a propulsive, character-driven horror novel that’s a chilling blend of high-tech utopia, isolation, and catastrophic consequences.

When a controversial tech billionaire retreats from society, he constructs a private island designed to be the ultimate controlled experiment: a hand-selected population, sustainable systems, and a flawless model for humanity’s future. A paradise engineered to perfection.

But perfection breeds boredom.

Seeking recognition—and perhaps validation—he sends a message into the cosmos, broadcasting The Island’s triumph to the universe. One day, he gets a reply… and all hell breaks loose.)

Within hours, the community fractures. Neighbors turn on neighbors. A savage, insatiable hunger spreads. Civilization unravels.

Told through three gripping perspectives—the billionaire’s loyal assistant, an island mechanic, and a visiting investigative reporter—Beautiful, Once explores survival, psychological collapse, unchecked ambition, and the terrifying consequences of playing god.

Set in a near-future island enclave, this intense dystopian horror novel will appeal to fans of isolated community thrillers, outbreak fiction, and cinematically propulsive, speculative survival stories in the vein of The Island and The Crazies.

When paradise falls, who gets to live?

BUY LINKS  https://geni.us/BeautifulOnce

EXCERPT

Olivia pushed on, but she could see her words failing, falling to the ground like weakly shot arrows.

She had to go with the ace up her sleeve: violating the institution’s policy.

“I’ve brought someone here to see you.”

No reaction. But did Olivia see a flicker of interest?

The dog had no tag, no name. He was found along with the person, both survivors of the same ordeal. The dog was in much better shape, and after a brief recuperation, seemed strong and lively. He was staying with one of the people who found him, likely to be permanently adopted if the person he’d been found with continued to show no signs of recovery.

The dog, nicknamed Spark by one of the rescuers—aspirationally at first but now living up to it—came in tentatively, his eyes on the person in the chair. He didn’t approach and instead stayed by the door. Slowly, softly he began to growl, pawing at the floor.

“Spark, come on,” said the orderly under his breath. “Behave.”

Olivia watched the face of the person across from her. Watched their head turn toward the dog—an eerily robotic motion.

The dog barked sharply. It served as a slap, a bucket of ice water in the face. Suddenly, the survivor’s eyes sprung wide open, animating with something Olivia couldn’t quite read. It sent a stirring of alarm dragging a nail down her spine.

When those eyes locked on hers, Olivia thought she could see the flames flickering there. But surely, that was merely a trick of the light, only the sun pouring through the uncurtained window.

“There you are,” Olivia said gently. “How are you? How do you feel?”

The person opened their mouth, licked their lips, and closed it again, as if they had forgotten how to speak.

Finally, in a voice rusted out from disuse they croaked a single word: “Hungry.” Then, suddenly, with alarming speed and agility, the survivor lunged across the table at Olivia.

The dog began barking in earnest.

“Hungry,” the terrible voice repeated so closely to Olivia’s ear so that she felt the fiery heat of it. And then the feeding began.

BUY LINKS  https://geni.us/BeautifulOnce

About the author

Mia Dalia is an internationally published, Crime Writers’ Association–nominated author of all things fantastic, thrilling, frightening, and strange. Her short fiction appears widely online and in print anthologies and magazines, and has been featured in multiple narrative podcasts. 

Mia's stories were selected as one of Tales to Terrify’s Top Ten Stories of 2023 and shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s 2024 Dagger Award. Her work has been acclaimed by Library Journal, which “highly recommended it for gothic fiction readers and fans of Shirley Jackson,” praised by Kirkus Reviews for its “imaginative directness reminiscent of Stephen King,” and lauded by Booklist for its “beautifully detailed characters and a subtle slide into dread.” 

Mia is the author of the novels Estate Sale, Haven, and Beautiful, Once, novellas Alakazam, Tell Me a Story, Discordant, Arrokoth, and Do You Know the Muffin Man? and collection Smile So Red and Other Tales of Madness. 

Mia Dalia is represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing— Where Stories Come Alive!

Find Mia online:

https://daliaverse.wixsite.com/author
https://linktr.ee/daliaverse

BOOK FEATURE: Harmed and Dangerous by Jasper Bark

It’s a Southern Gothic, paranormal thriller, set in the steamy state of Louisiana. The plot involves time slips, small town horror and the mysteries surrounding an inscrutable serial killer.

It’s dark and deeply emotional and addresses LGBTQIA themes as well the intensely personal nature of father/daughter relationships.

BOOK LINK: AMAZON

COVER BLURB

Put yourself in Kyra’s place.

You're seventeen years old, lost and alone in a remote town in Louisiana. You're searching for the birth parents you never knew. The heat is crippling. The river often floods, washing houses away and lifting corpses from the ground.

The locals treat you with suspicion. You don't belong here. They're hiding something. All over town, in nooks and hidden alcoves, there’s evidence of a forbidden faith. They keep the old ways here, but no one will tell you what they are.

There's an intangible presence following you. Hiding in your peripheral vision. You can't see, hear or touch it, but you know it's there, waiting for its chance to claim you.

Then the episodes start.

Your vision goes and when it returns you're seeing the world as it was fifteen years ago. Physically you're in the present, but everything you see happened a decade and a half ago.

Suddenly you realize.

You’re seeing through the eyes of the serial killer who murdered your birth mother. He takes control of you, forcing you to watch as he stalks and brutally murders her.

And there’s nothing you can do to stop him. Because he died by lethal injection more than a decade ago.

BOOK LINK: AMAZON

Special essay from the author (Linzé - I love these!)

WHAT I LEARNED WRITING ABOUT REAL VOODOO

  Like all paranormal thrillers, my latest novel, HARMED AND DANGEROUS has a supernatural element. The people of Yeuxville, the small town where the novel is set, keep “the old ways”, a set of customs and magical practises that are older than their town, their state and even their country.

  In writing about these practices, I drew almost exclusively on Voodoo and other African diasporic religions like Candomblé and Santeria. Beliefs that date all the way back to the African kingdom of Benin. Beliefs carried over to the new world by the people captured and sold into slavery, who mixed their ancient beliefs with the Catholicism of the countries to which they were taken. This in turn created new religions which are some of the fastest growing in the world, even today. I have a personal and first hand experience of these beliefs and practices.

  When I was writing my fourth novel WAY OF THE BAREFOOT ZOMBIE, for Abaddon Books, rather than writing about the zombie apocalypse, I decided to go back to the origins of the zombie myth in Voodoo. But I didn’t want to misrepresent the religion in the way I’d seen so many writers do in the past. So, I did a lot of research and I reached out to some important practitioners. One of these was Simone Brightstein, who became a dear friend and practically a member of our family.

  I discovered that when you write an authentic Voodoo ritual that’s intended to summon one of the deities, who are called Loa in Voodoo and Orisha in Santeria, they can actually turn up. In your mind at least, which is where all the action in a novel takes place. Not only do they turn up, but they take over the story. When they appeared, I didn’t write any dialogue, I took dictation. The words spilled out almost faster than I could put them down. And the Loas decide what’s going to happen next, not the author.

  Toward the end of the novel, the Loa known as Papa Legba, who opens the way for all the other Loas, decided to change my story. He told Brigitte, a Mambo, or Voodoo priestess, that he wanted another of my characters, Tatyana, to stay on the island where the novel was set and become one of his followers. This completely changed what I had planned for my ending. But I knew enough at this point not to go against Papa Legba. Especially as he gave a little speech explaining why she should become his follower.

  About a week later, I was contacted by Simone, a priestess of Santeria. She said she’d been contacted by Elegguá, the Orisha equivalent of Papa Legba, with an important message for me. So important, he insisted she write it down, because he told her he wanted me to become his follower. She emailed me the message and it was so close to the speech Papa Legba had made in my novel that some sentences were almost word for word.

  I’d never had something like this happen to me before. I was quite shocked. As Elegguá instructed her, Simone had the altar she devoted to him packed up and shipped to me. I was to make regular offerings to it and be mindful of the Orisha. It sits in my study to this day, in fact, as I write this, it needs to be dusted. And yes, I make regular offerings.

  Papa Legba/Elegguá appears in the pages of HARMED AND DANGEROUS. His presence in this novel is more subtle, but no less powerful. You’ll meet him when you read the ARC. And maybe, he’ll change your life too.

˜˜˜

AUTHOR BIO

Multiple award-winning author, Jasper Bark is infectious – and there’s no known cure. If you’re reading this you’re already contaminated. The symptoms will manifest any time soon. There’s nothing you can do about it.

There’s no itching or unfortunate rashes, but you’ll become obsessed with his mind-bending books.

From the acclaimed Draw You In trilogy and the ground breaking Bark Bites Horror series, to graphic novels like Bloodfellas and Beyond Lovecraft.

Then you’ll want to tell everyone else about his visionary horror. About its originality, its wild imagination and how it takes you to the edge of your sanity. We’re afraid there’s no way to avoid this. These words contain a power you’re hopeless to resist.

You’re already in their thrall, you know you are. You’re itching to read all of Jasper’s bloodstained books.

Don’t fight this urge, embrace it. You’ve been bitten by the Bark bug and you love it.

LINKS

Website: www.jasperbark.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/jasperbark/

INSTA: https://www.instagram.com/barkjasper/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXsjQ4vXFQzUOhK1oRLok9w

Book Feature: ONE-SHOT by Jacy Morris

Synopsis

One-Shot, an Indigenous naturopathic insemination expert, is teetering on the brink of sanity. His life takes a sudden turn when he's tasked with transporting his grandfather's ashes from Pittsburgh, PA, to their ancestral reservation.

As he embarks on this cross-country odyssey, the scars of past traumas reawaken. The highways become a surreal landscape, where spectral figures from Native folklore and twisted horrors of a Lovecraftian nature emerge. These apparitions are not just hauntings but reflections of a fracturing mind, struggling to discern reality from nightmare.

With his grandfather's ashes as his solemn companion, One-Shot confronts these terrors, each mile bringing him closer to a harrowing truth. This journey is more than a physical traverse—it's a pilgrimage through the fragmented realms of memory, heritage, and fear.

What lies at the reservation is more than the end of a journey—it's the precipice of insanity.

BUY on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFH4L1NT

Story Behind the Story

The genesis of One-Shot began some twenty-five years ago. Something happened. I drove cross-country in a little under 48 Hours. During this time, I suffered extreme sleep deprivation, including hallucinations, auditory and visual.

Thankfully, they all went away when I went to sleep, but for a while there, I thought I had gone mad. It's a great story on its own, but when I started playing with it in my mind and adding that splash of horror, it became something different entirely.

I'm proud of it, and hope others find this particular brand of madness as enjoyable as I found writing it.

About the Author

Jacy Morris is an Indigenous author. He is a registered member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz.

At the age of ten he was transplanted to Portland, Oregon, where he developed a love for punk rock and horror movies, both of which tend to find their way into his writing. He has written several novels, including the "This Rotten World" series and the "One Night Stand at the End of the World" series.

His latest novel, We Like It Cherry was published August 2025 by Tenebrous Press. His next work will be the novel One-Shot from Torrid Waters (November 2025).

You can find him at the following websites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JacyMorrisAuthor

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jacymorris.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacymorrisauthor/

Website: https://jacymorris.com

BOOK FEATURE: Food to Die For (Book 8 in the Scareville Series) by John Ward

Synopsis

The town of Traverse City, Michigan was everything you wanted out of a Midwest community. Nestled on the banks of Lake Michigan, the city had much to offer. When advertisements began to spread a jolly jingle for a newly opening burger joint, the town went crazy for it.

“Come on down to Chunko Town! Have a burger and meet Chunko the Clown!”

The infamous pudgy clown statue in the commercial gained notoriety quickly and had everyone ready to meet the Chunko Burger mascot.

Things took a turn for the worst when Kira and her friends tempt fate and mess with Chunko. 

Whatever you do – don’t anger the clown!

Buy the book - AMAZON      BARNES & NOBLE

Story behind the story

Clowns have become synonymous with horror. I had been fumbling around with a way to create a unique horror story featuring the dynamic antagonist for quite some time. I was in a drive-thru one day and had my lightbulb moment. Immediately the idea flooded my imagination and I got to work. I think Food to Die For will be a fun, standout story in the series with a very memorable antagonist - Chunko the Clown.

About the Author

John Ward is a horror author hailing from Canton, Ohio. John loves writing horror for everyone and inspiring today's young readers. He lives with his dog, Bo, who is his best friend. When John isn't busy cooking up new stories for the world, he can be found reading, doing paranormal investigations, or taking in a new horror film.

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Book feature: THE GREAT DICK: AND THE DYSFUNCTIONAL DEMON by Barry Maher

 BOOK FEATURE

THE GREAT DICK: AND THE DYSFUNCTIONAL DEMON by Barry Maher

BUY the book: Amazon

SYNOPSIS

 It’s 1982. His name, Steve Witowski, is an alias. Once he was a counterculture hero. Now he’s a failed songwriter, running from the law.

And he’s just become a killer, rescuing a woman from an horrific assault by what seemed to be the strongest wino in California. Steve should keep moving. But the woman, Victoria, is beyond stunning.

Oddly, she’s recently bought a decrepit old church, with notorious past. Will Steve stay and help? Of course. Even as the face of the man he just killed materializes on his arm. And Victoria becomes just a part of a mystery he can’t unravel.

Until he’s looting the decomposing dead for the secrets of a self-proclaimed  sorcerer. And the mystery becomes a nightmare of fire and blood and death.

The Sorcerer’s spells and rituals can’t actually work, of course. Until they do.

And unknown to Steve, a demon is growing desperate.

BUY the book: Amazon

Where the story came from...

How Not Being Able to Tell Time Led to The Great Dick: And the Dysfuctional Demon

I was speaking on an Asian cruise when I realized I could no longer figure out what the hands of the clock meant. Money got confusing too. In Viet Nam, I handed a vender two hundreds and a ten for a $7 baseball cap. It was a really nice cap.

Back home, the first thing my doctor did was have me draw a clock face at ten to three. The second thing he did was take away my driver’s license. He sent me for an immediate MRI. The nurse there wouldn’t comment on the results, but when I asked to use the restroom, she said, “I can’t let you go in there alone.”

Bad sign. Then she said, “You need to talk to your neurosurgeon.”

The neurosurgeon explained that I had a brain tumor the size of a basketball. Or maybe he said “baseball.” I wasn’t tracking too well at that point. What I did understand was that he wanted to slice my skull open with a power saw then carve out the tumor.

My problem was that while I was sure this guy was as brilliant as everyone claimed, I’ve always thought intelligence was overrated. To me, on a scale of everything there is to know in the universe, the main difference between Einstein and Koko the Wonder Chimp, was that Einstein couldn’t pick up bananas with his feet. (As far as I know.)

Anyway, I went into surgery. I may or may not have had a seizure during surgery. They weren’t’ sure. That may explain what happened. Or it might have been a bizarre type of dream. But I came out of surgery with a story in my head that was like a memory. One I couldn’t shake.

My brain could have given me a nice rom/com or Citizen Kane or a few episodes of a sitcom. But, I came back to consciousness with a story full of open crypts, bizarre spells, sudden death and the Ralph Lauren version of the Manson Family. And that story is now The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon

BUY the book: Amazon

What the reviewers said...

“What a page turner! Witty, literate, scary, sexy, and powerfully evocative”

           -Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author.

"An enormous amount of fun. Wholly fresh and original. Wickedly funny . . . The Great Dick is a hot, sweaty, magic- and murder-infused rollercoaster of a story that takes you in every direction except the one you're expecting . . . I loved it."
                           -David Moody, author of Hater and Autumn

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Barry Maher

Barry Maher may be the only horror novelist who’s ever appeared in the pages of Funeral Service Insider. In his misspent youth, his articles were featured in perhaps a hundred different publications and, in order to eat, he held nearly that many different jobs. Sometimes he lived on the beach. Not in a house on the beach. On the beach. With the sand and the seagulls. 

After a sentence with a Fortune 100 company, he started speaking professionally. He told stories to audiences across the country and around the world: his client list a Who’s Who of multi-national corporations and large associations. You may have seen Barry on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CBS or CNBC, or read his Slightly Off-Kilter syndicated newspaper column.

On the downside, he’s actually been incarcerated twice. Once for not making a left hand turn out of a left hand turn lane, and once for aiding and abetting a loiterer. He’s deeply repentant.

Awhile back, Barry lost the ability to tell time, courtesy of a baseball-size, cancerous, brain tumor. He awoke from having his skull cut open without the tumor but with the story of The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon.

Website: www.barrymaher.com

Twitter: @barrymaher

The CreativeLife update, the 100 day project, and some shameless promo ;)

Hello there!

I don't know if this happens to you, but once a new year gets going, life seems to fall back into its usual routines. Routine is not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, but I don't like being bored. It is the primary reason I am self-employed - I can say no to work or negotiate a deadline if I am too busy to take on new work. Another reason I decided to go back into self-employment was to spend more time being creative. Enter the 100 day project.

I tried it in 2024 and could barely make it to day 10 without giving up. It took some soul searching to discover why since I was making tiny paintings. Creative, for sure, and I should have been able to continue doing that for the following 90 days. The plan had been to make 100 tiny paintings. I eventually realised that I got bored. Doing 100 of the same thing definitely did not work for me. But I really wanted to try again, so I had to come up with a new idea. Will it work? I have no idea, but it is a better plan than what I had in mind last year.

The plan (and how it fits into my 2025 goals)

I mentioned the group challenges I plan to participate in and the projects I design for my art group in my previous post. I have also mentioned the novel currently with my editor. Knowing how my workload is expanding, I can hardly find the time to add yet another challenge to my day. Unless I think outside the box.

The 100 day project is not just about art, or craft, or even a single project. It is about being creative on a daily basis. So here is the plan for my 100 day project: I am going to draw, paint, write, or make something every day. It won't be the same every day.

I might do a project that will take several days or even weeks, but I will also do small things in between. This way, I won't get bored but still manage to do something creative every day for a hundred days.

Practically, I need to plan time to create every day. I have mentioned that my art group meets once a week for two hours, so that will continue to be the schedule for Thursdays. The rest of the week is not as easy. But I am committing to spend at least 30 minutes every day to create something. If I don't have 30 minutes, then 10 minutes will have to do.

The commitment (and my accountability tracker)

Habit trackers abound on social media in various shapes and forms. I also have one in my Bullet Journal for tracking my daily goals.

I thought I would use that, but I am inclined to think that a separate tracker would be more useful. Instead of just ticking off that I have achieved the objective for the day, I will add the time I spent to it. This way, I can see which days I have more time, which will be helpful for planning future art competition paintings or doing commissions.

Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect plan, with life throwing curve balls just as you think everything is under control. But a daily practice and some useful data will not go to waste even if life interferes.

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Some of my books, will be promoted as part of a special sale on @Smashwords to celebrate Read an Ebook Week 2025 from March 2-8. Be sure to follow me for more updates and links to the promotion for my books and many more! #ebookweek25 #Smashwords

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The challenge details

The 100 day challenge starts today. You can still join and find all the details and the social media sharing here.

I doubt that I will share every day. I don't like social media that much, but look out for my posts on Instagram with the tags #dothe100dayproject and @dothe100dayproject.

This is only a partial CreativeLife update. I will share my progress on the rest of my goals in my next post. Don't forget to check out the Smashwords sale coming next week.

Stay creative - until next time!

💜Linzé

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