Books Published in 2025

 As an author, I know how important it is to keep having new books published in order to keep readers interested in my books. Fortunately this year, in spite of only having a few books released, I have managed to keep that interest with each book’s publication. Promotion of the books has gone well; there have been many likes, shares, and comments from people saying they bought or will buy the book. I am very relieved and extremely grateful to everyone who has stayed interested in my books. THANK YOU!

 

And thank you for your continued support in spite of this low level of production this year. I was supposed to have three other books released this year – two short story collections and a children’s book – but that didn’t happen. This was not because of any laziness or neglect on my part; that is just how it happened. Hopefully, all three of these books will be published in the new year. One of my self-published children’s books will be republished through the new division of Twisted Dreams Press in January, and another children’s book, the second one in this series, is scheduled for a January release. 

 

I had three books published this year, and all three of them were from the same publisher. (Thank you, Crystal!) I am VERY grateful that two of them especially did finally see publication; these two particular books were rejected many times for a number of years. So I was very happy to finally see Curse of the Blood Witch and Noiseless achieve the status of publication. They went through many rounds of revision over those years!

 

As to my other poetry book, 3 A.M. Poetry, it was written several years ago. I’d recently dug it out, typed ALL of those poems up (I wrote those poems during my notebook writing days!) and polished them. Then I asked my UK publisher if she was interested in the manuscript and she said yes, so I sent it off. These poems are a reflection of the kind of life I lived growing up, as well as from young adulthood, and it was very cathartic to go over these poems again, relive those memories, and get them into print. What a surprisingly healing experience that was!

 

There are quite a few books I have scheduled for publication next year, as well as many more to submit. I do know I should have more than three books published in 2026. And I start writing a brand-new nonfiction book in January. Stay tuned!

 

Here are my books that were published in 2025:

 

 

Curse of the Blood Witch

Kaya Morgan’s bad day gets worse after she is attacked by a vagrant who leaves a bite on her neck.

 

Her world is turned upside-down when she wakes up with a sensitivity to light and strange powers.

 

Soon she is caught up in a life of hungering for blood while also struggling to let go of everything that made her human.

 

Logan O’Boyle is a 300-year-old Irish vampire willing to guide Kaya on her journey, but once it is revealed that she is not just any vampire but one cursed by the blood of a woman who existed centuries ago.

 

Everything changes and Kaya must accept being a vampire or die.

 

Buy link

 

 

3 A.M. Poetry

Survivors of an abusive childhood know just how hard it can be to break free from their past.

 

Memories linger.

 

The anger remains. Trauma and nightmares sometimes take hold, pulling the survivor right back into the hellish world they escaped from. Add to this the mental health issues they must cope with, such as sleeping disorders, anxiety, panic disorder, suicide ideation, and depression. Then throw in addiction for good measure.

 

All of these elements can make life a living hell for anyone who has survived such trauma. It creates a nightmare that may never end. The poems in this book reflect battles the author has had to fight, then and now.

 

Some of these battles are an ongoing torment that could make the dangers of mental health disorders seem like a welcoming reprieve from the neverending torment they must learn to live with.

 

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Noiseless

Individuals living with deafness have existed for millennia, yet in today's world, we remain undervalued, misunderstood, discriminated against, stereotyped and underrepresented.

 

We constantly run into communication barriers, discrimination, ableism and misconceptions. For many of us in the Deaf community, we struggle with social isolation, finding it hard to fit in and be included in a world that prioritizes the ability to hear. The poems in “Noiseless” capture various aspects of what it's like to live with deafness.

 

These poems hope to show that deafness is not the tragedy which the hearing world claims it to be. Thanks to greater awareness of the Deaf community, Deaf culture, and Deaf-focused education, individuals who are deaf are at long last finally finding their place in the world, no matter what barriers remain.

 

We still have a long way to go, but together we can make society a more Deaf-friendly place to be.

 

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From Cover Idea to a Published Story: All the Beautiful Things is a new novella that took time to write

 

 

We authors have different ways of formulating ideas for the books we choose to write. Sometimes we’ll have the idea for the story from beginning to end, an idea for a story based on something we read or dreamed about, or we’ll overhear something that sparks an idea for a story.

 

Or, we’ll get the image of a book cover in our head!

 

That’s exactly what happened with my most recent book, a psychological horror novella called All the Beautiful Things, just released by PsychoToxin Press. Getting the idea for the cover of the book grabbed my curiosity. If you’re curious, the actual cover of the book is pretty much what I saw in my own head! It was that cover, with my name on it, that got me thinking: Exactly what kind of book IS that??

 

It took me a while to find out. In fact, a VERY long while!

 

Sometime after that cover popped into my head, a scene with two characters was next! In the scene, there was a man and a pregnant woman. The man threatened to kill her if she ever ran away from him. He threatened to kill her, cut out the baby, then kill it too. The woman told him he would never get to see the baby. Her baby would live and she would name him QL. The man started mocking that name, saying it was a stupid name and making up fake names that “QL” stood for.

 

The story I ended up writing, though, didn’t include the man and woman. The story was about QL. I was so taken by this very interesting character that baby grew up to be. I got snatches of what QL’s childhood was like as well as his adult years. I also got that he was fixated on his neighbor, Danielle.

 

This all came to me in bits and pieces. At one point, I tried sitting down to write the story, but I could only manage one chapter. Everything else was closed off. So I put it away and went on to write other things and do other things. I just lived life while I waited until I had the whole story.

 

Years later, I came across that chapter again. By then, QL had been stored in the back of my mind, living out his story in my head.

 

What’s interesting is that after I read that chapter I wrote, the rest of the story came to me and I started the next chapter and the next. I didn’t stop writing it until I had the whole story written down.

 

And that is how I managed to finally write the novella now known as All the Beautiful Things. At the time, I felt the story was complete. It was rejected by several publishers. I remembered reading about a publishing company called PsychoToxin Press in the Horror Tree newsletter, so I decided to submit my novella to them. It was accepted last year and now, finally, the cover of the book that popped into my head one day is now the cover of an actual book, which I wrote! Yes, it took me a long time to get this story written and longer to find a publisher for the book, but I’m happy with how it all worked out.

 

I believe that things happen when they are supposed to happen. In an article I read in praise of slow writers, "The Virtue of Slow Writers," writer Lauren Alwan mentioned a book which also supports the art of taking time to write things and writes about a book included in the article “The Art of Slow Writing is a manifesto for giving a book the time it needs, for cultivating patience and connection.” I believe that All the Beautiful Things is a story that took the time it needed to grow and piece itself together. Some books get written quickly, but others need more time to be written. This particular book is one of mine which required some time, and I’m happy I gave it the time it needed, because I am satisfied and thrilled with how the story turned out.

 

Thank you to Christopher Pelton of PsychoToxin Press, cover designer Ruth Anna Evans, and formatter Cat Voleur for all of your hard work in getting All the Beautiful Things published as the book that it was meant to be.

 

Here is the blurb:

 

QL likes to collect heads. Not just any heads, mind. The heads of the things he loves. And he likes to keep them all on his special wall of beautiful things, so that even in death, they can still be his forever.

 

QL Buscemi grew up with a hard life. Abandoned at birth, he was raised by his aunt and uncle in an abusive home. That was until his fixation for collecting the heads of dead animals became a problem. Soon he started talking to a voice in his head and acting strangely around other people. Fed up with his issues, his aunt and uncle place him into a home for "special children," despite its reputation for neglecting patients. There, QL encounters even more abuse, neglect and intolerance for his mental health issues, which only get worse since he refuses to take his medication. He finally leaves "the center" after twenty brutal years.

 

Finally free to live on his own at last, a 31-year-old QL becomes infatuated with his pretty neighbor who lives across the street, 20-year-old Danielle Pinota, who is herself finally free of a home where she was a "second mom" to her kid brother. As QL's attachment to Danielle grows, he wants to get to know her better. And keep her close to him forever. But he has to be careful. He always hurts the things he loves. At least if he hurts Danielle from loving her too much, just like he had with his pets, she could still be his forever ... on his wall of beautiful things.

 

 

And here’s the ebook link

 

Print coming soon!