England in 1381 is already straining under taxation and unrest when Blanche Fitzjohn finds herself caught on both sides of the widening divide. In Uprising, J.E. Rizzo gives that historical conflict an unusual perspective through an illegitimate daughter of John of Gaunt whose heightened hearing and ability to smell emotion make her an outsider even before politics place her in danger. Blanche's loyalty to England's villeins, her connection to the ruling family, an unwanted marriage, and abilities she has regarded as a curse converge as rebellion moves from discontent to open revolt.

Date Published: 09-01-2026

Publisher: Literary Wanderlust

She takes solace in her studies with the local wisewoman and in her friendship with Geoff, a groom at the local manor. Until the day Henry of Lancaster, Blanche’s half-brother, brings her news of an arranged marriage to Sir Thomas Prescott, Constable of the Tower of London. Although she smells cruelty on him, Blanche agrees to marry Thomas in the hopes that her influence may help better the lives of Geoff and all England’s villeins. 

But soon, the peasants’ discontent turns to revolt. Though her heart is of the people, Blanche’s nobility makes her an enemy to the rebels. To save herself and Henry from the executioner’s ax, Blanche must use every power at her disposal, even those she once considered a curse.

Blanche Fitzjohn occupies a particularly difficult place in the conflict at the center of Uprising. She is connected by blood to John of Gaunt and the nobility, yet her sympathies lie with the villeins suffering under the conditions that fuel the revolt. Her decision to accept a marriage to Sir Thomas Prescott in the hope of improving their lives makes that divided allegiance personal long before the rebellion threatens her own survival.

Rizzo adds another layer through Blanche's extraordinary senses. Hearing sounds from miles away and smelling people's emotions could easily function as simple advantages, but Blanche has regarded these abilities as a curse. When political danger forces her to depend upon the very traits that have helped make her an outcast, the speculative element becomes directly tied to her struggle for survival. That combination of medieval unrest, divided loyalties, an arranged marriage, and unusual sensory abilities gives the historical setting a distinctive tension.

Uprising should appeal to historical fiction readers who like real periods of political upheaval filtered through the life of a character with competing loyalties. Blanche's connection to John of Gaunt places her near power while her friendship with Geoff and concern for England's villeins pull her toward those rebelling against it. Readers interested in medieval England, class conflict, and heroines forced to navigate dangerous social boundaries will find those tensions central to the story.

The novel also offers something different for readers who enjoy historical fiction with speculative and romantic elements. Blanche's heightened senses operate alongside her studies with a local wisewoman, while her arranged marriage to Thomas and friendship with Geoff complicate an already precarious position. Readers who prefer their history blended with an element that pushes just beyond the strictly historical should be especially well matched to this first book of the Fitzjohn Duology.

 J.E. Rizzo is a life-long history fanatic and writer of historical fiction, and her work can be found in Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Tudor Times, Tudor Life Magazine, Scary Mommy, and Ultrarunning Magazine. Rizzo won Manuscript Academy’s Agent Choice Award in 2024, and her article Past and Precedence: Abortion Law in the Middle Ages and Its Use to Overturn Roe v. Wade won History Inquiry’s Medieval History Writing Challenge. 

By day, Rizzo works in Human Resources—a field offering more than ample opportunity to observe the follies and fancies of humankind. Before her career in HR, Rizzo worked as an opera singer, a professional baker, and a dog walker. These days, when not writing she can be found running ultramarathons through the forests and mountains of New England, knitting, reading, sewing, baking, or performing any number of (what some might call) old-lady hobbies. She also keeps busing caring for her two children and forty-seven houseplants, making her husband carry heavy things and cook her gourmet meals, and rehabilitating her rescue dog and semi-feral ginger cat.

Website

Facebook

Blog

Goodreads

Instagram

BlueSky

Purchase Today

Amazon

Blanche's position makes Uprising particularly intriguing: the revolt threatens her because of the noble blood that has already helped make her an outcast among the people whose suffering she understands. Her attempt to use an arranged marriage to improve the lives of others further complicates the usual boundaries between privilege and powerlessness. By the time rebellion places Blanche and Henry in danger of execution, those divided loyalties can no longer remain theoretical.

Her strange abilities sharpen that conflict in an equally personal way. The senses Blanche once considered a curse may become essential when ordinary social protections fail her. Bringing that speculative thread into the upheaval of 1381 gives Rizzo a distinctive way to explore belonging, power, and survival—and leaves Blanche facing a world in which neither her family name nor her sympathies can guarantee which side will claim her as its enemy.

 ➡️ Join our Newsletter

Grief does not follow a single set of rules in Holes in the Somewhere. It can emerge through a mysterious wall, accompany strangers confronting a fungal pandemic, or sit beside college students preparing for the extinction of the Sun. Richard R. Brown gathers those unsettling possibilities around something considerably more personal: his own experience of grief and loss following his father’s death from cancer. The result is a collection where speculative fiction and horror provide unusual shapes for recognizably human fears, losses, and impossible decisions—and where the distance between the normal and paranormal can become disturbingly thin.

Holes in the Somewhere

by Richard R. Brown

Genre: Speculative Fiction, Horror Stories

Goodreads

Holes In The Somewhere is a collection of short works, anchored by a personal memoir of the author's own experience with grief and loss after the passing of his father from cancer, by speculative fiction author Richard R. Brown.

A single mother encounters insanity in the worst possible person; an estranged parent loses his reunited family to a mysterious bathroom wall; a group of strangers come together to fight a fungal pandemic; college students prepare for the extinction of the Sun... these are a few of the challenges faced by the desperate characters in Holes In The Somewhere. The choices they make, the dilemmas they wrestle with, all have very supernatural consequences, but are felt with very human emotions.

These stories will tug at strings your heart thought were too well-hidden for anyone to know about, and cause the mind to probe the gray areas between wrong and right. Between normal and paranormal. Behind what's real and only to the side of what's unreal. A perfect mix of quick, unsettling reads, and longer, heart-wrenching escapes.

What readers are saying:

"The debut is speculative fiction in form: weird, unsettling, occasionally cosmic. But it reads less like a genre exercise than like grief that has been given permission to take unusual shapes." - Justine Castellon, Author/Reviewer

"I guarantee there is a 'gotcha' story in there for just about anybody, and if you don't find at least one that bothers you just as you're about to fall asleep, you're made of sterner stuff than I am." - Kenneth Crist, editor-in-chief, Black Petals Magazine

“These stories are weird and creepy and heart-wrenching in all the best ways. If you enjoy fiction that makes you question everything and wrecks you emotionally, this is for you!” – Valerie S., 5 star Amazon Review

Holes in the Somewhere uses speculative situations to approach emotions that are considerably less imaginary. A mysterious bathroom wall, an approaching solar catastrophe, and a fungal pandemic may belong to horror and speculative fiction, but the people facing them are still negotiating grief, fractured families, fear, responsibility, and choices without comfortable answers.

The inclusion of Brown’s personal memoir gives that approach additional context. Rather than keeping lived loss separate from the collection’s stranger stories, the book places the author’s experience following his father’s death alongside fictional characters confronting their own versions of disappearance, upheaval, and mortality. That combination makes the collection especially interesting for readers who appreciate horror that uses the impossible to examine emotions that are entirely real.

This collection should be particularly interesting to readers who prefer horror that unsettles emotionally as well as supernaturally. Its scenarios range from intimate family terror to large-scale catastrophe, allowing the stories to approach dread from different directions rather than relying on a single kind of monster or threat.

Short-fiction readers who enjoy moving between quick disturbances and longer narratives will also find that variety built into the collection. The recurring attention to grief and difficult moral territory makes it a stronger match for those who like speculative fiction that leaves uncomfortable questions behind after the immediate danger has passed.

Excerpt from ‘A Hole In The Somewhere’, a story in ‘Holes In The Somewhere’

When he hung up, he saw the answer to his problem of Tony’s dead body. He picked Tony up and wrestled him into the wall where the blurred patch was. Pieces seemed to fall off into the wall, but that just made Tony easier to handle. He just had time to change into a clean shirt and slide the gun back under the couch before there came a soft knock on his door.

Jack wiped sweat from his forehead and opened the door. Before him stood the same little girl who held his hand twenty years ago and asked him, “Why, Daddy?” about absolutely everything. Only now she had green eyes when she used to have brown eyes.

“Mommy says you’re my grandpa,” she said to him now. “Why is your door all bubbly and brown, Grandpa?”

Jack looked up and past his granddaughter at Mary, who was smiling anxiously at both of them.

“Hi, Daddy,” was all she said. It was enough.

Jack burst into tears, picked his granddaughter up in his left arm, and trotted down the steps to embrace his daughter with his right arm. They hugged for several moments before a muffled, “Why are you crying, Grandpa?” came from his shoulder.

Jack laughed, and put her down on the ground again. “I’m crying because I’m so happy to meet you!” he said.

“Oh. My name’s Emily, but you can call me Emmy. Why do you live by the train tracks, Grandpa?”

“Actually, Dad, I’m curious, too. This address came up as ‘Condemned.’ How is it that you live here?”

Jack led them inside and told them his story, forcing himself to be honest about his decisions and his reasons. Recent events disappeared from his awareness as the last twenty years enveloped him. He told them about his depression and anger from the divorce, and how losing everything seduced him into giving up everything. He hadn’t wanted to try to replace what he had lost because that would be admitting that he had lost it to begin with. After a few minutes, Emmy wanted to explore, so Jack gave a tour while he talked. It only took a minute.

In the bathroom, Mary shot him an alarmed look when she saw the cracked mirror. “Oh! It was like that when I found this place. I got a new one last month. I just forgot about hanging it up.”

“Let’s do it now, Daddy. I don’t like that crack, for some reason. It creeps me out.”

They hung the new mirror while Jack entertained them with stories from his train-hopping days. Mary leaned the cracked mirror against the wall below the new one, stood up, and proclaimed, “Much better!”

Jack and Mary returned to the main room. Mary told Jack about her short, failed marriage to Emmy’s father, her job at CyberSolutions, and her academic career. “Where is Emmy?” Jack wondered aloud.

“She was fascinated by that old mirror, so I leaned it against the wall so she could look at it.”

Jack felt a moment of unease at this, but had no ready explanation for it, so he let it go. “Are you hungry, kiddo?” he asked Mary. “I’m sure Emmy probably is. Want to go to lunch?”

“Sure, but I’m pay-“Mary was interrupted by a tremendous whipcrack coming from the bathroom.

The gun!, Jack thought, and leapt to his feet as Mary called out, “Emmy?  Emmy!” They both ran into the bathroom, only to find it empty. There was nothing to hide behind, but Mary made a close search of every corner, anyway, all the while calling her daughter’s name, “Emmy! Emmeeee!”

Richard R. Brown is a legally-blind author of speculative fiction, horror, and thrillers. He writes from experience, having lived through paranormal events, alien attacks, and cosmic horrors -- at least, in his mind and in the books he listens to. He and his Guide Dog live in the Pacific Northwest. Richard is between Guide Dogs at the moment as Edison retired last summer. Edison was at Richard's side through every story in his book. Richard has no such guidance for his current novel, but will likely have one for editing help.

Website * Facebook * X * Instagram * Bluesky * YouTube * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

Amazon * B&N * Kobo * IngramSpark * Bookbub * Goodreads

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

Enter the Holes in the Somewhere Giveaway Here

The title Holes in the Somewhere suits a collection concerned with the places where ordinary explanations stop working. Brown’s characters encounter impossible intrusions into recognizable lives, but the emotional consequences remain grounded in things people understand all too well: losing someone, recovering a relationship, confronting mortality, and wondering which choice can still be called right when every option carries a cost.

That connection between grief and the uncanny may be the collection’s most intriguing proposition. Horror can give fear a monster, a pandemic, a cosmic catastrophe, or even a hole where no hole should exist. Grief is harder to contain. Here, the strange things lurking around the edges of reality offer another way to look directly at it.

Be the first to see cover reveals, upcoming releases, exclusive excerpts, author features, and more. Join our growing community of readers and book lovers.

☞ Join our Newsletter

What if the greatest discovery wasn't a new technology, but a new way of seeing the people and world around us? Field of Purple Bonnets blends literary fiction with speculative ideas to explore how love, innovation, and human connection can transform our perspective. Set against the backdrop of modern Texas, Dave J. Brown's novel invites readers to consider not only what we choose to see, but also the consequences of making the invisible visible.

Speculative Fiction, Literary Fiction

Date Published: May 21, 2026

You've been standing in the field your whole life. You just couldn't see it yet.

 If you've spent any time in Texas in spring, you know the bluebonnets. Now imagine a pair of glasses that shows you what you had been missing: every ultraviolet the flower had been wearing all along, a field suddenly purple, a world you had been standing inside without seeing. 

That is love, for Richard Smith. That is Zin. Richard is the kind of man who learned early how to disappear. Quiet. Careful. Brilliant in ways he rarely lets anyone witness. He writes poetry in notebooks no one is allowed to open and gives his best hours to work that asks nothing of his heart. 

Then Zin walks into his life—sharp, guarded, beautiful, and impossible to reduce—and does the thing he never prepared for.

She sees him.

All of him.

And instead of flinching, she stays. 

Together, they help bring a technology into the world that does for millions what Zin did for Richard: it lets people see what was always there.

Hidden color.

Hidden beauty.

Hidden power.

A cheap, wearable lens that reveals the spectrum just beyond ordinary sight.

 For a moment, it feels like freedom. But a world that profits from keeping people blind does not celebrate new sight.

It studies it.

Owns it.

Sells it.

Weaponizes it.

What began as wonder becomes surveillance.

What began as intimacy becomes empire.

And as the device they helped create starts tracking faces, movements, desires, and private lives, Richard and Zin are forced to confront the difference between being seen, being wanted, being protected, and being controlled. 

The world Richard wanted to open is becoming a machine that watches everyone. And the woman who first opened him may be the only person brave enough to tear it down.

The Field of Purple Bonnets is a literary speculative love story about being seen versus being watched. About a man brave enough to be soft, a woman wise enough to know what that costs, and a country slowly forgetting the difference between freedom and possession.

This book is a great fit for readers who enjoy:

• Literary fiction with speculative elements
• Character-driven stories about love and self-discovery
• Thought-provoking novels exploring technology and ethics
• Near-future fiction grounded in today's world
• Books that spark discussion about society and human connection

 Dave J. Brown writes fiction about love, technology, consciousness, and the strange systems people build to survive themselves. Field of Purple Bonnets is his most ambitious work to date. 

He pays his bills helping organizations navigate enterprise technology rollouts, building small applications, and consulting on the kinds of complex implementations that make most people's eyes glaze over. The technical fluency shows up in his writing… not as exposition, but as texture. When Richard designs BeeVision, the engineering feels real because it comes from someone who thinks in systems. 

He lives just south of Austin, not far from a field of bluebonnets that looks exactly the way you'd imagine.

Website

Website

BookBuzz

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple Books

Love discovering books brand new book releases? Be the first to see cover reveals, upcoming releases, exclusive excerpts, author features, and more. Join our growing community of readers and book lovers.

 ➡️ Join our Newsletter

Today, I have a speculative fiction novel to share in our book blitz spotlight! Learn about The Brain That Breeds All Villainy and author Peter Heavenheld! 

Speculative Fiction

Date Published: December 5, 2025

Tima Chelovekova lands her dream job with IZON, the hottest AI and robotics startup in Silicon Valley. But IZON CEO Jase Vestiger doesn't just want to get fabulously rich. He wants Tima’s invention to take over rival tech companies, replace humans with IZON services, corner governments - and run the world. This puts them on a collision course in a whirl of mega-corporations, AI prompts and Chinese hackers. Their conflict spans from Vienna to California, from superyachts to prison cells, from the peaks of technology to the deepest ethical questions. A striking tale of the AI age, a truly 21st century masterpiece of speculative fiction.

About the Author

 Peter Heavenheld is a neo-classical playwright and poet. A childhood in Australia, Fiji, Hungary and Japan made him desirous early on to understand the cultures and stories of the world - especially through the medium of theatre. Since then, his plays have been produced all over the world. 

His most recent tragedy, Cleo's Stratos, received rave reviews durings its season at the Cracked Actors Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, in November 2023. A Greek-Australian migrant family's journey through lockdowns, it was cleverly intertwined with the Greek myth of the sun-god, Helios. Peter's tragicomedy, Life, Rehearsed, enjoyed sell-out performances during a production by the MIDAS Theatre, Moscow's main English-speaking theatre. British actor Jonathan Salway starred as an actor living a bigamous double life, until his lies unravel - and he finds redemption. True Words from False Teeth, a Monty Pythonesque sketch revue, ran successfully at the University of Western Australia in Perth. 

He has also had public reading performances of numerous other plays, such as Saga Australis - The Macquariad (a historical drama about Australia's most influential colonial-era governor) and Freedom Born from Torture's Fires (a harrowing true story of Soviet spy chief and mass murderer, Lavrentiy Beria). 

Peter's poem Concerto for Auctioneer’s Mallet was a June Shenfield Poetry Award prize winner in Canberra, Australia, in 2021. Peter published a collection of his verse tragedies, Altar of the Muses, in 2010. Peter lives in Tokyo, Japan. When not writing, he enjoys driving his classic Aston Martin, experiencing Tokyo's galleries and museums, and listening to Baroque music. Indeed, he claims he can only write when inspired by the music of Antonio Vivaldi. 

The Brain that Breeds all Villainy is his first published novel.

Facebook

Youtube

GoodReads

Amazon

Today, I have a speculative fiction novel to share in our book blitz spotlight. Learn about The 6th Heaven and author Monica Broussard and be sure to enter for a chance to win a prize in the book tour giveaway at the end of this post. 

Speculative Fiction; Visionary and Metaphysical; Christian Fiction

Date Published: September 17, 2025

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

Many of our posts contain affiliate links.

Derek Hollinger has walked a long, hard road since a fateful encounter with an Indigenous shaman woman turned his life upside down. Now married to Kendal, his angel and savior, Derek desperately wants to be the man she deserves. But his obsession with his tattoos—what they mean and how to get rid of them—is tearing down everything they’ve built together. 

Paralyzed by depression and self-loathing, Derek is convinced that only one person can help him now: the granddaughter of the shaman whose power inked him from head to toe. Enlisting the aid of his loyal friend and spiritual advisor, Father Mike, Derek treks deep into the heart of the Amazon jungle, where a final reckoning between good and evil awaits. 

But God’s plan for Derek isn’t what he expects. And coming back alive—whole in mind, heart, and spirit—will require every ounce of his fortitude and faith.

About the Author

Writer, speaker, and certified life coach Monica Broussard is passionate about writing fiction that contains fantasy elements and keeps the reader intrigued about the lead character’s motives. She also writes an occasional article for her hometown’s magazine, SeaCliff Living. She belongs to American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and enjoys attending national writers' conferences. 

Born in North Carolina on a Marine Corps base, Monica now lives in “Surf City,” Huntington Beach, California, with her husband of thirty-nine years. She has enjoyed various occupations, but her favorite job is the one she’s doing now—writing. 

The 6th Heaven is book 3 in the 21 Tattoos Series.

Connect with the Author

Author Website

FB: MonicaBroussard

IG: @monicabroussardauthor 

Buy the Book

Amazon

B&N

This morning, I have a speculative fiction novel to share! Check out The 6th Heaven, book three from the 21 Tattoo series, read an excerpt from the book, and learn about author Monica Broussard.  

Speculative Fiction; Visionary and Metaphysical; Christian Fiction

Date Published: September 17, 2025

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

Many of our posts contain affiliate links.

Derek Hollinger has walked a long, hard road since a fateful encounter with an Indigenous shaman woman turned his life upside down. Now married to Kendal, his angel and savior, Derek desperately wants to be the man she deserves. But his obsession with his tattoos—what they mean and how to get rid of them—is tearing down everything they’ve built together. 

Paralyzed by depression and self-loathing, Derek is convinced that only one person can help him now: the granddaughter of the shaman whose power inked him from head to toe. Enlisting the aid of his loyal friend and spiritual advisor, Father Mike, Derek treks deep into the heart of the Amazon jungle, where a final reckoning between good and evil awaits. 

But God’s plan for Derek isn’t what he expects. And coming back alive—whole in mind, heart, and spirit—will require every ounce of his fortitude and faith.

But then, one morning, the tattoos appeared after he had a vivid nightmare of a swirling spiderweb that seemed to move and change as he tried to escape. He had awoken with a start, his heart racing and his body drenched in sweat. He remembered every detail—the grotesque spider with its sharp, black legs and beady eyes, looming over him as he struggled to free himself from its web. In his dream, he had been half-paralyzed with fear, unable to escape the creature’s grasp as it taunted and tortured him. 

Now, as he lay in his bed, still trembling from the intensity of the recurring dream, he realized that the spider was not just a figment of his imagination. It was a manifestation of his deepest fears and insecurities, a symbol of the overwhelming challenges and struggles he faced in his waking life. 

The tattoos covered his body from head to toe—even his face.

He had tried to subconsciously resist the spine-chilling transformation, to hide by going back into a deep, fitful sleep that night, hoping it was only a nightmare. But the tattoos seemed to have a mind of their own, and soon, his entire body was covered in a symphony of ink, intricate and detailed, each telling a story he could not understand. 

Derek became a spectacle, a mystery, and a work of art. People would point and gawk at his tattoos. He nearly lost his medical practice. 

He could not explain the disturbing dichotomy, but he felt an intense connection to these markings. He intuitively realized they were a part of him and he would never be alone again. After experiencing the vicious beating when he was a teenager that almost took his life, Derek struggled with feelings of unworthiness, believing that he somehow deserved what had happened to him. He had been selfish that day, not listening to his mother and not wanting to visit with his grandmother. Then she died suddenly; he never saw his grandmother again. It felt like there must have been something inherently wrong with him if the universe was willing to use its power against him in such cruel ways. 

As a prominent plastic surgeon, he performed each reconstructive procedure with as much focus and precision as if working on his own body. His attention to detail and excellence in each procedure were an extension of the reconstructive surgeries performed by Dr. Christopher Casey on him as a child. 

When he performed craniofacial surgery, it was, in his mind, a repetition of the one performed on his face so many years before. A reconstructive microsurgery on the delicate bones of a hand that might someday perform life-altering procedures. 

In his dreams, he relived moments of profound regret and insecurity. He had told himself it was for the best when Kendal had left him for a short time before they married. He was protecting himself from the disappointment and hurt that inevitably came with a relationship’s dissolution. He had been able to rehabilitate himself in her eyes. 

But now, in this vivid dream, he gripped the steering wheel of his parked Bentley and felt the familiar explosion go off in his head. He could not deny the truth any longer. He was a lonely and lost man. The realization was like a punch in the gut, and he could not help but feel a wave of sadness for what might have been.

Meet the Author

Writer, speaker, and certified life coach Monica Broussard is passionate about writing fiction that contains fantasy elements and keeps the reader intrigued about the lead character’s motives. She also writes an occasional article for her hometown’s magazine, SeaCliff Living. She belongs to American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and enjoys attending national writers' conferences. 

Born in North Carolina on a Marine Corps base, Monica now lives in “Surf City,” Huntington Beach, California, with her husband of thirty-nine years. She has enjoyed various occupations, but her favorite job is the one she’s doing now—writing. 

The 6th Heaven is book 3 in the 21 Tattoos Series.

Connect with the Author

Author Website

FB: MonicaBroussard

IG: @monicabroussardauthor

Pre-Order the Book

Amazon

 Catch Up on the First Two Books of the Series

This morning, I have a philosophical, speculative fiction novel in our book spotlight! Check out The Algorithm and learn about author Julian Mercer!

Philosophical Speculative Literary Fiction

Date Published: November 13, 2024

For readers of George Orwell’s "1984" and Kazuo Ishiguro’s "Klara and the Sun," Julian Mercer’s "The Algorithm" is a deeply philosophical speculative novel that explores the boundaries of truth, morality, and societal control. With a world teetering between progress and tradition, this story invites readers to question the systems they trust, their values, and the fragile balance between harmony and freedom—a profound and thought-provoking work for those seeking more than just a story.

About the Author

Julian Mercer has written extensively under another name and lives in the mountains of Colorado. His novel The Algorithm, 15 years in the making, represents his most ambitious work yet, blending deep philosophical inquiry with speculative storytelling. With a career steeped in exploring the intersection of technology and society, Mercer invites readers into a world where truth and harmony collide.

Connect with the Author

Author Website

Website

Purchase Links

Amazon

B&N

Google