To Thrive in Darkness – New Short Story!

I’m so excited! My new short story is out! You can read To Thrive in Darkness by visiting Knee Brace Press HERE.

The story revolves around Roanne, a young adult who was born in a labyrinth. She has never known light or fresh air. She also lives with a chronic illness. It can be difficult to live with a chronic illness, but even more so within a labyrinth where you can barely see where you are going and you are always in fear for your life.

I’m not sure where the story came from. It started like all my stories do, with the first line: “We were friendly with the dark…” I had that line in my head for weeks before I knew what the story was about. I had already written a novel about the pandemic in a universe that was our own, but had been ravaged by a virus. It’s a huge and expansive book and it should be out later this year.

This time, I wanted to examine the pandemic from another angle, that of isolation. During the lockdowns and the waves of the covid virus, our lives were unsure and uncertain and nothing was taken for granted. Especially for me. Living with multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy, my immune system is already compromised. I wanted to hide from the disease, but that fear was always around me, looming over me like a giant beast that I couldn’t see.

Roanne wanted to tell her story and I had to tell it. At first, Roanne didn’t live with a disability or a chronic condition, but in the end I knew that she was a mirror of what I was living through, a mirror of myself, so she shares a condition that mirrors my own.

The story took a few weeks to work on and the labyrinth that Roanne and her mother live in didn’t want to go away. Part of me is still in the labyrinth and I’ve grown friendly with the dark.

I hope you enjoy To Thrive in Darkness. Please feel free to leave a comment on Knee Brace Press or here on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

A Head Full of Clouds – A Poem

My head is

f

a

l

l

i

n

g

into the sound of

s i l e n c e

and FULL

of clouds.

They fly like birds

from my mind,

taking my thoughts

with them

and leaving only the

*BLISS*

of sleep.

I may have forgotten

everything,

but in the nothingness,

I remember who I am.

The Shapes of Wrath: Hope’s Seven Deadly Sins Book 1 by Meslissa Yi – A Book Review

Hope Sze has no idea that she’s entering the darkness.

She takes on a surgery rotation and she’s assigned to operating room three. Her superior is Dr. Vrac and she quickly learns that he has a nickname: Dr. Death. She’s never worked for anyone like him before. He treats the other surgeons and attendants like garbage, makes racist comments about others, loses his temper at everyone around him.

He also kills people. Hope Sze watches as his actions cause a patient to bleed out on the table. If she tries to do anything, it will put her in the path of his wrath and his vengeance. Hope has never been so afraid of a doctor and so terrified at what he will do. Yet, she knows that she has to do whatever she can to make sure his wrath is stopped.

When she finds the dead body of another surgeon, Hope knows that she is up against a killer. The only thing that she doesn’t know is how she can prove that Dr. Vrac is the one who killed him before he ends up killing her.

Matters are made more interesting when she spots a ghost at the hospital. Has the ghost come to warn her or help her?

Hope only knows one thing for sure: she is running out of time.

I loved the Shapes of Wrath so much! Everything about this book is amazing.

Melissa Yi always knows how to spin a tale and her books always blur the genre lines of mystery. Normally, she uses a lot of humour in her books, and I’m often surprised when I laugh out loud from something that she has written on one page and them I’m shocked by something on another page.

However, there is no humour in The Shapes of Wrath. Instead, as Hope Sze takes on a very real killer, she is thrown into a race against time and a fight against those she knows. The shapes of Wrath has everything you could want in a book: characters that have depth, romance, ghosts, a solid mystery with characters that you care about and characters that you hate.

There is a parallel storyline with every second chapter, and rather than take away from the main storyline, it only added to the mystery and the urgency. I kept wondering how the storylines would converge and when they did, I was pulled even further into the tale. Melissa Yi’s strength is that she creates such amazing people that they feel real. I felt like the journey that Hope went on in this book brought me closer to her as a character and someone that I can’t wait to see again.

Hope is also facing a very real threat. As someone that has to depend on the medical help that the hospital provides, and as someone who has dealt with difficult and dismissive doctors, the actions of Dr. Vrac really hit home for me. Though I haven’t had to deal with anyone as terrible as he is, it was a stark reminder that doctors really hold your life in their hands. I think that is the true terror that this book presents: you have no idea what a doctor is capable of until you are under the knife. Thankfully, almost all of my doctors have been amazing.

Terrifying and thrilling with incredible characters, romance, and the supernatural, The Shapes of Wrath is the perfect book. It held my hands as if they were almost glued to the page and I didn’t know where it was going to go, or how things were going to unravel. There was an undercurrent of dread that filled the whole novel, and it left me spellbound and anxious to find out how it all ended. This book shows that Yi is a master of the mystery thriller and the added element of the paranormal just took things to a whole new level.

The Shapes of Wrath is a novel filled with depth and urgency and I can’t wait to read the second book in the series!

The Path Through the Trees – A Poem

I am standing

in front of the forest.

The path is different this time,

laid with precious stones

among the cobblestones.

As the sun moves above me,

the light hits one of the stones

at my feet and I can see

that it is a moonstone.

I know that when I enter the trees,

the night will rule.

Standing there,

the trees beckoning,

their leaves welcoming me

to come inside,

I feel like Alice in Wonderland

as she watches the white rabbit

when it slips into the hole

and she chooses to follow.

I stand at the edge of the forest

Wondering where it will take me.

Staring at the pills in my hand,

I feel even more like Alice

and I wonder whether these pills

will make me shrink smaller

or grow larger.

They seem so small,

yet they are full of a magic

all their own. I just wish

I knew what that magic would do.

There is the call of a bird

from within the leaves of the trees.

The sun moves overhead again

and another stone on my path

is lit as if from within.

I can see obsidian and quartz

and I can make out an amethyst

not too far ahead.

I take a pill,

and I can feel the pill start its journey

within me. I nod as if to remind myself

that I can do this.

I have done this before.

Beside me,

my husband takes my hand,

squeezing it to give me strength.

“We’re in this together,” he says.

“You are not alone in the dark.”

I nod to show I understand

and I squeeze his hand,

as if to remind him of the words

that I cannot speak.

He nods to show that he understands.

When I take that first step,

letting the leaves of the trees

bush against my face,

I know that I am not alone

and that makes the light within me

burn brighter than any sun.

We take another step

and though I know that this path

will be a long one,

it will be a journey that we share

together and that holds a magic

all its own.

The Little Book of Wise (and Powerful) Thoughts by Matthew Stapley – A Book Review

I met Matthew Stapley over ten years ago at an event that included all kinds of clairvoyants, psychics and card readers. I was there with my tarot cards, trying to help people gain clarity over their lives. When I met Matthew, I immediately knew that I was meeting a kindred spirit and a truly gifted psychic. He exuded calmness, wisdom and had a knowledge of the workings of the human heart that left me filled with wonder.

Since meeting him all those years ago, he has become a friend full of wisdom and sageness. Every time I come across one of his posts online, they fill me with the calmness that he exudes, and I have epiphanies about myself and the life I am trying to live. He comes from a place of caring and honesty and there is so much truth to his words.

When I heard that he was publishing a book, I immediately got myself a copy. The Little Book of Wise (and Powerful) Thoughts is exactly that. Each page holds one thought, one moment, that asks you to stop and reflect on what those words mean to you. It really is a book of teachings and though they are brief, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t powerful.

I meant to read the book one page at a time, but I just kept reading. With each page, I found myself nodding and having moments of reflection within myself. It was like each page was a pebble that was dropped into the well within me. Each pebble caused ripples that are even now still radiating outward.

The advice in this book may seem simple, but they pack a wallop.  A prime example of one of those thoughts is on page 67. It’s one I keep returning to: Knowledge isn’t really power. Wisdom is power. Wisdom is knowledge tempered by experience. Knowledge is power is one of the phrases I use in my day-to-day life, my thirst for knowledge and learning is never ending. I can’t describe what it was like reading that page for the first time was like. I just closed the book and sat with my thoughts, my whole mind filled with new paths and new ways of thinking.

The Little Book of Wise (and Powerful) Thoughts isn’t merely a daybook or something you can dip into when spirit calls. It’s a book that hands you little pebbles of light and you get to watch as the wisdom that you’ve absorbed from this powerful little book changes your life an makes you rethink the world around you and your place in it.

Do yourself a favour and get a copy of this book. It’s filled with light, love, wisdom and joy and its just waiting for you to open the cover and dive right in.

Get a copy HERE.