Welcome to my home on the internet! You’ll find plenty of manga, comics, and animation reviews; a look at my writing and the world of publishing as I experience it; inspirations, confessions, and more! Pull up a chair with your favorite drink and take a look around. Enjoy your time here!
NEW TRILOGY
THE DARKENING GATE TRILOGY
- The Name and the Key – AVAILABLE NOW. When thirteen-year-old Lily finds her mother’s corpse in the marshes, what happens to her afterward is only worse. In every reflective surface, her mother appears, telling Lily to “open the door.” Lily doesn’t know what this means, and her sanity is tested as she tries to help her mother’s spirit. This continues into young adulthood–when Lily is eighteen, her childhood friend Andresh returns from his time abroad and shares that he has been studying dark magic. He seems to know how to save Lily from her curse, but his own secrets may destroy them both.
- The Step and the Walk – COMING OCTOBER 6, 2026. Andresh chronicles his time abroad at university in his private journal, where he shares his deepest secrets–his discovery of alchemy, his dealings with demons, his newest crush (which threatens everything), and his desire to end death once and for all. It’s easy–just surrender your desire and walk through the Gate. Immortality awaits.
- The Fear and the Flame – CURRENTLY BEING DRAFTED. Andresh is prisoner at Nigredo Gate, a former shadow of himself. Lily, armed with Andresh’s journal and some magic of her own, will stop at nothing to save him, and to end the Magnum Opus once and for all.
NOW READING
Current fiction…
From the Bram Stoker award-nominated author of The Spite House comes a bone-chilling new novel about a private investigator hired by a mysterious billionaire to discover why he can’t die.
When private investigator Shyla Sinclair is invited to the looming mansion of eccentric billionaire Saxton Braith, she’s more than a little suspicious. The last thing she expects to see that night is Braith’s assistant driving an iron rod straight through the back of his skull. Scratch that—the last thing she expects to see is Braith’s resurrection afterward.
Braith can’t die, it turns out, but he has no explanation for his immortality, and very few intact memories of his past. Which is why he wants to pay Shyla millions to investigate him, and bring his long-buried history to light.
Shyla can’t help but be intrigued, but she’s also trapped by the offer. Braith has made it clear that he knows she’s the only person he can trust with his secret, because he knows all about hers.
Bold, atmospheric, and utterly frightening, Johnny Compton’s Dead First is spine-chilling supernatural horror about the pursuit of power and the undying need for reckoning.
NOW READING
Current manga…
Creator
Dondon
Publisher
Kodansha
Makoto’s favorite childhood memories are of playing baseball with his best friend and former teammate Shusuke, the catcher of his baseball team. When Shusuke suddenly moved away, Makoto was left devastated, but he clung to the promise of the two of them someday reuniting for the championship game at Koshien Stadium.
Now in high school, Makoto is the ace pitcher of the baseball team, and he and Hokuto, the team’s catcher, are an all-star duo. But then Shusuke suddenly transfers back to Makoto’s school, and it gets harder and harder for the boys to keep their heads in the game under the scorching heat of the baseball diamond…
Kristina Elyse Butke 