A voyage toward an arranged marriage becomes a fight for survival when Lyliana McKenzie is shipwrecked and delivered into the middle of a pirate coup. Her rescuers prove unreliable, escape carries its own dangers, and the childhood stories she once dismissed begin to look uncomfortably real. In Rakshasa’s Wrath, V. Ajinkya places a reluctant heroine between family obligation and an increasingly complicated new life shaped by pirates, hidden power, and dark forces closing in from more than one direction.

The Clawed Chronicles, Book 1

Fantasy

Date Published: February 1, 2026

As Lyliana collects more allies, dark forces rise around her creating yet more enemies, both at home and in the pirate camp. Despite these hardships, her desire to escape becomes marred by newfound power and her mirky path grows complicated. Will she honour her family and friends, or will she accept this new life of hardship and adversity?

Lyliana begins the story with one future already chosen for her, only to lose even that certainty when a shipwreck places her among pirates whose motives cannot be trusted. The resulting conflict is not limited to finding a way home. Every new ally, threat, and discovery pushes her farther from the life she expected and closer to a form of power that complicates her original desire to escape. 

The story also brings together several distinct fantasy elements without reducing the adventure to a single familiar quest. A pirate coup creates immediate human danger, a pixie becomes part of Lyliana’s limited support, mysterious gems challenge what she believes about childhood stories, and dark forces begin creating enemies both within the pirate camp and beyond it. That combination gives the novel room to explore survival, loyalty, inherited duty, and the unsettling possibility that hardship may open a path Lyliana is not entirely willing to reject.

Rakshasa’s Wrath will appeal to fantasy readers who enjoy seafaring danger, pirate intrigue, magical discoveries, and heroines forced to make difficult choices without reliable protection. Lyliana’s situation may be especially engaging for those who prefer protagonists whose goals change as they gain allies, knowledge, and power. 

The novel should also suit readers drawn to stories about arranged expectations colliding with dangerous independence. Its mixture of shipwreck survival, political unrest inside a pirate camp, childhood legends becoming real, and a widening circle of enemies offers an adventure built around uncertainty rather than a clearly marked heroic path.

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Rakshasa’s Wrath begins by taking away Lyliana’s control over where she is going, then steadily complicates what freedom might mean once she has the chance to pursue it. Returning to family and duty is no longer the only possibility after she encounters pirates, unexpected allies, hidden power, and evidence that the stories of her childhood may have contained more truth than she understood. 

As the first book in The Clawed Chronicles, the novel establishes a heroine caught between escape and transformation. The danger surrounding Lyliana may make survival her immediate concern, but the more difficult question is whether the life she intended to reclaim still fits the person she is becoming.

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Across mines, worlds, bodies, and lifetimes, Freedom’s End frames rebellion as more than a single act of defiance. Paintr’s struggle reaches into identity, memory, trauma, and the question of whether freedom can truly be claimed while the forces of oppression continue to follow the soul itself. SE Estes builds this conflict through an ambitious blend of mythic science fiction, dark fantasy, and supernatural western elements, giving the novel a scale that is cosmic while keeping its central battle intensely personal.

Sci-Fi / Fantasy

Date Published: May 5, 2026

Publisher: Manhattan Book Group

Freedom’s End is a mythic sci-fi/fantasy saga about a reincarnating rebel fighting to break cycles of oppression across lifetimes. Born a slave in the mines of Septra, Paintr rises again and again—across bodies, eras, and worlds—to confront a necromancer who seeks to enslave every sentient mind. Blending science fiction, dark fantasy, and supernatural western elements, the story explores identity, liberation, trauma, and the cost of reclaiming one’s soul. With its emotional depth, genre fusion, and expansive worldbuilding, Freedom’s End speaks to readers who love character-driven epics, mythic resonance, and stories about resilience in the face of impossible odds.

Paintr’s repeated return across different bodies, eras, and worlds gives the fight for liberation an unusual dimension. Oppression is not confined to one ruler or one lifetime; it becomes a cycle that must be recognized, confronted, and broken at the level of identity and soul. That structure allows Freedom’s End to explore how trauma survives transformation and what may be lost when resistance becomes an endless responsibility. 

The novel’s genre fusion also shapes its identity. Science-fiction concepts, dark fantasy, mythic symbolism, and supernatural western elements share the same expansive setting rather than occupying separate corners of the story. At the center of that scale remains a character-driven conflict between a reincarnating rebel and a necromancer determined to enslave every sentient mind. Readers drawn to speculative fiction that connects large worlds with questions of freedom, selfhood, and personal cost will find substantial ideas to consider here.

Freedom’s End  will suit readers who prefer speculative fiction built around moral and philosophical conflict rather than a single adventure. Its reincarnation premise may appeal to those interested in stories where identity changes across time while memory, purpose, and unresolved trauma continue to exert their influence. 

The book may also resonate with readers who enjoy ambitious worldbuilding, mythic patterns, darker supernatural forces, and protagonists forced to challenge systems larger than any one life. The mixture of science fiction, fantasy, and western imagery makes it especially relevant for readers comfortable with stories that cross genre boundaries and place emotional consequences alongside cosmic stakes.

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Freedom’s End places the familiar struggle between freedom and domination inside a far less familiar framework: a rebel whose resistance continues through reincarnation and an enemy whose ambitions extend to every sentient mind. That premise gives the novel room to examine not only whether tyranny can be defeated, but also what repeated conflict does to the person who must keep returning to fight it. 

Paintr’s passage through bodies, eras, and worlds suggests an epic built as much around continuity of purpose as transformation of identity. For readers intrigued by speculative stories where liberation carries spiritual, emotional, and cosmic consequences, SE Estes offers the opening volume of a saga prepared to pursue those questions across more than one lifetime.

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New Covenant needs more than a pastor who can fill a pulpit. Its bills are mounting, its leadership is divided, and its place in the community has become uncertain. Wesley Aames arrives carrying losses of his own, which makes his assignment less a conventional rescue mission than a difficult test of what care looks like when neither the caregiver nor the institution is whole.

How Do You Live Without Love? places grief, congregational conflict, public judgment, and found family within the everyday work of a struggling Appalachian church. Wesley counsels teenagers, answers crisis calls, tends the grounds, and stands beside people whose pain has become public spectacle. The result is a story interested not only in belief, but in the quieter question of whether mercy can be practiced when certainty has disappeared.

Wesley Aames shows up to New Covenant as a man who has already lost everything—wife, daughter, and the will to keep going. Hired to revive a sleepy Appalachian church, he finds a congregation on life support: dwindling funds, fractious trustees, and a choir director who distrusts the new pastor from day one.

When a teenager dies by suicide and her mother's humiliation explodes online, Rosa Lee becomes a magnet for cameras and contempt. Wesley, barely a pastor and twice a stranger to mercy, steps into the storm—counseling teens, calming old ladies, cutting the grass, answering crisis hotline calls—trying to make faith look like rescue instead of rhetoric.

As the church's finances and patience run out, a vote looms: keep the earnest, flawed pastor or replace him with steadier hands. But when the outside world shows up with microphones and accusations. Wesley's choices become literal life or death. Can a man who still blames himself for his family's deaths save strangers—and in doing so, finally forgive himself? This is a story about grief, messy grace, and the small acts that sometimes hold a town together.

Wesley’s work at New Covenant gives the novel an unusual measure of faith: not polished sermons or easy answers, but whether he will answer the telephone, sit with a frightened teenager, defend a woman being condemned in public, or feed a damaged stray dog before reporting to work. Those ordinary decisions allow the story to examine compassion as conduct rather than rhetoric.

The church itself is more than a backdrop. Its dwindling funds, suspicious trustees, internal rivalries, and approaching leadership vote create a second crisis alongside Wesley’s private grief. His effort to help the congregation survive therefore becomes inseparable from his attempt to understand whether a life fractured by loss can still be useful to other people.

The Asheville setting and the pressure of a media-fueled scandal widen the conflict beyond one pastor’s recovery. Private suffering becomes public material, and Wesley must decide what loyalty and mercy require when cameras, accusations, and communal fear begin shaping the story.

Wesley walked today rather than ran. Too tired to run, he needed time for introspection, processing, and perhaps a re-balancing of his inner psyche. He had always prided himself on his self-control and equilibrium. Rarely did he lose his temper or act without thought. Wesley started the play list that featured Jan

Then Wesley saw him. The ugliest, mangiest looking dog Wesley ever. The few spots where he had hair were brown. One leg was missing. One ear looked chewed off and the way he cocked his head made Wesley think the dog was blind in one eye. “Hey there,” Wesley said. The dog took a step back. Wesley kneeled on the damp ground. “Hey boy.”

The dog held his ground this time. He cocked his head and watched Wesley with his good eye. Using the universal and timeless signal between dogs and the people they owned everywhere, Wesley clucked his tongue. The dog’s one good ear twitched. A little.

Turning around, Wesley took a few steps away from the three-legged, one-eyed, one-eared dog and whistled. The dog barked. Wesley kept walking. The dog barked again. Twice. Louder this time. Wesley turned back and looked at the dog. “Come on, if you want to,” said Wesley with a smile. The dog barked at Wesley, and then he trotted to where Wesley stood, looked up at him and barked. Man and dog walked the streets of Asheville.

Back at the parsonage, Wesley knew he would be late for work, but he did not care. The dog needed to eat.

“As funny as it would be to watch you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, how about I give you corned beef hash? It’s canned. I haven’t had time to make fresh–but I will, I promise. Just for you. Well, and me. I’ll have some of this as well for my breakfast. You won’t care if I heat it or not. So, let’s rough it and eat it straight out of the can. You know, like the cavemen did.” The dog sat back on his one good haunch and waited–like dogs do.

“Here you go, pal.” Wesley spooned half of the can onto a paper plate. “You know, missing a couple body parts like you do, looks like you have stories to tell. You may be the luckiest dog alive.” Wesley kept up a constant stream of chatter to put the dog at ease. The dog barked and moved closer. Wesley took the opportunity, while the dog devoured his food, to check the dog’s collar and tag.

“George.”

The dog stopped eating, backed up, and growled.

Wesley looked at the dog and said it again. “George.”

The dog growled and barked. It was a different bark from any of the earlier barks.

Wesley pointed at the collar and tag. “The tag says your name is George,” reasoned Wesley.

George growled and barked.

Wesley squatted and clicked his tongue. “Come here, boy.”

He placed a slight emphasis on the last word. George wagged his tail and inched close enough to resume eating, which he did.

“George,” said Wesley. “George” backed up a few feet–out of Wesley’s reach. His one good eye darted between Wesley and the half-eaten corned beef hash.

“Come here.” Wesley clicked his tongue.

The dog stared at Wesley for a moment before coming close enough to eat his few remaining bites.

“Well, it looks like you don’t care much for your old name. I bet I can call you anything if I feed you. How about…Lucky?”

Wesley looked over “Lucky’s” three-legged, one-eared, and one-eyed body and just shook his head at the irony of calling this dog “Lucky.” That sealed it. “I wonder if you only have one nostril working?” Wesley laughed. “You oughta see the other dog, huh? Right, Lucky?”

Wesley kneeled and scratched behind the dog’s good ear and repeated his new name — Lucky. Before Wesley left for work, he pulled up the picture of his family on his cell phone and introduced the newest member of his family to the picture of his wife and daughter.

Lucky finished the can of cold corned beef hash and drank water from the empty can.

This novel belongs on the reading lists of those drawn to character-driven stories about grief, community responsibility, and imperfect people attempting useful work. Its church setting will be especially relevant to readers interested in the practical tensions inside a congregation—money, leadership, trust, reputation, and the distance that can develop between a stated mission and daily behavior.

Readers who value found-family fiction may connect with the relationships Wesley forms while trying to rebuild New Covenant. The book may also appeal to those who prefer faith-centered stories that allow doubt, anger, institutional conflict, and personal failure to remain part of the conversation rather than resolving them through simple assurances.

The storyline involving a teenager’s death by suicide and the public humiliation of her mother introduces emotionally difficult material. Readers comfortable with serious contemporary fiction that addresses bereavement, suicide, crisis intervention, and media scrutiny will be best prepared for its subject matter.

I've had several "careers." I've taught robotics; been a hospital administrator, served in the National Guard, bussed tables and flipped burgers. Above all else, I am a husband, father, and grand-pere'. I am a native of North Carolina and currently reside near Asheville.

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How Do You Live Without Love? asks its central question through people and institutions that have already been wounded. Wesley cannot restore his family, erase the congregation’s divisions, or control the public appetite for scandal. What remains within his reach are immediate acts of attention: listening, feeding, answering, defending, and staying present when withdrawal would be easier.

That emphasis gives the novel its clearest identity. The survival of New Covenant and Wesley’s own movement through grief depend less upon a single dramatic revelation than upon a series of choices about whom he will serve and what he will do next. For readers interested in contemporary fiction where community is built through flawed, practical care, Anthony Bradshaw’s opening volume in The Dying Church Series offers a thoughtful place to begin.

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A child’s first horse can mark the beginning of far more than riding lessons. For A.J., Lady Star becomes his way into the daily responsibilities, family traditions, and working rhythms of an Oklahoma farm. Sherry Roberts draws upon stories passed down by her father to frame this childhood milestone within life during the 1930s and 1940s, giving the adventure an especially personal connection to the past.

Kid's Western Adventure

Date Published: 07-15-2025

Publisher: Solander Press

Author: Sherry Roberts

Illustrator: Kashif Qasim

One afternoon, A.J. returned home from school to find a surprise waiting for him in the barn - a beautiful little horse named Lady Star. She was now his to ride and care for. From that day on, A.J. spent all his free time learning how to ride Lady Star and caring for her. He dreamed of being skilled enough to ride alongside his grandfather, father, and Jon, the farm hand, during the cattle roundups.

Award-winning author Sherry Roberts weaves a heartfelt story about growing up in the 1930s and 1940s. Based on the tales passed down by her father, Just Call Me Pardner is a must-read for history lovers and those who enjoy stories of the American West.

A.J.’s wish for a horse is tied directly to the work he sees his grandfather, father, and Jon performing around the farm. That connection gives Lady Star a meaningful role in the story: she is both a long-awaited companion and A.J.’s first opportunity to prove that he can accept greater responsibility.

The historical setting also grows from family memory rather than an invented frontier fantasy. By drawing upon stories handed down by her father, Roberts offers younger readers a child-centered glimpse of Oklahoma farm life in the 1930s and 1940s. The focus on learning to ride, caring for an animal, and preparing to help with cattle roundups makes the period accessible through tasks A.J. must patiently learn.

Young readers curious about horses, farm chores, and the responsibilities involved in caring for an animal will find an immediate point of connection with A.J. The book may also suit families seeking an approachable introduction to everyday childhood in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly stories shaped by the American West and Oklahoma farm life.

Its emphasis on patience, practice, and earning a place beside more experienced family members gives parents, grandparents, and educators several natural openings for conversations about growing independence. Readers who value stories preserved across generations may be especially interested in the family history behind A.J.’s adventure.

Dr. Roberts has a three-book middle grade series. Book one, The Galaxy According to Cece, began the series. Book two, The Galaxy According to Cece: The Mysterious Dr. Pruitt arrived next, followed by book three, The Galaxy According to Cece: The Stars Align.

Her debut chapter book series begins with Just Call Me Pardner. The second book, Just Look at Those Boots, launched March 2026 and book three, Just Don’t Give A Girl A Frog, is coming in 2027. Each book can stand alone in this series.

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Just Call Me Pardner places a deeply personal family story inside a child’s ambition to become useful on the farm. A.J.’s progress with Lady Star connects the excitement of receiving a first horse with the less glamorous work of learning, practicing, and providing consistent care. That balance gives the adventure its strongest appeal: becoming a “pardner” is not simply a title A.J. claims, but a responsibility he must grow into.

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A.J. has a brand-new pair of cowboy boots, a first-day-of-school plan, and every intention of enjoying both. What begins with kickball and a little dust soon leads back to the family farm, where chores, a waiting horse, and one poorly timed daydream turn those prized boots into part of a much bigger lesson. Inspired by Sherry Roberts’s father’s childhood in northeastern Oklahoma during the 1930s and 1940s, Just Look at Those Boots pairs a lively mishap with a glimpse of everyday rural life from another era.

A.J.’s attachment to his new boots gives younger readers an immediately understandable problem: how do you enjoy something special while still taking care of it? The answer unfolds through schoolyard play, farm responsibilities, and a horseback ride that goes off course when A.J.’s attention wanders. Rather than separating its lesson from the action, the story lets consequences do the teaching. 

The historical inspiration adds another layer--especially for older readers. Details such as farm chores, riding Lady Star, and Jon’s practical reminder to clean the boots connect A.J.’s adventure to childhood in northeastern Oklahoma during the 1930s and 1940s. That combination of mischief, responsibility, and family history gives adults several natural openings for conversation after the final page.

Young readers drawn to horses, cowboy boots, farm life, and energetic school-day adventures will find plenty here to recognize and discuss. The book also suits families and classrooms exploring personal responsibility, caring for belongings, staying attentive around animals, or comparing childhood routines across generations. Adults who value stories rooted in family memories may especially appreciate the way A.J.’s mishap preserves a small piece of Oklahoma history without turning the story into a history lesson.

Sherry Roberts holds a Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in Curriculum and Instruction. She is an award-winning author and photographer of children’s picture books: ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas…A First for Gus; Hello, Can I Bug You?; Sonnet, Sonnet, What’s In Your Bonnet?, The Best Reading Buddy; What’s Wrong With Barnaby?, A Visit Through the Wetlands, and Amica Helps Zoe. 

Dr. Roberts has a three-book middle grade series. Book one, The Galaxy According to Cece, began the series. Book two, The Galaxy According to Cece: The Mysterious Dr. Pruitt arrived next, followed by book three, The Galaxy According to Cece: The Stars Align. 

Her debut chapter book series begins with Just Call Me Pardner. The second book, Just Look at Those Boots, launched March 2026 and book three, Just Don’t Give A Girl A Frog, is coming in 2027. Each book can stand alone in this series.

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A pair of boots may be the object A.J. treasures, but attention and responsibility are the real concerns at the center of his day. The school-to-farm setting gives the story room to move from excitement to consequence, while the family history behind it lends weight to the ordinary details. Just Look at Those Boots offers a useful reminder that childhood lessons often arrive through muddy mistakes, unfinished chores, and the animals patient enough to wait for us.

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