We all come across a point in life where it becomes important to examine who we are and what we've achieved. I wrote a manuscript entitled "Cereus," following something similar to what many would call a mid-life crisis, despite not actually fitting the age group. I had examined the choices I'd made and found I'd been so set on paying my dues, ensuring a good career and juggling a fantastic family, that I had neglected the one thing I had been desperate to be my whole life—a published author. As I reflected, I realized that I had resigned myself to my dream not ever coming true, and set out to change this. I was overjoyed when Savant agreed to publish my work. The result is CEREUS (Savant 2017).


The novel, written in my favorite genre of magical fiction, involves a young girl, Danny Bennet, being hunted in her dreams for powers she didn't know she had. 

For me, dreams have always been a fascinating subject. As a child, I would dream of people I had never met and places I had never seen. When I slept, my dreams became worlds as seemingly real and valid to me as the one I lived in when I was awake. Dreams were like space: beautiful, a little scary, and vast, filled with endless possibilities and uncertainties.

CEREUS (Savant 2017) combines two things I can debate about for hours: mysteries surrounding dreams, and my fascination with right and wrong (good and bad if you prefer), the thin line dividing these opposites, and how that line can sometimes become very vague. 

As I wrote this novel, I felt the strong pull between the positive and the negative, the yin and yang, in not only the storyline, but also the characters. As I let the story flow, I found Danny had more choices to make than I first imagined: The complexity of her decisions and the way in which they had to unfold impacted the rest of the novel making it all feel like falling dominoes or, having thrown a stone into a lake, the ever-expanding ripples on water. Each of her actions would affect the other in ways that sometimes left me wide-eyed, even shedding a tear, creating an end result of which I couldn't be prouder. 

Though CEREUS (Savant 2017) ostensively touches on heavy issues like the struggle of good and evil, addiction, and how power corrupts, it also contains a lot of positive messages portrayed through Danny's friendships and the vast amount of love and acceptance that existed in her adoptive family. It is my utmost wish that you, my readers, will enjoy reading the book and fall in love with the characters and story as much as I have.