D.M. Shepard's Blog

A new spin on Beauty and the Beast involving, fairies, magic, and a contest. I’m a huge fan of fairytales and fairy tale retellings, so I was very eager to read Beauty and Deceit, Anderson’s take on the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. First off, I really enjoyed how she got away from …

Continue reading "My Review of Carol Beth Anderson’s Beauty and Deceit."

Book Review Nope, it’s not Game of Thrones, nor is it Hamlet. It’s The Ghosts of Grief Hollow, the sequel to his macabre tale The Tear Collector (recently renamed The Tears of Grief Hollow). It’s amazing when you get to the end of a book, and think, what the hell did I just read, but …

Continue reading "My Review of Shawn Burgess’s The Ghosts of Grief Hollow"

Or, what if Voldemort won, and he was female instead and kind of kinky? Better Than Dead was a wild departure from Eric’s Henchmen series. In this piece of speculative fiction things that go bump in the night: sorcerers, vampires, ghouls, gorgons, giants, basically every fictional magic creature in the pantheon have revealed themselves to …

Continue reading "Sin City meets Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them: My Review of Eric Lahti’s Better Than Dead"

http://ericlahti.com/ Let me set the scene. You wake up, and there’s two people in your house drinking your coffee and beer. Oh, and they came to kill you. Must be a Tuesday for Steven, our anti-hero in Eric Lahti’s Arise, sequel to Henchmen. After unleashing the God of Dreams and taking out congress, he thought …

Continue reading "ARISE: My Review of the Second Book in Eric Lahti’s Henchmen Series"

A Stream of Consciousness through Anarchy and Mental Health in 1985 Salt Lake City https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133189/ Unreliable Narrator In some stories, you don’t know that the MC is an unreliable narrator, you only find out at the end. Not in SLC Punk! Right from the start, we know that Stevie is an unreliable narrator, but we …

Continue reading "SLC PUNK!—A Review"

Tales From the Dating Vault: The One Time I Stood Someone Up. Having been stood up and ghosted myself more than once, I find that behavior pretty childish. I will admit, there was one time I did it and I have no regrets. I’ll explain. I met Todd* when I was working a week on/week …

Continue reading "He “Forgot” to Tell Me He Was Married. So, I Forgot to Meet Him for Our Date."

I’m taking a break this week from my 30-Day Space Available Adventure to dip back into the Dating Vault. I was joking with one of my younger single friends about booty calls. How long is it acceptable for a guy to keep your number in his queue, then call you up out of the blue …

Continue reading "The Statute of Limitations on A Booty Call: Weird Dating Tales of Old"

Day trip to Savannah, GA: Contemplation… Since it was the last day I would have my rental car, I took a day trip down the highway to Savannah, GA one of my favorite places. I walked the riverfront and the old squares of the antebellum city. I always admired the way the Spanish moss hung …

Continue reading "Ripping the Bandage off Quickly: My 30-Day Space Available Adventure, Part 5"

Killing Time and Relaxing Those summer days hanging out on the beach, sometimes with Jake, but most of the time alone (he did have a job) were some of the best of my life. I finished The Two Towers and started The Return of the King. I managed to burn the hell out of my …

Continue reading "A Rift Opens with A Hard Truth: My 30 Day Space Available Adventure, Part 4"

We left off last time with Jake’s request: “You don’t have to sleep in the Livingroom tonight. No. Let me put it another way. Sleep with me tonight?” So what did I do? Spoiler Alert! I didn’t sleep on the couch… I will spare you the gory details, this isn’t a purple prose romance. But …

Continue reading "Electric Connection: My 30 Day Space Available Adventure, Part 3"