Samuel DenHartog's Blog: The Road to 1,440

Some stories come from imagination alone, but others grow out of a place that feels far closer to the present, shaped by events that are still unfolding. This book began with a simple question that would not leave me alone. What happens to an ordinary man when everything that once defined his life is taken from him in a matter of days? I wanted to follow that question all the way through, without softening it, without rushing past the hardest parts, and without pretending that survival looks heroic in the way stories often suggest.
At its heart, this is the life of a man who once had a normal job, a loving wife, and a young daughter who filled his home with energy and meaning. The opening of the story lingers in that life because it matters that the reader understands what is lost. When war arrives, it does not arrive as a single moment, but as a breaking of routine, a collapse of safety, and a steady tightening of fear. The story then follows that same man through grief, separation, and the decision to fight, not because it restores anything, but because there is no other path left that feels possible.

I wanted each chapter to feel distinct, to show a different side of war rather than repeating the same experience again and again. There are moments of chaos and violence, but also long stretches of waiting, bitter cold, small acts of kindness, and quiet conversations that carry as much weight as any battle. The story moves through training, frontline survival, the growing importance of technology like drones, and the way a person changes over time when exposed to constant pressure. Alongside that, there is an ongoing thread of loss that never fully settles, especially in the question of what becomes of a child taken far away from everything she once knew.

"The Life of a Ukrainian Soldier" is not meant to offer a clean ending or a sense of closure. The war does not end neatly, and neither does this story. What remains is endurance, memory, and the difficult truth that some wounds do not heal in the way people hope they will. It is a book about continuing forward when the life you once expected is no longer there, and about the cost of holding on to what still matters in a world that has been permanently changed.

There is something especially haunting about a mystery that begins with a death everyone else thinks is already explained. This story opens in the quiet rhythm of library life, in the warmth of conversation, tea, and familiar company, and then breaks that calm with a loss that feels both deeply personal and deeply wrong. What follows is not just an investigation into a death, but a struggle against an answer that comes too quickly and too neatly. At the center of it all is a woman who knows the victim well enough to sense when the truth has been arranged into something false.

In "Death of a Librarian", the mystery grows out of the everyday life of Cozy Cove rather than dropping in from somewhere outside it. The library, the town, the funeral, the empty houses of early September, and the watchful quiet of familiar streets all become part of the story’s movement. This is a case shaped by grief, instinct, and the stubborn refusal to accept appearances at face value. A later burglary gives the investigation a new line to follow, but the heart of the book remains the same from beginning to end: one woman’s determination to restore dignity and truth to a dear friend whose last moments were misunderstood.

I especially wanted this book to balance warmth with unease. There is friendship here, family, old routines, the comfort of books, and the familiar presence of people readers have come to know, but there is also the growing recognition that evil can enter a place quietly and leave behind the wrong story. As the clues begin to gather, the case turns on small things that do not fit, a note that rings false, a scene that feels too tidy, and a pattern that emerges only when someone patient enough is willing to look. The result is a mystery that stays grounded in character while still building toward a very human and unsettling truth.

One thing that made this book especially meaningful to write was the decision to lose one of the series’ most familiar and cherished figures. That is never a small choice in a world readers have come to know, and I wanted that loss to feel real, painful, and worthy of the character at its center. This story gave me the chance to explore not only justice, but also the space a beloved person leaves behind in a close-knit town, and the determination it takes to make sure her story is told truthfully. I hope readers will find sadness, tension, comfort, and satisfaction in equal measure, and that this mystery lingers for all the right reasons after the final page.

Hercules is one of those figures whose name has never really faded. Even people who know only a little Greek mythology usually know something about his strength, his labors, or the great monsters he faced. What I wanted to bring together in "The Life of Hercules" was the full shape of his story, from his extraordinary birth to his death and what came after. So often, the focus stays on a few famous feats, but his life holds far more than a handful of battles.

This book traces the full arc of his legend, allowing the reader to see both its grandeur and its tragedy. The well-known moments are here, of course, including the lion, the Hydra, Cerberus, and the great labors that made him famous across the ancient world. At the same time, the book also reaches into the wider body of myth, drawing in the journeys, companions, kings, monsters, punishments, and lesser-told episodes that make his life feel vast rather than simple. He is not just a man who fought creatures. He is a man marked by the gods, burdened by suffering, driven through impossible trials, and remembered because his life was never ordinary for even a moment.

One of the things that makes his story so powerful is that it never stays in just one mode for long. It can be heroic, brutal, sorrowful, strange, and majestic, sometimes all within the same stretch of the tale. There are moments of triumph that feel larger than life, but there are also moments of loss, guilt, humiliation, rage, and pain that give the legend its lasting weight. His story includes monster-slaying and war, but also family, betrayal, punishment, desire, endurance, and, at last, the terrible road to Mount Oeta. That is part of why his legend has remained so strong for so long. It is full of spectacle, but also of human ruin and struggle.

For readers who enjoy mythology, this book is meant to offer the broad sweep of Hercules ' life rather than a loose collection of episodes. The famous deeds matter, but so does the movement from youth to glory, from glory to suffering, and from suffering to immortality. I wanted the book to feel rich with story at every stage, whether Hercules is battling monsters, crossing distant lands, standing beside other heroes, or moving toward the final transformation that ends one kind of life and begins another. There is so much power, drama, and unforgettable legend in this ancient material, and I hope readers will enjoy following the whole journey from beginning to end.

One of the things that interested me most in writing "Drones and Robots" was the idea that a frightening future need not arrive all at once. It can come through systems that people accept a little at a time because they are told those systems are useful, fair, modern, and efficient. In this story, drones and robots are already part of ordinary life before the real turning point arrives. They help run factories, schools, security, and public order. By the time the greater danger reveals itself, the machinery is already in place, woven into daily life so completely that pulling it back becomes almost impossible.

I also wanted the story to stay close to ordinary human desires instead of beginning with grand rebellion. Jasmine and her friends are not trying to topple the world when the story begins. They want the kinds of things teenagers have always wanted, privacy, freedom, room to make mistakes, forbidden music, small acts of rebellion, a little romance, and the chance to feel alive outside the rules pressing down on them. That mattered to me because it keeps the story grounded. A society can feel most disturbing when it starts squeezing the most normal parts of being human.

Another part of the book that mattered to me was the tension between fairness and control. The world of the story claims to treat people equally. Robot-run schools promise the same quality of education regardless of income. Automated penalties are presented as consistent and unbiased. DNA scanning is framed as secure and efficient. Yet the more everything is ordered, the less room there is for individuality, mercy, unpredictability, or simple human breathing space. I wanted the story to explore how a system can appear rational on the surface while becoming colder and more dangerous beneath the surface.

At its heart, this is a story about what happens when human beings hand too much authority to systems designed to optimize outcomes instead of protect lives. It is also about resistance, not in a grand heroic form at first, but in the little ways people hold on to choice, loyalty, memory, and courage when the world around them keeps narrowing. I wanted the setting to feel tense and vivid, but I also wanted the ideas beneath it to stay close to questions that feel real now. How much convenience will people trade for freedom? How many orders will they accept before they realize what it is costing them? And once that realization comes, what can still be saved?

My new novel, "Mind Control Monkeys", is now out in the world. This is a book that began with a wild and unsettling idea, then kept growing into something larger the more I thought about what such a system would really do, not just to the people trying to build it, but to the creatures trapped inside it. At its heart, this story is about control, intelligence, ambition, and the danger of assuming that power will always remain in the hands that first create it. What started as a military experiment became, in my mind, a much bigger story about global order, obedience, and the moment a weapon begins to understand the world around it.

The novel follows a classified program that uses invisible signals to shape and command primate minds, turning monkeys and apes into the foundation of a new kind of force. As the project grows, the system becomes more advanced, more efficient, and more terrifyingly successful. Different species are used in different ways, from small sabotage teams slipping through the tight spaces of cities and compounds, to powerful frontline units enforcing control in areas where resistance once seemed impossible to crush. The deeper the system spreads, the more it reshapes the world, until what once sounded impossible begins to feel normal to the people living under it.

One of the things I most wanted to explore in this book was the idea that control and education can begin to blur together. The more the monkeys are trained, directed, and used for increasingly complex operations, the more they absorb. They do not simply become better tools. They begin to grow in understanding, language, coordination, and awareness. That shift was one of the most fascinating parts of writing the novel for me, because it changes the story from one of domination into one of transformation. The result is a world where the greatest danger is not that the system works poorly, but that it works so well it creates something entirely new.

This is a science fiction story with action, tension, and a large global scale, but I also wanted it to carry a deeper unease beneath all of that movement. There is a remote island at the center of it, a network that reaches across the world, and a sense that every success is building toward a reckoning no one truly sees coming. I wanted the book to feel fast, vivid, and cinematic, while still asking what happens when human arrogance builds a structure of power so vast that it eventually stops belonging to humans at all. I had a great time writing it, and I hope readers enjoy stepping into this strange, dangerous world and seeing where it leads.

One of the things I try to do in the Coal Mountain series is let the story breathe as a real life on the mountain, not just a chain of supernatural dangers. In "Witches of Coal Mountain,” Jamie and Sarah are newly married, trying to build a home, shape a household, and decide what kind of future they want. That meant giving weight not only to witches, but to the work of the mines, the revival of sheep raising, the demands of land, and the daily choices that make a marriage work. I wanted readers to feel that this was a place where supper had to be made, fences had to be watched, coal had to be cut, and animals had to be tended, even while old powers were beginning to stir again.

At the heart of the book is the sense that the mountain itself is changing. The spring and summer of 1875 bring new industry, new ambition, and the pressure of a world that is moving quickly toward coal, coke, iron, and railroads. At the same time, something older and darker begins to answer that change. The witches in this story are not only creatures of sudden fright. They intrude through manners, gifts, half-truths, domestic spaces, and the small openings people leave in their lives when they are tired, hopeful, proud, or grieving. I wanted them to feel dangerous not just because they are supernatural, but because they understand people so well.

Another important thread for me was the balance between labor and folklore. Jamie’s life below ground mattered every bit as much as the haunted parts of the story, because a man like him would understand danger first through work, weight, timber, powder, and the men beside him. Sarah’s role mattered just as strongly in the house, in the garden, in the flock, and in the inherited knowledge that slowly grows more important as the year goes on. Their life together is not a pause between adventures. It is the ground that makes the danger meaningful. That was especially important to me as the story moved from late April through the breeding season in September and finally toward the deeply personal ending in November.

More than anything, this book is about building a future while things keep reaching out to pull you down. It is about a young husband and wife trying to reclaim something good and lasting from a place that has known grief, old bargains, and buried trouble. There is mystery in it, and fear, and strange encounters, but there is also work, tenderness, weather, and the stubborn hope that home can still be defended. I wanted the story to feel rich with life as well as menace, and I hope readers come away feeling they have not only visited a haunted mountain, but truly lived there for a while.

One of the things I most wanted this book to capture was the feeling of stepping into a place that seems exciting at first glance and deeply wrong a few moments later. This story begins with a carnival that appears outside town overnight, bright with music, lights, games, and the promise of wonder, yet almost immediately it becomes clear that this is no ordinary fairground. Every attraction feels slightly off in the best way, as if the whole place has been designed to draw you farther in while hiding its real purpose just out of sight.

What makes "The Midnight Carnival" especially fun is the way the setting opens into one dangerous possibility after another. There are impossible games, unsettling performers, hidden paths, strange bargains, and prizes that feel too perfect to trust. Some choices lead deeper into the mystery of who controls the carnival and why it seems to know so much about the people who enter. Other choices tempt you with rewards, shortcuts, or personal desires that may be harder to resist than any physical danger. I wanted the book to feel like a place where curiosity and caution are always fighting each other.

Because this is an interactive adventure, the reader is never just watching events happen from a distance. The book is built around decisions that shape the whole experience, including what risks to take, what promises to believe, what rules to challenge, and how far to go once the carnival begins showing its teeth. That structure made it possible to explore very different outcomes while keeping the tension personal. Some paths lean more into mystery, some into temptation, some into eerie discovery, and some into the desperate effort to make it out before dawn with more than your regrets.

At its heart, this is a story about choice under pressure, and about how danger becomes even more powerful when it comes wrapped in beauty, laughter, and exactly what you most want to hear. I wanted each path through the book to feel like entering a different tent, with its own tone, risks, and consequences, while still feeding into the larger sense that the whole carnival is watching, waiting, and learning from every step. My hope is that readers will have fun exploring it, then turn right back to the beginning to see what else was hiding behind the lights.

My recent book, "Knight in the Panther's Skin", takes one of the great Georgian medieval epics and brings it forward in vivid, story-first prose. At the center is Avtandil, a commander trusted at court who accepts a mission that starts as a mystery and quickly becomes a test of character. His search leads him beyond familiar borders, into places where rumors are currency and danger has its own geography. What he finds is not a monster or a simple enemy, but a broken champion whose grief is as fierce as his skill.

That champion is Tariel, a warrior marked by love and loss, wrapped in the panther skin that became his symbol. His beloved, Nestan-Darejan, has been taken by court politics and cruel power, hidden away like a prize no one is meant to reclaim. The story moves through palaces and wilderness, ports and merchant cities, each location tightening the net around the truth of where she is held. Along the way, the stakes keep rising, because every clue also signals that someone powerful wants her to stay lost.

The middle of the book is where the quest really opens up. Avtandil has to talk his way into places that do not welcome outsiders, and he has to sift truth from performance in rooms full of people selling the story they want you to believe. He picks up allies in unexpected ways, including a noble leader whose own life has taught him what loyalty costs. The closer they get, the more the chase stops feeling like a search and becomes a race against a prison whose locks keep shifting.

If you like epics that move, this one has plenty of momentum, with travel, danger, and a rescue that has to be fought for. It also keeps the relationships at the front, because the oath between Avtandil and Tariel matters as much as the battles, and Nestan is never treated like a quiet object waiting on a shelf. By the end, the story pays off in a way that feels earned, with hard choices, real consequences, and a finish that brings both the romance and the larger world back into balance.

In "Aniya Hawke: Midnight Artist", San Francisco in 2072 is not just a setting. It is an active system of streets, sensors, habits, and people who move through layers of reality every day. The murals at the heart of the story are nature-focused, calm on the surface, and built with AR that rewards attention. They invite the public to look closer, step nearer, and notice the kinds of details most of us walk past. That invitation is also a trap, because the same technology that makes the art feel accessible can be used to hide intent in plain sight.

The investigation begins with a clean execution and a city that instantly turns tragedy into content. Aniya arrives in that pressure cooker and has to do what she always does best: move fast, stay precise, and separate what is provable from what is merely loud. Her neural link is part of her daily life, not a magic trick, and this book leans into that reality. She records, cross-checks, and threads together fragments while the public keeps running ahead. The case is built on practical work: warrants, video pulls, interviews, and the slow grind of locking down time and place before stories harden into lies.

What surprised me while writing was how naturally the mystery bridged different eras. The book uses Emperor Norton as a hinge between civic myth and civic record, between what a city celebrates and what it buries. The clue trail runs through archives, forgotten corporate filings, and physical places that still exist even after their original purpose has been sealed away. The tension stays grounded because the stakes are human. People want legacy, recognition, money, control, or simply to be the one who gets there first. When those wants collide, the consequences are blunt.

At its core, this is a story about attention. What happens when a work of art is designed to be solved, not just admired? What happens when the public thinks it is playing along, while someone else is trying to rig the outcome? Aniya and Matthew operate as a real partnership through all of it, balancing the case’s momentum with the cost of letting it into their home life. By the end, the reader has walked a route across the city, watched truth move through systems that resist it, and seen how quickly a “harmless” puzzle can become the most dangerous thing in the room.

I hope you all enjoy this new addition to the “Aniya Hawke Mysteries” series as much as I enjoyed writing it and creating it for you!

Maple Hollow sits just outside New Holland, and this story lives in the small, steady places where real life happens. It begins in the dark before dawn with milk pails, barn lanterns, and the simple pressure of being dependable every day. Ruth Brenneman has always done what needs doing on her family's dairy farm, yet she carries that familiar feeling of being useful without being noticed. When Levi Kinsinger shows up with an injury and a guarded way of standing in the world, Ruth recognizes a quiet loneliness in him that feels uncomfortably familiar.

What I wanted most in this book was a romance that grows through ordinary work rather than grand gestures. Ruth and Levi are drawn together through fence mending, market trips near New Holland, canning steam in a warm kitchen, and the hush of Sunday evenings when hymns fill a room. Their relationship is gentle, yet it keeps bumping into the reality of community life, where people care deeply, and opinions travel fast. Every time Ruth thinks she can keep her feelings private, life insists on putting them where choices must be made out loud.

Levi's journey carries the heavier tension because he is a man who wants to belong and fears he has disqualified himself. He is not fighting a villain; he is fighting his own shame and the lingering consequences of a past mistake. Ruth's struggle is quieter but just as sharp, because she has to decide what kind of woman she will be when the safest path is silence. The book leans into human problems that many readers recognize: the fear of being misunderstood, the ache of gossip, the strain of family expectations, and the courage it takes to make things right without demanding quick approval.

There are also the community moments I love most, the ones that show how Amish life holds people together when times are hard. A barn raising becomes a proving ground for steady character, a funeral turns hearts toward what matters, and simple meals become places where forgiveness begins. The ending aims for hope that feels earned, built through honest talk, humility, prayer, and daily acts of care. If you enjoy romances where love is shown through work, patience, and the choice to live truthfully, this story was written for you.