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

Two years ago, I shared a wild goal with you. I announced that I was going to write 1,440 books in 12 years, ten books a month, every month, for more than a decade. It was a huge, slightly ridiculous-sounding promise, but it felt like the truest way to match the size of the stories I wanted to tell and the worlds I wanted to build.

Now I get to share something even more fun. At this point, two years into the journey, my plan only required me to have 240 books finished. Instead, I have already completed and published 281 books (in English). That means I am not only on track, I am ahead of schedule, and that small margin feels like a deep breath after a long run. It tells me the daily work adds up and the crazy twelve year plan now has real pages and real covers attached to it.

If I kept going at this pace, I could probably finish the whole goal in about eight more years instead of ten. For now, though, I am not ready to officially speed it up. I like having a little buffer. It gives me room to experiment, to try new series, to adjust when life gets busy, and to make sure each book feels like its own world rather than just another tick on a scoreboard.

In the beginning, I honestly was not sure if I would have the energy to keep this up. The first few months left me a little worn out, and I wondered whether I had pushed myself into something that would grind me down rather than lift me up. Over time, though, the seven-day-a-week pace has settled into my life. Writing every day feels natural now, like brushing my teeth or drinking my morning Red Bull. It is no longer a question of “Can I do this?” but “What am I writing next?” and that shift has changed everything.

Along the way, I have started some projects that feel especially close to my heart. One of them is "Jataka Tale Rhymes," a series that retells early Buddhist stories about the Buddha’s past lives in clear, rhythmic verse for adult readers. These are tales of merchants and kings, talking animals, wise ascetics, and clever tricksters that first took shape in India and wandered across Asia, carrying lessons about discernment, compassion, and the cost of folly. I keep the core plots and settings, trim the heavy repetition, and aim for language that feels both faithful and fresh, so the poems can be enjoyed on a quiet evening alone or read aloud with family and friends.

Book 9 in that series is "The Mango Grove King," which begins with a small moment that changes everything. A single grey hair appears on a king’s head, and he chooses to hand his crown to his son and walk away from power into a mango grove where he can train his heart and mind instead. There, he learns to let loving kindness grow where pride once lived and to meet change with calm eyes instead of fear. While I am not going off to live in a mango grove, I recognize myself in that kind of decision. This long writing journey feels like its own form of learning, a steady practice of attention and reflection as each new book ripens, one after another, into something that teaches me as much as I hope it touches my readers.

One of the quiet joys of this whole experiment is how much I get to learn along the way. My fables series and fairy tale series both keep introducing me to stories I had never heard before, small regional variants, strange little motifs, and the way the same human hopes and fears dress up in different costumes from country to country. The mythology anthologies open doors into worlds of gods, heroes, and underworld journeys, and Little Lamb Rhymes invites me to sit with familiar Bible stories from angles that make them feel new again. Each book pulls me into research, reflection, and a kind of listening, and I come away knowing more about the worlds inside the stories and the world we share outside of them.

The same is true for my cozy mysteries, cryptid adventures, and all the other odd corners of my catalog. One day I am imagining the layout of a small seaside town so the clues in a mystery will feel real, the next I am exploring legends of hidden creatures or reading about cultural beliefs that shaped a folk tale. It is a constant flow of details, histories, and perspectives that would never have crossed my path if I were not writing these books. That steady discovery is a deep happiness for me. Each project is not just another title on a list, but a chance to be curious, to understand a little more, and to share that sense of wonder with anyone who decides to read along.

Initially, I also worried I might run out of ideas. How many stories can one person really tell before the well runs dry? The funny thing is that the opposite has happened. The more I write, the more ideas arrive. New series keep popping up in my mind, often while I am working on something entirely different, and when I step back and look at the outlines and plans, I can easily see paths that could carry me to 2,500 books or more. At this point, the only real question is not whether I will have enough stories, but how many years I will get to keep pouring them out onto the page.

Through all of this, I am deeply grateful for everyone who has chosen to walk alongside me. Whether you read every new release or simply peek in from time to time, your presence matters. I try to set each new book free on Kindle at least once after it comes out, so if you follow me on Facebook you can catch those windows, share them with friends, and be part of the journey even if you are not a big reader yourself. Knowing you are out there cheering, sharing, and checking in makes this grand experiment feel less like a solo marathon and more like a long, adventurous road trip with good company.

So here is to the original 1,440, the big crazy number that started this whole adventure, and to the quiet little thought that maybe, just maybe, 2,500 stories are waiting if life gives me the years. I plan to keep writing as long as I live, because I still wake up hungry for the next page and fall asleep thinking about the one after that. I love what I do, and at this point, I am happily addicted to the mix of writing, learning, and sharing the journey with you. As long as the words keep coming and you keep walking beside me, I will keep building new worlds and sending them out into yours.

Cheers,
Samuel DenHartog

I have wanted, for a long time, to gather the Christmas stories that feel like they belong around a fire, the kind you can read aloud and feel the room grow quieter. In "Fables from Christmas" you will find baby cradles and barn lanterns, crooked alleys and crowded parlors, cowboys on lonely ranges and children peeking from stairways past their bedtime. Some of the tales are as gentle as candlelight, others carry just enough mischief to make you smile, and together they sketch a wide circle around what this season can mean.

These pages gather beloved classics and half forgotten gems from Christmases long ago, retold with extra room to breathe. A poor traveler knocking on a stranger’s door, a princess escaping her own palace to find real laughter, a little girl who thinks the nativity baby might be cold, an old man who is sure joy has passed him by, each carries a different facet of hope, mercy, or second chances. I wanted the settings to feel vivid and lived in, with snow that crunches underfoot, fires that smoke and crackle, and kitchens that smell of bread and oranges. My hope is that each time you open to a new story, it feels like walking into a house where someone has been waiting for you.

The book moves back and forth between sacred and ordinary spaces, because most of our lives do the same. One night you may be with shepherds under a strange sky or standing near the first evergreen shining with light, the next you are in a cramped city room where children make a feast from whatever is on hand. Santa appears in a few corners, delighted, puzzled, or even surprised with gifts of his own, but just as often the focus is on quiet, unnamed people doing something kind when no one is watching. There are goblins with lessons to teach, scarecrows who find a purpose in winter, and even a family of mice who discover that Christmas has room for them too.

I hope readers will use this collection like an advent of stories, choosing one for each night when the days grow short and the air feels sharp and clean. Some pieces are short enough to slip between chores or bedtime routines, others invite you to settle in and linger. However you read them, my wish is that they will become part of your own family’s mix of carols, recipes, and traditions, resurfacing year after year as familiar friends in a changing season. If these fables can help even a little to keep kindness, wonder, and courage close at hand, then they will have done their work well.

When I first sat down to write "The Seven Dwarfs and Snow White", I wanted to begin not with a princess, but with a cottage full of miners who already had routines, loyalties, and regrets long before a frightened girl knocked on their door. The story opens on their world of early mornings, cramped tunnels, and quiet suppers, and the early chapters linger there. You get to know how each dwarf moves through the forest, what he hides, and what he refuses to leave behind. Their clearing feels small at first, almost forgotten, yet every path around it is heavy with unspoken history.

Into that private space stumbles a barefoot fugitive from the court, a girl used to being looked at rather than listened to. Once she joins the household, the narrative becomes a kind of negotiation between her presence and the lives that were already in motion. I enjoyed slowing down the famous moments and letting you see what it means to share a table, divide chores, and learn when to stay silent for someone else’s sake. The girl is not a symbol of purity here. She is a person in shock, trying to earn her place among seven very particular hosts.

The palace and the queen’s mirror never fully disappear, even when chapters stay deep in the woods. News arrives through peddlers, traveling singers, and rumors carried by men from the mines in other valleys. Poison, vanity, and envy circle the story like wolves outside a ring of firelight, and you watch how fear seeps into the cottage in small, believable ways. I wanted the tension to rise not only from magical dangers, but from the everyday question of who will speak up when it costs something and who will convince themselves that it is safer to do nothing.

What matters most to me in this book is the idea of chosen family under pressure. Seven strangers who once chose solitude must decide how far they will go to protect someone who might bring ruin to their door. A girl who has been valued only for her face must decide what she is willing to risk for the people who finally see more than that. If you enjoy fairy tales that keep their enchantment but open the doors wider on the characters who live inside them, I hope you will find this forest worth visiting and revisiting.

I have just released my newest mythology anthology, and this one lives where rivers meet stone. The collection opens with the land itself, because Khmer story begins with place. Fields are watched by neak ta and araks, banyans cradle offerings, and village paths lead toward temples that were planned as working models of the cosmos. From there the book follows the threads that entered the weave over centuries, showing how Indian gods and Buddhist compassion were absorbed into a Cambodian grammar of belief without losing the cadence of local spirits and rites.

The chapters are arranged alphabetically for clarity, but the entries talk to each other so the cosmology feels whole. A reader can move from Agni’s sacrificial fire to the cool arc of Chandra’s light, from Garuda’s hunt to the river coils of Naga, and then arrive at the Churning of the Ocean of Milk where Kurma steadies the mountain, apsaras rise, and Lakshmi returns. The human world is never far away. Guardians at thresholds stare from lintels, Kala devours the minutes that kings pretend to command, and the linga binds deity, sovereignty, and soil. Folktales and place legends keep step, so Vorvong and Sorvong wander beside Preah Ko and Preah Keo, and the mountain of Neang Kong Rey holds its quiet grief above Kampot.

Courtly epics take on a distinctly Cambodian voice. In the Reamker, Hanuman invents solutions that feel like statecraft, Suvannamaccha commands the sea with grace, and Vibhishana’s change of heart reads as conscience with a cost. Angkor’s galleries echo in the pages as more than art history. They become evidence of how myth was enacted in stone and procession. Later, compassion is carved into governance through Lokesvara under Jayavarman VII, while roadside shrines to Yeay Mao and vow scenes of Ta Dambong Kranhoung show how justice and protection are asked for at the very edges of travel.

This volume is a collection of tales told in a clear, story-first voice. I keep Khmer names and terms so the texture feels true, and I let each myth stand on its own without notes or detours. If you are ready for an anthology that treats rivers, rain, stone, vow, and memory as parts of one living system, you will find that spirit inside “Tales from the Cambodian Khmer.”

London is loud with music this Season, and the ballrooms feel like living creatures, warm with breath and rumor. At the center of the crush moves a widow in crimson who never eats in public and never wastes a word. Around her, a circle of glittering names trades sapphires for silence, then laughs about the cost over ices and compliments. I wanted a story where a single waltz could change the air in a room and a mask could be both costume and confession.

The romance carries heat and patience at once. Lord Adrian Whitcombe is not a rake in need of reform but a man who already knows the weight of honor in a city that forgets it by morning. He sees danger and still offers his hand. Their courtship plays out under chandeliers, on frost-bright terraces, and in a carriage where a vow tastes sweeter than wine. Each scene puts manners and desire in the same room and asks which will win.

Danger grows alongside the music. A stolen necklace becomes a thread that leads through routs, ridottos, and finally to a snowbound house party where guests are trapped with their own secrets. Iron burns, silver bites, and the night has more rules than the hostess’s card. I loved writing those candlelit corridors where truth has to reach for proof before dawn, and where justice can wear a gown and still carry a blade.

The world of "Masquerade at Midnight" belongs to gaslight and gossip, to affection that is both tender and fierce, and to a heroine who hunts evil without giving up the right to love. If you like your historical romance with high society sparkle and a heartbeat that quickens after midnight, this is your invitation. Will a waltz be enough to turn curiosity into devotion, and can a secret survive the light of morning without losing the people it protects?

Some stories arrive at a gallop. This novel pairs a Pony Express rider who lives by speed and instinct with a telegraph lineman who trusts timing, patience, and the click of the key. Their first meeting is not gentle, and that suits the valley where progress and nostalgia share the same dirt street. As poles rise and rumors spread, the town divides, and two strangers learn to measure each other in real work instead of easy talk.

The rider, Juniper Voss, knows every draw and wind shift, and the trail has taught her to carry fear without letting it steer. The lineman, Franklin Tate, hears code like notes in a song and believes messages can save lives if they are given a way through. They clash, then cooperate, then find themselves sharing coffee and learning simple phrases in Morse while a storm prowls the ridges. The book keeps its focus on action that reveals character, not speeches, so the quiet moments matter as much as the dangerous ones.

Readers will find stage wheels skidding toward a cliff, a grassfire held at a blackened line, a herd turned at the last second, and a cut where powder and wire wait in the dark. There are saboteurs who profit from chaos and neighbors who are slow to choose a side until it is almost too late. Between the frayed rope and the hiss of rain come small gestures that change everything, a lesson taught at the key, a gloved hand steadying a bridle, the kind of trust that can only be earned.

I wrote this to capture the instant when one era leans into another and hearts decide whether they can bend without breaking. It is about courage that looks like ordinary work done well and about love that refuses to rush even when the clock is pounding. If you have ever wondered how a rider built for open country could share a life with someone who strings wire across the sky, this book is my answer, and I hope you will ride the trail and listen for the hum beside it. You will find the title once inside these pages as a promise kept: "Last Rider, First Line."

Here it is at last, a confession told in the first person by a being who never asks for mercy. The narrator is the eldest of five sisters who hunt by moonlight, keep a ledger on stone, and believe fear should serve order. From the cave on the ridge she watches the lodges below, listens for a name called across the dark, and teaches her sisters the patience that turns footsteps into doorways. The taking is ritual, the tally is honest, and the songs after are short on comfort by design.

Across the middle of the book the law of the night is tested by a rival predator who hunts without measure. The sisters answer with cunning rather than strength, using voice, wind, and terrain to draw the intruder toward ruin. What matters is not victory for its own sake, but the boundary that keeps chaos from swallowing the valley. The narrator names the rule plainly so readers can feel it in every hunt that follows.

Later the story turns toward a legend many will recognize, yet it is told from the other side of the firelight. A boy is taken not as a prize but as a curiosity, a listener who might learn the night. His escape brings drums to the ridge and flames to the cave, and the people believe an ending has been won. The narrator does not accept their version. For her, the fire is a change of shape, not a grave.

The last pages travel south along new rivers and through groves of pale bark, where the voice learns new words to lure and the count resumes under different stars. Real details of Plateau lifeways thread the scenes, from camas blooms to cedar smoke, all seen through a gaze that admires skill but never repents. The result is a cold, steady intimacy that makes the dark feel ordered, almost sacred, and I hope that quality lingers after you close "Owl Woman: Keeper of the Night".

"Wrenford’s Seventh Wing" is a novel set on a cliff above the North Sea where a discreet clinic promises rest and order. The promise holds until a brass plaque begins to point toward a corridor that should not fit the floor plan. Rain changes the building in ways that are small at first, like the scent of camphor in dry weather or a nurse using a childhood nickname unprompted. The staff is impeccable, the rooms are polished, and none of that stops the feeling that the hospital knows more about its patients than it should.

The heart of the story is Elinor, who tracks reality the way an art historian tracks provenance. She keeps an index of sights, smells, and times, trying to separate symptom from fact while the place rearranges itself around storms. Wheelchairs arrive at beds without hands on the grips, ledgers record names that fade to pale imprints, and the year 1913 keeps glinting through polite modern routines. The question is not only what is happening, but what the hospital wants from her and which version of her it prefers to keep.

You will find curatorial horror rather than splatter. The clinic collects and arranges rather than simply restrains. Hints of an older medical theater appear when lightning climbs the sky, and the building seems to file the living beside artifacts it describes with elegant handwriting. I wanted the dread to arrive through ordinary details that accumulate until denial no longer stands, so the novel leans on clocks that repeat a minute, curtains that stay damp, and documents that change when no one is looking.

At its core the book is about control, memory, and the price of choosing who we are. Elinor’s intelligence is her lantern, yet even a clear mind must decide what to keep and what to let go when a place insists on writing your label for you. The sea breathes below the windows, the storms keep their schedule, and the nurse still hums the skipping rhyme that children once used to find safe doors. I hope the story leaves you with a steady pulse, a few questions, and a sense that some corridors only open for those who are willing to look.

New York starts loud and hot, then the alarms take over and the air feels like it can cut skin. The opening run is simple to describe and hard to live through: get out before the city eats you. Scenes end with hard choices that are not telegraphed or coached, and the next page does not reward cleverness so much as risk. You pick a door, a stairwell, a roofline, and the book either lets you breathe for a moment or drops you into a pit you did not see coming.

Once the bridges or the river give you a way out, time jumps forward to the weeks after. The world is thinner, food and medicine are scarce, and people organize because they have to, not because they want to. Choices keep coming, and they are rarely gentle. Some paths punish compassion, others punish caution, many punish both. The text does not promise fairness and does not leave breadcrumbs. You feel your way through and accept what follows.

Months later the map has fewer names and more scars. Town lines blur, barricades turn into borders, and quiet places breed the worst stories. The pages still present doors to open and roads to take, but survival comes from stubborn reading rather than solving a puzzle. You will try, fail, and try again, because that is what the world has become.

"Survive the Zombie Apocalypse" is a book of choices without safety rails, where over fifty endings end badly and only three lead to anything like living. There are no fair signals, only decisions under pressure. You will learn the hard way, and if you make it out, it will be because you kept turning pages when the book gave you no reason to believe you could survive.

The city’s quiet corners come alive with puzzles that invite careful eyes and steady judgment. A diamond vanishes without a broken latch. A violin goes missing while its bow returns wrong. An elevator pause becomes a moving wall for misdirection. Each investigation asks readers to choose their next lead and accept the consequences that follow, one deliberate turn at a time, in “The Detective’s Casebook”.

The structure favors fair play. Clues are placed in plain sight, never hidden by tricks the reader could not know. Glare angles, receipt times, ribbon tints, and footprints in silt are presented as evidence, not decoration. Success flows from noticing what the text already gives, from matching a partial print to a mirror blind spot to testing whether an alibi survives a clock’s delay.

Nine cases unfold across theft, fraud, sabotage, blackmail, and a single homicide handled with care. Early chapters establish mechanics such as clue codes that unlock deeper paths and time costs that close options if wasted. Later paths reward combinations of earlier finds, so a choice made in the gallery can resonate at the canal. Endings range from clean arrests to uneasy closures that suggest one more pass through the evidence.

Readers who like to reason things out will find clues that reward careful thinking. These are mysteries you can map, annotate, and revisit with purpose. The cases wait with their answers in plain sight for anyone who reads with care.