Generally speaking, I am not a holiday person. I maybe do a little something for Christmas. My plans for this new year are the same as for last new year: I plan to be in bed with my sweatpants on, writing.

Bah, Humbug. There, I said it.

Christmas Lights this year in Prešeren SquareChristmas lights on Trubarjeva Street

Still, I do like to see how things have progressed over time regarding my writing. A period of three-sixty-five and one fourth days, starting from January 1 is as good a measurement of time as any to have a retrospective, not least because it seems to be how a sizable chunk of people on planet Earth choose to count their accomplishments. So, here goes.

2023 saw my business and brand evolve in different ways again this year. My total number of books grew by four again. I now have a total of thirty works in print, in genres ranging from historical fantasy, to alternative history, action-adventure as well as thrillers and mysteries.

I also had a great presentation and sellout book signing at the Slovenian Union of America’s convention in Pueblo, Colorado. I began to get into making audiobooks of my works. For the for the first time, I’ve begun to penetrate the Slovenian market through a provisional deal with the Slovenian brick-and-mortar bookseller Sanje. Oh, and did I forget to mention that I started a YouTube channel with super cool video trailers of my books and, above all, Slovenian nutria?

What follows reads like something between a blog post and a newsletter, kind of like those ‘year in review’ letters that we used to get from various people my parents knew along with Christmas cards, back when I was a kid. Personally, I always found those letters annoying. I’m putting this out there on my little patch of the internet where people can read it or not. So, hopefully that’s nothing as egregiously cringe-worthy.

New Books Published

Over the past year my output has been mostly in the area of expanding two of my existing series. My bestselling alternative history thriller The Russia Chronicles, and my contemporary thriller/mystery series Poor Little Rich Kids.

Two New Books in Poor Little Rich Kids

I kicked off 2023 with a new release in January of the third book in Poor Little Rich Kids, The Underdogs of Tarzan.

The series details the tumultuous young lives of Svetlana and Sasha, a Bulgarian street child and a Ukrainian war orphan, as well as their curmudgeonly adoptive dad, Luka, a booze-loving Slovene-American emigrant to Central-Eastern Europe whose character is partially based on yours truly. Once adopted into a wealthy family, it seems that adventure and mystery just won’t leave the them alone as they go about their lives in Europe while Sasha and Svetlana pursue careers in professional figure skating.

The Underdogs of Tarzan picks up their story as teenagers, when they are sent on a forced summer vacation to a campsite on the Kolpa River, on Slovenia’s border with Croatia.

A cross-cultural faux pas gets Sasha and Svetlana involved in Tarzan: A game of acrobatic jumping off a rope swing by day, but linked to a dangerous after-dark competition involving drugs, sex, migrant trafficking and popularity that all of the local teens take part in. At first, the two young skaters excel at the acrobatic part of the game, but quickly find themselves in over their heads. When Tarzan’s dark shenanigans start to threaten Sasha’s life and her own, will Svetlana have what it takes to expose Tarzan for what it really is, under threats of death should she reveal its secrets?

In November of this year, I also published my thirtieth novel and the fourth book in the Poor Little Rich Kids series: Svetlana’s Game.

Now eighteen, Svetlana’s chance for an Olympic gold skate has finally come. But as she heads to the 2030 Olympic figure skating championships in Riga, Latvia, she finds herself the target of a series of threats against her and her family should she skate. Then, when Sasha is kidnapped and her roommate in the Olympic Village is found murdered, Svetlana becomes the prime suspect. Now a fugitive, she must solve the mystery and find her brother if she is to finally have her chance on the Olympic ice.

Note: I mention these books as numbers three and four in the series because that was the order that they were published in. Poor Little Rich Kids is designed so that you can read the books in any order.

This will be the last book in the Poor Little Rich Kids as such. However, I have left the door open for a future sequel series in which Sasha and his new girlfriend, a Spanish girl named Almerilla, who is a member of a secret sect of the Knights Templar, must find and keep certain aincient artifacts from the wrong hands.

I have already outlined the first book in that series: Sasha, Almerilla and the Quest for the Holy Wine Glass. If I ever decide to tackle it, it will be the first novel that I have written set largely in the contemporary United States. Strap in and hold on tight!

Rounding out The Russia Chronicles

During the middle part of the year, I found myself circling back to one of my best selling series, the alternative history thriller The Russia Chronicles. I had planned to end the series after book four, but it occurred to me that my street-rat turned next-leaders-of-Russia heroes had another part of their story.

In books one through four (which you do have to read in order), the main characters go from being a gang of Russian homeless youth to taking on the most powerful man in Russia and seizing power over the country. It all starts when Peter, an American teenager is stranded in Moscow and is forced to throw his lot in with a band of street teens, one of whom, little Katya, it turns out has unfortunate and unlikely ties to both the Kremlin and the Romanov dynasty.

Book five: Katya or Russia, picks up just after Peter, Katya and their friends have taken power in the Kremlin. Now they must hold on to it, and justify themselves on the world stage.

Unbenounced to them, another homeless youth leaves the remnants of his home in the Moscow city dump, intent on reuniting a long lost member of Katya’s gang with the rest of her found family as they are pursued by the remains of the Wagner paramilitary group, while Katya herself heads out of Russia for her first visit abroad: a tense meeting with the leaders of the United States and the European Union that will determine Russia’s future place in the world.

My editor said that this was the best thing I had written so far!

During the earlier summer months, I wrote a coda to the story of Katya and her gang (Some inside baseball here: Yes, although Peter is the main character of book one, I do consider Katya to be the main character of the series). Ten years after their taking power and ruling in prosperous peace, a new force arises from deep in the gangs past. Calling themselves The Blazing Wheel, in a reference to ancient Slavic mythology, they are intent destroying Katya and her friends by any means necessary, including the nuclear option. Can Katya, all of Russia and her gang find their enemy’s dirty nukes before the country they have fought so hard to protect goes up in a mushroom cloud?

For now, this is all I have planned for The Russia Chronicles. But, who knows what other mysteries and crises might befall them during the rest of their reign? I loved writing the main characters of The Russia Chronicles, especially Katya. You may see me circling back around to them yet again in the unnamed future.

Guest at the SUA’s Conference

As a citizen and full time resident of Slovenia who writes in English, it is sometimes hard to find opportunities to connect with my fans and meet new potential readers face to face. When the Slovenian Union of America invited me to be one of their speakers at their convention in Pueblo, Colorado, it was the perfect time for me to get on a plane and go.

My presentation on moving to and life in Slovenia as a Slovene-American was given to a packed audience and needed an encore running to people including the Slovenian Consul General in Cleveland, Ohio.

The SUA was also kind enough to let me set up a table with some of my Slovenia and Balkan centered novels, including Nutria Tales, a survival adventure about nutria, or swamp rats, set in the river that runs through Slovenia’s capital city, and my alternative history of the breakup of Yugoslavia, Tito’s Lost Children.

I knew I had some recognition among the Slovene-American community, but I was truly shocked at the amount of interest. I brought about one-hundred books to the convention. They all sold out within five hours.

As I said, I don’t get to do this sort of thing often. This was my first book signing and it was a great success. Thank you SUA!

Audiobook of The Kosovo War

The end of 2023 saw the beginning of my venture into recording some of my works as audiobooks. I began with The Kosovo War, a spinoff novella from Tito’s Lost Children. It is a story about an orphan and his brother who are made to fight as child soldiers during the 1998-9 conflict in Kosovo — and navigate impossible relationships with the family of the captor who killed their parents. This shorter intensely character driven story seemed like the perfect place for me to start finding my voice as a narrator. It became available on Amazon and Itunes in early December.

In 2024, I hope to record the first book I wrote in the Poor Little Rich Kids series, The Testimony of Some Poor Little Rich Kids.

My Books Available in a Bookstore

During the beginning of December, following a fruitful meeting at the Slovenian Book Convention in Ljubljana, eleven of my titles have been selected by the Slovenian book publisher Sanje to be placed in their bookshops. Apparently, they even count me as a Slovenian author.

Hopefully the sales go well in the new year and it becomes a regular arrangement.

Book Trailers and Nutria

During May of this year I started my own YouTube channel aimed at promoting my books, with nifty book trailers that you should go check out under the title “That Slavic Writer Guy.”

Unexpectedly, it started gaining popularity for my daily shorts of the nutria who live in Slovenia’s Ljubljanica River. So, come for the books and stay for the nutria. Or, wait, should that be the other way around…

What’s Next?

Aside from the new directions that I might take my two existing series in the future, mentioned above, I have a brand new series that will begin to come out in January 2024.

The Circle of Fire is an action-adventure story about two Western teens who are captured by the Afghan Taliban in 2021 and must find a way to survive in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the US withdrawal of troops from the region.

Book one: In Pakistan, is currently with the editor and will be out in about a month. Look for it this January.

I am also planning to run sales on the full series of The Russia Chronicles and Poor Little Rich Kids early in the new year.

Hopefully that will get 2024 — otherwise known as long march of days that start from soon here on out — off to a running start!