Category: Books

My newest novel, Into The Other Side, will be available on Amazon on March 1st, 2025.

What would happen if there was a world hidden within our own, holding back creatures that want to invade our reality?

That’s what Into The Other Side explores. It is a novel that follows a drama professor named Phaedra, who finds a pair of sunglasses that allows her to see strange, monstrous creatures whenever she removes them from her eyes. Nobody else can see the creatures except her, leaving her to face them on her own. As the creatures wreak havoc, she must find a way to stop them, or else break the curse affecting her eyes!

I wrote Into The Other Side last year on a typewriter, which was my first time completing a novel on one. It was a lengthy process, and it took some getting used to, especially the clacky sounds that echoed off the walls, not to mention that I could type much faster on the computer. But the patience required to type on a typewriter allowed me to think about every sentence and word I wrote, since it required effort/force to press the keys firmly enough for the ink show up on the page.

Below you can find the link to the Goodreads Book Giveaway for the book. The print and ebook versions of Into The Other Side will be available on March 1st, 2025 if you want to get a copy before or after the giveaway ends (March 4th).

Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoy the story!

Happy reading!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Into The Other Side

by Fallton Havenstonne

Giveaway ends March 04, 2025.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

I’m excited for the Kindle release of The Sea Rescuers tomorrow. The paperback version for it will be available on September 16th.

The novel started off as a short story, but as I wrote it, the story grew, and it soon expanded to different locations with new characters and world-building elements that took on a life of its own. It was one of those stories where each time I worked on it, I saw something new that I didn’t see before. It was a story I had a lot of fun with, since I imagined it very much like a movie, and I wanted to capture each scene emotionally and visually with words.

There is also humor sprinkled throughout the story, and a lot of research went into the sea creatures, as well as the technology of ships and vessels. I find that with each story I write, I learn a lot in my research as if I were working on a nonfiction book. It makes you appreciate the different fields that are out there, and how much there is to learn about the world.

What I learned the most while writing The Sea Rescuers was to stay true to your vision and to be persistent in completing a story you’ve started. There were times when I was exhausted, times when I wasn’t sure if I would finish the novel. But then it occurred to me that a story won’t finish by itself, and I have to put the time in to complete it, or else, it’ll remain an unfinished work.

I wrote The Sea Rescuers in the spirit of an adventure story, and so it has many suspenseful moments, and includes twists and turns that keeps the characters on their toes. In addition to these aspects, the story explores themes about the environment and biotechnology. One of the great things about literature is that it not only entertain us and gets us turning to the next page, but it can make us think long after we’ve finished reading a book.

My newest novel, The Sea Rescuers, will be available on September 10th, 2024 on Amazon. Sometime after that, the print version will be available for sale.

The Sea Rescuers is a science fiction story that begins with a shipwreck on a deserted island, leaving two people stranded. For the next several days, they explore the island to find food and resources while salvaging supplies from the shipwreck. Day by day, they become more adept at survival, making use of the sea and jungle to acquire food. But the island is rife with danger, and they must find a way off after a close-call encounter, or else, figure out how to survive until help arrives.

As the story progresses, the twists and turns lead to new adventures for the characters, where they face off against vicious creatures. In the process, the story explores themes such as biotechnology, and humanity’s relationship with the environment, marine animals, and so on.

I had a lot of fun writing this novel, and with each draft, I felt like I was uncovering new facets of the world, story, and characters. It’s probably my most optimistic and hopeful story of all the ones I’ve written. In the end, it’s a story about choice, and how making better choices will make the world a better place.

I hope you enjoy The Sea Rescuers and have a lot of fun reading it!

In my previous post about reading a book halfway through, I mentioned how I would move on to the next book before finishing the one I had started. But weeks or months after putting that book down, I’d finally return to it, discovering it anew like a forgotten story I had once read.

At first, it’s like being flung into a scene where the characters are in a heated debate. You know not what’s going on, but you can’t help but finish the chapter given how tense it is. And as you turn the pages, the characters from chapter 1, 2, etc., slowly return to mind, and all the details and plot elements begin to take shape as you reconnect all the dots.

It’s kind of like reading a short story, even if you’re at the middle of the book you took a break from. For a short story can drop you in the middle of the action/scene, and as you read, you slowly catch up (and see) what’s going on.

As the book ultimately reaches its conclusion, it’s too late to put the book down and read something else. With the end in sight, to stop and read something else now would spoil the impact of the last pages. Besides, wouldn’t you want to know what happened at the end?

Sometimes I’ll read a book halfway through before moving on to the next. For some reason, after the halfway point, it’s difficult for me to progress and finish a story. Whereas in the first half of the book, I could easily read 20 pages or more in a single sitting, after the halfway point, I might read 5 pages at a time.

Then I’ll start another book, and the process will begin all over again. I’m not sure what it is about the halfway point where I feel like I’ve reached the end when I’m only halfway through. Part of it is that my focus (and interest) will begin to wane, and given how many other books I want to read, my focus will drift to the others.

Some of the stories I’ve finished have felt like a marathon. It’s like a push (or race) to the finish line, where I know I’m almost at the end, but I have to mentally tell myself to keep going. It’s one of those things where I just have to tell myself “just a few more pages,” and say it on repeat. If I do it enough times, I’ll make it to the end.

I’m excited to share the release of my newest novel: The Cast-Iron Owl.

The Story

The Cast-Iron Owl is a supernatural thriller about a mother and daughter who find an antique cast-iron owl at a thrift shop. The daughter, Mary, can hear a bell-like sound emanating from it, and she begs her mother, Jane, to buy it. Jane is reluctant since she thinks it’s overpriced, but soon, they will discover that there is something ominous within the cast-iron owl that will change the course of their lives.

Book Cover Design Process

It took several iterations to create the final book cover that you see above. What’s interesting is that at each step of the process, I felt satisfied with the result I had, only to feel like I had to continue modifying it since it seemed inadequate. The process to arriving at the final book cover was a gradual one–one that was the result of countless adjustments and meticulous changes that led to a design where I felt that any additional changes was no longer necessary. Or to put it another way: any additional changes would only lead me to undo them.

Writing the Story

The idea for the story occurred to me over a year ago. It’s one of those concepts where one thing happens that leads to a chain of events that spiral out of control. It took awhile to work out the premise and concept behind it, although actually writing the story didn’t happen until much later (once I had a clear vision of the story, much like a filmmaker who has a vision of the look of their film).

When I first wrote the story, I wanted it to primarily focus on the point of view of the mother and daughter. However, as I started to edit it, I realized that I needed to tell the story from different points of views to show the impact of the objects on the other characters.

Another thing that required a lot of planning was the sequence of events. Since the events can sometimes overlap on certain days, I had to organize and plan out how one event at one location would affect a character(s) at a different location. It took some time to straighten out all of the details, but in the end, it will read seamlessly as if the events are occurring naturally.

Where to get The Cast-Iron Owl

The novel is available for pre-order on the Kindle, and it will be released on 8-16-23.

Click here for the Amazon Kindle link.

The paperback version is now available on Amazon.

Click here for the paperback book link.

Thank you for your support and for stopping by. I really appreciate it. Happy reading!

I’m in the process of wrapping up my next novel. It’s been a work in progress for several months, and the original idea for it occurred to me over a year ago.

I’ve been working on the cover design for it, and am very happy with how it turned out. I even made a book trailer for the novel, which I will upload at some point. I’m hoping to release the book before the end of summer. It’s a story that has supernatural elements, mixed with crime and mystery.

One inspiration for the novel was the author Edith Wharton. She wrote a collection of short stories about ghosts that left me thinking about apparitions in a different light. She didn’t write about ghosts in the way that they’re portrayed in movies where they jump out of the dark and scare characters. Rather, the ghosts in her stories seem to come and go without notice, leaving the characters with a sense that some entity is there (or had been there). She created an eeriness to the mood and tone of her stories that made the characters’ discovery of the ghosts even more chilling.

So if you’re wondering if there are ghosts in my newest novel, don’t be surprised if there are. It’s a story that transcends this reality, since ghosts are supernatural.

The X-Files was another inspiration for this story, since I like how that show blended science, mystery, and supernaturalism into the episodes. When I wrote this story, I drew influences from all over and brought them together to express my individual ideas and voice in a story that I believe will resonate with the reader.

After spending a full day at work, the remaining time we have left is divided up by tasks and chores. A trip to the grocery store, the bank, the gas station, or any other place that we need to go to before we drive home. It always takes longer than we expect. Not to mention the time it takes to drive to those places, and the time added on to the commute because of traffic. And once we get home, it takes time to make dinner, time to eat it, time to clean it up, and then time to relax, exercise or watch TV.

After all is said and done, is there still time left to read? It takes energy and focus to read. Reading requires having enough time to immerse ourselves into the story, for our imagination to bring the sentences on the pages to life. It can’t be rushed, can’t be skimmed over as if we’re trying to finish up a book report for a literature class. We need to take our time with a book–let the book take shape in our minds.

Busyness can consume us, and make us focus on finishing things rather than enjoying the time we have left before going to bed. Reading, on the other hand, is more about the experience, of letting our imagination take us to another place, another world. When we don’t give ourselves enough time to read, we can lose ourselves in every day tasks and chores, forgetting that there is a world out there beyond every day things.

When I read, I’ll fill in the blanks to make sense of things, and when the text isn’t clear. Without realizing it, we fill in the blanks to connect the dots when the information doesn’t seem to click. With the limited information we’ve gathered from the book, we use inductive reasoning to put things together, to give it cohesiveness and a reality that we can identify with.

But sometimes we might fill in the blanks with the wrong data–the wrong assumptions. I’ve done this many-a-times in which I’ll assume the characters of a story are in a certain environment when they’re not, or that they know each other when they don’t. Or I might assume an event has taken place when it hasn’t yet, or that a character knows a bit of information when they don’t.

Reading often involves self-correcting and getting the information right and consistent to form an understanding of the plot and characters. We naturally bring a bit of ourselves into the story: what we understand of what a word means or what a place or an environment should look like. But we also get tired when we read, so we’re not always one hundred percent focused, which can cause us to miss or forget information that might be relevant later on.

Thus, we have to fill in the blanks to follow the story. If we don’t, we’re not really using our imagination to transform words into images, sounds, and ideas that are unique to us–that have meaning to us.

Whenever I catch errors as I’m reading a book, I’ll be taken aback in surprise. At first, I’ll be in disbelief, and I’ll reread the passage to make sure that I hadn’t misread it or that it was supposed to be a mistake (i.e. if it was part of a character’s dialogue). Once I realize that the error I caught was indeed an error, I’ll start to wonder how many more there are–if I had missed any prior.

I won’t feel disappointed by the error, however. On the contrary, it reinforces the fact that no matter how thoroughly a book has been checked for spelling and grammar, there are errors that are hidden–errors that seem to blend in one with the page, and could only be caught by someone who isn’t familiar with the book–someone who is reading it for the first time.

There’s a saying that during the editing process, we should get another pair of eyes on our draft. For one, the reader can catch the errors we missed due to our blindspots, since we’re so familiar with our work that we don’t see the errors that would stand out for someone else. Also, even if we’ve proofread our work a dozen times, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t errors we had skimmed over or missed. Besides, our knowledge and application of grammar rules, punctuation, and word usage could have flaws.