The Colossus And Other Poems

Androkles: I am Lord Androkles, heir of Ares and son of former Lord Zeus. I've spent a lifetime in the shadow of a prophecy told long ago. All of Olympus believes I am the harbinger of their doom, The Destroyer. Is my fate set in stone? It always felt like it until I met her. Ismene-Eirene: I am Ismene-Eirene, daughter of a prominent horse breeder of House Poseidon. My life has been spent feeling like a bird in a cage. I thought nothing could ever free me from that cage. A night of chaos and bloodshed led me to The Destroyer. Can he destroy this cage?

He was a warrior. He was meant to protect the King and the Kingdom. His name brought the fear for life in warriors across the world. What he never thought he would become was the High King of two Emperors. Their Warrior, Their Saviour, Their Partner, Their Husband. He became all of it.

A Supreme Lord with a dangerous thirst for power... A woman with no success in love... A man who is more than he seems... Gwendolyn lived a very simple life. As a songwriter, she was comfortable in her monotonous and somewhat sad existence. But that took a huge turn when she encountered Tyron... Tyron, the outcast prince of his realm, has been sent on a journey to find THE ABOMINATION; the one prophesied to cause the downfall of his supreme Lord. It was a task that might either get him his father's throne, or cause him to lose his head. But his encounter with the sad song writer pushes him to take steps he never thought of taking... In order to protect the four realms from the greedy eyes of Tyron's father, these two have to go on a journey that will test their trust and budding love... But what if things don't go as planned?

Shantali Mae Cross, a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Ancient Arts, encounters an impossible phenomenon during her night shift—smoke from the heating vents coalesces into the form of a cobra near ancient Egyptian canopic jars, showing her visions of possible futures. She sees herself accepting a promotion, arguing with a dark-haired man in a hospital, wearing a wedding dress, and standing at a graveside in autumn. Shaken by the experience, Shantali becomes obsessed with understanding what she witnessed, diving into research about serpent smoke divination practices. Her investigation reveals that others throughout history have experienced similar visions at crucial crossroads in their lives, but those who became consumed with interpreting and controlling their prophetic glimpses inevitably destroyed the very relationships and opportunities the visions had shown them. As Shantali spirals deeper into her research, she begins shutting out her boyfriend David, a fellow security guard who loves her deeply. When David witnesses the cobra phenomenon himself, he helps ground her in reality rather than obsession. Through her studies, particularly the warnings left by Dr. Amelia Thorne—a researcher who died alone after chasing similar mysteries—Shantali realizes the cobra's true message: choose love over fear, presence over obsession. The visions weren't warnings of tragedy but glimpses of a life fully lived with all its ordinary struggles and profound connections. When David proposes, Shantali chooses their real relationship over her pursuit of supernatural answers. She completes her research by writing a fictional novel about her experience, transforming obsession into art while helping future cobra witnesses understand that some mysteries are meant to guide rather than be solved. The story explores themes of choice versus destiny, the danger of sacrificing present love for future certainty, and the wisdom of embracing life's uncertainties alongside those who love us.

The Weight of Gold is a trilogy about what happens after the meet-cute — not the falling, but the building. It follows Eleanor across seven years as she trades inherited splendor for a chosen life: a small house, a workshop full of sawdust and linseed oil, a diner owner who becomes her true north, and a town that becomes her home. But it is also the story of the people pulled into the orbit of a life genuinely lived. A cousin who arrives hollowed-out by the wrong marriage and finds her footing in native plants and honest argument. A mother who mistakes the form of a life for the life itself, and slowly, carefully, begins to dismantle that mistake. A sculptor who needs wood that speaks. A town that goes better for being attended to. At its heart, this is a story about craft — the craft of furniture, of restoration, of building institutions and relationships and selves. About the difference between the shape a life is supposed to take and the shape it wants to take. About a word Daniel uses for bleached wood: ghost — not white, not absent, but elsewhere, waiting for the right conditions to return. Eleanor spends seven years learning that ghost is not an ending. It is the beginning of something better.

Set in the mid-19th century, a masked benefactor purchases a supposed 'satanic' creature on London's black market. What he gets instead, however, is someone he never knew he would fall in love with, much less be loved back. As they both heal from the scars of their past, they find their fates are more interwoven than either would have ever imagined. *Contains themes from Beauty and The Beast, Phantom of the Opera, and Frankenstein* (I do not claim rights to the cover image)