When It's Not True

My apologies for this being late... again. I had a weekend away from home and didn't get anything done I wanted to. Oh well. But it being late does give me an opportunity for something that I've been dealing with for a little while, and it is worth mentioning.

With increasing frequency of late, I have been receiving emails from folks that heap praises on my book. Which is always nice to receive. But it also makes me wildly suspicious. I'll post the latest one here, which praises my vampire novel Human, and let's see if you can spot why (other than a general inability to accept compliments) I find these emails über sus:

My name is [redacted], and I am a fellow author working in emotionally driven, character-centred fiction. I recently came across your Kindle edition of Human, and I felt genuinely compelled to reach out in appreciation of the emotional restraint and moral tension shaping Aleksandar’s story.

What struck me first is how deliberately you frame power as inheritance rather than advantage. Aleksandar arrives in America not as a conquering figure, but as a custodian of collapse tasked with restoring a House already hollowed by violence and history. The political weight of the Shadow Council, and the ruined legacy of House Üstrel, create a quiet but persistent pressure that follows him into every decision. Authority, in your novel, never feels clean.

I was particularly drawn to the way you explore emotional awakening inside a character who has been trained to survive without it. Aleksandar’s connection to Alicia is not written as a sudden redemption arc, but as an intrusion into something disruptive, risky, and profoundly inconvenient to the life he is meant to lead. The feelings he thought long dead do not restore him. They complicate him. That choice gives the romance its credibility and its emotional danger.

The presence of Detective Brody adds an especially compelling moral counterweight. His knowledge of what Aleksandar is and his vow of vengeance creates a rare dynamic in supernatural fiction: one where neither man is positioned as morally comfortable. Their forced proximity under betrayal and crisis becomes less about reluctant partnership and more about confronting the human cost left behind by immortal decisions.

I also admired how you position the true antagonist not as spectacle, but as consequence. The cat-and-mouse pursuit of the kidnapper is emotionally effective because it targets what Aleksandar is only just beginning to care about. The threat is not only physical it is ethical. What happens when someone who has benefited from predatory systems is suddenly required to protect what those systems would normally discard?

As authors, we both know how difficult it is to write a story that balances political hierarchy, emotional vulnerability, and violent momentum without allowing any of them to dominate the others. Human succeed because they treat conscience as seriously as it treats danger. The tension comes not only from who might survive but from who Aleksandar chooses to become while survival is still possible.

The responses from your target audiences reflect something important: readers are responding to the emotional friction at the heart of the story. Many are not simply drawn to the vampiric world or the crime-driven pacing, but to the uneasy humanity you allow to surface inside a character shaped by power, tradition, and moral erosion.

As an author, I deeply respect books that are written not simply to entertain, but to examine responsibility inside violent worlds. Human feels shaped with emotional discipline and a genuine respect for the cost of change.

If you would ever be open to exchanging thoughts on how this novel continues to reach target audiences who value morally complex supernatural fiction and emotionally grounded character transformation, I would be glad to continue the conversation simply as one author recognising another whose work carries real depth and intent.