The Story Behind the Book

The Story Behind Monsterland by Michael Okon

The Story Behind Monsterland

By Michael Okon

One rainy weekend during the summer of 2015, I was watching Jurassic Park with my kids and I thought to myself, why isn’t there a zombie theme park. I called my brother Eric, and pitched my idea. He said – ‘NO, it’s gotta be all the monsters.’ I started writing the character arcs that night and Monsterland was born. I self-published the original book and it quickly became an indie sensation. Fast forward one year later and I got noticed by an agent in London and he asked to represent me. I didn’t know the first thing about being represented so I reached out to a lady in a book named Susan Grode – who was an entertainment lawyer. Susan said she would like introduce me to a friend who is a literary agent. The local agent signed me and Monsterland got published. It was out for many years, but eventually the rights ran out and I bought the rights back. I finished the entire series, 4 books in total, and decided to release them under a new banner – Chelshire Publishing. I created new covers, added new chapters, and completely rearranged the screenplay. I got a new manager who is now shopping around the draft of the script based on the first book of the series. Publishing is fantastic, but if you’re not going to publicize the book yourself, no one is going to read it. The biggest change I’ve made is working with my wife to promote my books on Instagram. She is taking pictures of each of my novels and captioning the images across all my platforms. Additionally, I recently started going live on TikTok and the reactions have been positively overwhelming. With my writing literally every night of the week, balancing the screenplays and writing novels, and going live daily on TikTok my writing life has become a full-time job. I’m enjoying every moment.

Wyatt Baldwin’s senior year is not going well. His parents divorced, and then his dad mysteriously died. He’s not exactly comfortable with his new stepfather, Carter Wright, either. An ongoing debate with his best friends, Melvin and Howard Drucker, over which monster is superior has gotten stale. He’d much rather spend his days with beautiful and popular Jade. However, she’s dating the brash high-school quarterback Nolan, and Wyatt thinks he doesn’t stand a chance.

But everything changes when Wyatt and his friends are invited to attend the grand opening of Monsterland, a groundbreaking theme park where guests can interact with vampires in Vampire Village, be chased by werewolves on the River Run, and walk among the dead in Zombieville.

With real werewolves, vampires, and zombies as the main attractions, what could possibly go wrong?

Read a sample here.

Monsterland is available at Amazon.

MICHAEL OKON is a best-selling author and award-winning screenwriter whose compelling storytelling spans paranormal, horror, thriller, action-adventure, and self-help genres. With a BA in English and an MBA in Business and Finance from Long Island University, Michael merges his creative passion with entrepreneurial spirit to craft unforgettable narratives across his novels and screenplays.

Born into a family of avid writers and readers, Michael’s passion for storytelling runs deep—writing isn’t just something he does; it’s who he is. Ever since he first watched The Goonies as a kid, Michael has been captivated by the power of adventure, compelling characters, and the ability of stories to entertain and inspire. Whether crafting monster theme parks or penning insightful guidance in self-help, his goal remains the same: to create narratives that stick with readers long after they’ve turned the last page.

Michael is a lifelong movie buff, a music playlist aficionado, a horrendous golfer, and a sucker for esoteric & self-help books. He lives on Long Island’s North Shore with his wife and children.

His latest book is Monsterland.

Connect with Michael on X and Instagram.

Paula Omokho

The Story Behind Crashers by Lindy S. Hudis

The Story Behind Crashers

By Lindy S. Hudis

CRASHERS is a crime-thriller about a trio of reckless and impulsive young people who, by no fault of their own, get caught up in the seamy underworld of crime, violations and auto insurance fraud by staging car accidents to collect insurance blood money. They all suffer the nightmarish descent at the events inevitably spiral out of control. It’s a cautionary tale but also a character study about greed, desperation and eventually, redemption.

The story is set in Los Angeles, California, where I have been living for the past thirty-three years. This story could only have happened here with so much hustle, bustle and drama. There are so many cars and so much traffic here that driving is almost crazy! I was inspired to write this story because I was a victim of auto insurance fraud, so I came up with that idea. I learned that there are criminals out there who do this kind of thing for a living. So, I wrote about those people, who must be horrible and desperate.

The main characters are an innocent young couple planning a life together. They are good people who are deeply in love and hope to become married one day. They literally fall on very hard times, though no fault of their own, and become desperate. Shari is a film student at USC and Nathan is an ambitious, young accountant at a prestigious Beverly Hills firm. Both lost their jobs due to strange events and Shari winds up in a staged accident, unbeknownst to her at the time.

The attorney John Nastic is the one who runs this underground crime ring. He’s super intelligent and charismatic but has a dark underbelly to his personality. His employee Bryce is his scout, so to speak. He finds vulnerable people and exploits them, trapping them in the downward spiral of crime and fraud by promising them lots of cash. It helps that he is mysterious and sexy, too! I

wrote him like that on purpose!

My characters are unique in the since that my work is very character driven but also the story takes the characters of this horrific journey. It’s a combination of cautionary tale, suspense,

crime thriller and yet it is also a character study of what lengths people can and will go to when they are greedy and happen to get a taste of another life. If you are a fan of crime fiction, pulp novels and redemption, I do have to recommend by story. I have been told that it’s a page turner, and I’ll humbly accept the compliment.

I also have Crashers the screenplay. I entered it into the Sherman Oaks Screenplay Competition. The screenplay was an official selection and, although it didn’t win, we got great literary representation out of the contacts we made. Crashers is currently in development with Face 2 Face Productions, as our manager is also a producer. I am still very ambitious and have never given up on my Hollywood Dream. Many people have told me that it would make a great movie, so I acted on that advice. Crashers – The Feature Film is currently in development with Face 2 Face Productions.

Title: Crashers

Author: Lindy S. Hudis

Publisher: Project X Publishing

Publication Date: August 24, 2024

Pages: 269

Genre: Crime Thriller

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, KindleUnlimited

How far would you go to get rich?

What if you were desperate? What if you were completely out of options? Would you cut in front of a sparkling, new Mercedes on the busy L.A. freeway and slam on the brakes? What if it were that easy?

Enter the world of Crashers…

The con is simple: Get in a car accident. Collect the insurance blood money. What could go wrong? That’s what Shari believed when she found herself in dire need of cash. When she meets the sexy and mysterious Bryce, the teaches her all about how to be a “capper.”

Soon, Shari realizes that by staging more of these accidents, she’ll have more money than she knows what to do with.

But as she becomes more and more obsessed with her strange new world, she discovers there’s no such thing as easy money. And what started out as a simple payout soon turns into a deadly game.

Read sample here.

Crashers is available at Amazon and is currently in film development with Face 2 Face productions.

Lindy S. Hudis is an award winning filmmaker, author and actress. Lindy is a graduate of New York University, where she studied drama at Tisch School of the Arts. She also performed in a number of Off-Off Broadway theater productions while living in New York City.

She is the author of several titles, including her romance suspense novel, Weekends, her “Hollywood” story City of Toys, and her crime novel, Crashers. Her latest release, “Hollywood Underworld – A Hollywood Series” is the first installment of a crime, mystery series.

In addition, she has written several erotic short stories, including “The S&M Club”, “The Backstage Pass”, “Guitar God”, “The Guitarist”, and “The Mile High Club”.

Her short film “The Lesson”, which she wrote, produced and directed, has won numerous awards, including ‘Best Short Film’ at the Paris International Film Festival, The Beverly Hills Arthouse Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival.

She is also an actress, having appeared in the indie film Expressionism, the television daytime drama “Sunset Beach”, also “Married with Children” , “Beverly Hills 90210” and the feature film “Indecent Proposal” . She and her husband, Hollywood stuntman Stephen Hudis, have formed their own production company called Impact Motion Pictures, and have several projects and screenplays in development. She lives in California with her husband and two children.

Author Links

The Story Behind Shape of the Sun by Paula Omokhomion

The Story Behind The Shape of the Sun

By Paula Omokhomion

Shape of the Sun was really inspired by how fiction canon traditionally does not express male leads in an unflattering manner, and going further, how some actually have male leads that do terrible things but put in major efforts to compensate for it, which could come off as whitewashing in realtime. Raj, SOTS’ male lead really is that central character that is by no means misunderstood and is particularly consciously unreliable. There is also meta-fictional commentary on whether romance can really wipe out negativity as well as the effect of family neglect and performative masculinity.

Like for instance, what is it like if the nice guy isn’t actually nice or how do we deal with a villain that we can see being molded into that in real-time, but at the same time isn’t some hidden innocent or wholesome person. There’s all these contradictions in traditional fiction roles, and that was intentional because in real life, there are many people whose lives mirror that of what leads are especially if they have everything that anyone would want, but at the same time, do not have the traditional main character energy of being Mary Sue or just kind and bright and always willing to help and so on. If you think about it, these sort of people are underrepresented, at least in my perspective.

Summarily, I was most interested in a honest male lead, especially since the grace that extended to male leads are usually not granted their female counterparts. So here was a dude who was thrown by the author under the lamp to be scrutinized.

I also think that it was interesting writing characters that are majorly high-income or part of high-society in one way or the other. In that way, we have a good view at the rot that might come with wealth, and the struggle is less of fighting against the system and more of fighting against oneself to thrive or not to thrive within the system.

Concerning the publication process, I got self-published through Draft2Digital, which is a very cost-effective and proactive way of getting your work out there and on different retail platforms. I didn’t really think traditional publishing matched with my intent for SOTS which was a very independent and small work.

I hope everyone enjoys reading it, and I am always open to feedback. Happy reading!

In a world where novels defy conventions and heroes defy expectations, Shape of the Sun dares to ask: What if the one at the center isn’t kind? What if no one is misunderstood? What does it mean to be the hero or the villain?

Beware: this is not a love story. The author just likes meta-fiction a bit too much.
Rajkumar ‘Raj’ Reddy is top-tier Male Lead material. And a freaking DRAMA KING.

He is a gorgeous, disgustingly rich, and ultra-confident Child Abuse Pediatrician. He’s also emotionally finished, a narcissist, and a scammer all but in name.

But what did it matter if he was soulless or morally bankrupt? Why should anyone care that he married someone only because of their money?

He was the Male Lead, right? Since when were Male Leads ever held accountable?

And then he falls in love. Utterly useless. Very, very unnecessary. Annoyingly delicious for someone as self-aware as he is.

Raj knows he’s in love. He knows it every second he smiles when she talks to him or says good morning Rajkumar, in that sweet voice he dreams about more often lately.

So now, our Male Lead is on a mission to GET OUT OF LOVE.

This relationship holds too many green flags!

Painful. Also doesn’t allow him to be hypocritical for more than three seconds. Horrid, really.

And in the background is the Reddy family. It’s not an easy home. It’s never been easy with all that power and wealth involved. There’s too much scheming and engineering in one place.

There’s an overlooked half-brother that literally descended from hell, a sweet twin sister that has more than her fair share of buried grudges to Raj (and vice versa), and a patriarch that might be loving father and enabler all rolled into one.

There are traumas that our Male Lead wants to never remember.

You see that’s the thing about Romance with Accountability. It can be sweet. It can be deadly.

Will our Male Lead manage to protect his secrets and secure the inheritance, or will his deepening emotions force him to confront his inner demons? Can greed truly give way to love? Or is that just something we only see in the movies?

Will he finally go to therapy?

A gripping tale of love, family, the high stakes of inheritance, and the journey to self – Shape of the Sun explores what happens with leads in a world where the rest are left to silence.

Read a sample here.

Shape of the Sun is available at Amazon, Kobo and Apple Books.

Paula Omokhomion is a Master of Public Policy student at the UC Riverside School of Public Policy, though she’s fairly certain that won’t be forever. She holds a B.S. in Public Health Nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill, where she also minored in Creative Writing (Fiction) and graduated with highest honors for her 120-page thesis novella, New Age Taffeta.

Paula developed her skills and love for writing fiction in a very, very interesting Nigerian boarding school, where the lack of television meant she had to invent entertainment for everyone else. She loves reading manhwa, watching Indian TV dramas, listening to music, and writing short stories.When not doing any of those or in the classroom handling R code, she’s refining her LinkedIn or taking Instagram selfies.
She lives in California with her family, including her two fellow triplets, and is currently dreaming of a future PhD in public health—and maybe another novel.

Author Links

Website | Facebook | Instagram