Creativity Hacker

My most gripping reads are almost always the ones where the very premise itself grabs my attention in a choke hold, and such is the case here. Long-time loser James Ozwryck finally has a life: a small apartment, a regular job, and a steady income. There's even plenty of time for video games. It might not be much, but it's his. And to keep it, all he has to do is let a demon borrow his body from time to time. You know, to kill people. It's a pretty sweet deal. 
– Jefferson Smith

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After being pushed in front of the subway, Kimberly Archer finds herself in an impossible town with a husband she's never seen before and a life she can't remember. The rain never stops, the phones don't work and the doctors think she's delusional. And that's on a good day.

Imagine Stephen King siring a love-beast upon the dead and moldering remains of HP Lovecraft. That's Rust. Right from the opening scene that leaves us questioning just what is real and what is not, Ruz plunges us full-screaming into the chaotic afterlife of one Kimberley Archer, who is either single and dead, or living in hell, unable to escape the devoted husband and child she has no memory of ever having met. This one will creep you out completely.
– Jefferson Smith

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I confess I haven't read Austen, but this modern re-imagining of her work—by translocating it into a world where vampires are real—makes me want to give her a try. My only fear is that her entirely vampireless exploits won't live up to the dark and nuanced ballet of inter-species manners that Anderson has fashioned from her more pallid offerings.
– Jefferson Smith

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To Paul Reid, life as a homeless teen seems pretty bleak. But it turns out that was nothing compared to being dead. After an untimely accident takes him out of the world, Paul finds himself locked in a battle between the forces of light and dark – a battle that dark appears to be winning. And light seems too apathetic to care.

A horrifying vision of an afterlife consumed by bureaucracy, where a newly dead young man has to go up against the forces of death itself before he can rest in peace.
— Jefferson

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An old warrior rescues a young girl from the clutches of an evil wizard and then flees with her into exile. It’s a desperate bid to find something—anything—that can put the world right again, and hopefully, undo whatever darkness has been done to the girl. His daughter.

With a strong blend of eastern and medieval images, this quest feels different from most other fantasies. A dark tale born from the traditions of Aladdin and Alibaba and the 1001 Nights, imagine a world that might have arisen from the Crusades and the Inquisition and then fuel it with dark magic.
— Jefferson

Check out the IOD Report here.

After growing up in hiding, a letter with a peculiar talisman changes everything for a young baker’s girl named Duchess, and leads her into a dangerous world of thievery and intrigue where the only thing she has at stake is her place in the world and the truth about that terrible childhood night in which she lost everything.

Duchess of the Shallows is a deceptively simple book, but rich in details. The plot revolves around Duchess, once the youngest child of a wealthy family, but forced to live in secret as the daughter of a baker after the horrifying death of her father and family. The story is driven by a single mission – a heist – in which Duchess, assisted by her street-friend, Lysander, must pull off an impossible robbery in order to gain admission to the secret world of thieves. The plot is simpule, but the world, and the characters inhabiting it, are anything but. Political maneuvering, rival factions, and power-players working in the shadows—all of this serves to create a richly textured world with depth and appeal. I was rooting for Duchess right out of the gates, and didn't come up for air until reaching The End.
— Jefferson

When a famous writer is murdered, his estranged son Ross returns for the funeral and is quickly plunged into the unfamiliar community of fantasy geeks and role playing nerds. And when he learns that the fantastical world of his father’s fiction actually exists, Ross quickly crosses over to hunt the killer down, but soon realizes that he may have jumped the gun, because now he’s lost in a world of gunslingers and monsters where the rules make no sense.

And he hasn’t read the books.