When the Enemy in Your Garden Starts Talking Back

NY Weekly Staff on October 8, 2026

How Steve Weinstein Turns a Backyard Feud Into a Comic Fable in Nuts To You

A retired lawyer declares war on the squirrels raiding his vegetable garden. Then the squirrels start answering him.

That is the unlikely feud at the center of Steve Weinstein’s comic novel Nuts To You. Pincus Ballnick lives in Queens, New York, where the houses stand shoulder to shoulder, and a sneeze in one kitchen can earn a “God bless you” from the next. What Pincus wants is a peaceful garden. What he has is a growing crowd of squirrels that eat his cucumbers, dig up his soil, and nibble his prized tomatoes before walking away from the evidence. He is armed with a Daisy BB gun and a temper. They are armed with numbers, patience, and complete indifference.

It is a small quarrel with a surprisingly large reach: What happens when the thing you cannot stand becomes the thing you cannot stop thinking about?

A Sunday Breakfast Goes Wrong

The novel opens on a quiet mid-September Sunday, at least by Queens standards. Miriam Ballnick moves between the stove and the table with bacon, eggs, and a bowl of oatmeal so thick that her husband claims it can hold a spoon upside down. Pincus settles in with the Sunday paper, which Miriam has gone to great lengths to make sure arrives on time. Then he glances out at the backyard and sees a group of squirrels enjoying breakfast beside his tomatoes, five different kinds, to be exact.

He slams the paper down, promises that their days are numbered, and reaches for the BB gun. The pellet leaves the barrel with a twang like a worn guitar string and travels so slowly that a person can watch it lose interest before it reaches the target. The squirrels do not even look up. The scene sets the tone for the whole book: the anger is real, the weapon is not, and the audience is not impressed.

The Wife Who Feeds the Enemy

Miriam does not share the war. When Pincus drives off to the veterans’ club to ask trained soldiers for advice on eliminating the enemy, she gathers leftover bread and bits of egg, sets them on the picnic table, and apologizes to the squirrels for her husband’s temper. He tends to get overexcited, she explains, and they are welcome to enjoy their new breakfast.

Her devotion runs in every direction. Because a late Sunday paper can spoil her husband’s mood for the entire day, Miriam has been known to walk to the deli across the street, buy a copy, fold it as though it had been delivered, and place it on his chair as if nothing had happened. Another catastrophe avoided, and Pincus never suspects a thing.

The result is a household with a battlefield on one side of the kitchen door and a buffet on the other. Weinstein plays it for laughs, yet the marriage feels lived in. Miriam knows her husband’s habits, his sneaky chocolate cravings, and his moods, and she manages all three with food, patience, and a blood pressure pill delivered at exactly the right moment.

How long can one household be both a war and a picnic?

What does a person do when the enemy refuses to be afraid?

A Man of Very Particular Habits

Pincus has plenty of habits, and Weinstein enjoys every one of them. The fifteen-minute drive to the veterans’ club becomes a forty-five-minute expedition because he gets lost on a road he has traveled thousands of times, and the members know to park well away from the entrance when he is expected. He parks by sound rather than sight, and his explanation is that bumpers exist for a reason. Trained as a lawyer, he treats everyone as a possible opponent, trading insults for sport before letting a smile break through just to watch how the room reacts.

His chocolate habit is a running gag with a tender edge. Miriam warns him about diabetes, so Pincus recruits the ten-year-old next door, hands over two dollars, and swears the boy into an exclusive spy club with exactly two members. The candy goes behind the green flower pot, and Miriam, the enemy, is never to hear a word. It is a small deception, and it tells readers more about the man than his temper does. Pincus wants a game, a mission, and something to win.

A Business Card Nobody Asked For

At the veterans’ club, Pincus lowers his voice and tells Ernie, the bartender, that he has a problem. In a room where the average age is in the low eighties, that word usually means a medical announcement. The card game stops, hearing aids are turned up, and everyone waits. “Squirrels,” Pincus says. The room relaxes, and a few members shake their heads, relieved and slightly disappointed.

Ernie has a niece who runs a business in holistic remedies for animals. Her card reads Senorita Carabba, Animal Naturalist, Animal Whisperer, Spiritual Advisor, with a motto underneath: Don’t Get Rid of Them, Get To Know Them. Pincus says he does not believe in cosmic forces, karma, or any of it. He puts the card in his pocket anyway.

A Fight About More Than Tomatoes

Ernie understands something that Pincus does not. To Pincus, the tomatoes are close to family, and the squirrels have stopped being afraid of him. A man trained as a lawyer, who has spent years treating everyone as a potential opponent, is now fighting a war that is wearing him down. Ernie decides not to judge. Pincus is a veteran, and Ernie would do anything to help him.

When Nuts To You becomes available on October 31, 2026, readers will find a novel that begins with a bowl of oatmeal and a very slow BB and grows far bigger than either. The squirrels are only the beginning. What Weinstein builds on the feud is a story about pride, company, and the strange things that happen when two sides finally start to talk.

A garden can start a war…

A bartender can answer it with a business card…

An enemy can turn out to be worth knowing…

The best fights in Nuts To You are the ones that were never really about tomatoes!

Author Name: Steve Weinstein Book Title: Nuts To You Published By: Author Path Publishers

How Football, Faith, and Compassion Could Transform Youth Drug Prevention

NY Weekly Staff on October 8, 2026

By: Elowen Gray

A New Approach to Prevention

For years, substance abuse prevention has focused heavily on warning young people about the dangers of drugs. But author and youth advocate Elizabeth Mago believes prevention must go deeper than awareness campaigns and fear-based messaging.

Her upcoming book, Kick Out Drugs, Kick In Hope: A Youth Story + Guide of Faith, Football, & Life Lessons explores a different question: What if young people are not only searching for information, but also for belonging, identity, mentorship, and hope?

Set for release in October, 2026 through Kadosh Publishers International, the book uses the universal language of football to weave together storytelling, faith, mentorship, and psychosocial resilience into an inspiring resource for young people facing peer pressure, emotional struggles, and substance-use risks.

“What if prevention is more than simply saying no to drugs?” Mago asks. “What if resilience is built through compassion, guidance, and community?”

Turning the Football Field Into a Safe Space

One of the book’s most unique features is its use of football, the world’s most popular sport, as both a teaching metaphor and a mentorship tool. In Mago’s vision, the football field becomes more than a place for competition; it becomes a safe space where young people learn teamwork, discipline, resilience, leadership, self-control, and healthy decision-making.

The idea was inspired by the experiences of youths involved in the initiatives of Kadosh Voice of Glory International, a ministry focused on restoring hope and belonging among vulnerable children and communities.

“The football lessons helped me understand that life also has boundaries and choices,” shared one youth participant connected to the Kadosh programs. “The program taught me that saying no to drugs is not weakness , it is protecting my future and respecting myself.”

Another participant reflected on how the activities changed their understanding of prevention entirely.

“Before joining the program, I thought prevention was only adults warning us about drugs,” the participant said. “Through the football discussions, I learned that belonging, friendship, and support are also part of prevention.”

Why Identity and Belonging Matter

At the heart of Kick Out Drugs, Kick In Hope is the belief that many young people struggling with harmful choices are also struggling with loneliness, rejection, identity confusion, emotional pain, and the need for acceptance.

Rather than approaching prevention as a purely clinical issue, Mago emphasizes the importance of compassionate relationships, faith-rooted mentorship, and supportive communities. Drawing from Ubuntu values of interconnectedness and shared humanity, the book encourages churches, schools, coaches, families, and mentors to work together in creating spaces where young people feel seen, valued, and supported.

The story also presents faith not as rigid instruction, but as a source of courage, healing, and direction during difficult moments.

A Timely Message for Communities

As conversations around youth mental health and substance abuse continue worldwide, Kick Out Drugs, Kick In Hope offers a hopeful and community-centered perspective on prevention.

More than a story about avoiding drugs, the book challenges young people to become positive change agents within their communities while encouraging adults to rethink how they support the next generation.

Its message is simple but powerful: when young people discover identity, purpose, faith, and belonging, they are more likely to choose hope over self-destruction.

To access this upcoming book, visit: https://elizabethmago.com/

Amazon Book Links:

  1. IN SEARCH FOR MY TRUE LOVE
  2. A Companion Bible Study Guide: From ‘We Heal Together’
  3. ⁠Kick Out Drugs, Kick in Hope: A Youth Story & Guide of Faith, Football & Life Lessons

All for His Glory: DeAnna Armstrong Brathwaite Invites Readers to Discover God’s Grace, Healing and the Purpose Beyond the Pain

NY Weekly Staff on October 7, 2026

By Lennard James

What happens after you have prayed through the pain, survived the season that nearly broke you, and finally begun to heal? For Christian author, evangelist and inspirational speaker DeAnna Armstrong Brathwaite, that is when another important journey begins, the journey of discovering what God intends you to do with the life He has restored.

That powerful message is at the center of Brathwaite’s All for His Glory: Living Redeemed, Walking by Faith, and Reflecting God’s Glory, a faith-centered book that invites readers to move beyond simply surviving and begin discovering the deeper purpose God may have for their lives.

Brathwaite’s message is rooted in personal experience. Her journey has included brokenness, restoration and a renewed understanding of her identity in Christ. Rather than allowing those experiences to remain private memories, she has transformed them into ministry, using her writing to reach people who may be facing their own moments of uncertainty.

“God brought me out of the shadows, restored what pain tried to take, and reminded me who I am in Him, but He was not finished with my story,” Brathwaite explains.

That final thought, He was not finished with my story, is what gives All for His Glory such an intriguing foundation. The book does not end at healing. It asks readers to consider what happens next.

Brathwaite believes healing is not the destination but part of a larger spiritual journey that can lead to deeper faith, growth and purpose. Through All for His Glory, she brings together her personal testimony, biblical truth and calling as an evangelist to encourage readers to trust God, learn His ways, grow as disciples and share the good news with others.

The title itself captures the progression. Living redeemed means understanding that the past no longer has to possess authority over the future. Walking by faith means trusting God even when the complete road ahead cannot be seen. Reflecting God’s glory means allowing faith to become visible through the way a person lives, loves, serves and uses their gifts.

Throughout that journey is another essential theme in Brathwaite’s work: God’s grace.

Grace becomes particularly meaningful when someone realizes that their most difficult chapter did not become their final chapter. It is present in the opportunity to begin again, in the strength to continue when life becomes difficult and in the realization that purpose can still emerge from places once associated with pain.

That connection between All for His Glory and Brathwaite’s broader message of God’s Grace gives readers something more than encouragement. It offers an invitation to examine their own lives and ask whether they have truly accepted the possibility of a new beginning.

Have you survived but stopped dreaming? Have you healed but remained afraid to move forward? Have you allowed something that happened years ago to continue determining how you see yourself today?

All for His Glory challenges readers to consider those questions while pointing them toward faith rather than fear.

Brathwaite has a particular heart for women who need to be reminded of their identity and value. She wants women to recognize themselves as beautiful, God-created life-givers with purpose, not people whose worth is determined by disappointment, rejection, relationships, mistakes or the opinions of others.

For the woman who has spent years caring for everyone except herself, there is a message here. For the woman rebuilding after disappointment, there is a message here. For the woman who knows God has brought her through something but still wonders what comes next, there is a message here.

And for the reader who simply wants a closer relationship with God, Brathwaite offers a reason to continue turning the pages.

Her hope is that readers will recognize the faith, hope and spiritual fruit God can bring forth through their lives and become inspired to use their gifts for His glory. The objective is not simply to finish another Christian book. It is to finish the book thinking differently about your own journey.

“My prayer is that readers will be stirred to know and trust Him, live for His glory, and share His good news with others,” Brathwaite says.

That desire also connects to legacy. Brathwaite lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and is passionate about leaving a legacy of hope for her family and future generations. Her writing reflects the understanding that what one generation learns about faith can become strength for the generation that follows.

Perhaps that is one of the most compelling reasons to read All for His Glory. The book asks readers not only to think about where they have been, but also about what they are leaving behind.

What if your healing could encourage your daughter? What if your testimony could strengthen your granddaughter? What if the lesson you learned during your darkest season becomes the wisdom someone else needs during theirs?

Suddenly, surviving becomes bigger than survival.

It becomes purpose.

Brathwaite summarizes her message with words that speak directly to anyone who may feel forgotten, wounded or uncertain about what comes next:

“You are not alone. There is hope. There is healing. There is purpose.”

Those words are more than an inspirational statement. They capture the invitation behind All for His Glory and the message of God’s grace running through Brathwaite’s work.

Your pain may be part of your story, but it does not have to be the ending. Your scars may explain where you have been, but they do not have to determine where you are going. And healing may be one of the greatest gifts you receive, but according to Brathwaite, healing could also be preparation for what God wants you to do next.

For readers ready to discover what may exist on the other side of brokenness, All for His Glory: Living Redeemed, Walking by Faith, and Reflecting God’s Glory offers an invitation worth accepting.

Because sometimes the most exciting part of a testimony is not simply what God brought you out of, it is discovering what He is calling you into.

Learn more about DeAnna Armstrong Brathwaite, All for His Glory, God’s Grace and her faith-centered work through her official author website.

DeAnna A Brathwaite- Author Website – Home

The Nurse Who Wrote Her Mother’s War and How Martine Cave’-Rankel Turned Family Memory into History

NY Weekly Staff on October 7, 2026

There are stories that families tell, and there are stories that families live. She Crossed The Channel belongs to the second kind. Written by Martine Cave’-Rankel, the memoir revisits the emotional wounds left by war, separation, and social shame. It does so through the eyes of a woman who has worked as a nurse for more than forty years.

Martine Cave’-Rankel was born in Belgium and raised in England until the age of nineteen, then moved to the United States as a young military bride. She earned three nursing degrees and built a career that spans more than four decades. She is also a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, part of the living legacy of the journey she chronicles. That dual perspective, clinician and daughter, shapes how she explores what happened to her mother and what it cost.

The memoir is more than a love story, though love runs through it. It works as a case study in resilience, and Cave’-Rankel brings a nurse’s understanding of trauma to a deeply personal history.

A Daughter’s Promise

The book opens with a confession. For decades, Cave’-Rankel knew only fragments of her mother Monique’s journey. She grew up with a single haunting image of an eighteen-year-old girl on the deck of a ferry, clutching infant twin daughters, with almost no money and even less English.

She waited to write the story until after her mother had passed. Over time, what was once spoken of in lowered voices, an unmarried mother and twins born out of wedlock, revealed itself as endurance, sacrifice, and an unshakable will to keep going. She Crossed The Channel grew out of that reckoning.

The Crossing

The narrative moves from the liberation of Belgium in 1944–45 to the moment Monique met Douglas, a British Royal Marine. They fell in love in the fragile aftermath of occupation. Duty called Douglas home, and he left England unaware that Monique was carrying his children.

What followed, according to the memoir, was an act of astonishing courage. At eighteen, with twin infants in her arms, Monique crossed the English Channel alone, with little money, few words of English, and no certainty of welcome. The book does not romanticize the journey. It records the kindness of strangers who helped her on the ferry and in London, and the cold reality that awaited her at Douglas’s door.

The Rejection

That first reunion ended in heartbreak. The memoir recounts that Douglas denied the twins were his and that his family was hostile. Monique, displaced and isolated, was eventually forced to return to Belgium.

Back in Aalst, she faced social judgment, gossip, and the shame of a community quick to condemn. Her own mother refused an adoption suggestion and declared that no one would take her grandchildren. These pages are not easy, but they show the real cost of the love story that followed.

The Nurse’s Lens

Here Cave’-Rankel stands apart from most family historians. After four decades of nursing, she has seen human fragility up close, and she brings that experience to the page. She writes with compassion about what she sees as Douglas’s unspoken war trauma, the conflict that did not end when the battles stopped.

Trauma, in her telling, lingers beyond the people who lived it and passes to their children. Shame can wound as deeply as any physical injury. Resilience, she suggests, is a daily practice rather than a slogan. Her account draws on lived experience, nursing practice, and historical research instead of family lore alone.

The Legacy

Eventually, Douglas asked Monique to return. His fiancée had learned the truth and refused to move forward, and he had to take responsibility. Monique crossed the Channel a second time, wiser and more careful, but no less courageous.

They married in a simple courthouse ceremony, built a home in Loudwater, and raised five children. Their marriage lasted sixty years. The book closes with an epilogue addressed to future generations: children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. It preserves a legacy so that names become faces and memories become history.

Why This Book Matters

She Crossed The Channel is a tribute to Monique and an offering to the relatives who follow her. Courage often arrives quietly, the memoir suggests, and forgiveness is possible but demands change. The most extraordinary legacies can begin with a single act of faith, a young woman, two babies, a journey across the sea, and a hope she refused to abandon.

Families that have lived through hardship of their own may recognize themselves in these pages. The book is a true story of courage, rejection, and redemption that spans countries and generations, and it keeps one young mother’s endurance on record for the people who carry her name.

Photo Courtesy: Unsplash.com

Beneath the Angels of Mons Explores Reality Through History, Psychology, and the Supernatural

NY Weekly Staff on October 7, 2026

For much of his professional career, Gregg Bartley worked in a world where precision, evidence, and careful analysis were essential. As an aerospace engineer and later an aviation safety specialist responsible for flight control and autopilot certification, his work centered on systems designed to minimize uncertainty and leave as little as possible to chance. That background makes Beneath the Angels of Mons: Tales of the Supernatural and Psychological especially intriguing. Rather than simply asking readers to believe in the unexplained, Bartley’s anthology poses a deeper question: How do we determine what is real?

The collection approaches the supernatural not simply as a world of monsters, ghosts, and unexplained phenomena, but through the complex lens of human perception. Across the stories, different people may experience the same event yet interpret it in completely different ways. The mystery, therefore, is not always what was witnessed, but whether what was witnessed can ever be fully understood.

The anthology brings together two novels The Wechuge and Ghosts of a Former World alongside four short stories. Together, they explore the uncertain space where history, psychology, folklore, memory, and belief intersect. Although the settings range from wartime Europe to the forests of the Pacific Northwest, the stories repeatedly return to one compelling question: Are extraordinary experiences evidence of something beyond human understanding, or are they reflections of the human mind?

That question appears to be at the heart of Bartley’s approach. His professional experience involved analyzing complex systems in which conclusions often depended on interpreting incomplete information. Those same instincts are evident throughout the anthology. Certainty is repeatedly questioned, while readers are encouraged to examine conflicting evidence and form their own interpretations rather than accept easy explanations.

The title novella, Beneath the Angels of Mons, captures this philosophy particularly well. Inspired by one of World War I’s most enduring legends, the story revisits reports surrounding the 1914 Battle of Mons, when British soldiers claimed to have witnessed angelic figures, phantom archers, or even divine intervention that appeared to halt the advancing German forces. Over the years, historians have offered numerous explanations for these accounts, ranging from religious belief and wartime propaganda to battlefield exhaustion, and perhaps something more difficult to explain.

Bartley does not attempt to settle the debate. Instead, he embraces the uncertainty. The story unfolds through interviews with soldiers whose testimonies frequently conflict. One believes he saw Saint George leading a heavenly army. Another recalls only mysterious lights in the sky, while a third describes an experience for which he can find no explanation. Their accounts may differ dramatically, yet each witness remains convinced of what he experienced.

The result is more than a supernatural tale. It becomes an exploration of the ways memory, faith, trauma, expectation, and personal experience can influence how people perceive reality.

That fascination with uncertainty continues throughout the rest of the anthology. The Wechuge, presented in a revised edition with a new concluding chapter, explores folklore, isolation, and psychological uncertainty. Rather than providing definitive answers to every mystery, the revision deepens the novel’s central question: Where exactly does imagination end and reality begin?

Ghosts of a Former World approaches haunting from another perspective. While supernatural elements remain part of the story, the novel also examines the enduring consequences of racism and historical injustice. Some of its ghosts are not spectral beings at all, but the consequences of prejudice carried from one generation to another. In this sense, the title serves as a metaphor for both literal apparitions and the lasting wounds created by history.

Bartley’s interests beyond engineering also contribute to the atmosphere of the collection. His years exploring the mountains, rivers, and forests of the Pacific Northwest bring an authentic sense of place to the stories, while his experiences studying Lakota traditions add cultural depth to narratives involving mythology, spirituality, and oral history. These influences remain woven naturally into the stories, giving the settings and themes a sense of authenticity.

Ultimately, what distinguishes Beneath the Angels of Mons is the trust it places in its readers. The anthology resists the modern tendency to explain every mystery or place every unusual experience into a convenient category. Instead, it presents conflicting perspectives, compelling evidence, and emotionally authentic characters, then allows readers to decide what they believe.

This approach places the collection closer to classic psychological and supernatural literature than conventional horror. The fear does not necessarily come from something hiding in the darkness. Instead, it comes from a more unsettling possibility: What if certainty itself is impossible?

That question feels particularly relevant in an era when people frequently encounter competing versions of truth. Beneath the Angels of Mons asks readers to consider not only whether supernatural events are possible, but also how memory, culture, belief, and personal experience shape each individual’s understanding of reality.

By the final pages, the central question has evolved. It is no longer simply whether ghosts, angels, or ancient legends truly exist. The deeper question is whether reality has ever been as fixed and objective as we assume.

Photo Courtesy: Gregg Bartley

That lingering uncertainty is ultimately what gives Beneath the Angels of Mons: Tales of the Supernatural and Psychological its lasting impact. More than a collection of supernatural stories, it becomes a thoughtful meditation on perception, belief, history, and the mysteries that continue to shape the human experience.

Moral Injury: The Hidden Wound That Is Destroying Our Heroes from the Inside

NY Weekly Staff on October 7, 2026

Some wounds do not bleed. Some wounds do not show up on an X-ray or a brain scan. They live in the quiet moments before sleep. They live in the eyes of a person who cannot forgive themselves. They live in the soul. This is the wound that Andre Davis calls moral injury. It is the hidden pain that destroys heroes from the inside while everyone around them sees nothing.

Moral injury happens when a person does something, sees something, or fails to prevent something that violates their deepest sense of right and wrong. It is not about fear. It is about shame. It is not about danger. It is about betrayal. It is the wound that forms when a soldier follows orders that harm innocent people. When a police officer makes a split-second decision that ends a life. When a medic cannot reach a child in time. When a corrections officer watches cruelty and feels powerless to stop it. When a survivor stays in an abusive relationship and blames themselves for not leaving sooner.

Most people have heard of PTSD. They understand that trauma comes from danger and threat. They know that a person who survives a violent attack may struggle with nightmares and flashbacks. But moral injury is different. It does not ask, “Am I safe?” It asks, “Am I still a good person?” It does not haunt a person with fear. It haunts them with guilt. It whispers, “You should have done more.” It whispers, “A better person would not have made that choice.” It whispers, “If people knew the truth about you, they would walk away.”

Andre Davis knows this wound well. He spent years in law enforcement. He saw good officers carry guilt for decisions that were legally justified but still felt wrong. He watched veterans replay moments from combat that they could not change. He listened to survivors of violence blame themselves for what was done to them. In his book The War You Can’t See, Davis explains why moral injury is so devastating and why it so often goes untreated.

The first reason moral injury goes untreated is that people do not have words for it. They know they feel shame. They know they feel guilt. But they do not understand why. They think something is wrong with them. They think they are broken. They do not realize that their pain has a name and that many others share it. Davis changes that. He gives readers the language they need to understand their own suffering.

The second reason moral injury goes untreated is that people believe they do not deserve help. This is the cruelest part of the wound. Moral injury convinces a person that they are unforgivable. It tells them that seeking help would be a form of cheating. It tells them that they should suffer forever because of what they did or failed to do. This belief keeps people trapped in silence. They suffer alone because they believe they deserve to suffer alone.

The third reason moral injury goes untreated is that traditional therapy often misses it. A therapist who focuses only on fear and anxiety may not understand the deep shame that comes from moral violation. A treatment plan that targets hypervigilance may not address the guilt that keeps a person awake at night. Davis explains that moral injury requires a different approach. It requires honest conversation about values, responsibility, and forgiveness. It requires a safe space where a person can tell the truth without being judged.

The War You Can’t See offers that safe space. Davis writes with honesty and compassion. He does not excuse harmful actions. He does not tell people that what they did was fine. Instead, he helps them separate what is truly theirs to carry from what belongs to circumstances, leaders, and systems. He helps them see that feeling moral pain is proof that they still have a conscience. People without a conscience do not feel moral injury. The fact that they hurt proves they still care about right and wrong.

Davis also addresses the betrayal that often accompanies moral injury. Many service members and first responders feel betrayed by leaders who gave bad orders. They feel betrayed by systems that failed them. They feel betrayed by institutions that promised one thing and delivered another. This betrayal adds another layer to the wound. It makes healing even harder because the person feels alone and abandoned.

Moral injury does not have to be a life sentence. Davis offers a path forward. The path starts with naming what happened. It continues with understanding what is truly yours to own. It grows through honest conversation with trusted people. It deepens through professional help from someone who understands the unique weight of moral injury. It is not easy. It is not fast. But it is possible.

The hidden wound does not have to destroy our heroes. It does not have to claim more lives. It does not have to keep good people trapped in shame. Healing is possible. Forgiveness is possible. A life beyond the wound is possible. That is the message at the heart of The War You Can’t See. That is the hope that Andre Davis offers to everyone who carries the weight of moral pain.

You do not have to carry this alone. You do not have to suffer in silence. You do not have to believe the lie that you are unforgivable. The first step is reaching out. The first step is telling the truth. The first step is picking up this book and letting it guide you home.

If you carry guilt that will not fade, you are not alone. The War You Can’t See offers a path through the shame. Get your copy today and start healing.

Roger Marcus Says the Greatest Secret to a Man’s Success Has Been Hidden in Plain Sight

NY Weekly Staff on October 6, 2026

What if one of the greatest principles for building a lasting marriage has been overlooked for thousands of years?

What if history, Scripture, and even the most influential moments of civilization have been pointing to the same truth all along, yet few have recognized it?

That is the bold proposition behind The Female Dollar, a new book by Roger Marcus that challenges readers to rethink what they believe about success, relationships, and legacy.

Marcus is fully aware that many readers may question his conclusions. He welcomes it.

Rather than presenting another collection of marriage advice or communication techniques, Marcus introduces what he believes is one of the most overlooked principles in both Scripture and human history. He argues that a man’s greatest source of influence and fulfillment is not found in wealth, position, or achievement, but in the way he honors the woman already in his life.

The title is more than a name. It is the central idea upon which Marcus builds his entire message, and he describes it as a metaphor for a truth that has quietly shaped lives, families, and even civilizations while remaining largely unrecognized.

Drawing from decades of ministry, biblical study, personal experience, and service in more than thirty-five countries, Marcus presents patterns that he believes transcend culture, geography, and generation. His work connects Scripture, history, and everyday life in ways designed to challenge even long-held assumptions.

Among the questions the book explores is why God repeatedly declared creation “good,” yet made one remarkable exception by saying, “It is not good.” Marcus also examines the Hebrew word Ezer, a word used in Scripture to describe both woman and God’s own help, asking whether its significance has been underestimated for generations.

He goes even further, suggesting that some of history’s most significant events reveal the extraordinary influence of relationships in shaping the future of nations. Rather than asking readers to accept these conclusions without question, Marcus invites them to examine the evidence for themselves.

For generations, society has encouraged people to pursue greater wealth, bigger opportunities, higher status, and even different relationships in the hope that happiness would eventually follow. Marcus contends that this pursuit has often distracted people from recognizing the extraordinary value already present in their lives.

The book also confronts the growing effects of digital distraction, emotional disengagement, and modern culture’s relentless pursuit of “something better.” Marcus argues that these forces have quietly weakened marriages and families by replacing presence with busyness, gratitude with familiarity, and commitment with convenience.

“I don’t expect everyone to agree with me,” Marcus says. “I do hope they’ll be willing to ask whether we’ve been measuring success by the wrong standard all along.”

Rather than asking readers to embrace his conclusions blindly, Marcus challenges them to investigate Scripture, history, and their own experiences with fresh eyes. His goal is not simply to persuade but to begin a conversation many believe has never been had before.

Whether readers ultimately agree with his conclusions or reject them entirely, the book is written to provoke one unavoidable response: “I’ve never heard anyone explain it this way before.”

More than a book about marriage, The Female Dollar challenges readers to reconsider the foundations of success, legacy, and human flourishing. It asks one simple but unsettling question. If the greatest investment a person could ever make is not financial but relational, what might change if that truth were finally understood?

About the Author

Roger Marcus is a writer, minister, speaker, and global servant whose work has taken him to more than thirty-five countries. He holds an earned Bachelor’s in Business Administration from East Texas Baptist University. Drawing on decades of ministry, teaching, biblical study, and cross-cultural experience, he writes with the conviction that honor, covenant, and spiritual alignment remain the overlooked foundations of lasting success.

Availability

The Female Dollar by Roger Marcus will be available through major online retailers in ebook, paperback, and hardcover formats.

Readers interested in learning more about the book, or in connecting with Roger Marcus for interviews, speaking engagements, or ministry opportunities, can find his contact information below.

Media Contact

Roger Marcus

Email: happyrogermarcus@gmail.com

The Power of the Unnoticed: Barbara Hynak Finds Strength in Soft Voices

NY Weekly Staff on October 6, 2026

By: Janice O’Brien

In a world filled with lions, warriors, leaders, and ancient prophecies, it would be easy to assume that power belongs to those who can command attention.

Barbara Hynak’s Roars Across the World asks readers to look again.

Some of the novel’s most important inhabitants are among its smallest. They do not rule territories, lead armies or possess the physical strength of the lions and humans around them. Some can barely make themselves heard. Yet through these overlooked creatures, Hynak explores one of the central ideas running through her fantasy novel: importance is not determined by size, visibility or conventional power.

“The wrigglies represent all the creatures that are not cute, useful, or considered worth saving,” Hynak said. “They never fight on the battlefield. They can’t be heard over a lion’s roar.”

Yet the wrigglies refuse to disappear.

Small enough to be tossed aside, they return. Individually they may appear insignificant, but collectively they become impossible to ignore. Hynak uses them to challenge the assumption that the largest or most powerful members of a community are necessarily its most essential.

“Small does not mean weak and unnoticed does not mean unnecessary,” she said.

That idea extends far beyond the wrigglies.

Roars Across the World takes place in a world where humans, lions, and other creatures are struggling with drought, hunger, territorial conflict, and the consequences of decisions made in the name of survival. At its center are Atum-Sani, a human leader, and Tradent, a lion leader. Each carries responsibility for those who depend upon him, and each initially understands power largely through the history and beliefs of his own kind.

But Hynak surrounds these obvious leaders with characters whose strengths are less easily recognized.

Karenna, a character Hynak says was not originally planned, became one of the clearest examples. He is afraid, and rather than eliminating that fear to make him conventionally heroic, Hynak allows it to become part of his courage.

“He is not fearless; in fact, his fear is his strength,” Hynak said. “His courage is in looking beyond fighting to find another solution.”

Lamasu, a lion who initially brought humor to the story, developed into another kind of counterweight to traditional ideas about strength. His willingness to question Tradent becomes increasingly important, particularly because he remains loyal while doing so.

Through Lamasu, Hynak suggests that loyalty does not require silence.

These characters are part of a larger pattern in Roars Across the World. Again and again, the novel questions what power looks like and who possesses it. Physical strength matters in this world. Lions must kill to eat. Humans may kill to protect themselves. Hunger and drought have real consequences, and Hynak deliberately avoids creating a natural world stripped of its harsher realities.

But physical power is only one form of power.

“Strength is not measured only by size, speed, teeth, or power,” Hynak said. “It is measured by our differences, and our ability to hold our one small place in the web so that the strand does not break.”

That web is central to Hynak’s vision of the natural world. Rivers, rain, grass, predators, prey, humans, and creatures small enough to escape notice all exist within relationships. Remove or damage one strand and the effects travel outward.

It is also why the wrigglies matter.

They represent lives that might easily be dismissed because they are neither majestic nor particularly useful from a human point of view. Hynak gives them a place in the story precisely because they are easy to overlook. Their value does not depend upon whether the more powerful creatures understand their purpose.

“They are the strands we never see,” Hynak said. “Yet they are as essential as the lion or the human. The web cannot hold without them.”

There is an ecological message in that idea, but there is also a broader examination of how we assign value.

Humans naturally notice the spectacular. A lion commands attention in a way that a tiny creature beneath the soil does not. The same instinct can shape the stories people tell about strength: leaders receive attention, warriors become heroes, and dramatic actions are remembered.

Hynak is interested in what happens beyond that spotlight.

Sometimes courage belongs to the character who admits fear. Sometimes loyalty belongs to the one willing to question a leader. Sometimes power belongs not to one commanding figure but to many small creatures acting together.

That perspective also helps explain why Hynak chose fiction to explore ecological responsibility. Facts can describe drought, extinction, and changing ecosystems. Fiction allows her to give those relationships voices, histories, and consequences. A lion is not simply an environmental symbol. A tiny creature does not exist merely to teach humans a lesson. Each occupies its own place within the living world.

Hynak describes interconnectedness as the heart of Roars Across the World, summed up in a deceptively simple idea: “All are Connected, and therefore All are Needed.”

Perhaps that is why some of the smallest characters carry such weight.

The lion may have the roar powerful enough to cross the night.

But Hynak’s world cannot survive on roars alone.

To discover Barbara Hynak’s Roars Across the World and enter a world where every voice, every creature, and every strand matters, readers can find the book on Amazon.

The Woman Who Followed Her Inner Calling and Wrote the Guide She Wishes She Had When She Started

NY Weekly Staff on October 1, 2026

There is a particular kind of spiritual guide that only becomes possible when the author has genuinely lived the journey they are describing, when the path from confusion and disconnection to clarity and elevated living was not a theoretical framework developed for teaching purposes but an actual terrain navigated through real challenges and real breakthroughs. Liane Marie Lambert is that kind of guide, and Karma to Dharma is that kind of book. She arrived at this work not through academic study of spiritual traditions or through a comfortable life that left plenty of room for philosophical exploration, but through the specific and urgent experience of a soul that cried out from within and demanded to be heard. The background she brings to this, a Holistic MBA, certifications as a Health Coach and Life Coach through the International Coaching Federation-accredited Health Coach Institute, a BA in business, and a life that has encompassed homemaking, entrepreneurship, and motherhood, gives the book a grounded practicality that purely ethereal treatments of the same territory often lack.

The journey from Karma to Dharma that Lambert describes is organized around a progression that is both spiritually coherent and practically achievable. Karma, in her framework, is not simply the metaphysical accounting of past actions but the accumulated weight of old belief systems, outdated patterns, and karmic baggage in relationships that keeps a person anchored to a version of themselves that their soul has already outgrown. Dharma is not a destination so much as a way of being, the full expression of one’s authentic purpose and highest potential, lived at what Lambert describes as the 5D consciousness of exalted joy and eternal love. The journey between them is one of clearing, activating, and aligning, and she maps it with the specificity of someone who has made that journey herself and guided many others through it.

What distinguishes Karma to Dharma from the many spiritual guides that occupy the same general territory is the quality of Lambert’s personal testimony woven through the practical guidance. She writes about her own experience of listening to her heart and intuition, of recognizing her value after years of living below her own awareness of it, of breaking free from karmic relationships and belief systems that had been shaping her choices without her conscious consent, with a vulnerability and an honesty that make the framework feel genuinely accessible rather than aspirationally distant. You sense throughout that she is not teaching from above the experience she is describing but from within it, from the specific human knowledge of what it actually costs and what it actually produces to do this work for real.

The practical applications she offers throughout the book are one of its most valuable features, grounding concepts like raising your vibration, activating your innate superpowers, and embodying the abundance code in specific practices and relatable real-life scenarios that make them feel achievable rather than abstract. Lambert writes with the warmth and the directness of a coach who genuinely wants the people she is working with to get results, and that orientation toward the reader’s actual transformation rather than their admiration of the concepts keeps the book consistently useful.

Karma to Dharma is the book for anyone who has felt the fragments of themselves that feel missing and is ready to go on the quest to find and integrate them. Lambert has lived that quest and written the guide that makes it possible for others to find their own version of the path she discovered.

If you have been sensing the gap between the life you are living and the life your soul is calling you toward, and are ready for a guide who has made that journey herself and can show you the specific steps of making it too, Karma to Dharma by Liane Marie Lambert is the book that meets you exactly where you are. Grab your copy on Amazon today and begin the journey from karmic baggage to your highest Dharma.

Chris Dobry’s Scars and Melodies Tells the Untold Story Behind a Rock Band’s Rise, Fall and Reckoning

NY Weekly Staff on September 30, 2026

There is a side of the music business that rarely makes it into the headlines.

The sold-out shows, recording sessions, chart positions and bright lights are easy to see. What happens behind the scenes, the pressure, the relationships, the mistakes, the excesses and the personal cost of chasing success, is usually a different story.

Chris Dobry is telling that story.

In his new book, Scars and Melodies: The Rise, The Fall, and The Reckoning, Dobry takes readers inside the real-life story of Jamie Fontaine & the Level, a rock band he managed and helped develop through Stryker Records. Rather than presenting a polished version of the music business, Dobry offers a chronological account of how the band rose from the Green Bay-area music scene to national recognition, and how the same forces that helped drive that success ultimately contributed to its collapse.

The result is a story about ambition, music, friendship, addiction, pressure and the consequences of choices made along the way.

Dobry, a Green Bay native and longtime music-industry entrepreneur, founded Stryker Records in 1997. Over the years, his career has included managing artists, promoting concerts and working with established acts including Saving Abel, Saliva, Tantric, Trapt, Merle Haggard and The Goo Goo Dolls.

But Scars and Melodies takes readers into a much more personal chapter of his career.

From Small Shows to Billboard

The story begins before the band had national recognition. Dobry chronicles the early days, the recording sessions, the shows and the gradual momentum that began turning Jamie Fontaine & the Level into a serious act.

The band recorded its music in Wisconsin and Nashville and performed throughout the country, including appearances in Los Angeles. Their climb eventually reached a major milestone in 2020 when their single “Save Your Life” reached No. 20 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Indicator chart and No. 7 on the Foundations/Concrete chart.

For a band that had started by playing smaller venues, reaching the Billboard Top 20 represented a dramatic change.

But according to Dobry’s account, success didn’t solve the problems developing within the band. In many ways, it magnified them.

The book follows the band’s progression through recording sessions, touring, backstage experiences and the increasingly complicated relationships between the people involved. Substance abuse, ego, pressure and personal turmoil become increasingly difficult to separate from the business.

As Dobry describes it, the story is not simply about a band that became successful. It is about what happened when the people behind that success struggled to deal with what came with it.

Photo Courtesy: Chris Dobry

The Story Behind the Story

What makes Scars and Melodies particularly personal is Dobry’s position inside the story.

He wasn’t an outside journalist reconstructing events years later. He was the manager, label executive and businessman involved in the decisions, successes and failures being described.

The book’s title itself comes from a Jamie Fontaine & the Level song, reflecting the contrast at the heart of the story: the music created unforgettable moments, while the experiences surrounding that music left permanent scars. Stryker Records describes the book as a story of an apparently unstoppable rise, an eventual fall and the reckoning that followed.

Dobry’s approach is deliberately direct.

Rather than turning the story into a traditional success narrative, he examines the uncomfortable parts of the journey as well. The result is a portrait of the music business from the inside; one where a Billboard chart position can exist alongside personal chaos, and where achieving a dream doesn’t necessarily mean knowing how to maintain it.

More Than a Rock-and-Roll Story

Although Scars and Melodies centers on a band, its themes extend well beyond music.

At its core, the book examines what happens when ambition meets pressure and when professional success begins colliding with personal problems. It explores the relationships formed in pursuit of a common dream and the damage that can occur when that dream begins to unravel.

For musicians and people working in the entertainment industry, the story offers an unusually candid look at the realities behind the stage.

For everyone else, it is a story about people.

People who wanted something badly.

People who achieved more than they initially thought possible.

And people who eventually had to confront the consequences of how they got there.

A Story That Didn’t End With the Breakup

Perhaps one of the more unexpected elements of Scars and Melodies is that the story has continued beyond the period covered by the band’s original run.

After the band broke up in 2022, Jamie Fontaine & the Level returned to the studio in 2026, with new music beginning to emerge after years away. Their single “Hate” marked the band’s return to releasing music, giving the story a continuation that Dobry could not have anticipated when the earlier chapters were unfolding. Contemporary coverage of the band’s return also connected the new music directly to the story being told in Scars and Melodies.

That makes the book more than a look backward.

It becomes part of an ongoing story.

The Cost of the Dream

Scars and Melodies doesn’t ask readers to believe that every dream ends badly. Instead, it documents what happened to one band and the people surrounding it when success, personal struggles and the demands of the music industry collided.

For Dobry, writing the book meant revisiting years of memories, recordings, shows, relationships and difficult moments.

The result is a firsthand account of the music business that doesn’t stop at the stage lights.

Because behind every song are people.

Behind every chart position is a story.

And sometimes, behind the music are scars that last long after the final note.

Chris Dobry’s Scars and Melodies: The Rise, The Fall, and The Reckoning is now available on Amazon. The book is available in hardcover and paperback editions, including a full-color paperback edition featuring photographs throughout the story.

http://www.strykerrecords.com

http://www.chrisdobry.com

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