I’ve loved stories since I was a kid. Books like Moby-Dick and Frankenstein pulled me so far inside the page that I wanted to learn how writers did that. In high school I fell for Stephen King, and Alas, Babylon lit a fuse for “ordinary people under extraordinary pressure.” Years later, One Second After and then Mark Tufo’s 25-book Zombie Fallout marathon finally pushed me from “someday” to “start.” I wanted to explore how fear, faith, and loyalty survive when the lights go out. That’s where Dead Frequency came from—a what-if about an EMP used to test mind control in a small Texas town, and the people who refuse to break.

My latest book, Dead Frequency, starts the moment the world goes quiet. In a small Texas town, power dies, phones die—and then people start repeating the same sermon-phrases in perfect unison. It isn’t superstition; it’s ECHO1017, an analog mind-control test hiding inside the blackout. Caleb Rourke—haunted ex-firefighter and guardian to a sharp, stubborn teenager named Mara—teams up with a paranoid Mr. Fix-It neighbor and a corner-store owner to map the signal, expose who’s amplifying it, and get out before the town’s “recruiters” box them in. It’s about free will under pressure—what you’ll hold onto when the easiest thing is to obey.