⭐Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off⭐NightBorn by Theresa Cheung #ParanormalThriller

 

When a brilliant dream psychologist begins appearing in thousands of strangers’ nightmares, she must confront a terrifying truth…

 

Title: NIGHTBORN

Author: Theresa Cheung

Publisher: Collective Ink

Pages: 220

Genre: Paranormal Thriller

Format: Paperback, Kindle

What if the line between your waking life and your darkest dreams disappeared forever?

Alice Sinclair, a driven psychology professor, is about to find out. When thousands of people begin experiencing terrifying, vivid nightmares … all centered around her, Alice’s quiet academic life is shattered. Haunted by the question of why she’s become the subject of these shared dreams, Alice embarks on a desperate search for answers, uncovering a chilling secret: someone – or something – hungry for global power has discovered a way to manipulate consciousness itself. The world is fast becoming a playground for those in control of the dreaming mind.  In a heart-stopping race against time, Alice must navigate a treacherous web of deception, where nothing – and no one – can be trusted, not even herself.

Read a sample.

NightBorn is available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Book Excerpt

Florida, USA—Sometime soon

Alice saw the wave. It was a beast.

It rose slowly at first, the way a predator prepares to strike—silent, inevitable. It quickly gained speed, swelling into a towering monster, a force of nature, as if the ocean itself had decided to swallow her whole. The wave surged, easily 30 feet high, dark and roaring with a ferocity she could feel in her bones. It moved toward her with the relentlessness of fate.

She turned, panic seizing her as she raced up the beach, her bare feet slipping in the wet sand. The ocean was closing in—the world was closing in on her. Her breath came in jagged gasps, but the wave, too quick, slammed into her, yanking her under.

Her body twisted through the water, eyes stinging, lungs burning, desperate for air, clawing at the debris swirling around her—plastic, broken wood, seaweed, dead fish—but there was no solid ground to cling to. The current pulled her deeper, its

grip tightening like cold fingers around her throat.

She gasped for air, choking on the water, the world a dark, crushing void. She couldn’t see. Every nerve in her body screamed for release, but the ocean kept pulling, tumbling her in every direction, turning her body like a puppet with broken strings. She was drowning. No—she was going to die.

Something in her snapped.

Her feet hit something solid. Hard. Stone? She couldn’t tell.

All she knew was that she had to rise. She shoved upward, throwing her weight toward the surface with every ounce of strength she had left. Her body screamed, but she pushed

harder, until her head broke through to air. For one split second, she inhaled—but the water dragged her down again, relentless, hungry for her life. She fought the instinct to panic.

She couldn’t let it win. Not today.

Just breathe. Just breathe, Alice. Instinctively she let herself float, stilling her body, letting the sea carry her, accepting the weight of the water around her. She couldn’t fight it anymore—but maybe she didn’t have to.

Her feet found solid ground again. She shoved upward, defiant, gasping as she broke through. Sunlight blinded her.

Alice jerked awake, the sharp taste of salt lingering on her tongue, her body tangled in the sheets. The echo of the wave still thundered in her ears. The sunlight slanted through the bedroom window, blinding. Her pulse thrummed in her neck as if the sea still had its grip on her.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. It was a dream. Just a nightmare.”

What if it wasn’t just a nightmare?

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, Alice’s feet hit the cold floor. Had Swiss psychiatrist and dream analysis pioneer, Carl Jung ever felt this unsettled after one of his dreams? Had his own night visions ever made him question his grasp on reality?

Her eyes flickered to the bedside table and her Red Book: the dream journal she’d named after Jung’s own. Ever since she was young, she’d written down her dreams. But this one felt radically different from the rest.

It was too real, though it clearly wasn’t literal. She lived more than an hour from the nearest beach and had never been to it. Was the dream a symbolic glimpse into her own future? A warning? Or something darker, deeper?

It was just a dream. Maybe it was just all the energy she’d poured into teaching Jungian dream analysis spilling out cathartically in a nightmare.

The feeling of drowning clung to her.

She grabbed her journal and scribbled out every detail of the dream. The ocean. The wave. The suffocating terror. Jung had called the act of recording dreams an act of self-analysis—so why did this one feel more like a clear and present danger than an analysis? Was it the forbidden mystery Jung had hinted at in his Red Book—that thin line between genius and insanity where revelation could be found?

Was her obsession with dreams driving her mad?

It was her calling, her passion. Perhaps, as director of the new program in Jungian Studies at the University of Central Florida, she could teach her students what she had dreamt and encourage them to analyze it; maybe it would be cathartic for

them and for her.

What if her students were the key to unlocking the deeper meanings of her own dream? She could see herself standing before the class, scrawling on the blackboard, her voice filled with energy as she taught them about using their dreams to peer into possible futures, even to shape reality. Inception—she would reference that for sure, the perfect movie fix to illustrate how the subconscious could manipulate perception and even reality.

What better way to introduce her students to the power of their own dreaming minds?

Alice pushed herself out of bed as the sinking feeling of the dream still clung tight. Blinking rapidly in front of her bedroom mirror, she forced herself to take deep breaths. Her long dark hair framing the mismatched eyes staring right back at her: one

blue, one brown. She had always hated this difference. Always hidden it behind a pair of blue lenses.

A perfect illusion of normalcy, her blue lenses. They always worked—ever since she was 14, when her mother had taken her to the ophthalmologist to prevent the cruel teasing at school.

Alice slipped them on, as though the simple act could shield her from her nightmare.

The rhythm of her repeated blinking to help the lenses settle helped bring a semblance of calm.

Something was coming, though; she could feel it. Something was drawing her, pulling her into the unknown. Could she rise above and survive it?

Alice dressed the part for her day ahead and stepped out into the bright light of the day.

Was the drowning nightmare a message? A warning? And if so, a warning about what?

– Excerpted from NightBorn by Theresa Cheung, Collective Ink, 2025. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author

Theresa Cheung is an internationally bestselling author and public speaker. She has been writing about spirituality, dreams and the paranormal for the past 25 years, and was listed by Watkins Mind Body and Spirit magazine as one of the 100 most spiritually influential living people in 2023. She has a degree in Theology and English from Kings College, Cambridge University, frequently collaborating with leading scientists and neuroscientists researching consciousness.

Theresa is regularly featured in national newspapers and magazines, and she is a frequent radio, podcast and television guest and ITV: This Morning’s regular dream decoding expert. She hosts her own popular spiritual podcast called White Shores and weekly live UK Health Radio Show: The Healing Power of Your Dreams.

Her latest book is the paranormal thriller, NightBorn, available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

You can visit her website at www.theresacheung.com or connect with her on X, Facebook, Instagram or Goodreads.

Sponsored By:

⭐Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off⭐Fighter Pilot's Daughter by Mary Lawlor #Memoir

 

The story of the author as a young woman coming of age in an Irish Catholic, military family…

 

Title: Fighter Pilot's Daughter

Author: Mary Lawlor

Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield

Pages: 323 

Genre: Memoir 

Format: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, Audiobook

Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War tells the story of Mary Lawlor’s dramatic, roving life as a warrior’s child. A family biography and a young woman’s vision of the Cold War, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter narrates the more than many transfers the family made from Miami to California to Germany as the Cold War demanded. Each chapter describes the workings of this traveling household in a different place and time. The book’s climax takes us to Paris in May ’68, where Mary—until recently a dutiful military daughter—has joined the legendary student demonstrations against among other things, the Vietnam War. Meanwhile her father is flying missions out of Saigon for that very same war. Though they are on opposite sides of the political divide, a surprising reconciliation comes years later.

Read sample. 

Fighter Pilot’s Daughter is available at Amazon.

 

 

Book Excerpt 

The pilot’s house where I grew up was mostly a women’s world. There were five of us. We had the place to ourselves most of the time. My mother made the big decisions—where we went to school, which bank to keep our money in. She had to decide these things often because we moved every couple of years. The house is thus a figure of speech, a way of thinking about a long series of small, cement dwellings we occupied as one fictional home.

It was my father, however, who turned the wheel, his job that rotated us to so many different places. He was an aviator, first in the Marines, later in the Army. When he came home from his extended absences—missions, they were called—the rooms shrank around him. There wasn’t enough air. We didn’t breathe as freely as we did when he was gone, not because he was mean or demanding but because we worshipped him. Like satellites my sisters and I orbited him at a distance, waiting for the chance to come closer, to show him things we’d made, accept gifts, hear his stories. My mother wasn’t at the center of things anymore. She hovered, maneuvered, arranged, corrected. She was first lady, the dame in waiting. He was the center point of our circle, a flier, a winged sentry who spent most of his time far up over our heads. When he was home, the house was definitely his.

These were the early years of the Cold War. It was a time of vivid fears, pictured nowadays in photos of kids hunkered under their school desks. My sisters and I did that. The phrase “air raid drill” rang hard—the double-A sound a cold, metallic twang, ending with ill. It meant rehearsal for a time when you might get burnt by the air you breathed.

Every day we heard practice rounds of artillery fire and ordinance on the near horizon. We knew what all this training was for. It was to keep the world from ending. Our father was one of many dads who sweat at soldierly labor, part of an arsenal kept at the ready to scare off nuclear annihilation of life on earth. When we lived on post, my sisters and I saw uniformed men marching in straight lines everywhere. This was readiness, the soldiers rehearsing against Armageddon. The rectangular buildings where the commissary, the PX, the bowling alley, and beauty shop were housed had fallout shelters in the basements, marked with black and yellow wheels, the civil defense insignia. Our dad would often leave home for several days on maneuvers, readiness exercises in which he and other men played war games designed to match the visions of big generals and political men. Visions of how a Russian air and ground attack would happen. They had to be ready for it.

A clipped, nervous rhythm kept time on military bases. It was as if you needed to move efficiently to keep up with things, to be ready yourself, even if you were just a kid. We were chased by the feeling that life as we knew it could change in an hour.

This was the posture. On your mark, get set. But there was no go. It was a policy of meaningful waiting. Meaningful because it was the waiting itself that counted—where you did it, how many of the necessities you had, how long you could keep it up. Imagining long, sunless days with nothing to do but wait for an all-clear sign or for the threatening, consonant-heavy sounds of a foreign language overhead, I taught myself to pray hard.

– Excerpted from Fighter Pilot’s Daughter by Mary Lawlor, Rowman and Littlefield, 2013. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author

 

Mary Lawlor is author of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter (Rowman & Littlefield 2013, paper 2015), Public Native America (Rutgers Univ. Press 2006), and Recalling the Wild (Rutgers Univ. Press, 2000). Her short stories and essays have appeared in Big Bridge and Politics/Letters. She studied the American University in Paris and earned a Ph.D. from New York University. She divides her time between an old farmhouse in Easton, Pennsylvania, and a cabin in the mountains of southern Spain.

You can visit her website at https://www.marylawlor.net/ or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.

Sponsored By:

PUYB Author Talks: ⭐A Bookish Conversation with 'The Essence of Bliss' Emily Astillberry⭐ #interview

 

Emily Astillberry is an author and RSPCA Inspector from Norfolk, England. She has a degree in English Literature and Linguistics from York University and has been investigating animal cruelty and neglect and rescuing sick and injured animals for 20 years. In her day job, Emily deals with very difficult and often emotional situations and meets all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. Her career provides some of the inspiration for themes and characters that can be found in her fictional work.

At home, in a very old cottage in the country, Emily has a husband, 5 children, a dog, a cat, an axolotl, 2 giant African land snails and a varying number of rescue hens, so finding time to write can be a challenge. She is happiest outdoors, growing fruit and vegetables in the garden, walking the dog and family holidays usually involve walking up mountains in summer, skiing down them in winter and sleeping in a tent whenever possible.

Emily loves spending time with her large, noisy, chaotic family, cooking meals for friends and playing board games. She always has at least one book on the go and has always dreamed of writing her own novel. She now dreams of writing more. 

Visit her website at https://emilyastillberry.com. 

You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

The Essence of Bliss is her latest book.

 

Can you tell us what your book, The Essence of Bliss, is about?

 

The Essence of Bliss tells the story of Isabel Bliss, an ordinary woman with extraordinary power. Isabel is a reception class teacher who has a remarkable relationship with emotional energy. She can feel and experience other people’s emotions as if they were her own, sometimes to an unsettling or even debilitating degree. She also has the power to manipulate the emotions of others but has never understood or learned to harness her gift. Isabel’s abilities are put to the test when a little boy in her class experiences unspeakable suffering, and only she can sense his torment and help to end his agony.

 

During the book, Isabel encounters a kindred spirit and an adversary when a new family move to town, propelling her into a tangled web of love, passion and power, underpinned by secrets, deceit and betrayal. She is set on an emotional journey of self discovery and discovers a whole world of potential and possibilities. The Essence of Bliss is a heartwarming emotional rollercoaster, with paranormal romantic escapism at its heart. I hope to have crafted a deeply empathetic heroine and a magical journey for readers, who may find themselves pondering the profound themes of emotions and the power of human connections.

Can you tell us a little about your main character and supporting characters?

 Isabel Bliss is a reception class teacher in her late twenties. She is an ordinary woman with an extraordinary sensitivity to the emotions of the people around her. Having been encouraged to keep her ability to herself, she has never spoken of it  to anyone except her mum, but when she helps a young boy in her class who is experiencing unspeakable suffering, and also meets a kindred spirit, Isabel begins to realise the potential of her gift. Isabel begins the story in a long-term relationship with childhood sweetheart, Jack, her parents are Beth and Max, and she has a younger sister, Stephanie. She also has a best friend called Donna. Isabel’s family are very close. Beth is eccentric and complicated but Isabel has always felt loved. As the story progresses, a new family moves to town. The Callahans take up residency in the Big House at the top of the hill and their family consists of Nicholas, an extremely successful barrister with an incredible professional record, his beautiful wife Georgina and their two sons, Scott and Daniel. On first meeting, Isabel has a profound reaction to the sons, recoiling from one and being inexorably drawn to the other. 

 

Where is your book set and why did you pick that location? 

Ramsey Bridge is a fictional town, which exists only in my imagination and within the pages of The Essence of Bliss. I was deliberately vague about its location so that readers are free to use their own imagination. However, I couldn’t help picturing my local area when I was writing and the beach scenes are based very closely on one of my favourite local beaches, Burnham Overy Staithe on the North Norfolk Coast, which I believe is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

 

How long did it take you to write your book?

 I’ve always wanted to write and have never had the time but I got to a point where I realised that the right time would never arrive and if I wanted to do it, I just had to get on with it. I have a job, a husband, 5 children, a menagerie of rescued animals and a 250 year old dilapidated cottage to prop up, so finding time to write can be extremely tricky. It took 3 years of stolen moments and a very patient family to write The Essence of Bliss but I loved every minute of it. 

What has been the most pivotal point of your writing life?

 My writing life is very much still in its infancy but I think that the moment my book arrived in the post and I unwrapped it and held it in my hands for the very first time, was rather special and will take a lot of beating.

What kind of advice would you give to up-and-coming authors? 

I’m still very new to this myself so I’m not sure that I’m qualified to give much advice, but I would say that life is hectic and full and the perfect time, when you are free to commit and dedicate yourself to your writing, very rarely ever arrives, so if you want it enough, you have to stop waiting for the perfect time and get on with writing. Make the time, or you could waste your entire life, waiting.

Inside the Book

Title: The Essence of Bliss

Author: Emily Astillberry

Publisher: Blossom Spring Publishing

Publication Date: December 16, 2024

Pages: 615

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Speculative Fiction

Formats: Paperback, Kindle

Isabel Bliss is a reception class teacher. She experiences other people’s emotions and can influence how they feel but she doesn’t truly understand her gift and has been encouraged, by her mum, to hide it from others. She often feels lost and alone. 

When a child in her class experiences chronic distress that only she can perceive, Isabel uses her ability to relieve his suffering, but his situation continues to worsen. Eventually she is forced to take matters into her own hands, escorting him home where she finds horrific signs of abuse. She saves his mum’s life and his father is arrested for the brutal torture he has inflicted upon his family. 

A wealthy family moves to town and Isabel meets the two sons. She recoils from Daniel, who is hateful, rude and emotionally deficient but is inexorably drawn to Scott, who awakens something magical, deep inside her. They are like her. They are fluencers and have the ability to sense, read and willfully manipulate emotional energies. Isabel confronts her mum and uncovers hurtful lies and deceit within her own family. 

She falls deeply in love and ultimately discovers the untold potential of her gift and the passion and power that dwells within.

Read a sample here.

The Essence of Bliss is available at Amazon UK and Amazon US.

PUYB Author Talks: ⭐A Bookish Conversation with 'One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches' Kayleigh Kavanagh⭐ #interview

 

 

Kayleigh Kavanagh is a disabled writer from the North-West of England. Growing up in the area, she learnt a lot about the Pendle Witches and launched her debut novel around their life story. Her main writing genres are fantasy and romance, but she loves stories in all formats and genres. Kayleigh hopes to one day be able to share the many ideas dancing around in her head with the world.

Her latest book is the historical fantasy, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches. 

You can visit her on Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads and Tiktok. 

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I love stories. This is important because I don’t mind what format they come in—books, poetry, songs, films, podcasts—I love the content, not the medium. Writing is a natural way to tell stories and, as such, has caught my heart. I hesitate to call myself a writer or an author and think of myself more as a storyteller. 

My brain is filled with stories, and I one day plan to get them all out onto the page. 

I’m disabled through illness, which can make writing (and thinking in general) challenging. However, I love it, and even though I’m stuck in my room and writing from my bed, I keep going because this is a true passion of mine. Hopefully, this comes across to the reader.

Can you tell us a little about your latest book, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches?

 I like to think it’s a little unique in the magical realism/fantasy realm. It's familiar enough for people to follow, but with a unique premise that should engage the reader. It's historical fiction, which gives another layer of atmosphere to the book. The story features magic, spirits, reincarnation, and old gods, which appeals to those who love all things paranormal. 

It’s set in the north of England (Pendle), and the living characters still have to navigate their everyday lives, despite dealing with things in the ether.

One of my favourite part was exploring the family dynamics and relationships, particularly between the women. From those connected by blood to those who choose to consider others family. I enjoy exploring these connections. Of found family and those you’re born with. With such strong personalities, it was a challenge to find the right balance, but I think they all stand out brilliantly.  

Is One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches your only book? 

No, it’s the 2nd book in its series, but also the fifth book I’ve published.

Can you tell us about the main characters?

 Demdike and Chattox were part of the original story, but as so much has changed for them, they as people have naturally evolved. 

Yana and Claire are new characters in the series, but there is a twist revealed later, which means they aren’t as new as they appear.

They’re the descendants of the Pendle Witches and have powers during a time when the cunning folk, and those who would have taught them, have all but been eradicated. This is on top of their general life problems, and trying to navigate a patriarchal society as women.

Do you see a little of yourself in the main character?

 Maybe a little in Demdike’s deadpan humour, but no, there’s little similarities.

Where is this book set and why did you choose this location?

 England in the latter half of the nineteenth century. I initially wanted to have the book in 1812, two hundred years after the trials, so it would be halfway between the next book (2012). However, as I was doing research, I realised just how much England advanced under Queen Victoria, and it made more sense to have the period later than I’d first thought.

What's the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?

 A little cliche, but just write. You’ll never get better if you don’t. You’ll never get all those stories out of your head if you don’t start putting words on a page. Those big scenes which stick in your mind need the rest of the plot to make sense. Just do it. Know some of what you write will be terrible, but it needs to get out of you so you can get to the good stuff. Keep at it.  

 Thank you so much for this interview, Kayleigh. What's next for you?

 More writing, hopefully. This and learning more about marketing, so I can reach more readers. 

Inside the Book

Title: One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches

Author: Kayleigh Kavanagh

Publication Date: September 29, 2025

Pages: 400

Genre: Historical Paranormal Fantasy

Formats: Kindle

Demdike and Chattox, famed witches of Pendle Forest, might be dead, but they’re not gone. Bound to their bloodline, they’ve spent the past two and a half centuries watching over their descendants, waiting for when they’ll be needed. 

When 14 year old Yana comes into her psychic abilities and inherits the ‘eyes of the Chattox family’, she can see the long-dead witches, as well as an encroaching evil. But even with this foreknowledge, she’s trapped by marriage interviews and being unable to see her own future, and more importantly, whoever her future husband will be. 

Demdike’s healing gifts are alive and working in Claire, a mid-30s midwife well renowned for her skills and holding her tongue. The Secrets of Pendle are safe with her and her midwives. However, when surgeons looking to make standardisation the norm encroach on her territory, she soon realises how, even a respected woman is vulnerable in a patriarchal system. 

The two descendants must come together to protect the ones they love from an ancient evil, all whilst balancing their lives and the cruelties of being a woman in a man’s world. Set in late 1800s NW England, this book has all the elements of the area: strong, hardy people, atmospheric horror and days as unpredictable as the weather.  

One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches is available at Amazon.