Frank's blog

Critics love to talk about the "death" of the thriller. They say audiences have shorter attention spans than a goldfish on caffeine. They claim if someone doesn’t get shot in the first three pages, the reader is going to close the book and go back to scrolling TikTok. They’re wrong. Dead wrong. The problem isn't that readers don't want depth. The problem is that most modern thrillers are all sugar and no protein. They’re "fast-paced" but hollow. They’ve got the car chases, bu

Most Westerns are a snooze-fest. You know the ones. Twenty pages of a guy staring at a cactus. Three chapters dedicated to the "majesty" of a sunset. That’s fine if you want a nap. It’s trash if you want a story. Readers today don’t have time for literary filler. They want pulse-pounding, throat-gripping action. They want characters who bleed and a plot that moves like a bullet train. If you want to read: or write: a novel that people actually finish, you need a different pla

Forget the dusty paperbacks gathering cobwebs in your grandpa’s attic. The Western isn't dead. It's just evolved. Too many readers think "Western" means a boring dude in a white hat shooting a dude in a black hat. Wrong. That’s the old way. That’s the "literary" trap where nothing happens for 400 pages but descriptions of sagebrush. You want fire. You want grit. You want a story that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the final bullet finds its home. Choosing th

The Western isn't dead. It just grew up. Forget the black-and-white morality of those old matinee serials. Forget the clean-cut heroes who never get a speck of dust on their hats. Real historical western fiction is about grit, sweat, and the absolute chaos of the human spirit pushed to its limits. If you’re looking for your next obsession, you’re in the right place. But first, let’s clear the air. Most people think Westerns are just about cowboys and indians. Wrong. They are

Most adventure novels are trash. There. I said it. They’re filled with plastic characters, predictable explosions, and "action" that feels about as exciting as watching paint dry in a humidity chamber. You read them, you forget them before you’ve even closed the back cover, and you move on to the next piece of literary fluff. But you don’t want fluff. You want a story that haunts you. You want a book that stays in your marrow, making you check over your shoulder when the wind

You’ve been there. You pick up a "pulse-pounding" thriller. The cover is neon. The blurb promises a "twist you won’t see coming." You spend six hours reading about a guy named Jack who runs away from explosions, shoots a few bad guys, and saves the world. You close the book. You forget Jack’s last name by dinner. Why? Because Jack wasn’t a person. Jack was a plot device in a leather jacket. If you’re tired of cardboard cutouts and mechanical plots, you’re looking for a charac