TK’s Books and Writing

PUB DAY FOR THE QUEEN OF SECOND CHANCES, AN URBAN FANTASY, ROMANTASY, IS AUGUST 26TH, 2026!

Find it here:

Yes! I’m super psyched to announce The Queen of Second Chances will be pubbled August 26th, 2026 by The Wild Rose Press and available for sale at all major retailers. It’s an urban fantasy romantasy with enemies-to-lovers, found family, reluctant savior, chosen one, rivals to lovers, fated mates, and david v. goliath tropes. Here’s the teaser:

LOGLINE: Someone’s turning her hometown into a battleground of demons, greedy heirs, and soul-sucking Grim Reapers, and the only person who can put on the brakes is a Fate in Training, an 18-year-old girl who risks her life to stop death, until she meets a handsome Grim who at the cost of his standing in the Reaper Corps helps her control her magic, save her friends, and stop a death-count that’s climbing too high too fast before his boss shuts her down for good.

When 18-year-old Destiny Wyrd stumbles upon her beloved local bookstore owner beaten and unconscious, she realizes her once-peaceful community has become a supernatural battleground. As a Fate-in-Training, Destiny has the extraordinary ability to halt death, but her own unresolved grief over the loss of her parents looms like a dark cloud, weakening her powers. With demons stalking the shadows and soul-sucking Grim Reapers closing in, she must harness her magic and fight back. Thrust into a race against time to save her friends and her town, she teams up with the enigmatic and dangerously charming Clay, a Grim who bears secrets of his own. Can she protect her heart, conquer her fears and embrace her fate, or will darkness claim them all?

 Tag Line/Tweet: She saves lives, he harvests souls, can they compromise before their romance dies? A Fated to Fall Romance.

The Queen of Second Chances has received four 5-Star reviews from the reviewers at Reader’s Favorite! Here’s a link to the reviews: https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/the-queen-of-second-chances/1

Here’s a review:

I am very proud to have contributed to this amazing book by women lawyers, published by #GAWL (Georgia Association of Women Lawyers), founded in 1928. All net proceeds of book sales benefit GAWL’s programs and services, which serves women in the profession and future attorneys. (FYI: I am not being compensated for my participation). This is the first of its kind publication to share empowering, motivating, inspirational, supportive, transformational information, and resources for women and girls in any profession.

Know a young lady contemplating a professional career or lawstudent? This book will make a great birthday, graduation or just because gift.

My award winning guardian series has great reviews as well. Here’s the links: https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/ranger-nader-the-sunstruck-phantom

https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/ranger-nader-and-the-unsolvable-riddle

You can buy the books here: https://amzn.to/2yMX15A

Ranger Nader has won the following awards:2023 International Book Awards, Winner, Legacy Children’s Books:   2023 International Book Awards: Full Results   https://internationalbookawards.com/2023awardannouncement.html

2022 Global Book Awards, Gold Medal, Children’s Fantasy & Supernatural; Silver Medal, Teen Sword & Sorcery:    https://globalbookawards4.spread.name/

2022 Winner of the Reader’s Favorite Book Awards in Young Adult – Mythology/Fairy Tale: https://readersfavorite.com/rfreviews/search?search=ranger+nader

Finalist in the 13^th Annual Indie Excellence Awards: https://www.indieexcellence.com/13th-annual-finalists 

2019 Long-listed by the Green Earth Book Awards:  http://www.natgen.org/spotlight/2019-long-list-announced/

Ranger Nader & The Sunstruck Phantom is about a boy inheriting his family’s feud with the demi-God Gilgamesh in a fight over the survival of Lebanon’s famous Cedar Forest and the Phoenician way of life.

Don’t read another book where the kids got to school to become wizards; read one where they battle evil while training to crew a Guardian Ship, save the Forest, fight demi-gods, ALSO have magical powers, AND is based on local history and mythology. This book was inspired by climate change and my family’s generations of serving as “Keepers” of the Cedars of Lebanon–ancient, holy trees mentioned in the bible multiple times. As part of their duties, these tree farmers had to combat deforestation by those that wanted to use the wood for building ships, railroads, and palaces. Today in Lebanon their work continues as the Lebanese toil ceaselessly to replant the forest. ly.

Ranger combines mythology and fact. Here’s more information about the book and an author’s note on why I wrote it and published it under the name “Kam Karem.”

FACTUAL UNDERPINNINGS FOR THE BOOK:

• The Epic of Gilgamesh was written approximately 4000 years ago and is considered to be the oldest surviving written work of literature.
• The Epic is about Gilgamesh, a semi-mythical Sumerian King who under takes several quests seeking fame, glory and immortality.
• In the Epic, Gilgamesh is reputed to be a demi-god, having been born to goddess Nnisun.
• On one of his quests, Gilgamesh kills the guardian of the famous holy cedar forest of Lebanon, then clear-cuts the forest.
• The cedar forests in Lebanon are ancient and are mentioned in Bible over 70 times.
• The most famous grove in the cedar forest is called “The Cedars of God,” and is located near Bsharri, Lebanon.
• The Cedars of God were made a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1998. The Grove has over 375 trees, some 115 feet high x 14 feet around. That is as high as an 11-story building and wider than a garage door.
• The townspeople of Bsharri, Lebanon have long had a special relationship with the Cedars of God, and for generations, have considered themselves to be, “The Keepers of the Cedars of God.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

My family, the Karems, emigrated to the United States from “BSharri” or “Becharre,” Lebanon in the early 1900s. In BSharri, they had served with the town’s other inhabitants as “Keepers” of a grove of holy trees called “The Cedars of God.” For generations they shared responsibility for tending to these trees, which have been venerated for thousands of years and are mentioned in the Bible numerous times.

In Ranger Nader & The Sunstruck Phantom, Ranger Nader is born into a family of Keepers.  When a magical axe starts chasing him, he discovers he is this generation’s “Guardian,” i.e.: person entrusted with this axe to preserve and protect God’s Holy Cedars from the ultimate threat – Gilgamesh.

Lebanon’s deforestation at the hands of raiders and invaders, and its decimation due to over-use, is a matter of historic record, and has been documented for eons. The Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Romans, Greeks, Myceneans and Ottomans all contributed to shrinking the forest to one fifth of its former glory.

The clear-cutting of Lebanon’s forests has gone on for so long and has been so large in scale, it is the stuff of many legends – The Epic of Gilgamesh being one. In The Epic, 4700 years ago, Gilgamesh, who was reputed to be a demi-god with god-like powers, fought Humbaba, the guardian of the forest, for the right to use the trees to build his kingdom.  When Gilgamesh won, the forest lost.

In Ranger Nader & The Sunstruck Phantom, Gilgamesh is sun-struck, or insane with power, and resurfaces in today’s world where he intends to finish what he started – Earth’s destruction. Ranger confronts the crazy king with his magic axe in an epic show down.

In some respects, you can say Ranger is a stand-in for my family and Gilgamesh represents those who squander our heritage because they can. In reality, they both represent all of us. Everyone who lives and breathes, and has lived and breathed, has a shared responsibility to stand-up for our planet and take positive steps to insure its resources are not squandered and instead are preserved where they can be.

Read more below about how Lebanon is taking positive steps to protect its rich horticultural treasures, and how you can help!

But first, here’s where you can go to read more about Lebanon and its famous cedar forests:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedars_of_God

and http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/lebanon_cedar.htm

If you’d just like a few talking points, well, here you go:

THE CEDARS OF GOD:

• The most famous grove, called “The Cedars of God,” is located near Bsharri, Lebanon.  Ranger Nader is set in Bsharri, Lebanon.
• The Cedars of God were made a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1998. The Grove has over 375 trees, some 115 feet high x 14 feet around. That is as high as an 11-story building and wider than a garage door.
• The Cedars of God are endangered by over-cultivation and the lack of snow.
• A Cedar tree is the central image of Lebanese national flag.
• In 2014 Lebanon’s Agriculture Ministry began a new plan to plant 40 million trees, including some cedars
• While to date they have planted hundreds of thousands of trees, they are over 38 million away from reaching their goal to restore the forest.

See https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org at: https://bit.ly/2AlnFnU

See http://www.middleeast.com/thecedars.htm

See The New York Times at: https://nyti.ms/2JDzuY3

If you’d like to contribute to Lebanon’s reforestation efforts, or adopt a cedar tree that will be planted in one of the country’s struggling forests, here’s where you need to go:

To contribute money to Lebanon’s Reforestation efforts, go to:

https://www.daleel-madani.org/civil-society-directory/reforest-lebanon

To adopt a cedar tree in order to help Lebanon reach its 40 million tree goal, go here:

https://www.cedarsbox.com

For More Information about TK Read’s Art, click here:

TK’s Art

You can find T.K. on the web here:

• www.thereadlawfirm.com
• www.writersandwannabes.com
• www.100smallfires.com
• www.tkread.com