THE
BOOKMARK
A supernatural thriller about desire, consequence, and the moment an impossible object enters an ordinary life and quietly changes the rules.
Stories from the drawer
For a long time, it never really occurred to me that other people might one day read what I was writing.
Stories have been appearing on my computer for nearly fifteen years, but most of them stayed there. With a background in history and geography, and as a painting expert, I have always been drawn to the secrets of the past, small details, and stories in which something more lies beneath the surface than we first see.
When I write, however, what interests me most is the people inside the story: what someone is capable of doing for the thing they truly want.
Because The Bookmark brings together the things I return to most often as a writer: history and the present, the supernatural and the ordinary, hidden connections, and human choices that carry consequences. After years of keeping stories to myself, this was the one I wanted to use to open the door.
The one question behind the story
What if you could have what you wanted most, but no one told you beforehand what price you would have to pay for it?
The Bookmark grew out of that single thought.
From there came the idea of a strange bookmark that takes a different form in every person’s hands. It recognizes its owner’s deepest desire, then turns the story they are reading into reality.
Except that some things remain between the pages for a reason.
Chicago → a British family → Damascus
What happens when a story refuses to end with the final page?
A series of mysterious deaths grips Chicago. Detective Andrew Hudginson and his partner, Ben Turner, discover that the victims are linked by the same strange object: a bookmark that reveals something different in the hands of every reader — their deepest desire.
But the bookmark does more than show people what they want. It brings elements of the story they are reading into the real world, turning what first appears to be a gift into something with deadly consequences.
As Andrew and Ben try to understand how the object works, the trail leads to the history of a British family, a secret guarded for centuries, and nearly seven hundred years back to Damascus. The closer they come to the truth, the clearer it becomes that every answer opens another door.
The supernatural matters because of the choice it creates
As a writer, I have been influenced most strongly by the work of Dean R. Koontz. I have always been drawn to stories where the supernatural is not frightening simply because it exists, but because it suddenly enters the life of an entirely ordinary person and forces them to choose.
That is what The Bookmark is really about.
Not whether something exists beyond our world, but what you would do if that something knew exactly what you wanted.
And gave it to you.
Would you accept it?
Some books ask what you believe. This one asks what you would choose.
The Bookmark is available in English and Hungarian through a growing international network of ebook retailers.