Five Facts about My Novels

The Challenge

I was challenged on Facebook by Erik Brown, Author to write five facts about my novels. I thought I'd share my response with this community, but you can also see the original post here.

A bit of background...

I released "Stargazing at the June Bug Ranch" in September of 2025. It's a "time-tangled cold-case mystery set along the backroads and forgotten corners of Fort Worth, Texas." The book mixes cold case with time travel, but probably not the way you'd expect.

I am currently working on the second book in the June Bug series called "Ark of Veridicus." I'm about eight chapters in at the time of this writing. This book also mixes time travel and cold cases, but it also makes more use of tech and sci-fi ideas.

Five Points

1. The seed idea that sparked the June Bug series won't be revealed until at least book five. I came up with the idea about twenty-five years ago. I don't want to spoil it, but it has to do with memory and how it works and how it's recorded and how we can access it.

2. I spent a long time trying figure out where the story actually started. Eventually, I decided to write a short story about the actual crime and then built out from there. I needed something solid to work against. Most of the short story became irrelevant, but it was a great catalyst for getting me started on the project.

3. Most of the places in my book are real. Most still exist, but several are long gone. They are places that I'm fond of growing up in Fort Worth. These places include restaurants, hospitals, parks, and more. Most of the roads are real, too. Specifically, Interstate Hwy 35, which has been perpetually under construction since its inception in the late 1950s.

4. Maybe I'm too big a fan of TV and Movies. In this first book, I break the fourth wall a few times. Half of one chapter is a monologue. I even made a cameo as an infant back in 1974. It's probably corny, but I enjoyed writing it.

5. The theme of the first book may not be immediately obvious. It's written in North Texas, which is part of the Bible Belt, but it's not exactly about faith. I don't count it as a Christian book, though Christianity is represented in it. My hope is that the theme will rumble around in the reader's head and become clearer once read. Hint: We are often myopic and lack imagination of how big things really are. Can you see the stars tonight?

Thanks for being part of my community. Follow my Facebook author account, Jesse R Traynham - Author for additional updates and insights like this one, where I release daily updates on the state of my next book, Ark of Veridicus.

Stargazing at the June Bug Ranch

When Colton Travers was just four months old, a runaway horse on Bent Oak Road cause a car wreck that left his mother dead. His father survived, then vanished. Raised on family stories and faded photographs, he never questioned the past . . . until a worn shoe box of old clippings surfaced with hints of a darker truth. Now, drawn into a fifty-year-old unsolved case, Colton must chase a trail gone cold, where memory holds the clues, time keeps the truth, and justice demands satisfaction.

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