Small Spec Book Awards - 2026 Semi-Finalist Feature #5
And all good things come to an end... at least for this year. Welcome to my last set of mini-interviews featuring the semi-finalists of the 2026 Small Spec Book Awards. Today's authors are:
- Yolanda Sfetsos, author of Fallen Destiny, Fantasy Semi-finalist;
- Brennan LaFaro, author of Song Dogs; and
- Dale Smith, author of As a Kang Should Be.
More information on the awards can be found here. The full list of the 2026 semi-finalists can be found here. Each author has been asked the same questions:
1. What inspired you to write this book?
2. What was your favourite part of writing it?
3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)
Fallen Destiny by Yolanda Sfetsos
Destiny isn't human and she has the horns to prove it. She's also damned good at blending into the human world. That, along with her powers, has helped her forge a career out of locating supernatural beings and objects. Got demon troubles? Need a mystical artifact found? Destiny's the one for the job. All goes well for her until the day she's hired by a mysterious nun, and for the first time, Destiny's stumped. How exactly does a demon hired by a nun find an angel?
1. What inspired you to write this book?
My inspiration for FALLEN DESTINY began with my love for the supernatural/occult detective genre. Although I've tackled it many times before with different characters, this time I wanted my main character to be a demon. The day I stumbled on a beautiful piece of art that featured a demoness with a tail and a pentagram nearby, the idea struck. And that's how I started writing about a displaced demon looking for lost things because she feels as lost as everything/everyone she's hired to find.
It didn't take long for everything else to click into place.
2. What was your favourite part of writing it?
My favourite part was getting to know Destiny inside out, to delve deep into her sense of abandonment. To understand her desperate need to find out who she really is and how she ended up in the human realm. I also enjoyed including a few characters from some of my other books. The found family aspect always appeals to me as well.
3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)
You can visit my website at http://www.yolandasfetsos.com/, where you can find out more about my books and read my blog posts. I add updates and reviews of the books I read all the time.
You can also find me at Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/yolandasfetsos.bsky.social
and Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/yolandasfetsos
I also have an Amazon Author page: www.amazon.com/author/yolandasfetsos
Song Dogs by Brennan LaFaro
Revenge has come for Rory Daggett. When a series of unexplained fires leads to a shift in the hierarchy of Buzzard’s Edge, Rory finds himself in a battle against his most dangerous enemy yet. With his mute adopted daughter, Alice, and Sheriff Thaddeus Locke by his side, Rory must investigate the sudden flow of strange, horrific creatures into the town, all while dodging murder, mayhem, and sinister forces—both in the shadows and in plain sight. Prepare yourself for an epic of blood, bullets, and bared teeth in the most thrilling chapter yet of the Buzzard’s Edge Saga.
1. What inspired you to write this book?
Song Dogs is the fourth book in the Buzzard’s Edge Saga, an Indiana Jones-esque adventure horror western that leans into the supernatural and takes place in the cursed little Arizona town of Buzzard’s Edge. The series revolves around Rory Daggett, a man in his early 20s, and his mute adopted daughter, Alice. Song Dogs finds the two of them discovering new father-daughter dynamics and strains while also being called on to help the town deal with a critter infestation. On one hand, I wanted to write a love letter to cryptic horror and include some odd and unloveable creatures that may or may not inhabit the southwestern US, while also inserting a heaping helping of hope and heart in terms of found family and self discovery. These books give you pulpy western with lots of blood and violence without ever skimping on character and depth.
2. What was your favourite part of writing it?
Buzzard’s Edge feels like a second home. Any time I sit down to write one of these books, I’m confronted with that same old imposter syndrome, then a few chapters in, the voice is back, the words are flowing, and I find myself able to write things that probably shouldn’t work (like a chimera in a saloon) in a way that somehow feels natural to the story and the world. Dialogue is one my favorite things to write. With Alice being mute, she communicates through an unpolished, early iteration of American Sign Language. Writing scenes where her and Rory converse forces me to slow down and think of every movement as communication to paint the right picture, but it’s fun and I believe the end product is better for it.
3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)
You can find me on most socials at @brennanlafaro and the seldom updated website is www.brennanlafaro.com. I offer signed books at http://brennanlafaro.bigcartel.com. Your best bet for the most recent need-to-know is my newsletter, which you can read for free at http://brennanlafaro.substack.com
Dale Smith by As a Kang Should Be
Paradise Towers is a place where worlds collide. The cold, clean efficiency of the caretakers’ Paradise. The wallscrawled decay of the Kangs’ Towers. The two coexist begrudgingly, lives on hold until the inbetweens come home from the war. Everybody will get along just fine as long as they stay in their lanes, obey the rules, and keep away from the basement.
So why is a caretaker looking for Downspout? ACAB, so it can’t be for anything good.
Best run, Downspout. Give heels. Don’t look back.
Because if he finds you, it could bring both Paradise and the Towers crashing down for good …
1. What inspired you to write this book?
My publisher Obverse had recently negotiated the rights to make new stories based in the world of Paradise Towers, a 1987 Doctor Who story, so they came to me and asked if I had any ideas. They could only use the things that were created by the story’s writer, Stephen Wyatt, so it was pretty much a blank canvas so long as it was set in the same place. The world that Stephen had created was rigidly divided along gender lines, with the only people under the age of retirement being a gang of young girls who have been raised without even the concept of boys. I’d been wanting to write something that a trans audience could see themselves in for a while, and this seemed like the perfect place to start.
2. What was your favourite part of writing it?
The young girls in Paradise Towers speak in their own invented language, a mix of warped idiom, misremembered slang and 80s enthusiasm. I really wanted to write half the book first person in that language, but the original TV show hadn’t created all that much of it: the girls didn’t do the bulk of the talking, so mostly it was mangled words for the things they saw around them. I really, really enjoyed expanding that language enough to write prose with it and still keeping it sounding like it was one thing, despite me bringing in references that were 40 years after the original. Keeping it consistent caused a few headaches - if I coined a new word late in the book, I had to go all the way back to the start and make sure it got used where it should. My editor and sensitivity reader were great help with that as well, and picked up more than one occasion I’d missed. Invented languages can do my head in sometimes - particularly if they come with a glossary - so keeping this one different enough to feel real but still understandable in context was the most fun I’ve had in years.
3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)
The best place to find my stuff is my website at https://dalesmithonline.com/ but I’m also on BlueSky at https://bsky.app/profile/dalesmithonline.com - although with the UK’s coming social media ban I can’t promise to still be there by the time you read this.
Thanks for reading!
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