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The Drowned Watch ARC applications for Raptoraem: Book I are now live in the Media Vault for members of the Contraband Network.

So if you’d like first dibs before the form opens to the general public, consider this your politely ominous invitation to join the Network and come in through the side door.

Small print from your local smuggling operation: applying does not guarantee selection. It does give Contraband members early access to apply before public signups open.

If you’d like to read Book I early and help usher this foul little enterprise into the world, the form is in the Vault.

Begin your descent:

RaptoraemOfficial.com

Join the Contraband Network:

The Ferryman

Pre-order Book I:

Amazon Kindle

Join the Instagram:

SibleyK @ IG

Business and Leadership:

"Good to Great" by Jim Collins

"The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries

"Zero to One" by Peter Thiel

"Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek

"Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell

Success and Personal Development:

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey

"Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" by Carol S. Dweck

"Atomic Habits" by James Clear

"Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance" by Angela Duckworth

"The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg

Mental Health and Well-being:

"The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle

"Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" by David D. Burns

"The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brené Brown

"The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" by Edmund J. Bourne

"The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook" by Matthew McKay, Jeffrey C. Wood, and Jeffrey Brantley

Goal Setting and Achievement:

"Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want—Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible" by Brian Tracy

"The 12 Week Year" by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington

"Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" by Daniel H. Pink

"The One Thing" by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

"Smarter Faster Better" by Charles Duhigg

Relationships and Communication:

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie

"The 5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman

"Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High" by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan

"Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life" by Marshall B. Rosenberg

"Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" by John Gray

Self-Help and Personal Growth:

"The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson

"Daring Greatly" by Brené Brown

"Awaken the Giant Within" by Tony Robbins

"The Miracle Morning" by Hal Elrod

"You Are a Badass" by Jen Sincero

Science and Popular Science:

"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

"Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins

Health and Nutrition:

"The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II

"In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan

"Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker

"Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall

"The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan

Fiction and Literature:

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

"1984" by George Orwell

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger

MEMORY OF A PROMISE

I still think of you.

You somehow became more real

As you faded slowly in flesh and blood.

Distance did not take you far

Like a trail it brought you back

In a loop.

You somehow became more real

Real , just as I had once needed you to be.

I make you smile and look at me

The way I wanted you to then,

I can picture you as the lover I wanted 

To see.

My eyes see with my mind

What they longed to see

When you forgot to look at me.

In my mind you are just as I had thought 

You to be.

I listen to songs

From our time together 

They seem sweeter now,

Like fulfillment.

They don't have the ache of heartbreak

Like they did when we heard them together 

Lost in our own little worlds

Doors shut to each other.

I like the songs more

I don't cry as I hear them now

There is a stillness of coming home

In these memories of us

As if the lights are on

And you are silhouetted by the window.

The cigarette smoke 

Beckoning me 

As a warm hearth would 

On a cold day.

I see you in my mind

Just as you had promised

Once you would be, to me.

I told myself to forget that promise

The day I walked away.

I wiped  out the clouds from my sky

So the sunshine of my own magic

Could recreate you

And turn you into a permanent 

Dawn scattered upon 

my lonely firmament.

.

No one has opened this book yet. Its pages wait—silent, untouched, like a mirror that does not reveal until you dare to face it.

Seen is not just a story. It is an encounter. It asks what happens when desire doesn’t turn away— but holds your gaze.