D

David Mills

2 booksHorrorYoung AdultVampire Horror

Alex Smith writes practical guides for families who want less noise and more connection. After years of watching screens crowd out play, meals, and sleep in real households, Alex developed the Phase-Based Reset used throughout Unplugged Kids. A parent and longtime observer of child development and everyday family systems, Alex focuses on habits that survive homework, peer pressure, and exhausted weeknights. When not writing, Alex is outdoors, cooking with kids, or helping caregivers draft media agreements they can actually keep. Connect with Alex online for tools, scripts, and upcoming work on digital balance.

Books

Sundown at Black Hollow

Sundown at Black Hollow

When the sun sets over the mountain, surviving the night costs everything.

  • Horror
  • Young Adult

Welcome to Black Hollow, where darkness bites. It started with whispers of a strange sickness—neighbors hiding from sunlight, pale skin, and an unnatural hunger. But by the time communication with the outside world goes dead, senior Hailey Mercer realizes the horrifying truth: an ancient vampire nest has awakened in the valley, and everyone they once knew is turning. Cut off from help and surrounded by the infected, Hailey and a small group of surviving classmates barricade themselves inside the high school. Armed with makeshift weapons, rigged halogen floodlights, and volatile chemical compounds mixed in the science lab, the teens must hold the line. Leading the horde outside is Caleb Garrison, a missing classmate who has returned with a thirst for blood and a ruthless plan to consume the town before dawn. With Hailey's younger brother trapped in the valley center, survival means facing the monsters that used to be their closest friends. As the siege begins, one thing is certain: they must fight back before the sun rises on a town that belongs entirely to the undead.

Unplugged Kids: A Practical Family Guide to Screen-Free Living and Digital Balance

Unplugged Kids: A Practical Family Guide to Screen-Free Living and Digital Balance

Raise calmer kids, reclaim family time, and make screens occasional tools

  • Parenting & Family
  • Self-Help

Screens have quietly become the default babysitter, peacemaker, and dinner guest. Unplugged Kids shows busy parents how to change that without starting a household war. Alex Smith offers a realistic, compassionate Phase-Based Reset: diagnose what’s actually happening in your home, prepare everyone for the shift, replace scrolling with real play, and keep the new balance when school, peers, and exhaustion push back. You’ll learn how devices hijack young brains and emotions from toddlerhood through early adolescence—and how to respond with calm authority instead of guilt or chaos. Inside you’ll find family media agreements you can actually keep, room-by-room redesigns that make offline life easier, scripts for device-removal meltdowns, and toolkits for outdoor movement, independent creativity, and genuine connection. The guide faces the messy realities other books skip: required school tech, FOMO, parental self-care, and the days you will slip. This is not a purity crusade. It’s a practical map to a home where screens serve the family—and kids remember how to be bored, brave, and together.