For the past thirteen years, my website has welcomed visitors with the same simple invitation:
“I’m Taking a Fantastic Voyage. Won’t You Join Me?”
It’s a tagline I’ve never questioned. It felt right from the moment I wrote it, and over the years, it quietly became part of who I am as an author.
Recently, I decided it was time to give my website a fresh new look. At first, I thought I was simply updating the design—new images, cleaner layout, a more inviting homepage. The kind of project every author eventually tackles.
What I didn’t expect was that somewhere between choosing fonts, rearranging sections, and staring at a blank page, I’d discover something about myself.
For years, I’ve described my books by their genres.
Historical fiction.
Pirate adventures.
Science fiction.
Fantasy.
Paranormal.
Family drama.
Looking at that list, it almost seems as though I’ve been wandering all over the literary map.
But then I asked myself a simple question:
What kind of stories do I really write?
The answer surprised me.
I don’t think I’ve ever been writing different kinds of stories at all.
I’ve been writing the same story… over and over again.
Not the same plot. Not the same characters. The same heart.
Every one of my novels is about ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. They’re about courage discovered when it’s least expected. About families finding their way through impossible situations. About hope refusing to surrender. About history whispering its secrets.
About the quiet belief that there is still wonder hidden in this world if we’re willing to look for it.
Some of those journeys take place aboard a pirate ship. Some unfold in nineteenth-century America. Some reach beyond the stars.
But underneath them all, they’ve always been asking the same question:
What happens when ordinary people discover they’re capable of extraordinary things?
Until now, I don’t think I’d ever seen that thread connecting everything I’ve written. Maybe that’s because writers spend so much time worrying about genres, categories, and where our books belong on a shelf. Readers, on the other hand, don’t fall in love with shelves.
They fall in love with stories.
And if they’re lucky, they eventually fall in love with an author whose stories make them feel something every single time they open a new book.
That’s the kind of author I’ve always hoped to become. So yes, my website has a new look. But what changed wasn’t just the homepage. It was my understanding of why I write.
Stories aren’t simply entertainment to me.
They’re invitations.
Invitations to travel through history.
To imagine impossible things.
To meet unforgettable people.
To see the world through different eyes.
To believe, if only for a little while, that ordinary lives are capable of extraordinary moments.
As I continue writing—and as I begin sharing more of that journey here on my website and social media—I hope you’ll come along for the adventure.
After all…
I’m taking a fantastic voyage.
Won’t you join me?
— P.S. Bartlett
psbartlett.me 