Stories Around the World is a living page tracking where readers discover, read, and connect with Zyphar’s fiction across different countries and cities. Updated regularly as new readers join the journey.
Where the Journey Began
Featured Reading City — December 2025
Every journey has a beginning. For Stories Around the World, that beginning was Belfast.
In December 2025, readers from Belfast quietly became one of the first communities to spend meaningful time exploring my work. There was no advertising campaign, no launch event, and no literary tour. The stories simply found their way there, and the readers stayed.
Among the stories discovered during that period were :
Yet one story stood apart.
The opening chapter of my debut novel The Becoming from the Zyphar Chronicles series, drew my attention through both its readership and the time readers chose to spend with it.
Unlike the darker political thrillers and psychological conflicts that define much of my later work, Smoke Before Fire moves with quiet patience. Set along the shores of Lake Maggiore, it follows a man as he builds a home, remembers the woman he loves, and reflects on memory, identity, and the fragile moments that shape a life.
The story carries a special place in this journey because it was written while I was living beside Lake Maggiore itself. The landscape described in its pages was not imagined from afar—it was experienced, observed, and written from the place where the story unfolds.
Looking back, Belfast became more than a city on an analytics page. It became the first place that revealed a simple truth: stories often travel farther than their authors ever expect.
To every reader in Belfast who opened those pages, thank you for becoming the first chapter in this continuing journey.
Featured Reading City — January 2026
Some cities quietly change the direction of a journey. For Stories Around the World, Lisbon became one of those places.
Long before this living archive existed, a standalone literary fiction story:
Found its first readers on Medium before later being shared through my newly created Facebook page. It was never planned as a campaign or a promotional piece. It was simply a story written out of admiration for a city.
What happened next was unexpected.
Readers from Lisbon discovered the story, spent time with it, and embraced a narrative that treated their city not as a backdrop, but as the protagonist itself. Seeing residents connect with a story inspired by their own streets, memories, and emotions became one of the earliest moments that shaped the idea behind Stories Around the World.
That experience revealed something more valuable than readership statistics. Stories could travel beyond publishers, bookstores, and algorithms. They could reach readers directly, finding homes in places where they were never specifically sent.
The response to Lisbon also marked the beginning of another journey. It inspired the creation of a broader online literary presence beyond traditional publishing, eventually leading to dedicated audiobook channels, verified social platforms, and a growing collection of freely accessible stories alongside published books.
Among all the places recorded in Stories Around the World, Lisbon will always hold a special place. It was one of the first cities to demonstrate that stories are capable of crossing borders on their own, carried only by the curiosity of readers.
To everyone in Lisbon who opened that first page, thank you for becoming part of this continuing journey.
Featured Reading City — June 2026
For June 2026, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is recognized as the Featured Reading City in Stories Around the World. Readers in Dubai spent the month exploring a selection of stories from the Zyphar universe, moving between literary fiction and psychological thrillers that examine power, identity, deception, and the unseen cost of survival.
Each story offered a different perspective, yet together they revealed the themes that drew readers into this month’s journey.
Most Read Stories in June 2026
This Month’s Observation
The Girl They Don’t Send Twice attracted the greatest curiosity among Dubai readers. Its presentation suggested an underworld nightlife story, yet beneath that surface lay a narrative questioning exploitation, control, and the systems that transform vulnerable people into commodities. For many readers, expectation and reality met in unexpected ways.
While curiosity opened the door, Neon Bruise became the story where readers chose to stay longer. Set inside the brutal realities of human trafficking and survival, it follows women struggling to preserve hope within a world designed to erase it. Rather than relying on spectacle, the story asks what remains of a person when even hope becomes something that can be taken away.
Together, these two stories reflected two different ways readers engaged with fiction during the month—one inviting immediate curiosity, the other encouraging deeper reflection.
Thank You, Dubai
To every reader in Dubai who spent time with these stories, thank you.
Every page read, every story explored, and every quiet moment of reflection becomes part of Stories Around the World. Whether you stayed for a single chapter or continued through several, your time helped shape this month’s journey.