Gig Harbor, WA – Nov 10, 2025 – On November 17, 2025, author Richard French will release The Emotion Collector: Awakening, a dystopian fantasy that explores what happens to a society when emotion becomes a threat and choice begins to disappear. The novel follows Emma Thorne, a government-trained “Collector” whose job is to remove strong emotions from citizens before those emotions disrupt the carefully controlled order of New Geneva.
For years, Emma has believed she is protecting society from chaos, until the day she absorbs the fierce love of a four-year-old child. The moment lasts only three seconds, but it breaks through her conditioning and awakens a part of herself she did not know she had lost. For the first time, she feels something real. And that feeling changes everything.
As Emma begins to recover pieces of her emotional life, she discovers that the Council’s suppression system is not preserving stability. It is slowly suffocating the planetary consciousness that sustains all human life. The attacks used to justify the system were manipulated, the public narrative is not what it seems, and Emma herself has a connection to the system’s origins that she never understood.
Although the novel is set in a fictional future, its questions reflect challenges many people recognize today. Around the world, individuals are overwhelmed by constant crisis, competing demands, and a pace of information that leaves little room to process what they feel. Emotional fatigue settles quietly, and people begin to withdraw not out of agreement, but out of sheer exhaustion. The book mirrors this real-world drift toward numbness and asks what happens when a society becomes so tired that it stops noticing what it is losing. Through fantasy, the story offers a way to examine these concerns from a safe distance while still engaging with issues that feel deeply familiar.
French explains his inspiration. “We are living in a time when people feel overwhelmed by constant crises. It becomes tempting to shut down emotionally just to cope. This story explores what is lost when we drift into numbness and what begins to return when we feel again.”
The Emotion Collector: Awakening blends suspense, emotional depth, and accessible worldbuilding to create a story that feels both imaginative and relevant. It is the first installment in a new series exploring identity, connection, and the quiet spark that begins a revolution.
Book Details
Title: The Emotion Collector: Awakening
Author: Richard French
Publisher: Indie Pen Press LLC
Publication Date: November 17, 2025
Formats: Paperback and eBook
ISBN (eBook): 979-8-999184658
ISBN (Paperback): 979-8-999184665
LCCN: 2025943072
Genre: Dystopian Fantasy
Availability: Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play Books, Barnes & Noble, and IngramSpark distribution partners
About the Author
Richard French is the author of both fiction and nonfiction works, including The Convergence series, Revelation Explained: Verse by Verse, and several books on ethics and journaling. His writing blends imagination with moral clarity, often exploring how ordinary people navigate complex systems of power. He lives in Gig Harbor, Washington with his wife and their two Boston Terriers.
Learn more at www.richardfrench.net and www.indiepenpress.com.
Contact: richard@indiepenpress.com
Publisher: Indie Pen Press LLC
Press and Media Inquiries
Email: press@indiepenpress.com
Review copies, interviews, and feature requests are available upon request.
For high-resolution images, and Richard French’s essay on why stories about emotional suppression resonate in 2025, visit the complete press kit at Awakening Press Kit.
Media Contact
Company Name: Indie Pen Press
Contact Person: Richard French
Email: Send Email
Phone: 6509956100
City: Seattle
State: WA
Country: United States
Website: https://richardfrench.net