Read the new novel "conversations with myself".

Available at Amazon.com.  Click image to purchase.

Get a copy of Dark Waters for you or someone special to you this Christmas

My new novel Dark Waters is available now from Amazon. A purchase of the print version comes with a free digital copy for Kindle readers and apps via the Amazon MatchBook program.


Be sure to leave a review on Amazon to let me know what you think of it.


You can sample an excerpt from the novel and find product links at gjowensbooks.com.


Thanks,
-gj

Order the Paperback of Dark Waters Now

You can now order the paperback version of my new novel Dark Waters from CreateSpace, Amazon, or your favorite local book store. Purchasing the print version from Amazon also gives you a free digital copy for Kindle readers and apps via the Amazon MatchBook program.  You can also pre-order the Kindle version for download Tuesday.

Be sure to leave a review on Amazon to let me know what you think of it.

In the meantime, you can sample an excerpt from the novel here.

Thanks,
-gj

Dark Waters Release Date & Kindle Pre-Order

The release is finally set for my new novel Dark Waters.  You can pre-order the Kindle version right now for delivery on 11/25, just in time to give yourself a thrilling read for the US Thanksgiving holiday.  The print version will be available on the 25th as well, and remember that a purchase of the print version comes with a free copy for Kindle readers and apps via the Amazon MatchBook program.

You can see the cover art below.  Click on it to go to the Amazon Kindle product page.

Three years ago cancer took the wife of Pat Collins.  Feeling neglected and forgotten by her father leading up to and in the months after the death of her mother, his teenage daughter ran away from home.  He has not spoken to her since, left only a text message to announce her leaving.  Afterward, Pat’s life spiraled down into a dark hole from which he had barely been able to pull himself.

Now returned to his life as a police detective, and with few memories of the time following the destruction of his family remaining, Pat is afraid he might be going insane.  Dreams that haunt him at night are beginning to take hold during his waking hours, and he is starting to see things . . . things that have no logical explanations.  He discovers that, with a touch, he is somehow able to see the memories of others.  As he struggles with his newfound existence, he finds true madness stalks him in the form of a sadistic killer for whom Pat has become a fixation.

Sparked by a memory not his own, Pat begins a quest to stop the devil haunting the streets of his adopted home, but he must deal with his own personal demons in order to do it.  Only by resolving his past can he find a future free from the hell his life has become.

Thanks,

gj

Dark Waters Preview

What if you could live another person's memories?

It has been three years since Pat Collins watched cancer cause a painful death for his wife.  If this loss was not enough, his teenage daughter, feeling neglected and forgotten by her father leading up to and in the months following, was driven away from home.  He has not spoken to her since, left only a text message to announce her leaving.

Now Pat is afraid he might be going insane.  Dreams that haunt him at night are beginning to take hold during his waking hours, and he is starting to see things...things that have no logical explanations.  But it is true madness that stalks him in the form of a sadistic killer who believes Pat is the secret to fulfilling his dark destiny.


It has been a while, but I have been hard at work on my forthcoming novel Dark Waters.  I am putting the final touches on it, as well as working on the cover design and art.

The writing of this latest novel was unusual for me in the sense that it became something almost entirely different than what it began as in my head, and I wanted to share this short preview with my readers.



Thank you for your time,
-gj

Click the image below to go to the preview.

Guest Post via Carrie Ann Golden

Carrie Ann Golden has been featuring people in the literary world and their takes on the ages-old debate: Plot vs. Characters.

So far, she has featured the thoughts of Rochelle Melander and John Avery.  This week, she has added my musings on the topic for you to ponder.

You can find my thoughts, as well as the other talented people at Carrie's blog.

The White Door - Available October 15th

The release date for The White Door is set for October 15th.  Here is a good look at the gorgeous cover artwork by DC Comics' artist Tom Derenick.  After you've had a chance to soak in the finished cover, I'll be posting a series of images with notations, detailing the progression of the artwork from my embarrassing initial sketch to what you see here. 

Enjoy,
-gj

What is Horror?

Horror is armed conflict, which leaves more dead bodies than resolutions.  It is rape and murder, which happens every night in far too many cities.  Horror is an explosion in a public place, or a mother holding her dead child's body in her arms.  I think we all know what real horror is, even if we have only experienced it vicariously.   So I guess the pertinent question is what is horror fiction.

The dissection of an idea can be treacherous.  A concept could mean something completely different to different people with differing standards.  For instance, right now I think many people would say a television show like The Walking Dead is horror, but I disagree.  I think horror should move us on a deeper level, not just shock us or make us jump in surprise.  There is a place for those things, but it’s not horror.

In just two sentences at the very beginning of his novel Ghost Story, Peter Straub asks us to examine the worst things we have ever done, as well as the worst that have happened to us.  It is an authorial sleight of hand, but that is what has happened without the reader consciously knowing.  The text that makes up the book that follows is thereby informed by our own dark experiences.

Horror done well will make us squirm and feel genuine unease, at the best of times due to its subconscious messages rather than its explicit ones.  If I were to write a book about Achluophobia, or fear of darkness, in which the characters constantly thought about and analyzed their fear, would it be scary?  What if, instead, I constantly put the characters into situations where darkness was an unnamed coconspirator wordlessly oppressing our protagonists, and thus the audience?  Wouldn’t the latter have the greater impact on a reader’s fear of the dark?  The best writers, in any medium, will build an atmosphere of unease, not simply point out things people commonly fear.

When Dan Simmons writes of his “mind vampires” in his novel Carrion Comfort, it is the idea of losing our will that we fear more than any of the overt acts described by the author.  We imagine our loss of mental control, or how each day we are stalked by those in the real world who would manipulate us, or have done in the past.  The audience should be made to imbue the work with their own fears, and they must be allowed to scare themselves, for we know best what scares us.  I think horror is an art.  It is most effective when using the roller-coaster mentality.  People fear the chance of something happening far more than the result.  We have reality for that second kind of horror.

Some would say if you throw enough blood on it, then it becomes horror.  To some, I suppose it does, but I think true horror fiction has a psychology.  In a movie like Alien, the real fear comes from the feeling of claustrophobia, the characters trapped in a small space with no escape.  The Aliens are simply the catalyst for the real fear, the fear of the subconscious.

I feel the best way to gauge horror is by asking people what they fear.  Try it for yourself.  Ask someone what he or she fears most, and then analyze the answer to reveal the real fear hidden beneath their words.  That’s where horror lives.  For example, if someone professes a fear of flying, does that really mean the dread springs from being up in the sky in a giant tube?  Most times, it does not.  The real fear is death and destruction.   As a writer, you must create that airplane in order to plumb the depths of an audience’s unspoken fears.  If someone is not scared of clowns, Stephen King’s It would fall flat without the darker, seedier psychology beneath the surface.

Horror comes wrapped in all manner of packaging, but it is the underlying causes of our fears, and our own personal experiences with them that are of utmost importance.  Whether through allegory or metaphor, horror challenges us to inspect our fears, societal and personal.  It can be release and catharsis, as well as warning.  Horror, at its best, expresses themes and concepts that make us investigate ourselves in ways we commonly do not, sometimes realizing the truly horrific that resides inside each of us.  That is where true horror lies.

What is horror to you?

-gj