Hello! A big thank you to Sadie for allowing me to invade your lives for a couple minutes. If you’re into my writing, or if you’ve never heard of me but are hankering to try something new, you might like to hear what I’ve got coming out and what I’ve been working on.
I think just about every horror author takes a turn at destroying the world, which is what I do in my upcoming novel THE RAVEN (September 8th from Flame Tree Press). In that tale, a group of rogue scientists unleash the bestial side of human DNA, and within a month, the world is overrun by monsters. My protagonist is one of the rare purely-human survivors, and because he’s unblessed (or uncursed) with the ability to become a vampire, a werewolf, or one of the many other creatures now ruling the earth, he has to scrape out an existence through his wiles and determination. He also has to save his girlfriend, who was abducted by a ruthless flesh trader.
Though I don’t have a release date yet, Cemetery Dance will be publishing my long novella (just shy of 40,000 words) THE DISMEMBERED, a historical horror tale set in rural England. This one contains shreds of FRANKENSTEIN, DOWNTON ABBEY, and DRACULA, and I can’t wait for folks to read it.
Two novels I’ve finished and edited are MARLA and CHILDREN OF THE DARK 2: THE NIGHT FLYERS. The former is a creepy mystery/thriller in the vein of Stephen King’s THE OUTSIDER (with a dash of CARRIE thrown in); the latter is my follow-up to CHILDREN OF THE DARK, and I think readers are going to be very interested to see where the story of Will Burgess goes from here. MARLA might be my scariest novel; COTD2 might be my most emotional. At least, I got extremely emotional writing it, so I hope readers experience some of those feelings too. I don’t know who will be publishing those books or when, but I’m excited for the moment when people get to read them.
A rough draft I wrote earlier this year is a coming-of-age novel called HALLOWEEN GODS. I was thrilled with the way this one turned out, and though I have a great deal of editing still to do on the book, I’m hoping it will be polished and ready by late 2020 or early 2021.
My most recently finished rough draft is AMITY, which is my first non-supernatural novel. My fans needn’t worry, though. It’s suspenseful, full of characters that were a blast to write, and is, at least right now, the longest novel I’ve written. There’s much more to the plot than this, but what I’ve shared so far on social media is the set-up: Two men, both of whom are rabid JAWS fans, inherit an island off the coast of Virginia and attempt to transform it into a replica of Amity Island from the Spielberg film. They also construct a JAWS-themed amusement park and the largest shark aquarium in North America. Then the murders begin.
YouTube Book trailer for AMITY:
Photo Cred: James Sabata
Though I just finished the rough draft of AMITY last week, I’ve already begun work on another novel, this one a tale I haven’t yet announced. I’m 14,000 words deep, and the narrative is flying along. If all goes well, I should finish this one by January and edit it by next summer’s end.
In yet more news, I recently completed my first screenplay, an adaptation of my ghost story THE SIREN AND THE SPECTER. Having finished that one, I also began to work on my second screenplay, another adaptation of one of my novels. The first two drafts of that one are done, with many more drafts still to go. Screenwriting is a different beast than writing novels, but I’m finding that I love doing it.
And that’s all for now. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope you check out THE RAVEN this September, and I hope you’ll be seeing the rest of these books in print in the next few years.
Jonathan Janz
Follow on Instagram @Jonathan.janz
And Twitter @JonathanJanz
