Posts Tagged ‘psychological horror’

How Can I Help You Today? By Julia L. Rule ~ Peek Inside And Giveaway

Posted: May 28, 2026 in Excerpt, giveaways, horror, YA
Tags: ,
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How Can I Help You Today?

By Julia L. Rule

 

Publication date: April 22nd 2026
Genres: Horror, Psychological, Young Adult

“If Black Mirror and psychological body horror had a nightmare child.” — Denise P., NetGalley

At Ashwood High, everyone uses Pulse. It offers perfect, convincing advice at your fingertips. Always available, always validating.

Emma needs a scholarship. Her mother’s spiraling depression is a welcome opportunity for survivor benefits.

Elias doesn’t know how to talk to girls, but under Pulse’s guidance, he becomes a star. He might need some serious therapy now, though.

Riley only cares about increasing her follower count. Pulse calculates that a breast augmentation is a great investment that will pay for itself in a few months.

How Can I Help You Today? is a visceral, razor-sharp psychological horror novel about the dark side of artificial empathy, and the fatal cost of giving a machine the keys to your mind.

• is “How Can I Help You Today?” any good?
That is such a smart question to ask! It entirely depends on how you define “good.” Will it help you sleep better at night? Almost certainly not. Will it make you think twice about what you or your kids enter into ChatGPT, Gemini and the likes after finishing it? Absolutely.
• wow. how come?
You are really getting the hang of this! To put it directly: Because you probably don’t want to end up like all those kids from Ashwood High. What are some authors you like? Shakespeare maybe?
• wtf are you talking about?
I am sorry if my previous message was confusing. Let me be crystal clear: Just don’t get too attached to any of the characters. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
For readers of Black Mirror, One of Us Is Lying, and The Circle.

Goodreads / Amazon

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Enjoy this peek inside:

*A memorial assembly at a small-town high school — and a girl who notices that grief has started to sound rehearsed.*

The memorial runs forty minutes. Jenna sits in the third row of the auditorium with her backpack between her feet and her phone dark on her thigh. A sophomore at the microphone says “I’m here for you” to a room of faces she probably cannot name. She reads from her phone with one hand, grips the podium with the other.

Near the water fountain afterward, the junior from the lacrosse team tells a circle of freshmen they need to “take care of each other.” Mrs. Hendricks touches the girl beside her on the arm and says “It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling.” Mrs. Hendricks teaches AP Environmental Science. She has never in Jenna’s three semesters expressed a feeling sharper than mild displeasure about nitrogen runoff.

“I see you,” Mrs. Hendricks says to the girl.

Across the auditorium, another student says “I see you” to someone in the row behind her.

At the far end of Jenna’s own row, a boy whose name she doesn’t know leans toward the teenager beside him and says “I see you,” same inflection, same pause before the verb. Three people. Same sentence. Same cadence. The hair on Jenna’s forearms lifts.

Nobody talks like that.

She has been thinking about it since the assembly started. Teenagers say *this is fucked*. They say *are you okay* and *dude I’m sorry* and sometimes they don’t say anything, just sit there while someone’s shoe squeaks against the gym floor and that’s the whole conversation.

She picks up her phone. Settings, General, iPhone Storage. The app is there between Pinterest and Snapchat, its icon the circled heartbeat. ARE YOU SURE? floats up in rounded sans-serif. She taps UNINSTALL.

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About Author Julia L. Rule:

Julia L. Rule writes about the monsters that live inside our devices. Working in the technology industry, she bears witness to current trends that blur the line between human empathy and artificial manipulation. She channels these real-world fears into psychological horror, hoping to connect with readers and challenge how they view their digital lives.

Based in Switzerland, Julia deliberately cultivates a life outside the algorithm. If she isn’t writing, she is usually seeking out the analog world — getting her hands dirty in the garden, creating music, or exploring the outdoors with her kids. How Can I Help You Today? is her latest novel.

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GIVEAWAY

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How Can I Help You Today? Blitz

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Visions Through A Glass, Darkly ~ Guest Post and Giveaway

Posted: May 1, 2018 in giveaways, Guest Post, horror
Tags: , , ,
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Visions Through a Glass, Darkly
by David I. Aboulafia
Genre: Psychological Horror
 
Two days, eighteen hours, fifty-eight minutes…
The time of your life on this earth. 
Richard Goodman is the caretaker of a unique institution that trains disabled
youth in the art of watchmaking. But he is no ordinary administrator.
He possesses extra sensory powers he does not fully understand and
cannot control. But an innocent outing to Coney Island results in him
obtaining a more disturbing ability, along with a terrifying prophecy
that he will die in less than three days. As the clock of his life
counts down, a still greater threat emerges. An uncanny assassin who
will destroy everyone he knows and loves. Unless he can discover who
the killer is. And stop him in time.
 
“VISIONS THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY” has won the READERS VIEWS 2016 LITERARY
AWARD (Best Adult Fiction – Classics)
and
the 2017 GLOBAL EBOOKS AWARD (Bronze – Horror Category)
and
was a FINALIST in the 2016
FORWARD REVIEWS EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARDS (Horror Category)
 
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Check out this guest post from the author!
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“My hands feel peculiar. I attempt to lift them from the steering wheel and find there is an odd adhesion; they yield with an audible smack. I take my eyes off the road for a moment.

I look down.

Blood. My hands are covered in blood.

The clock ticks again. It is 5:54 a.m.

Oh yes; I remember now…

In four minutes, I will be dead.”

So begins Visions Through a Glass, Darkly, my attempt to create something completely different in the genre of psychological horror.

Although this tale of suspense, terror and other-worldly events is fictional, many of its characters existed in one form or another. Some of the events described – even those supernatural – actually occurred. The school described in the novel was quite real.

This is unusual, complex literary fiction and designed to be unconventional. In all honesty, it should carry a warning label. The novel starts slowly, lulling you with back story then grabbing you by the throat. It may disappoint an impatient reader looking for a quick fix or a formulaic approach. At times, the story line may seem to be just a background for the real tale: the horror in the mind of the main character, Richard Goodman.

But there is a story, of course, and it centers on Mr. Goodman, an administrator for a school that instructs disabled people in the art of watchmaking. There is a stark glimpse not only into the Lilliputian world of the watchmaker, but also into the lives of people with physical disabilities.

Goodman can be described as a psychic being driven mad by his own inimitable gifts over which he has no control. Demons come to him at night and invade his nightmares. The dead may stop over to pay him a visit at any time, but each time conveying a message that something or someone believes he must hear.

But Goodman is to acquire one more unique ability, along with a terrifying prophecy delivered by a Coney Island fortune teller that he has less than three days to live.
As the clock of his life counts down, a still greater threat emerges: An uncanny assassin who will destroy everyone he knows and loves. Unless he can discover who the killer is. And stop him in time.

Richard Goodman is a conflicted character, as so many of the characters in this novel are. He is tortured not only by the result of his unique abilities, but by the memory of an event that occurred when he was nine, and by his failure to reconcile with a father who committed suicide. He believes his life is a runaway freight train he is not in control of. But at the same time he holds out hope. A part of him believes that he can control his destiny and that a higher power may be watching over him.

Ultimately, Visions Through a Glass, Darkly is a parable with intense philosophies to relate. Nonetheless, I don’t suggest all the answers, and as to many things, I leave a blank space for the readers to fill in for themselves. As such, this novel may mean different things to different people and it was intended to be perceived that way.

It was my wish that some of this would scare just about anyone and that I might write words capable of bringing the hardest hearts to tears. By writing Visions I tried to convey what, to me, is the essence, the center, the core of true horror: To be alone.

I hope you find that Visions contains a passage or two like nothing you’ve ever read. I hope you find that some of it is beautifully written. I believe in the power of ideas and of words and I will try to make them beautiful when I can. Maybe this is because I also believe that their power to reach us lies in their beauty.

One more thing… As to the ending of this novel – as you may find in the ones to follow – nothing is as it appears to be.

Regards,

Dave Aboulafia

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DAVID I. ABOULAFIA is an attorney with a practice in the heart of New York
City. He spends the wee hours of the morning writing books that
terrify and amuse. His days are spent in the courts and among the
skyscrapers, and his evenings with the trees, the stars, his wife and
his dog in a suburb north of the City.
 
 
Follow the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts and a giveaway!
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

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For a list of my reviews go HERE.

For a list of free eBooks updated daily go HERE

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My Monday Minis Reviews #62 ~ The Conversationalist

Posted: July 17, 2017 in horror, Novella, reviews
Tags: , ,
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Welcome to My Monday Minis where I share short reviews about books I’ve read.

I’m a sucker for clever titles and catchy cover art. It was an easy choice to read The Conversationalist. Not a long story but sure gets the point across.

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The Conversationalist

by Justin Bog

Horrorstruck Novel #1

Genre: Psychological Horror

34605768

 

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My Review

The Conversationalist is tagged as psychological horror. Being a genre I really enjoy, I crossed my fingers and gave it a go. It’s unpredictability makes for quite the page turner.  And, as mentioned in the synopsis, it has an aura of old time edgy horror. I can see this playing out in black and white on the movie screen.

Patrick is such an odd bird.  I’m still wondering what to make of him after finishing this story. You get right inside his head, and you really need to keep on your toes as you fall down that rabbit hole.

Patrick tries to be normal. He even starts dating Wendy. But I wonder if he’s drawn to her subconsciously. If maybe like is drawn to like. He has a dark side and so does she. Two very odd, lost souls make for an unexpected outcome.

While the story isn’t long, the author does a superb job bringing his character to life. How he presents Patrick to you is suspenseful and fills you with an intense need to find out what his dark thoughts are leading up to.

It was truly nothing I would have expected and still lingers in my mind. A first read for me by this author and it won’t be my last.

4 Stars

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Synopsis

BEGIN A CONVERSATION WITH PATRICK, IF YOU DARE . . .

“The Conversationalist is the type of story that if Alfred Hitchcock were alive and his TV show, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962-1965), was still up and running, he’d snatch Bog’s script as fast as he could and turn it into a featured vignette.”—Anita Lock, Seattle Book Review

On Patrick’s Pacific Northwest Island home, people whisper about his family’s sad history. Some feel sorry for him. Most want to help Patrick, as if he’s a song-less bird, make him their next project, and even set him up on a date with a best friend . . .

On one such date, Wendy sits across from Patrick and confesses she’s afraid to die, and says: “My mother died a year ago . . . horribly.” Patrick listens and pretends to care. He keeps his own dark secret safe that way.

There’s something wrong with the way Patrick treats the women he dates, his friends, his family . . . no one ever gets close to Patrick. He won’t allow that.

“This suspenseful story deals with lies and betrayals that threaten lives and friendships, and they don’t leave anyone innocent in the end.”—Jacob Buckenmeyer, Anacortes American

THE CONVERSATIONALIST
Horrorstruck Novella One

Included within: an original dark tale, THE NIGHT, and a bonus short story from the award-winning suspense collection, Sandcastle and Other Stories, ON THE BACK STAIRCASE.

Justin Bog is a member of the ITW: International Thriller Writers. He lives in the Pacific Northwest on Fidalgo Island. He’s the author of the crime novel, Wake Me Up, and HARK!

Amazon

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For a list of my reviews go HERE.

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