Be scared! Be unsettled! Most of all, be entertained!
Jools King spends most of his waking hours scratching his trepanned skull to find new ways to unsettle readers. Can you really be scared while reading a book? I mean, you could always close the book and do something else. From reviews, it might appear that Jools’ books are scary.
“This is NOT a book for the squeamish.”
“Creepiest book I have read in a while.”
“Left shockwaves throughout for me.”
“This is NOT a book for the weak of heart or stomach, but it definitely holds your interest until the end.”
“Jools, you had my heart racing throughout this twisted, ghoulish factory tour!”
Jools has other motives for writing his horror stories. He wants not just to scare, but to unsettle, and also, more importantly, to entertain. He serves those horror readers who are looking for something a little different from the standard horror novel. Not too different or avant-garde; there’s plenty familiar to the horror genre to ensure that the reader feels (un)comfortable with what they’re reading. He always strives to maintain reader expectations. He prefers to ditch the staler tropes, or give them new life with a brutal twist!
Jools has always expressed a fondness for writing in the horror genre. Often, he creates hybrids (e.g. Bodyfreeze is horror sci-fi). Writing in any other primary genre doesn’t interest him. (Although he has vague dreams of expanding into Urban Fantasy and Steampunk.)
Fear is the Key
Fear is a prime motivator. Characters are best expressed by what they fear. Not just jump scare terror, but lingering dread, anxieties, fear of the unknown. These characters yearn to answer the questions of what happens after we die, and why we are here. Their fears and anxieties mirror the reader’s own.
Jools King loves answering those questions, both in his writing and in real life. He enjoys reading philosophers such as Plato, Nietzsche and Jung. Those famous thinkers have opened his mind (hence the trepanation).
By day, he’s a UK highways drainage engineer, trying to repair flooded roads. By night, he writes his dark fiction. Vampire Guerilla, a vampire novella, is his next title (due out December 2026). Jools insists he’s not a writer of extreme horror, but he likes to keep things visceral and gritty. Vampire Guerilla will be no different.
You can find a full list of his books here. A preview of his most recent novel, Do I Look Plastic To You? is here.
If you haven’t already, please sign up to his newsletter and receive a free short story. He includes occasional flash fiction in his newsletter, as well as blogs on the occult.