News & Blog

THE STONE SERPENT is Here!

Today’s the day! The Stone Serpent is out in the world today! Available in e-book, print, and audio (narrated by the exceptional Linda Jones, who also narrated The Hungry Earth) from your favorite bookseller!

“Nicholas Kaufmann offers up an unputdownable blend of gruesome body horror and fast-paced suspense.” – Ray Garton, author of Live Girls and Ravenous

Medical Examiner Dr. Laura Powell didn’t think anything could be more frightening than what she uncovered in an autopsy a year ago. Yet, in this chilling sequel to Nicholas Kaufmann’s bestselling The Hungry Earth, the cause of death is literally petrifying.

When a completely petrified corpse ends up on her autopsy table, Laura is convinced it must be a fossil, but the evidence says otherwise. Impossibly, the man on her table died in a car crash earlier that day. But what could cause a human body to transform so quickly from flesh to a hard stonelike substance?

Laura’s investigation takes her out of her hometown of Sakima, New York, and into dangerous new territory. From the streets of Valley Grove, home to a fundamentalist religious sect under the thumb of a brutal, vindictive leader, to the bowels of Thurmond Biotech, a secretive pharmaceutical company hellbent on developing the first anti-aging miracle drug, what she unearths is far more terrifying than she could have imagined.

Vicious, deadly creatures are preying on the people of Valley Grove, killing them with a highly toxic venom that ravages and transforms their bodies in horrifying ways. As the creatures claim more victims, striking from out of the darkness with lightning-fast speed, Laura must find a way to stop them before they spread to the rest of the Hudson Valley. But will her search for answers put her in even more danger by sending her into the heart of the creatures’ den?

With The Stone Serpent, multiple award-nominated author Nicholas Kaufmann delivers another gripping thriller in the Dr. Laura Powell series.

A New Interview with Me at This Is Horror

There’s a new interview with me, courtesy of Bob Pastorella at This Is Horror, as we approach the publication of THE STONE SERPENT on 11/29! It covers topics like how I got into horror writing, what I’m working on, my writing routine, who I admire in the horror world, and more.

Click the quote below to read the whole thing:

No day ever feels like I’ve been productive enough, and I have frequent bouts of self-doubt, but I’ve been at this long enough to know the answer is to just keep doing the work. That’s the answer to every gripe a writer might have. Books aren’t selling? Keep doing the work. Having trouble finding an agent? Keep doing the work. Bad reviews? Keep doing the work. If anyone asks me for writing advice, that’s what I tell them. Keep doing the work.

Tune in Tomorrow

Tune in Tomorrow: The Curious, Calamitous, Cockamamie Story Of Starr Weatherby And The Greatest Mythic Reality Show EverTune in Tomorrow: The Curious, Calamitous, Cockamamie Story Of Starr Weatherby And The Greatest Mythic Reality Show Ever by Randee Dawn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Randee Dawn’s delightful debut novel is a comedic fantasy about backstage antics at a reality show/soap opera that just happens to be broadcast in a world of magic and mythical creatures. Think SOAPDISH with centaurs. What makes the novel so much fun is undoubtedly the author’s sense of humor. Anyone who’s read Dawn’s more humorous short stories will recognize her style here, to the point where it’s impossible to imagine TUNE IN TOMORROW being written by anyone else, which is one of the highest compliments I can imagine giving an author.

TUNE IN TOMORROW is a character-driven romp. You won’t find a tight plot here, but you will find characters who’ll grow on you, characters you’ll root for, and characters you’ll be just as happy to hiss at for their villainy. Bursting with imagination, memorable personalities, and an authenticity drawn from Dawn’s career as an entertainment writer, TUNE IN TOMORROW is a must-read for anyone who likes their fantasy light, their reality shows soapy, and their puns deliciously groan-worthy.

View all my reviews

The Scariest Part: John James Minster Talks About THE UNDERTAKER’S DAUGHTER

This week on The Scariest Part, my guest is author John James Minster, whose debut adult novel is The Undertaker’s DaughterHere is the publisher’s description:

Don’t play with dead things.

Anna Dingel is an introverted, socially inept 18-year-old raised in the family funeral home. And for some reason, her classmate Timmy — the one in the band — likes her too.

After a makeover from her best friend Naomi, Anna breaks away to see him perform live, but the leader of a bad school clique attempts to assault Anna in the parking lot. Once the leader is released from jail, so begins an ever-widening maelstrom of cruel retribution, turning Anna and Timmy’s summer of love into a nightmare.

In an attempt to frighten the bullies into peace, Anna and Naomi experiment with recently revealed old Jewish magic. But this ancient Abrahamic ritual doesn’t go as planned. The eldritch power Anna has unleashed takes dark and unexpected turns, endangering those she loves and forcing her to decide who she is and who she wants to be.

This spine-tingling supernatural horror story is about love, forgiveness, and consequences. Expect surprise twists throughout, as children learn not to play with dead things.

And now, let’s hear what the scariest part was for John James Minster:

The story reaches a climax when the protagonist, teenager Anna Dingel, faces a decision point. She and her research-obsessed bestie have connected dots and invoked ancient Hebrew magic, intended to tap the creative force reserved for God. Ethereal wires get crossed in the process. The spiritual force brought to bear couldn’t be further from the Judeo-Christian God. Pure hate; mindless evil taking on a dangerous physical form. To resolve her moral dilemma, Anna must come in physical contact with powerful evil; evil, which most people understand, may appear to be our friend to win us over, but it wants us to suffer and die, as is the observable nature of evil (it makes no friends; everyone who embraces it falls victim to evil in the end.)

In the scene, all of this collides in her mind and heart. What is the right thing to do? That moment when Anna approaches the evil she unleashed, knowing it could easily turn on her — for nothing it has done aligns with her original fair, morally acceptable intentions. In order to ‘do the righteous thing’ she must touch the evil, at great risk to her own life, to make it stop.

This story started as a unique new and campy Eighties horror movie that reeled in my mind over about sixty seconds (like when, some say, your entire life plays in fast-forward just before we know we’re going to die.) Nearly every detail, characters, names, everything was revealed to me in that hot minute. My job as author was to convert that mental movie into a story. It reads like a movie script with mostly dialogue, because it hit me all in a rush, like a livestream signal transmitted from some unseen plane of existence. There are scary moments throughout, and also some pretty gross scenes, but when I go back now and read it, transferring myself into the mind of the new reader, I believe readers will ask themselves: ‘What would I do in Anna’s situation?’ I’d love to hear those answers! I really haven’t a clue. Her bestie, Naomi; no WAY would she have done what Anna did. Would some readers? None? Many? I can’t even answer with certainty if I would’ve taken that action.

The Undertaker’s Daughter: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bookshop / Sunbury Press

John James Minster: Website / Facebook / Instagram

John James Minster was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He commenced a successful international business career since the 1980s in the technology sector, all the while publishing horror short stories in major magazines and horror anthologies since 1990. In July, 2018, his first middle-grade full-length horror novel, Dreamjacker, which met with five-star reader reviews, was born of nightmares.

As a child he walked in his sleep; his parents found him at the top of the stairs about to leap down, dreaming that he could fly. Every night since childhood he still talks and punches walls in his sleep during nightmares, which he describes as “Nightly mini horror movies. Terror is feeling dread at the possibility of something frightening; horror is the shock and repulsion of seeing the thing: Hello! This is my head every single night of my life — so no writer’s block on the horizon or chance that I’ll run out of stories.”

 

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