Julia L. Rule is here to tell us about How Can I Help You Today?, horror - psychological thriller.
There's also a great giveaway.
______________________
At Ashwood High, everyone uses Pulse.
It offers perfect,
convincing advice at your fingertips.
Always available, always validating.
How can I help you
today?
by Julia L. Rule
Genre: Horror, Psychological Thriller
"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.
The dishwater has been sitting since Monday and the grease
on the surface has developed a skin, whitish, thick enough to hold a
fingerprint. Emma puts her hands through it. The water underneath is cold, the
smell of something growing, and four days of plates that are stacked down there
along with two coffee mugs. Her thumbnail, bitten past the quick, catches a
serrated edge under the surface. Fork tine or lid. She pulls her hand out,
checks for blood. Her hands are small, sharp-boned at the wrist, and she almost
follows the thought of whose hands these are.
On the couch Leo is eating cereal and watching something with animals. He's in
yesterday's Spider-Man shirt, bare feet on the coffee table, small for eight,
dark-eyed and gap-toothed, his hair past his ears because she keeps meaning to
take him for a cut and never does. Her fault. She forgot laundry. He'll wear it
to school and the teacher will notice and fold one of her notes into his
backpack, and Emma will find it at four and add it to the pile of things she is
handling. She should tell him to get dressed.
Her father left for the warehouse at five. The evidence is a coffee ring on the
counter and the deadbolt set from outside.
Mail on the table, growing since Thursday. Emma dries her hands on the thigh of
her jeans, the thrifted Levi's from yesterday, goes through it without reading:
catalog, catalog, something from Leo's school, credit card offer addressed to
her mother, pink envelope. The electric company sends pink at sixty days. She
knows the color code. She puts the pink envelope at the bottom of the stack.
She passes the hallway mirror. Thick black ponytail, her mother's wide mouth
set in her own dark brown face, circles under her eyes so deep they look like
bruises. School in forty minutes.
---
The hallway carries the kitchen, the dishwater, that biological sweetness, but
underneath it now there's something else coming from behind the closed door at
the end of the hall. Thicker, staler, concentrated, sealed in. She hasn't
opened this door for days. Whatever is behind it has been building its own
climate. Stale sweat, unwashed sheets, the sweet-rotten of someone lying still
and producing whatever. She knocks with the back of her hand. "Mom, I'm
leaving for school."
Nothing.
She turns the knob. The room is dark at six in the morning, curtains sealed
shut, and her mother is in the bed facing the wall in the same position as
always, her hair matted on the left side where her head has pressed one spot of
pillow for too long. Her breathing is wet and open-mouthed, a click of tongue
on each inhale. The room is warm in a way the rest of the apartment isn't. Body
heat with nowhere to go. Emma breathes through her mouth.
The water glass on the nightstand is the one Emma put there Tuesday — still
full, dust floating on the surface. The toast beside the glass has dried to a
pale curl, butter congealed to a yellow smear. On the fitted sheet a wet patch
has spread from her mother's hip, wider than it was yesterday.
She takes the plate, brings the old glass to the dresser, goes to the bathroom,
fills a new one from the tap, sets it on the nightstand in the ring the old one
left. Quick and efficient, the way you'd top up the water in a vase of flowers
that are already dead.
The curtains resist when she pulls them open. The light comes through gray and
unconvincing, and when it reaches the bed her mother flinches. For a brief
moment Emma sees the other version. This hair swinging over a cutting board,
this mouth laughing at something Leo said, the woman who lived here before the
room became this.
Emma stands in the doorway. "I love you, Mom."
Same breathing.
She waits.
She pulls the door shut.
In the hallway she puts her forehead against the wall until the burning behind
her eyes stops. She goes back to the kitchen. Leo's voice from the couch, not
looking up: "Is Mom coming out today?"
"She's resting."
Leo nods. The nod he's been giving since spring. Complete, asking nothing else.
He doesn't ask why Emma signs his forms. Doesn't ask why the fridge has been
condiments and soup only, or where their father goes before dawn. He's eight.
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.
Bonnie Traymore is here to tell us about The Good Sister, a psychological thriller.
There's also a great giveaway.
____________________
When Casey's mirror twin goes missing,
she's led to a dark
and deadly paradise where nobody escapes...
The Good Sister
by Bonnie Traymore
Genre: Psychological Thriller
When her mirror twin
goes missing, Casey is led to a deadly paradise where no one escapes…
Casey and Nora are mirror twins, identical—sort of. Casey is
right-handed, Nora is left-handed. Their moles sit on opposite cheeks. In terms
of personality, they are also diametrically opposed.
So, when her high-strung sister disappears after a fight
with her husband, Casey shouldn’t be as concerned as she is. Nora’s done it
before.
But this time, things feel different. It’s a twin thing;
Casey knows it in her bones. Something is terribly wrong.
Casey hires private investigator who discovers that Nora’s
been on the dark web—lured by an entity that calls itself Switzerland,
promising to take away your pain and leave you in a state of eternal bliss, for
a hefty fee.
The trail leads to a luxury wellness retreat hidden in the
Mexican jungle. Determined to find her sister before it’s too late, Casey poses
as a resort guest and heads to Mexico to rescue her sister.
As Casey digs deeper, she finds something far more sinister
than she could have imagined, and it’s possible that neither of them will get
out alive.
“Gripping, twisty,
and impossible to put down. This one is a must-read for thriller fans with an
ending you won’t see coming!” – Caleb Stephens, bestselling author of You’ll
Never Know.
“What a thriller.
Seriously. Mirror twins who could sense and feel each other's pain and
emotions. Just imagine where that could take you.” NetGalley
“A brilliant book.
Just top tier brilliant kind of reading for me. I still feel excited and
humming from it even now thinking about it again just to write my review.” –
NetGalley
“This novel is a
compelling, high-stakes ride through deceit and psychological drama. I cannot
recommend this book highly enough for fans of intricate, character-driven
thrillers.” -NetGalley
Perfect for fans of
gripping psychological thrillers, chilling domestic suspense, missing sister
mysteries, dark web conspiracy novels, and mind-bending women's fiction with
shocking twist endings. If you love twisty, unputdownable thrillers with strong
female leads, sinister secrets, and heart-pounding suspense — you won't be able
to put this down.
Move,my brain screams—my arms and
legs lag behind.
Blood pools behind her
head, oozing out over the tile floor. Her eyes roll back into a blank stare. If
I want to get out of here, this is my only chance. I don’t have much time
before someone misses her.
I grab the key card
out of her coat pocket and gingerly pull off her lab coat, being careful not to
stain it with the growing river of blood.
As I slip on her white
coat, my head darts around for something I can use as a weapon–but this isn’t a
surgical center. No scalpels. No razors. Nothing sharp.
Syringes.
Scads of them.
Yes, this can work.
I fumble through the
medicine cabinet, and it’s like a candy store for drug addicts.
Ketamine.
Midazolam.
Haldol.
Potassium chloride,
instantly deadly.
But only if I can hit a vein.
Nope. Too risky.
I rip a syringe open
with my teeth, push in the plunger, tear open the vial tabs, and stab the
needle into the first vial, then the second. I fill the syringe with a lethal
dose of ketamine and midazolam, hoping that it will work fast enough, if it
comes to that.
Two or three minutes or so for onset, injected
into a muscle.
I’ve never envisioned
myself as a murderer. But what choice do I have?
Footsteps outside the
door stop me in my tracks.
Someone’s hovering,
and I can only hope they don’t call out her name.
She moans.
She’s alive?
What if she cries out for help?
Sweat moistens my
palms as I wait. I wipe away the dampness, willing myself to calm down. I can’t
afford to have slippery fingers with what I’m attempting.
Now it’s quiet. Too
quiet. I didn’t hear footsteps or anyone leaving.
Are they just standing there?
Maybe they heard our scuffle?
If she makes a sound,
I’m as good as dead.
I rip open another
syringe, grab a vial of potassium chloride out of the cabinet, and fill it. On
reflex, I tap it to get out the air bubbles, and a nervous chuckle slips out.
What’s the point of
that?
I find a vein on the
top of her hand, which is creepily warm. She seems to have passed out again, or
else she’s dead. But I’m pretty sure she’s still alive, although I can always
tell myself she wasn’t. But I’m not positive.
Can I actually do this?
For a split second, I
hesitate.
Before this moment, it
was self-defense.
It’s her or me,
though, so I prepare to jab the needle into her vein.
Instead, I check again
for a pulse.
She’s dead … I’m pretty sure.
The door handle turns.
I rush behind the door
and ready my other syringe. My heart’s pounding so hard, I’m afraid someone
will hear it. My pulse thrums in my ears as I await what’s next.
Then the handle
catches, the lock saving me–or whoever’s on the other side.
I wait in stillness as
the sound of a woman’s heels click, click, clicking on the tile floor fades to
silence, willing my racing pulse to slow.
The pain is
unbearable, deep in the pit of my stomach, the scars of a lifetime suddenly
ripped open. I haven’t slept for days. I don’t even know my own mind.
Dipping in and out of
consciousness, I’m kept barely functional by little microsleeps. My head aches
behind my eyes. I’d give anything to fall into the black abyss, where all my
problems dissolve into the quiet darkness.
Soft meditation music
plays in the background.
“It’s not your fault,”
a voice calls out to me. “Life is hard,” it continues, the ding … ding … ding of the bells hypnotic, comforting. “We can take
away your pain. Come to Switzerland. Find your inner peace.”
Bonnie Traymore is the Amazon bestselling author of fourteen
domestic/psychological thrillers. Her thrillers feature strong but relatable
female protagonists who peel back the layers of suburban American life and give
readers a peek inside. The plots explore difficult topics such as jealousy,
infidelity, murder, and the impact of psychological disorders, but she also
includes bits of romance and humor to lighten the mood from time to
time.
Bonnie loves Hitchcock movies, psychological thriller
novels, coffee, and dark chocolate, not necessarily in that order and sometimes
simultaneously. She has a doctorate in United States history and resides in
Honolulu with her family. She's an active member of International Thriller
Writers and Mystery Writers of America.
Debbie De Louise is here to tell us about Looking for Lucy, a gothic mystery-psychological thriller.
There's also a great giveaway.
____________________
A missing cousin,
A Mysterious Mansion,
Family Secrets,
and
a "ghost" cat.
Looking For Lucy
by Debbie De Louise
Genre: Gothic Mystery, Psychological Thriller
She was never meant
to be the brave one.
Despite their different personalities, cousins Mary and Lucy are closer than
sisters. Mary, a teacher in a small town, fears change and suffers from
claustrophobia. Lucy, a thrill-seeker, travels around the world in search of
adventure.
When Lucy goes missing, Mary, her mother, and aunt visit a Long Island mansion
called Hollingham Hall where Lucy had been employed as a tour guide before she
disappeared. There, Mary meets three men, one of whom may have been romantically
involved with Lucy – a charming historian, a volatile artist, and a friendly
landscaper.
As Mary searches for her cousin, she is drawn deeper into Hollingham’s
labyrinthine gardens and shadowed corridors where she discovers a chilling
connection between Lucy and a woman who vanished seventy years ago on the eve
of her wedding. She also learns of the “ghost cat” rumored to prowl the
property.
When strange events take place at Hollingham, the police are called to
investigate. But is Lucy alive and is her disappearance connected to the
missing bride or one of the men on the estate?
A mystery of illicit affairs, hidden passageways, and family secrets, Looking
for Lucy is the perfect read for fans of gothic novels, psychological
thrillers, and atmospheric suspense.
I held my cousin’s
letters from earlier this summer that I’d read over a dozen times.
We lost touch after graduation when she took off
to explore the world to volunteer in a variety of countries while I stayed home
and found a job as a teacher at the elementary school that we’d both attended
in our small town.
The last time I saw Lucy
she was wearing her Bardsley T-shirt and jean shorts. My aunt’s battered
suitcase stood at her side.
“I’ll send you lots of postcards,” she promised, but I’d never
received any. That’s why I was surprised when I got her first letter as school
was closing for the summer.
“Dear Mary, I hope you’re well. I’ve seen many things but have
missed you. While I was making a quick stop in the Hamptons, I visited a
beautiful place by the sea called Hollingham Hall. It was my luck that they
were looking for tour leaders. I feel like, after years of wandering, I’ve
finally found my place. The reason I haven’t called is that I lost my cell
phone in the Amazon River (OMG!) and am not replacing it. I’ll call you with
the phone number here soon.”
Lucy never called, but there were two more letters. The next
arrived ten days later.
“Dear Cousin, This is a dream job. I wish they had another opening
for you. So, here’s the thing, Mary, we once talked about my being an
independent woman the rest of my life without need of a man. Well, that’s
changed. In the short time I’ve been at Hollingham, I believe I’ve fallen for
someone. I don’t want to say too much in case I jinx it because the attraction
is new, and I’m not sure how he feels about me yet. I promise I’ll reveal
everything soon, and I can’t wait for you to meet my charming suitor.”
Lucy’s final and still eager letter arrived a week later.
“Me again, Dear Cousin. I had to write right away when I
discovered the most interesting thing by accident.”
“I’d ventured into a
part of the mansion that’s off limits to the public. I wasn’t snooping, but I
couldn’t help myself. There was a portrait in one of the closed rooms of a
young woman who looked so much like me that I thought someone had secretly
painted me. I was so curious I had to ask about it and risk losing this
incredible job. I wasn’t admonished for
going into the room. Instead, I was told me a history of the house that I
hadn’t yet heard. The woman in the painting disappeared at about our ages. They
never discovered what happened to her. I felt like I was caught in one of your
favorite mystery novels.”
“It won’t be long now,
dear cousin. I’m going to ask if you can stay here with me at the carriage
house when you visit.
After rereading her letters and trying to figure out what was
really going on behind her dramatic prose, I was shocked to get a live call
from Lucy around midnight, less than a week after receiving her last letter.
The phone woke me up. I answered in a groggy whisper, “Hello.”
At first, there was no reply, and I was about to hang up when I
heard Lucy’s whispered voice. “Mary, help me. Come quick. Please hurry.”
I was fully awake now. “Lucy, is that you? What’s wrong?”
There was a click and then a dial tone. “Lucy,” I said louder into
the phone, but she was gone. I didn’t realize at that point how gone she really
was.
Debbie De Louise is an award-winning author and a retired
reference librarian. She is a member of Sisters-in-Crime, International
Thriller Writers, the Cat Writers’ Association, and the South Carolina Writers
Association. She’s written over twenty books including three cozy mystery
series: the Cobble Cove Mysteries, Buttercup Bend Mysteries, and her new
series, Soup the Supernatural Kitten Mysteries. She’s also written a paranormal
romance, standalone mysteries, a time-travel novel, and a collection of cat poems.
Her stories and poetry appear in more than a dozen anthologies. Originally from
Long Island, she moved to South Carolina where she now lives with her husband,
daughter, and three cats. Learn more about Debbie and her books by visiting her
website at https://debbiedelouise.com.
Frances Paul is here to tell us about The Black Rose, a psychological thriller.
There's also a great giveaway.
_______________________
The Black Rose
Frances Paul
Publication date: October 14th 2025
Genres: Adult, Psychological Thriller
“Intense, a little bruising, and it doesn’t let you walk away untouched.”
— ★★★★★ Reader Review
Some weapons are born. Others are made.
She is the perfect operative.
A discarded orphan, remade by the very hands that broke her.
Trained to seduce. Conditioned to kill. Reborn as Elara Everhart.
They gave her new names. New faces. New identities, whichever the mission required.
Now, they call her Raina.
And they’ve sent her into the lion’s den.
Her target: Axel Voss. Billionaire. Powerbroker. Threat.
He’s everything she was trained to dismantle.
But he sees too much. Speaks too little.
And when he touches her, he wakes something she was never meant to feel.
She is the weapon they created.
But he’s the variable they never planned for.
What begins as a mission spirals into obsession.
And survival will cost more than her cover.
Because the most dangerous thing isn’t failing the mission,
It’s forgetting who the real enemy is.
If you love psychological thrillers with espionage, romantic suspense, and heart‑stopping twists, The Black Rose will keep you breathless until the very last page.
“To master the art of the strike, first let the target marinate in your charm and wit, until they are ripe for the taking.” – Elara Everhart
I stepped out of the cab and into the gallery, the air instantly changing around me. Heads turned. Eyes followed. The black Dolce & Gabbana dress I wore fit like it had been sewn onto my skin, elegant without trying, powerful without needing to speak. My hair, sleek and black, fell in glossy waves down my back, every strand precisely where it belonged. I walked with purpose, each step measured, as I took in the room.
It didn’t take long to find him.
Axel Voss stood in a more secluded wing of the gallery where the crowd had thinned. I spotted him across the space. His back was to me, dressed in a tailored dark gray suit that fit too perfectly to be anything but custom. His frame was lean and strong, his posture relaxed, hands tucked in his pockets as he studied a painting. He wasn’t just looking. He was dissecting it.
My attention moved to the guards. Two of them. Strategically placed in opposite corners of the room, trying not to look like security. They blended in well enough with the other patrons, but their eyes told the truth. Constantly scanning.
I inhaled and adjusted the strap of my dress. I ran my hands over my curves, making sure everything looked in place. My cue had come.
Each step felt burdened, as if what I was about to do had sunk deep into my limbs.
The rhythm of my heels against the marble echoed faintly. I moved closer, slipping into his orbit. I was near enough now for him to catch the light scent of my perfume, floral, soft, meant to linger without announcing itself.
I stopped beside him, eyes landing on the painting he was analyzing. It was abstract, wild with motion. Crimson slashed across the canvas, tangled with violent blues and fractured gold. The brushwork oscillated between jagged bursts and smooth sweeps, an unsettling mix of control and chaos.
I spoke, keeping my voice soft and level. Close enough to feel intimate, just loud enough to be heard.
“The intensity of the strokes is remarkable,” I said. “The way the colors collide feels almost violent, yet there’s a strange harmony in the chaos.”
He didn’t respond. Not verbally. But I felt it. His attention was on me now as much as the art. I let the silence stretch a second longer, then continued, my tone calm, analytical. “It’s as if the artist was fighting an inner battle. Conflict and catharsis, all bleeding onto the canvas. The jagged strokes speak of anger or defiance, but the way the hues blend reveals a deep vulnerability… like they couldn’t commit to full destruction.”
I leaned in just slightly, examining the layers of the painting, voice dropping.
“It’s the tension that makes it work. The pull between restraint and abandon. It feels… raw.”
The silence settled again, delicate but dense.
Then I allowed a smirk to touch my lips.
“Or maybe they just threw paint at the canvas after a bad day and decided to call it art.”
That broke it. He turned toward me, finally.
His eyes met mine.
Heat flashed between us. The force of his gaze hit harder than I expected.
My breath caught, not out of fear but from the pressure of it. He was already trying to read me.
I knew that look. He was hunting for the truth inside my performance.
I didn’t flinch.
Even when my pulse started to climb beneath my skin, I held my ground.
For a moment, neither of us said anything. The gallery around us faded. It was just him. Just me.
Then I stepped back, breaking the moment on my terms.
I turned without hesitation and walked away, slipping into the flow of bodies beyond the archway. My retreat was smooth.
Behind me, I felt his gaze linger, and so did the eyes of his guards.
I didn’t need to look back to know he was still watching the space I had just walked away from.
Back in the main gallery, I finally exhaled. The encounter had gone as planned. I had said what
I needed to. Played the part.
But the crackle between us wasn’t part of the plan.
And I felt it. Still pulsing through me.
This was only the beginning. One step into a game layered with risk, manipulation, and consequences I wasn’t sure I fully understood.
But I had just stepped onto the board.
And Axel Voss had noticed.
Author Bio:
Frances Paul is an author of emotionally charged, high-stakes fiction that captivates readers with its mix of psychological suspense, romance, and intricate plotting. Her work explores the fine line between love and survival, delving into themes of resilience, sacrifice, and the secrets we keep.
She is the author of Sea of Scars, a moving story of loss and redemption, and The Black Rose, a gripping psychological thriller that draws readers into a world where trust is dangerous and every choice carries lasting consequences.
With a distinctive voice and a cinematic style, Frances creates unforgettable characters and layered narratives that linger long after the final page. Her passion for storytelling comes from a lifelong fascination with the human heart and its capacity to endure even in the darkest of circumstances.
Bruce M. Perrin is here to tell us about his psychological thriller A Voice in the Mind, The Mind Sleuth series.
Read on for details...
_____________________
The Mind Sleuth Series
Psychological Thriller
Date Published: April 29, 2025
Randy Hutton had fallen on hard times. He had lost his management job in
customer service, “a victim of technology” as his manager had
put it during his exit interview. Randy, however, described it as being
ousted by little more than a glorified answering machine.
His wife, Isabella Perez-Hutton, on the other hand, was the up-and-coming
star at Breakthrough Systems, leading a project that would help artificially
intelligent computer systems work with their human counterparts. All the
smart machines needed, she reasoned, was a better understanding of the
strengths—creativity, intuition—and limitations of their human
coworkers.
The irony of the couple’s situation—she building better,
faster, smarter technology—and him displaced by a simple form of it
wasn’t lost on either of them. That irony, however, wasn’t the
reason for the violence that surrounded Isabella at work—a suicide, a
demolished lab, a murdered programmer. Rather, the justification for those
acts came from a voice deep within Randy’s head, a voice that
tormented him endlessly, making sleep impossible and retaliation against
those who would destroy him his only sanctuary.
And although Isabella’s new friend, Nicole Veles, came to suspect
Randy, would it make any difference? Because by the time she came to this
position, husband and wife were deep in the Colorado wilderness and Randy
had killing on his mind.
A Voice in the Mind is part of The Mind Sleuth Series
Find out more about all of the books in the series at
If you’re interested in what I’m like in something more
detailed than what will fit in this space, I’d say, buy any of my
books. That overly analytic guy (read geek) is me. OK, I’ve never
saved the day like the heroes in my books, but we think alike. I’m
interested in technology and psychology (my formal background) and enjoy
writing about where they meet, now and in the future. In addition to
pounding the keyboard, I like to tinker with home automation and I’m
an avid hiker. When I’m not on the trails, you’ll find me at
home with my wife and our dog in Aurora, CO.
