J.D. Barker Interview | New York Times Bestselling Author of Something I Keep Upstairs

In this special episode of Veil of Echoes, we sit down with New York Times and international bestselling author J.D. Barker to discuss his latest novel, Something I Keep Upstairs.

From psychological suspense and atmospheric horror to real-world inspiration, we explore the power of place, memory, and the kinds of stories that linger long after the final page. We also discuss the inspiration behind the novel, the role of dread in storytelling, and J.D.'s upcoming projects including The First Scarlet Door.

And in true Veil of Echoes fashion, a storm rolled in just as the interview began.

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FEATURED GUEST

J.D. Barker
New York Times & International Bestselling Author

Find J.D.'s books, upcoming releases, and more:

🌐 https://jdbarker.com

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IN THIS EPISODE

• The origins of J.D. Barker's storytelling career
• Why psychological horror stays with us
• Building atmosphere through restraint and dread
• Real locations that inspire fiction
• Something I Keep Upstairs
• The First Scarlet Door
• The connection between place, memory, and fear

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ABOUT VEIL OF ECHOES

Veil of Echoes is a cinematic true crime and paranormal podcast exploring the stories that continue to echo long after they should be over.

📧 veilofechoespodcast@gmail.com

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MUSIC CREDITS

Original music featured in this episode by Dave Daddario.

Find Dave's work here:

▶️ YouTube: @davedaddario

We are incredibly grateful for Dave's continued work creating the immersive soundscapes that help bring Veil of Echoes to life.

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COMING THIS FRIDAY

We travel to Maine's legendary Wood Island Life Saving Station to explore its history, hauntings, and the paranormal legends that helped inspire There's Something I Keep Upstairs.

✨ Step through the veil with us…

🔮 Follow on TikTok & Instagram: @VeilOfEchoesPodcast

👻 Share your stories: VeilOfEchoesPodcast@gmail.com

🕯️ New episodes drop every Monday (True Crime) & Friday (Paranormal) — where true crime meets the supernatural.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Beneath the ordinary world lies a veil, and behind it, the voices of the lost still whisper.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

We are your guides into the shadows, where true crime meets the paranormal.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

From chilling crimes to haunted histories, we uncover the stories that refuse to rest.

SPEAKER_04 0:23

This is Vale of Echoes.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Welcome to Veil of Echoes, the podcast where true crime and the unexplained collide, where some stories are buried in history and others never really leave.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Each week we step into places, cases, and moments that continue to echo long after they should be over. But sometimes the stories that stay with us the longest aren't allowed ones. Sometimes they begin again quietly. A room that feels wrong, a house that seems to remember, a feeling that settles in before anything has even happened. The kind of fear that builds slowly but patiently. And the kind that lingers in your mind long after the story is over.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Because tonight we're stepping into the unsettling world of psychological horror, memory, and the fear rooted inside real places. We're your hosts, I'm Lindsay. And I'm Bria. Tonight we're stepping into a story shaped by atmosphere, memory, and the kind of fear that builds slowly over time.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Because sometimes the most unsettling things aren't monsters or violence. Or even what we can't see. Sometimes it's the feeling that something has been there long before you arrived and may still be waiting after you leave.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Tonight we're joined by New York Times and international best-selling author JD Barker, whose work blends suspense, horror, crime, and the supernatural in a way that feels deeply psychological and immersive. He's the author of the Fourth Monkey trilogy, Forsaken, and several other best-selling novels. And his newest book, There's Something I Keep Upstairs, was inspired by a real haunted house. JD, thank you so much for being here with us tonight.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Thanks for having me. I'm sufficiently creeped out now after that intro.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Oh, I love that. That's awesome. Thank you. So before we dive into the book itself, we'd love to start with you for a moment. So you spent much of your career exploring darker themes, stories that sit somewhere between horror and psychological suspense. So what first pulled you toward that kind of storytelling?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

You know, honestly, it was just from reading. When I was a kid, we didn't have a TV in the house. And this was the 70s, so that doesn't mean much. There were like three things to watch anyway. But we hit the library from a very early age, and I was reading by the time I was three. Um I had read like all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews. I don't know if you guys ever played for us. Um then I moved on to like all the classics, like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. Um but my mom, she owned an antique store, and we used to go to a lot of garage sales. And I remember going to a yard sale one day, and this guy had a box of books, um, and uh sitting on top was a copy of Dracula. Uh, I was eight years old and I picked it up and like I looked at it and like I could just tell by the cover it wasn't something I should be reading just yet. Um, but I I showed it to my mom. It was 25 cents. She let me buy it. Um, and I took it home and read it. And honestly, it scared me half to death. Like I slept with the lights on for like three weeks. I was checking the closet and under the bed. Um, and that's the first time a book had ever gotten like an emotional reaction out of me. Um, and I think I've been chasing that feeling as a reader and a writer ever since. Um so when I started writing for my, you know, on my own, um I I just I dove you know both feet into horror. I loved horror. Uh but I also write thrillers. I bounce back and forth. I I didn't want to be pigeonholed in one particular genre as a writer. I wanted to be able to mix it up when I, you know, when I got that inspiration. So I I tend to jump around a lot.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Oh, I love that. Dracula is one of my favorites for sure. So that was awesome. Dracula is a great one.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Yes, definitely. So was writing always the goal for you, or did that pass come like a little bit later on?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Or so I when I was growing up, my my parents encouraged writing, um, but they always added this little caveat. They said it's a fantastic hobby, but you can't make a living at it. You have to get a real job. Um, you know, so I just think, you know, you believe everything your parents tell you, you know. So I I went off to you know, finished up high school. I went off to college, I got a couple of degrees, and I ended up working in finance. Um, but I I would come home and write at night to stay sane. Um while I was in college, I I started stumbling into projects as a book doctor and a ghostwriter, basically helping other people fine-tune their manuscripts and get them published. Um, and that just turned into a side hustle. So I would do that at night. So I worked about 80 hours a week in the finance industry uh for 20 some years. Um, but I would come home at night and I would work on these other projects, um, either helping people fine-tune their manuscripts and get them ready for publication. Um, I wrote memoirs for a lot of people. Um, but that's kind of how I stumbled into this whole world. Um, and while I was doing that, I had six different books that hit the New York Times bestseller list that I had written that all came out with other people's names on the cover. Because that's how it works when you're a ghostwriter. They they basically take credit. Um but when that sixth one hit up, um, my wife pulled me aside. She said, Listen, I know you want to be a full-time author. Let's figure out a way to make this happen. Um, but at this point we were kind of stuck because I had been working a fairly good job for about 20-some years, um, had a big salary, but we had the trappings of that. You know, we had that we had a big house, we had cars, we had a boat, so our lifestyle was expensive. Um, so I couldn't just quit the job and walk away because we had to support the the lifestyle. Um, so my wife came up with this crazy plan. We sold everything that we owned. We bought a tiny little duplex in Pittsburgh for cash, uh, rented out one side uh to some tenants, and we moved into the other side. It basically got to the point where we could live off of savings long enough for me to write that first book. Um that was 11 years ago now, and that's that's when I first started.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Wow, that's awesome. That's amazing. And then look where you're today. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

It's it's been a crazy wild ride for for sure. Um, it's hard to believe it's it's been 11 years already.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

Wow. I know time just flies, but that's awesome. That's amazing. So let's talk about there's something I keep upstairs. So when did this story first start taking shape for you?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Well, like any author, I've got an app on my phone called Ideas, um, where I just anytime I get you know any kind of inkling of a thing, I write it down in there. Um I I knew I always wanted to write a haunted house book because I've always loved that framework. Um, but I didn't want to write the same story that we've seen over and over again. You know, like a husband and wife buy a house, they move in, something bad happens, something worse happens, they do some research, realize something really bad happened, um, you know, and then they either fix it or whatever took over the house takes over them. Um I didn't want to do that. Um but in researching it, I came up with this tagline. Um, I started looking at the origins of haunted houses. And I came up with this line for a haunted house to be born, somebody has to die. Um so I wrote that tagline down in my little list of ideas, and it sat there for years because I wasn't quite sure where to go with it. Um and during that time, my wife and I, you know, we were living in Pittsburgh, the book started to sell, we realized we don't have to live in Pittsburgh if we don't want to. Um ultimately we landed in uh New England. We bought a house on a little island off the coast of Portsmouth, uh Portsmouth called Newcastle. Um, and I go for a run every day. I do a lap around the island. And at one point, when I crossed a beach, if I look out over the water, there's a tiny little island right off our coast, about a quarter mile out. There's only one house on it. Um, and as soon as I saw that house, you know, like out there all by itself in the water, I I knew that was the house for my haunted house story. Um and when those two pieces came together, then you know, it was it was it's basically like peanut butter and chocolate, two very different things, but they come together in the right way. Oh yeah. Um then I started the book.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Nice. That's amazing. I love that. Yeah. Um, so what is it? Is it's a lighthouse, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Or some sort of, or is it just No, it's its last use was a Coast Guard life saving station.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Um so the the waters in New England, particularly in the winters, get really, really rough. Um so the Coast Guard used to station people out there, and if you know a boat got stranded or if they were in trouble, they would launch from that little island off into the the ocean to help whoever they could. Um but it had been abandoned for about 50 or 60 years. Um by the time I saw the house, it was it was falling down. There were bats living inside, there were holes in the roof. Um, it was in horrible shape because nobody had basically done anything with it for 50 or 60 years. Um I ended up learning that a local guy uh raised a ton of money, he raised, I think, seven million dollars to restore it. Um so I got in touch with him, told him I was planning on writing a book about the island, and we we became friends. Um so while I was writing the book, uh, he was restoring this place. Um, and in today's world, it's actually a museum that you can visit by boat. Um you can only go certain times of the day, but they'll take you out there on tours. Um and they actually decorated the interior of the house to match what I had in the book because he was so vested in the book as I was writing it. That's really cool. So it's yeah, it's a wild experience because now when I go out to the house, I literally walk through the rooms from my story. Oh, break down to you know, like the pictures on the walls and things like that match up with what I have in the book. So it's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

That's incredible. That's incredible. I love that. That's awesome. I'd love to see it in person someday. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Gotta get to New England.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

I know. Oh, yeah. That's my go. I love New England. I used to go there all the time with my grandparents look growing up. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah, yeah, I love it here.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

So one thing that really stood out to us while reading was the atmosphere. The fear feels very restrained and patient instead of relying on shock. Um, why do you think that kind of slow-building dreads tends to stay longer with people?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Uh it's my personal favorite when I'm reading a book because the the book kind of gets into you instead of the other way around. Um, and I I I have always gravitated towards that. I mean, I've read everything that Stephen King has ever written. Um, he is extremely good at it. Um, but you know, the the story itself, the house, I felt like the house needed to be a character, the island needed to be a character. Um it just that general atmosphere needs to fold you in. Um a lot of that, I mean, as a writer, it's it's a trick that I've learned over the years. Like I I tend to provide like less detail when it comes to description and leave as much room as I can for the reader's imagination to fill in those blanks. And when I do that, I think the picture that you actually create in your own mind is is way more vivid than what I could actually put down a paper. And I think that's why when you're reading it, it feels like you're in the story.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

And that's what I love about reading too. That and like songs too, it just like brings you into that place and it's really cool.

SPEAKER_04 10:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yeah. So do you think that fear works differently when it's connected to a real place versus something completely fictional?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

I I think when we read a story that feels like it could actually happen in real life, that that's when it gets you. You know, like I could sit down and read like a zombie apocalypse novel, and you know, it's it's fun, it's entertaining, but like I don't expect that to happen. Um but when you read a story like this, I mean the the basis of the story for you know people listening that that haven't read the book yet, uh 17-year-old kid inherits this house on a private island. His grandmother passes away and leaves it to him along with a lot of money. Um he does exactly what you would expect any 17-year-old kid to do with their own house on a private island. He turns it into a party place for him and his friends. Um, but that gets old after a little while, and somebody raises their hand and says, Hey, what would it take to turn this into a haunted house? And they start exactly where you would expect. There's a couple of scary stories, and somebody brings a Ouija board, but you know the tagline for the book, you know, going in for a haunted house to be born, somebody has to die. So you know where they're all going, but the book itself is all about that journey. So I think just that tagline alone creates that anticipation as a reader. You know something really bad is coming. You don't know what it is. Um, but the the buildup to it is what is what gives you that particular feeling.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Yes, I I feel the same. I like that too. I feel like they need to make this book into a movie. I thought of that. It would be a really good, it would make a good movie. It would make a very good movie. Definitely. Um so a lot of the fear in this story also feels tied to memory. Um, the idea that places could somehow hold onto what happened there. So do you think places can carry that kind of weight?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Absolutely. So I I I don't necessarily believe in the paranormal, but I I'm smart enough to understand there's a lot I don't understand. Right. Um, like the the first time I visited this house, I went out to the island, I knew nothing about it. We went out there by boat, um, and you know the guy who was working on it took me inside, and as I was standing in there, like I wanted to get out, like I wanted to leave. Like the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. Like every instinct in my body was saying, you don't want to be here, this is a bad place. And I knew nothing about it. Um and when I went home, I started to actually research the island and I learned that some very horrible things had happened out there. Just I was only able to go back about 400 years, which is a lot of time, but you know, like the things that happened just in that 400 years were terrible. Um, to give you some examples, when yellow fever was was running through this area, it became a yellow fever quarantine zone. So if you got yellow fever somewhere in New England, they would take you out to this island and they would leave you there until you got better. Nobody got better. You know, so all these people died out there. Um during the Spanish-American War, if they captured a vessel off the coast of New England, they would dock it there and they would keep everybody on board until they either died of starvation or disease, and then they would take the boat because that's what they really wanted. They throw the bodies overboard to feed them to the sharks. Um, like you know, it's when you look at it, it's this beautiful house. Like the water is blue, everything looks perfect, it looks like a postcard. But when you start digging in believe beneath the surface, you realize that you know it's it's really a very bad place. Um, as I was writing this book, I brought in paranormal investigators and took them out to the island. Um, and one theory in particular kept you know coming up with it with every group that I brought out there, that if a lot of people die in a particular place, um, you know, there's an energy that's released. Like anytime any living thing dies, that energy has to go somewhere. And when it happens in a place like this, like an island, it almost becomes a battery where it absorbs all of that. You know, so if you think about all these, you know, possibly thousands of people that died on the on or around this island, that energy is trapped there. So I think that's probably what I was feeling. Um there's been you know a lot of paranormal sightings out there. There's you know stories of a little girl running around on the beach that we later tied to a um somebody that that had died here on the mainland. Oh, um, in in the in the 70s, they found two bodies buried on the beach. Um you know, so there's a a lot of stories that we know about, but that gets me thinking, you know, like we only know a fraction of what really happened out there. So if we know these 10 things, that means this other hundred over here, you know, we don't know about them yet. Um yeah, so I I I think there's something out there, I I don't know what it is, but like I you you can feel it when you go there. Like if we go out there by boat and we bring our dog, our dog won't come off the boat. Like it doesn't want to it doesn't want to run on the beach, it wants to stay on the boat, it wants to leave. Like, you know, I I think we're there's some there's something there. Uh I just I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Aaron Powell Especially when it comes to animals. You say animals know best. Oh, definitely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

I mean I often tell, you know, like if if people are standing in a room and there's a cat in the room with you and something makes a noise in the corner, like that cat just disappears, it's gone, it doesn't care what it was. You know, it just it's protecting itself. But people are stupid. We will walk over to the corner of the room, we'll start sniffing around, we'll try to figure out what actually made that noise. Yeah. So I think what I was feeling when I was out there is some instinctual thing that we as humans have kind of learned to ignore over over the years, you know, like the same instinct that animals have, we've kind of tuned it out instead of instead of doubling down on it because you know we don't really have any predators anymore. We don't have a need for it. Um but I I I think, you know, in cases like this, maybe there is a little bit of a need.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Like with all the dark things that you said that happened there, like the history. Um I I believe energy can tie to places too. So that's interesting. 100%. Yeah, that's creepy.

SPEAKER_04 15:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

So what do you think makes certain stories stay with us long after we finish them while others disappear almost immediately?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

I as a writer, I think it's the characters. I think you get vested enough in those people where you know you feel like you know them, you're part of their lives, um, and you know, the story ends, but in many cases their lives continue. Um so I think our subconscious wonders, you know, like you know, what are they doing now? Where are they? What happened after this? Uh I I think if you're and you know any good writer worth their salt, they're gonna create that, you know, it with a book. I think if you close a book and you know, and I've done this a million times, I finish up a story and it could be a great story, but you know, you close that cover, you move on to the next book, and a week later you can't even remember what the first one was about. Um and I I really strive in my writing to create the opposite of that. I I I want you to think about those characters. Um I want them to haunt you for a little while.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

That's awesome. I love that look for sure. Um so when you did step away from writing this book, what stayed with you most personally?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Like like how you said it, just like what lingered with you or what I I think it was just the the house and the the feeling and just not knowing. Um, you know, we've had it's it's crazy what's happened since the book came out um because now they actually have tours that go out there. Um they sell the book. Like we've got a lot of haunted places in Portsmouth. Um so there's a lot of like ghost tours and stuff you can go on. All the gift shops have my book. Um so a lot of people will come to town and they'll they'll read the book, then they want to go out to the island. Um and like when I go out to the island, I actually, you know, I'll see people out there holding the book. Sometimes they're listening to the audio book and walking through the house. Um the one thing that that really got me is in the story, you know, in order to turn this house into a haunted house, the characters start finding things that were, you know, tied to people that died. Um and they bring them to the house and they bury them in the basement in the in the dirt, hoping to you know create this energy that we're all talking about. In real life, people actually started doing that. They started going out to the island, bringing trinkets and things from people that had died and trying to bury them in the real basement. Oh wow. So they they they had to actually lock the basement to keep the the tourists from from going downwards and burying stuff. So it's it's it's been a it's been a little wild.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Wow, that that is crazy. That's yeah, that's so cool though, having your book in like the gift shops and then seeing people at the what you wrote about and they're they're that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah, I mean I catch them like you know, when when I go on that run every day, you know, you can see it from from where I'm at, and a lot of times people are out there taking selfies with the house in the bit, you know, behind them as as I as I run by. Oh and I I never introduce myself because like it it seems like it would be really weird. Like you know, they'd probably be thrilled to meet me for a second, but then then it then it gets awkward, you know. Like, what are we gonna talk about? Do you have any do you have any questions about the book?

SPEAKER_03 18:06

You know, like hey, by the way, it's more fun just to to watch them and know they're there. Oh, definitely. That's awesome. That would be a great experience, actually. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

So when readers finish their something I keep upstairs, what do you hope lingers with them the longest?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Um I I think probably the main character, the one telling us the story. Um I you know, because I I almost feel like it's not done and like part of me wants to write a a sequel to it. Oh, yeah. I kept pushing for this book, like at you know, when I was writing it, I wanted to tie it all up and I wanted it to have a positive ending. Um, but like the characters' actions and ultimately like they they dictate what the story is about. Their actions took it into a very dark place and like that felt right, you know, for the story. I could try to force it into another direction, but it but it didn't feel right. Um but it does feel unfinished to me. So I think at some point I might have to go back and and write a sequel to that.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Well, that would be amazing. You should. That would be awesome. Yeah, definitely. This is a really good book. I know. I know, um, I don't know if you've heard our podcast, but like Mondays we do two crime cases and then Fridays we do paranormal cases. But um, once we get this edited and everything, we're gonna release a paranormal episode over um Oh, cool. Yeah, the life saving station. So that's that's awesome. Like with some of those stories you mentioned, like the ghost girl and stuff. That's good to know.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Very interesting to know that people try to go and do their own little rituals with burying their own little trinkets.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Oh, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Um, so before we wrap up, we also saw um the announcement of the first Scarlet Door. Um, it's the beginning of your new prequel series in the fourth monkey universe. So, what are you most excited for readers to experience with this new chapter and what do you want them to know?

SPEAKER_01 19:50

I I had a lot of fun with that series. Yeah, the original book, um, it's called The Fourth Monkey. Um, and and very similar to the haunted house thing. Like I knew I wanted to write a serial killer novel, but I wasn't quite sure what the story was going to be about. And then I came up with this crazy twist to it. Um so at the beginning of the fourth monkey, he's been operating in Chicago for five years. The police, you know, they they he's they know his MO, he kidnaps a victim, he cuts off their ear, and he mails it to the person's family in a little white box tied with a black string. He's been doing this over and over again, but they don't know who he is, they don't have any evidence, and nothing to you know, basically track him down. So at the beginning of the fourth monkey, we've got a guy who's crossing the street in Chicago, walk into a mailbox, about to mail a white box tied with a black string, and he gets hit by a city bus and killed. So the police know that there's, you know, they've got their serial killer, they still don't know who he is, but they know that he's got a victim out there somewhere, um, and they need to find her before her you know her time runs out. Um so that's where the ticking clock you know comes into play for a story like this. But in order to tell this story, you know, my serial killer was dead from the you know beginning of the book. So I needed to come up with a way to basically bring this person into the story. So in order to do that, I wrote a diary. Um so during the the you know police procedural portion of the book, we flash back to diary entries that basically take you into the past of this killer um as a child and a teenager, and we basically see him growing up and some of the things that shaped him into becoming what he what he later became. Um it was these little glimpses. Um, but I did that through the original trilogy. Um, and this these books came out about 10 years ago. Um and I was done, you know, after that. You know, I thought you know the trilogy I felt wrapped itself up nicely. Um, but the books have just garnered this huge following all around the world. Like they keep hitting bestseller lists, even though they've been out for 10 years in new places. Um and whenever I go somewhere, people you know basically tell me they want to know more about the killer, they want more of that backstory, those diary entries. Um so when COVID hit, I decided I was gonna try something different. So rather than write one of the books, you know, that I'm supposed to write under contract, I wrote uh wrote three prequels to this trilogy. Um and I didn't tell anybody I was working on it because I really wanted to see how it was gonna come out. Um so you know, and it was kind of refreshing to not have to answer to agents and editors as I was working on a particular project. And if I came up, you know, I was on book three and I came up with something that needed to happen in. Book one, I was able to go back and make those changes and basically get all three books perfect before I shared them with anybody. Um, so that's kind of how it came about. Um, you know, it was a it was an experiment. Um, so the the first Scarlet Door is basically a glimpse. It it starts right where we left our main characters, you know, where we left off with them, and it fills in a 15-year gap um between you know him as a child and and the fourth monkey killer. Like we basically learn, you know, how we went from being this kid to a serial killer.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Oh wow, that's awesome. I like that. I know I have the fourth monkey series. I need to pick up their new one though. That's exciting. It sounds really good. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

It's coming out coming out in September. I was gonna release all three on the same day. Um I figured that would just be fun because nobody's ever done that before. Yeah. I've got my I've got I've got my own imprint at Simon and Schuster, so like domestically I could do that. But when we started talking to all my foreign publishers, they they all pushed back. They said they needed time in between the the different books. So it's gonna be roughly about six months or so between each title as they come out.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Oh, well, that's good though. That's exciting. Fall time. Well, I know what I'm gonna be picking up to read. So and then I was just curious. So I know with the Fourth Monkey series, like it's um like with the serial killer like version versus um your other one about the haunted house. Like which ones, I mean, just being as author, like which one's your favorite like perspective that you've I really love writing horror.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

I I love the scary stuff. Um, when you read my thrillers, I incorporate a lot of horror elements into it. Um I when I first started writing books, I was scared half to death that I would get stuck in the same pattern I had seen with some friends of mine. You know, they write a book, it sells really well, and all of a sudden they have to write that same book but different every year for the next 20 years. Um I didn't want to do that. So like if you look at the way I published novels, like my first one was a horror novel. The second one was the fourth monkey, so we've got a thriller. My third one, I wrote a prequel to Dracula for Bram Stoker's family. Yeah. So we're back back into horror, then I did another thriller. So I purposely bounced back and forth between both worlds. Um and the readers, luckily, have come along for the ride. Um, but as a writer, that allows me to keep it fresh because I think if I had to write the same stuff over and over again, I would get bored with it. And you know, it just wouldn't be enjoyable for anybody. No. Um, but you know, with what I'm doing, I'm able to just jump around and kind of write what I want when I want.

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Exactly. And that gives you like all these other options, which I I like too. Like you need variety, you know.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Love it. Yeah. Um yeah, they've been really good, what I've read so far. That's exciting. And then how you were with Brahm Stoker's grandson, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Was that his great grandnephew, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

So his grandnephew, okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah, for Forsaken, my very first novel, it was up for a best debut horror novel. Um, and when I was at the conference, uh Daker Stoker, who is Bram's great grandnephew, pulled me aside and he said, Listen, my family, you know, read your first book. We're familiar with your history as a ghostwriter and a book doctor. Um, we've been trying to find somebody to write a prequel to Dracula for a while now using Bram's original notes. Uh is that something you'd be interested in doing? Um, the answer to that is yes. You always say yes when somebody asks you a crazy question like that.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

Right, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yeah, and like he literally had like everything that was on Bram Stoker's desk when he wrote the original Dracula. Um, and we used all of that material when we when we wrote this one. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

I bet. And actually, that's kind of ironic too, like how you picked up that like when you were a kid.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah, that that book keeps coming back. And you know, and it's it's it's one of those things, you know. I read it as a kid, I've probably read it four or five different times as an adult. Um and every time I do, I pick up something new, you know, from it. Um Great Expectations is another one. Yeah, like I'm a huge fan of Great Expectations. Um that's the same kind of thing. Every time I read it, I I get something new out of it.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Oh, that's so cool. All right. Yep, that is awesome. Isn't it? Yeah. I love that. Well, JD, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us um tonight. This was generally such an very incredible experience. Um and then for our listeners.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah, so for our listeners who want to check out um your books and keep up with everything you're working on, where is the best place for them to find them?

SPEAKER_01 25:58

The easiest place to find out anything is jdbarker.com. I'm on all the social medias uh at at JD Barker. Uh and the books can be found pretty much anywhere.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Perfect. Awesome. Well, we'll be sure to um link everything um in the show notes so every our listeners know where you can they can find you easily. Um but this has been a very great experience. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit with us and tell us all the time. Oh, thank thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Yeah, seriously. Thank you again for being with us here tonight. You're always uh 100% welcome back on Veil of Echoes. We would love it. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Oh, well, thank you so much. I can't wait to hear the paranormal episode you're gonna have to do.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

I know. We'll keep um Kate or whoever updated too, like just so you know, a heads up so you can listen to it if you want. So yeah, but thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, JD, will you take care?

unknown 26:47

All right, bye.