Julianne Q. Johnson's Blog

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To thank my awesome readers this holiday season, my new book, Forgotten Magic, will be free on Kindle December 25th. It’s free for one day only, so make sure you grab your copy!

Love , magic, and heat.

Persephone was hurrying through the rainy streets of London when she careened into a man who looked exactly like Morticai Malinian. Her former professor had been an undercover agent with the hit squad. He’d brought down a mage dealing in magical drugs, but Morticai had not survived the encounter.

This Steven fellow was the spitting image of her dead professor, but he didn’t recognize Persephone at all. In fact, he lived a completely mundane life as a shopkeeper. Persephone was sure of two things. Somehow, this unmagical Steven was her former professor—and she wasn’t going to be able to keep her hands off of the handsome man. Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind.

Forgotten Magic is a steamy tale about finding love in the most unexpected of places. If you enjoy a little magic and mystery mixed with spice, get Forgotten Magic today.

For mature readers only. This book contains adult language and sexual content.

Click here to learn more!

The castaways were hoping to win a million dollars. Now they only want to survive.

The first book of my new series is now available for preorder. The price will be discounted until it launches on the 31st. The series is Marooned and the first book of this trilogy is Outwit. You can find it here: mybook.to/Outwit

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What could be better than a lovely zombie tale just in time for Halloween?

Outwit. Outslay. Outlive.

When his game of survival becomes all too real, television host Benjamin Walsh must gather the few survivors and find a way to escape the horde. The dead are walking and they are ravenous.

Cut off from the mainland, there’s no telling how far this plague of zombies has spread. Benji is worried about his family. If he risks everything to reach home, will he find more of the same?

For now, he must use his charm to turn a disjointed bunch of players into a crew able to endure this gruesome new world. The castaways were hoping to win a million dollars. Now they only want to survive.

Outwit is book one of the series Marooned. Grab your copy today to find out what happens when reality TV becomes all too real.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Hey, gals,” Lloyd said. “Any luck?”

Before anyone could answer him, a scream made them all jump.

“What the hell was that?” Deshawn had dropped the wood he was gathering and jogged over to join them.

“I think it came from the beach,” Lloyd said.

As they turned their heads in that direction, they heard more screaming. It was a man’s voice. Lloyd dashed to the tree where the camp’s machete was stuck in the trunk and released it with a flick of his wrist. He didn’t know what the trouble was, but he felt better holding the large blade.

“Come on!” he shouted, and then ran for the beach.

As they reached the tree line, they met Paul coming the other way. Lloyd had to sidestep to avoid hitting him with the machete. The man was panting for breath. His mouth hung open and his eyes were wide. Out of sight behind him, the screaming abruptly stopped.

“Paul, what’s going on?” Lloyd snapped.

“It’s…it’s Roberta.”

“It can’t be Roberta.” Twenty-one-year-old Vicky Hawkins rolled her eyes. “Roberta got voted out two weeks ago.”

“It’s her. I swear it. She came out of the water. The girl was walking funny…we thought she was hurt. Evan went down to help her and she just attacked him. There’s something wrong with her. Something is seriously wrong with her.”

“And you didn’t help Evan?” Deshawn asked.

“There’s something wrong with her,” Paul repeated, then he dropped to his knees and vomited onto the sand.

“Well, I’m not afraid of Roberta. We’ve got to go help Evan.”

As Deshawn started for the beach, Lloyd stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Slow down, Deshawn. Let’s take it slow and see what’s happenin’.”

He had a very bad feeling about this. True, he didn’t have much use for Paul, but the overly confident man seemed unflappable under normal circumstances. Whatever the hell had happened, it must have been pretty horrific.

“What do you mean slow it down? Evan’s a dick, but he’s in trouble.”

“Listen, the screaming has stopped. Either Evan has calmed Roberta down, or we’re too late to give him a hand. Either way, we gots to go slow and keep safe. The cameramen can’t reach home base…there ain’t going to be any medics rushing to the island today. So, go slow and watch yourself.”

“Yeah. I see your point. Slow and steady and don’t freak out.”

“That’s the plan.”

The group started out onto the beach then. They could see two forms lying on the sand just north of them. The screaming had stopped, but there was an odd snuffling sound.

“Talking about Roberta like she was some kind of crazy ninja,” Vicky muttered. She’s five foot nothing. How the hell is a little girl like that supposed to hurt a big strong guy like Evan? Like she even would if she could. Roberta’s a sweetie pie.”

“Hush, Vicky,” Wanda Devinport hissed.

The sixty-year-old grandmother had little use for the young woman. Along with raising a family, Wanda had been a professional modern dancer. She was more fit than the younger women of the group and did ten times the work of the rather vapid Vicky and Roberta put together.

“Yes, Vicky, be quiet a moment. Let’s see what’s going on.” At twenty-eight, petite Kelly Huang was clever, beautiful, and fiercely competitive.

The last member of the group, Sarah Dove, followed along in silence. A pretty girl with bleach blonde hair, Sarah hadn’t realized what she’d gotten herself into by joining the cast of Marooned. The girl worked hard around camp but was useless at challenges. She’d stopped thinking about gameplay and started thinking about going home.

As they drew near to the pair lying on the beach, the group couldn’t see much. Evan was on his back, flat on the sand. Roberta was leaning over him, blocking their view of his upper torso and face. The girl had her back to them and didn’t seem to notice their approach.

It wasn’t until they came within five feet that they could see the blood soaking into the sand around Evan’s prone body.

Click the cover to learn more.

I was working away at the third book to my Ghost in the Park series, and for some reason I just lost my writing mojo.  I struggled with it, because I love the book and want to finish it, but it was like pulling teeth.

Finally, I bit the bullet and wrote something completely different.  And it worked–boom–finished it in a couple of weeks.  And I love it.  I love this book!

The Haunted Bridge is the first in my Ghost Chasers series.  These are episodic– short reads that only take around 2 hours to complete.  It’s not my first series, but it is my first serial.   I’m already working on book 2, and think it will be done in 2-3 weeks.

These books will only be in eBook form for the time being.  Once I complete book 3, I intend to bundle the first three stories into a paperback.

The Haunted Bridge is available for pre-order now, and will be released July 9th.  Buy it now before the price goes up at release.  Click the cover above to learn more.

They’d end this ghost if they could figure out who the hell it was.

Steve and Dirk have been hunting troublemaking ghosts since they were in high school together. They’ve traveled throughout the Midwest, chasing after spirits and putting an end to their hauntings. Documenting it all on their popular website, Ghost Chasers. With Dirk’s natural charm and Steve’s tech skills, they make a great team–when they aren’t too busy arguing.

News reaches them of an angry spirit causing cars to crash near an old railway bridge. People have died. It’s time to head home and deal with this Indiana ghost.

Easier said than done.  The bridge is old and so is the grim specter that calls it home. It will take a combination of research and old-fashioned ghost fighting to put this spirit to rest.

If they’re lucky, they’ll get it done before anyone else dies.

The Haunted Bridge is the first episode of the Ghost Chasers series.  Fans of the ghost hunting side of the television show Supernatural will love this book.  Get your copy today to find out if Steve and Dirk save the day or if they’ve finally met their ethereal match.

This book contains adult language, violence, and adult situations.

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Teatime of the Living Dead is on sale for $.99 on Kindle from now until the 24th.  This is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written.  It combines three of my favorite things to write about– theatre, magic, and survival–with a good dollop of humor.  It’s more madcap race to survival than zombie book, though there is a dash of gore.  Grab a copy while it’s cheap!

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My paranormal mystery with a touch or romance, Wyrd House, is on sale for $.99 on Kindle until the end of the month.  A feel-good story about how a group of mystical misfits band together to stop a killer.  And it has a ferret.  What more can you ask for?  If you want to get it cheap, grab it before the end of the month.

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Bonus silly ranting time!

OMG, but some folks don’t understand what Omniscient Point of View is.  If there was one thing I could teach folks new to writing, it would be the difference between head-hopping and Omniscient.

Omniscient isn’t a trendy POV right now, and with reason.  It’s difficult to pull off.  In my opinion, it’s the single most difficult POV to write.  It’s also the one that will piss your readers off the most if you get it wrong.  Sure, all kinds of folks raise their hands to rail against First Person, but do Omniscient badly, and you’ll get reviews about it.

I recently read an excerpt from what started out to be a very well-written and engaging book.  Then the head-hopping began. No title or author name because I’m not here to shame anyone.  Now, some readers will certainly shoulder on and enjoy a book despite being thrown out of a story from time to time as they try to figure out who is doing what.  Not me.  I can’t get into a story if I keep getting jarred right out of it.  The excerpt I read was from someone’s first book.  Understandable.  my first novel length story had head hopping right, left, and center.  But there’s a big difference between my story and our mystery author’s.

I didn’t publish mine.

Here’s Butters, congratulating me on not publishing that first, head-hopping, horrible story.

In fact, I wrote three novel length stories, several novellas, and a small herd of shorts before I wrote something I meant to publish.  That didn’t make my writing perfect.  All writers grow and change with every book completed.  But it did make my first book I wrote to publish very readable.  I had time to develop my own voice and style, and time to get my POV act together.

Publishing is so easy these days that it’s tempting to finish a first book and just push that button.  And you can.  You totally can do that.  If the story is engaging enough, you’ll find readers who will love it.  Personally, I suggest writing a few books, learning a bit, and then re-visiting that first book to do a re-write with what you’ve learned.  You’ll end up with a better book, and by stacking a few unpublished projects, you can get reader attention by doing rapid release when you are ready.  Being able to hit that publish button once every month or two really helps get eyes on your books when you are starting out.

For more on the different POVs, complete with examples full of cats and cute pictures, see my blog post here.

I don’t know how many of you have explored Instafreebie, but it’s a great place to pick up some free reading material.  From full length novels, to novellas and shorts, there is a ton of stories to choose from.  You can even find some sneak peeks for current novels.

From now until the end of the month, there’s a great science fiction giveaway going on.  My own novella, Winter, is part of the giveaway.

Just click the banner, and away you go!

Make sure you check it out!

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Today is the big day. Crucible Station is free on Kindle from now until the 3rd. Make sure you grab your copy while it’s free.

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This book is not my usual style. My favorite thing to write is ghost stories, and I intend to keep that my primary genre from now on. However, every now and then, a writer gets a plot bunny nipping at their heels and they simply can’t ignore it. That’s what happened with Crucible Station.

I have written dystopian once before, when I wrote my novella Winter. I also enjoy reading tales like Hunger Games and Stephen King’s Running Man as well as his The Long Walk. When I got the plot bunny for Crucible Station, I could not get it out of my head. So, I wrote a book.

CS is not as grim as my Winter. Like many of my plots, there’s a great deal of hope running throughout. It also draws heavily on my experiences working with displaced children in a therapeutic residential setting. Most of the kiddos I worked with had issues with violence–and with the abuse they had suffered, it was perfectly understandable. When CS’s main character, Marj, is taken from her family and put in a government home, I used my own experiences to add a touch realism to the tale. However, that does not mean The Home in my story is a replica of where I worked.

Now, I’m happy to get back to work on Ghost on the Downs, and looking forward to beginning the first of the Ghost Chaser’s series, The Man with the Ax. It’s going to be big fun.

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There’s only one way to escape the city

Life in New Liberty is tough, but it’s the only life Marjoram has ever known. At fourteen, she lives with her parents and wears a breathing mask to survive the polluted city streets on the way to school. Crucible Station offers a better life to any citizen smart enough to receive an invitation, but Marj won’t leave her family. When she is thrown into a detestable government home because her family can’t feed her, Crucible Station is the only way out–if she is clever enough to pass The Trials.

A dystopian tale set in post-apocalyptic America.

Get Crucible Station here.

Kyle Harrison Movie Star by Robertson Tait

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Big fun prequel

As always, Tait’s story is delightfully character driven with a dry and witty humor throughout. I read Scot Free in Hollywood first, and I truly enjoyed this tale of how Hollywood’s rising star, Kyle Harrison, got his start in the movie business. By the time you finish the book, you feel like you know Kyle and would enjoy hanging out with him. The descriptions of how everything works in movie making are fun and interesting. Looking forward to more in this series.

View all my reviews

In 2017, I decided to jump into self-publishing with both feet.  I had several books ready to go and wrote several more to go with them.  I had a goal of publishing 6-8 books, I managed 6 published, the 7th is in re-writes, and the 8th is started.  Not a bad year for my writing.  Not bad at all.

Then the holidays hit, and I got a bit overwhelmed.  My dad passed a few years ago and I still miss him terribly.  I also got hit with some hormonal depression due to my not quite being menopaused yet.  I stopped writing for a bit.  I shouldn’t have–nothing was so bad that I couldn’t keep on with my writing–but I took a bit of a break and thought about where I want this writing journey to go next.

Scamper loves Christmas.

And I made some decisions.  I’m done with Kindle Scout, at least for the foreseeable future.  I got some lovely feedback from one of the editors there, but it isn’t quite the direction I want to take my writing in now.  Some of his advice I am certainly going to take to heart, and adapt things accordingly.  It is lovely to know that a professional editor at a publishing house sees no fatal flaws in my writing style.  My plots style could use some tweaking, and I will continue to nurture it and let it grow.  However, I’ve come to realize that my style of writing is never going to be quite what KS is looking for, and that’s all right.  It was a great way to grow my readership and it has accomplished that.  Now, I feel it’s time to fly on my own.  I can get as much attention by a little paid promotion at launch as I could through KS.

I published some stand along books in 2017 and started my first series, the Unruly Ghost Mysteries.  2018 is the year of the series for me.  My goal is to get the next 2 books in the Ghost series published.  Along with that, I will start the next series I’ve been very excited about.  It will also be ghost stories, but this one will me more action oriented.  Think the TV show, Supernatural, but only the ghost side of things.  I’d like to get the first 4 books of that series published.  They will be slightly faster reads, so I think it’s doable. In addition to those goals, my upcoming book, Crucible Station, needs a sequel.  I am not certain if there is enough of the story to make it a trilogy, but there is certainly enough for a sequel.  That’s 7 books planned for this year.  We’ll see how I do.

Brian needed an “ugly Christmas sweater” for work.  This one is so perfectly Brian that I can’t look at it without snickering.

I also need to begin thinking about the advertising side of writing more.  Now that my writing is making some money, it’s time I start figuring out what paid promotion I should undertake and carry it out.  That side of the business is still a bit murky, but there’s great advice out there on how to get started.

That’s it.  Those are my plans for the shiny New Year.  Now that the holidays are over and I’m feeling replenished, I can’t wait to get started!

We had lights outside this year!  And little trees made of tomato cages and tinsel.

Love Hunger Games, Zombie Apocalypse, Mad Max, and other tales of our post apocalyptic anti-utopian world?  Have I got a deal for you.

My Dystopian novella, Winter, is in a great big giveaway!  The Sci-Fi/ Dystopian giveaway goes from now until the 25th.  There’s a great group of books and novellas in this promotion, so if you enjoy a good end of the world as we know it tale, this is the giveaway for you.

Just click the pic!

About Winter:

Traveling through the bleak world after the explosions that caused the sudden decline of civilization in North America, Charlie must find the supplies that she and her family need to survive.  In a world where nothing grows, and every other human she meets is a possible danger, Charlie’s once normal life has become one of monotony and caution.  Though the people in the city are a threat, Charlie’s own ignorance of what has happened to the world frightens her far more.  With that in mind, Charlie undertakes a dangerous journey to acquire the books she needs to learn what has happened to America, and what she can expect from the future.

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Superheroes for sale- Cheap!

There’s an awesome book promotion going on now through the 15th.  Superhero books are on sale for $.99, including my own Nick of Time.  DN Promotions is heading up this super sale, and David always does a good job.  DavidNethBooks.com/Promo

Stop buy and get your own superhero today!

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Nick has to save people. Every. Damn. Day.

Nick Callaghan’s life has become an exhausting series of strange coincidences. Wherever he goes, Nick finds himself in a position to help others when they need it most. From foiling an armed stalker to grabbing a child in a broken roller-coaster car, Nick’s life is constant chaos. He has no idea what sort of force could have turned him into the world’s guardian angel, but he wants it to stop. There’s only one person who knows what Irish legend he’s fallen afoul of, but Grandmother isn’t talking.