BOOK FEATURE: Harmed and Dangerous by Jasper Bark

It’s a Southern Gothic, paranormal thriller, set in the steamy state of Louisiana. The plot involves time slips, small town horror and the mysteries surrounding an inscrutable serial killer.

It’s dark and deeply emotional and addresses LGBTQIA themes as well the intensely personal nature of father/daughter relationships.

BOOK LINK: AMAZON

COVER BLURB

Put yourself in Kyra’s place.

You're seventeen years old, lost and alone in a remote town in Louisiana. You're searching for the birth parents you never knew. The heat is crippling. The river often floods, washing houses away and lifting corpses from the ground.

The locals treat you with suspicion. You don't belong here. They're hiding something. All over town, in nooks and hidden alcoves, there’s evidence of a forbidden faith. They keep the old ways here, but no one will tell you what they are.

There's an intangible presence following you. Hiding in your peripheral vision. You can't see, hear or touch it, but you know it's there, waiting for its chance to claim you.

Then the episodes start.

Your vision goes and when it returns you're seeing the world as it was fifteen years ago. Physically you're in the present, but everything you see happened a decade and a half ago.

Suddenly you realize.

You’re seeing through the eyes of the serial killer who murdered your birth mother. He takes control of you, forcing you to watch as he stalks and brutally murders her.

And there’s nothing you can do to stop him. Because he died by lethal injection more than a decade ago.

BOOK LINK: AMAZON

Special essay from the author (Linzé - I love these!)

WHAT I LEARNED WRITING ABOUT REAL VOODOO

  Like all paranormal thrillers, my latest novel, HARMED AND DANGEROUS has a supernatural element. The people of Yeuxville, the small town where the novel is set, keep “the old ways”, a set of customs and magical practises that are older than their town, their state and even their country.

  In writing about these practices, I drew almost exclusively on Voodoo and other African diasporic religions like Candomblé and Santeria. Beliefs that date all the way back to the African kingdom of Benin. Beliefs carried over to the new world by the people captured and sold into slavery, who mixed their ancient beliefs with the Catholicism of the countries to which they were taken. This in turn created new religions which are some of the fastest growing in the world, even today. I have a personal and first hand experience of these beliefs and practices.

  When I was writing my fourth novel WAY OF THE BAREFOOT ZOMBIE, for Abaddon Books, rather than writing about the zombie apocalypse, I decided to go back to the origins of the zombie myth in Voodoo. But I didn’t want to misrepresent the religion in the way I’d seen so many writers do in the past. So, I did a lot of research and I reached out to some important practitioners. One of these was Simone Brightstein, who became a dear friend and practically a member of our family.

  I discovered that when you write an authentic Voodoo ritual that’s intended to summon one of the deities, who are called Loa in Voodoo and Orisha in Santeria, they can actually turn up. In your mind at least, which is where all the action in a novel takes place. Not only do they turn up, but they take over the story. When they appeared, I didn’t write any dialogue, I took dictation. The words spilled out almost faster than I could put them down. And the Loas decide what’s going to happen next, not the author.

  Toward the end of the novel, the Loa known as Papa Legba, who opens the way for all the other Loas, decided to change my story. He told Brigitte, a Mambo, or Voodoo priestess, that he wanted another of my characters, Tatyana, to stay on the island where the novel was set and become one of his followers. This completely changed what I had planned for my ending. But I knew enough at this point not to go against Papa Legba. Especially as he gave a little speech explaining why she should become his follower.

  About a week later, I was contacted by Simone, a priestess of Santeria. She said she’d been contacted by Elegguá, the Orisha equivalent of Papa Legba, with an important message for me. So important, he insisted she write it down, because he told her he wanted me to become his follower. She emailed me the message and it was so close to the speech Papa Legba had made in my novel that some sentences were almost word for word.

  I’d never had something like this happen to me before. I was quite shocked. As Elegguá instructed her, Simone had the altar she devoted to him packed up and shipped to me. I was to make regular offerings to it and be mindful of the Orisha. It sits in my study to this day, in fact, as I write this, it needs to be dusted. And yes, I make regular offerings.

  Papa Legba/Elegguá appears in the pages of HARMED AND DANGEROUS. His presence in this novel is more subtle, but no less powerful. You’ll meet him when you read the ARC. And maybe, he’ll change your life too.

˜˜˜

AUTHOR BIO

Multiple award-winning author, Jasper Bark is infectious – and there’s no known cure. If you’re reading this you’re already contaminated. The symptoms will manifest any time soon. There’s nothing you can do about it.

There’s no itching or unfortunate rashes, but you’ll become obsessed with his mind-bending books.

From the acclaimed Draw You In trilogy and the ground breaking Bark Bites Horror series, to graphic novels like Bloodfellas and Beyond Lovecraft.

Then you’ll want to tell everyone else about his visionary horror. About its originality, its wild imagination and how it takes you to the edge of your sanity. We’re afraid there’s no way to avoid this. These words contain a power you’re hopeless to resist.

You’re already in their thrall, you know you are. You’re itching to read all of Jasper’s bloodstained books.

Don’t fight this urge, embrace it. You’ve been bitten by the Bark bug and you love it.

LINKS

Website: www.jasperbark.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/jasperbark/

INSTA: https://www.instagram.com/barkjasper/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXsjQ4vXFQzUOhK1oRLok9w

CreativeLife update: art, the 100 day project, and finishing the second draft

 Hey there creative friend!

This blog post was supposed to go out last week, but that week went whoosh before I managed to blink. I'm sure it happens to everyone, but it doesn't mean that I like it. When I lose track of the days, it means that I have been working long hours and not doing much on a creative project. Yeah, that is frustrating to say the least.

Small collages I made in January.

I did manage to finish the second draft of the Guardian of Dreams earlier in February. It is now hiding on my computer for another week or two before I tackle the next round of editing. Don't worry, the backups were made, just in case. 😉

I also managed to prep the two panels (I only paint on wood these days) that will be the cover for Grayson's Choice. Instead of using AI to generate the cover image, I thought to do the two paintings that are part of the character development path of the female MC myself.

Of course I can paint, but to make the paintings that reflect the pain and joy of her journey, is a definite challenge. So holding thumbs that I can paint what I am envisioning they should be.

Learning about an amazing artist: Ruth Asawa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Asawa

If you have read my blog before you will know that I did the 100 day project last year, and that it had not been easy. I foresee the same journey ahead of me for the 2026 edition, starting on 22 February. If you want to check it out, the details are on Substack

While I think it is aimed at artists and crafters, I also used the challenge to write. So writers, why not jump in too? Writing for 100 days will definitely get a book a good way towards finishing a first draft without the pressure of a daily word count.

I can write a 1000 words in an hour, but seldom have that amount of time available, but 500 words? Anytime. I suddenly feel the urge to write...

Philosophy - what I am reading next

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

And then a moth lands on my desk and makes a mess with its powdery wings, making me drop my mouse on the floor. 🤨 I am not a fan.

Keep an eye out for a post this coming Friday. It's another book feature if you're into horror fiction. I read the synopsis and boy, it will keep you awake for sure. 😳 

Learning about philosophy: Stoicism vs Existentialism

https://stoicismtoday.substack.com/p/stoicism-and-existentialism

Thank you for catching up with me this week. Next time I will share more about the art journal page I mentioned before. I changed it a bit, but that is okay, since it is still new to me and I am figuring it out as I go.

Stay creative until next time!

🇿🇦💜 Linzé

CreativeLife update: art, finishing a first draft, and the house freaked me out 😳

 Hey there creative friend,

Happy 2026 to you! I think it is still appropriate to give new year's wishes in January. 😉 Although if your year started like mine, things just picked up where they left off in December - fast paced, and bordering on overwhelming. That was after we got the house sorted.

On 31 December we started hearing arcing of the electrical connections inside the house. Since we are both engineers, we tried to see if we could figure out what was going on. Neither of us could. It got worse on the 1st and it started to freak me out to the point that I insisted that we get an electrician before the house burned down.

I contacted my business partner's son, who is a qualified electrician, and fortunately he was available to come out on Friday, the 2nd. It took four hours, lots of digging, which hubs helped with, for them to find and fix the problem. The main supply cable to the house was damaged and the arcing we heard came through the pipe the cable was routed with into the house. The bill was a nightmare, but it could have been so much worse.

Dragonfruit in watercolour and
coloured pencil (Jan 2026)

While I am writing this post, I am enjoying an impromptu long weekend (not complaining) because my work was done by Thursday and my clients were not ready for me to start their tests on Friday.

I spent the time transcribing the handwritten words of the Guardian of Dreams. The first draft is finally done. I am not happy with the ending, not the actual ending, but how the story got there. Does that make sense? Anyway, I will fix it when editing, so not really too worried about it.

I am also working on the prequel (a full length novel) of the Guardian of Energy. It is close to being finished too, so lots of editing ahead for me this year. Both the prequel and the story will only be released, once both books are finished.

💜  What I learned this week

Why Caring What People Think Makes You Miserable

https://journeyofideas.substack.com/p/why-caring-what-people-think-makes

I decided to do Inktober52 again this year, and drew the third prompt last night. The first two prompts were listed as free time. While I have done some creative things, a collage and the watercolour of dragonfruit, there was no ink involved.

I am doing the Inktober52 prompts as part of an art journal slash journal monthly page in an A4 sketchbook. This is a new thing for me and I am still feeling my way around the design. I don't want to make it a big deal, but the idea is to have highlights and things worth remembering on one page per month for that end-of-year reflection that happens and then I can't remember the details.

I do keep an actual journal, but rereading a whole year's worth of entries really doesn't appeal. So we will see how this will go towards that goal. Including actual drawings as part of the page, will help me to keep up the practice.

The plan is to share more details on my Substack and Medium pages, but I will share those links on my social media if you are want to learn more.

Stay creative, until next time!

💜🇿🇦 Linzé