Blog Archives
Built on Unconditional Love
The Devil Inside follows a father and daughter pulled into a haunting tied to H.H. Holmes, where ledgers, mirrors, and breathing pages reveal that evil survives through memory and the stories that keep rewriting it. What inspired you to reimagine H.H. Holmes?
H.H. Holmes has always fascinated me because he’s one of history’s most infamous serial killers, but most books about him simply retell the crimes we already know. I wanted to explore something different. I started asking myself, What if Holmes never really disappeared? What if death wasn’t the end for him? What if he found a way to rebuild his Murder Castle and continue his work through memory, obsession, and the people drawn to him? That “what if” became the foundation of the novel. Rather than writing another historical thriller, I wanted to blend real history with supernatural horror and create a story where Holmes becomes something far more terrifying than a man. You could say I wanted to bring him back to life.
The novel uses recurring images of ink, ledgers, gold script, ash, and breathing architecture. How did those motifs develop as you wrote the story?
Those images grew naturally as I explored the idea that evil leaves traces behind. Holmes wasn’t just collecting victims in my version of the story. He was preserving them. The ledgers became a way of recording souls, the ink represented memory refusing to fade, and the gold script symbolized temptation because it always appeared beautiful before revealing something horrific. Even the house itself became a living participant in the story. I wanted the building to feel as though it remembered every victim and every secret, almost as if the walls were breathing alongside the people trapped inside. Those recurring images helped tie the supernatural elements together while reinforcing the idea that some horrors never truly disappear because they simply wait to be remembered. As I continued writing, those motifs took on a life of their own and became another way of showing that the past is never truly gone. It lingers, waiting for someone to uncover it.
Julie and Frank’s relationship gives the horror a strong emotional center. How important was that father-daughter bond to the novel’s structure?
For me, it was the heart of the novel. Horror is always more powerful when readers genuinely care about the people facing it. Frank approaches everything as a scientist who believes there must be a logical explanation, while Julie is forced to experience things that defy reason. Their relationship creates a balance between skepticism and belief, but more importantly, it’s built on unconditional love. No matter how frightening the haunting becomes, Frank never stops trying to protect his daughter. That emotional bond gives the story its humanity and raises the stakes because the battle isn’t just about surviving evil. It’s about a father refusing to lose his child to it.
What do you hope readers are still thinking about after they turn the final page of The Devil Inside?
I hope readers walk away wondering where evil really comes from. Is it something we create, something we inherit, or something that survives because we continue telling its story? The Devil Inside asks whether monsters die with their bodies or whether they continue to exist through memory, fear, and obsession. More than anything, I hope readers are left questioning the things we choose to remember and the things we desperately try to forget because sometimes those are the stories that refuse to stay buried.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
What begins as a haunting becomes something far more disturbing: a legacy of obsession born in the shadow of Chicago’s Murder Castle, where a killer learned to turn flesh into data and memory into machinery. As the past reasserts itself through hidden ledgers, buried tunnels, and recorded breaths, Julie is drawn into a design that refuses to end.
To break the cycle, she must descend into places where light cannot reach, where history does not stay buried and the Devil is no longer a man, but an idea that survives through memory, ritual, and inheritance.
The Devil Inside Me is a gothic, slow-burn psychological horror novel that blends possession, historical evil, and emotional dread. Elegant, unsettling, and relentless, it explores temptation, redemption, and the terrifying cost of remembering what was never meant to survive.
The Devil Inside
The Devil Inside by Barb Jones is a supernatural horror thriller that drags H.H. Holmes out of the historical record and turns him into something more insidious than a murderer: a story that refuses to die. The novel begins in the Murder Castle of 1891, with Julia and Pearl caught in Holmes’s brutality, then shifts to Julie and her father, Frank, as they are pulled into a modern haunting shaped by ledgers, cabins, static, mirrors, and pages that seem to breathe. What starts as a ghost story becomes a battle over authorship, memory, and whether evil survives because it is remembered too well.
What struck me most was the book’s unnerving sense of atmosphere. Jones does not rely only on sudden shocks; she lets dread seep in through small disturbances, the wrong smell in the air, a vibration in the walls, handwriting where no hand should be. The recurring imagery of ink, gold script, fire, ash, and breathing architecture gives the novel a feverish cohesion. I liked how the horror felt both physical and textual, as though the characters were not merely trapped in haunted places but inside a manuscript that kept revising them.
I also appreciated the emotional spine between Julie and Frank. Their relationship keeps the novel from becoming only a parade of eerie set pieces. Frank’s need to protect his daughter, and Julie’s gradual recognition of her own strange power, give the story a human pulse beneath all the supernatural machinery. The book’s repetition of “he’s not gone” and its escalating cycle of drafts, ledgers, revisions, and returns can feel intentionally labyrinthine. Still, that relentlessness fits the central idea: Holmes is not just haunting them; he is trying to syndicate himself through attention.
Readers who enjoy supernatural horror, occult thrillers, haunted house fiction, and dark paranormal suspense will be the strongest audience for The Devil Inside. Fans of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep or the more metafictional terror of Paul Tremblay may recognize a similar fascination with trauma, memory, and the terrible appetite of stories. This is a novel for readers who like their horror smoky, ink-stained, and a little unquiet after the final page. The Devil Inside is a chilling reminder that some monsters do not return from the grave, they return from the margins.
Pages: 214 | ASIN: B0GFQ2YH9R
After all, Angels do fall.
Fate of an Angel is the second book in The Dark Prophecy Series and focuses on Zaraquel’s battle to keep her light while others try to bend it into something that is doomed. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Blood Prophecy began as a series but due to reader requests, I added a second trilogy. My inspiration came from wanting the second trilogy to continue the storyline but from the villain’s perspective. Not many authors do their villains justice and I’m the kind of author who loves villains. Moving the characters to Hawaii at the end of Rise of the Hunter was to honor the Hawaiian part of my family roots. Zaraquel is one of my favorite characters and paired with the villain, The Tall Dark Man, I knew I had to make this story where she falls. After all, Angels do fall.
The Tall Dark Man is a powerful and unsettling antagonist. How did you develop his role within the series mythology?
The Tall Dark Man started as just a villain no one knew about. But as the Blood Prophecy saga grew into the universe it is today, I made him become powerful, maybe even more powerful than the queen,who is the protagonist. Villains don’t just go away in the end. They will always come back stronger and with a vengeance. Readers will never see his face, just short descriptions of certain features so their imaginations can run wild. The Tall Dark Man needs to be a powerful force of evil in the story and one that will shake readers because without him, the saga just wouldn’t be the same. He is the embodiment of pure evil in many twisted ways.
How do you keep emotional stakes high in a story populated by supernatural beings and extraordinary powers?
I believe that characters need to bring out the emotions of readers or their would be no connection to the stories. I imagine the different emotional needs readers may have and I create the characters that will draw them closer. Not just that, but I love books that have more action and when you tie that in with the characters, especially those with “super powers”, how can you not keep reading?
Can you give us a glimpse inside Book 3 of The Dark Prophecy Series? Where will it take readers?
My working title for Book 3 is Daughter of Blood. This book will be the one that will take readers on Zaraquel’s final emotional and sacrificial journey to save the Queen, her family, friends and even the world. Sacrifices come in many different forms but throughout the Dark Prophecy, Zaraquel always had her wishes. The true test for her will come if she is strong enough to protect the ones that she loves against the Tall Dark Man. I think this book will bring the Blood Prophecy universe full circle since Queen’s Destiny.
Fate of an Angel
Fate of an Angel, by Barb Jones, is a dark, prophecy-driven supernatural novel that throws Zaraquel, Marcus, Amber, Chloe, and their allies into a widening war against the Tall Dark Man. Set partly in Hawaii and threaded with bloodlines, gods, witches, vampires, angels, ancestral memory, and the dangerous arithmetic of sacrifice, the book centers on Zaraquel’s struggle to keep her light while forces around her try to bend her into something useful, broken, or doomed. It is Book Two in The Dark Prophecy Series and very much a continuation of the larger Blood Prophecy world.
I was struck by how much this book wants the supernatural to feel inherited rather than decorative. Magic here is not just sparkle or spectacle; it is obligation, old debt, family damage, and the residue of choices made long before the present characters were born. The Hawaiian setting gives the story a charged atmosphere, especially in the prologue, where myth, violence, and memory knot together before the modern plot begins. Jones is at her best when she lets dread seep into ordinary rooms: a cup of tea, a cottage floor, a museum case, a child who will not cry. Those moments have a sharp, uncanny pressure.
Marcus’s love for Zaraquel is fierce, but not clean. Zaraquel’s light is precious, but not invulnerable. Amber’s power carries history with it. Even victory feels provisional, as if every rescue has a shadow folded inside it. At times, the sheer breadth of characters, lore, and prophecy can feel dense for a newcomer, and I think this is not the ideal entry point for readers who want a standalone fantasy. But for readers already invested in the saga, that abundance becomes part of the appeal: the book feels crowded with consequence, like a storm system gathering over several bloodlines at once.
I would recommend Fate of an Angel to readers who enjoy dark fantasy, paranormal fantasy, supernatural thriller, vampire fiction, and mythic horror with a strong serial arc. Fans of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles may recognize a similar appetite for immortal grief, family entanglement, and beautiful damnation, though Jones pushes harder into prophecy and ensemble warfare. Fate of an Angel is a tense and emotionally charged installment about family, loyalty, and the cost of holding on when darkness keeps closing in.
Pages: 304 | ASIN : B0CYGPHS4Z
Stories About Demon Hunters
Son of Asmodeus follows a former monk turned demon hunter who learns that his bloodline ties him to both Heaven and Hell. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I have always loved stories about demon hunters, demons and angels. I love anything supernatural but always wondered if there would ever be a story about a demon hunter who is actually the son of a demon and an archangel. Just this thought alone inspired me to create the Heaven and Hell series.
I find the world you created in this novel brimming with possibilities. Where did the inspiration for the setting come from, and how did it change as you were writing?
I tend to write about the places I’ve been to and love visiting. LA was always a big interest of mine to visit and explore the depths of humanity in. It became the perfect setting to bring demons and angels alive in the human world.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I didn’t want to focus on religion but mostly the concepts of good vs evil. All of my books consist of this theme. Where there is good, there is always evil and one can’t survive without the other. I also wanted to explore the concept of humanity against a supernatural world.
Where does the story go in the next book, and where do you see it going in the future?
Sully continues his journey to discover his true birthright and purpose. Hell Hounds is the second book in which not only Hell Hounds are released on earth, but he learns the possibility of a Second War between Heaven and Hell is inevitable.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
A lone demon hunter, his true birthright unknown, roams the streets of Los Angeles while killing demons to prevent atrocities against the world. As the son of Asmodeus, Sully is a hunter feared by both demons and angels. His world was not the same once he walked into a bar and offered to help Mick, a gothic bartender.
Mick worried about her missing friend until the day she met Sully. The minute he walked into her bar and offered his help, her world changed. Secrets of her destiny unlocked, and he was at her side everywhere she turned. Friend. Protector.
Can they live with the secrets that are revealed to them? Will they survive the chase for the truth between Heaven and Hell?
Hell Hounds
Hell Hounds is a supernatural fantasy that dives deep into the clash between Heaven and Hell, following the fateful child of both realms. The story begins with Archangel Michael and the demon Asmodeus creating a fragile pact, one that binds their worlds through a child destined to protect both sides. As the centuries pass, the novel follows this lineage, hunters, demons, angels, and mortals all entangled in a fight that questions loyalty, destiny, and love. There’s blood, betrayal, and tenderness tucked into moments of brutal war. It’s a saga of balance, between faith and sin, light and dark, family and fate.
The pacing runs hot and cold, but when it hits, it really hits. The dialogue snaps with grit, and the characters, especially Sully, the tormented hunter, and Mick, the brave yet uncertain daughter of an archangel, carry the story with heart. There’s something raw about the way author Barb Jones blends divine mythology with modern grit. She makes angels and demons feel human, with jealousy, doubt, and love that burns like fire. The fight scenes pop off the page. But the quiet moments, the ones between Sully and his father Asmodeus, or Mick facing Lucifer, those are where the book truly breathes.
There are a lot of names to follow and many battles happening at once. I had to slow down to keep up with who was scheming against whom. Yet, there’s a certain charm in the chaos. It feels intentional, like the author wanted the reader to drown in the same storm her characters are fighting. There’s power in that confusion, it mirrors the war between Heaven and Hell itself. The prose isn’t polished, but it makes the mythic feel intimate, like you’re eavesdropping on gods and monsters having very human arguments.
I’d recommend Hell Hounds to anyone who loves dark fantasy with heart. To readers who crave a world where angels curse, demons cry, and love defies kingdoms. If you’re the type who likes your stories bloody and soulful, with just enough chaos to keep your pulse up, this one’s for you.
Pages: 162 | ASIN : B0FJ7M7S9Y
Son of Asmodeus
Son of Asmodeus throws readers into a world where angels, demons, and humans all fight over faith, fate, and the heavy price of truth. The story follows John “Sully” Sullivan, a former monk turned demon hunter who learns that his bloodline ties him to both Heaven and Hell. His battles stretch from the chaos of celestial war to the gritty alleys of Los Angeles, where divine secrets, lost memories, and half-truths come crashing together. It’s an urban fantasy layered with centuries of guilt, loyalty, and the question of what it means to belong when both light and darkness claim you.
The writing has a cinematic punch. Fights are vivid, and the tension never lets up, but what really hooked me wasn’t the action. It was the ache under it all. Sully’s struggle with identity and redemption hit me hard. I found myself rooting for him, even when he made choices that hurt. The mix of religious mythology and raw emotion worked better than I expected. Sometimes the dialogue leaned a bit heavy on exposition, but the story’s heart kept me going. I could feel the loneliness in every scene, the way faith can turn into a burden when you start to doubt your own soul.
The world itself is wild and haunting. The author plays with ancient language, heavenly wars, and smoky Los Angeles bars as if they all belong in the same universe. And somehow, they do. The pacing runs hot and cold. Slow, meditative moments mixed with sudden bursts of blood and fire, but I liked that rhythm. It gave me time to breathe before diving back in. The emotional pull is strong, too. There were times I felt uneasy, other times strangely hopeful.
Son of Asmodeus is the kind of story I’d hand to readers who love dark fantasy with a moral twist. If you like stories where angels bleed and sinners pray, where the hero is broken but still stands up swinging, this one’s for you. It’s not a light read, but it’s full of grit, heart, and that small flicker of grace that refuses to die.
Pages: 186 | ASIN : B0BLXMTCXC
Readers Wanted More
Rise of the Hunter follows a man who was thrown into a pit and supposed to be dead, who escapes, igniting a war between good and evil. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I was prepared to end the series with the previous book in the trilogy but over 150 readers sent me emails wanting to know more about what could’ve happened if the Tall Dark Man had more of a role. Readers in my Blood Prophecy Saga love the Tall Dark Man and after thinking about it, The Dark Prophecy Series in the saga was born. Rise of the Hunter is the first installment of the Tall Dark Man’s Trilogy in which he could be seen as the protagonist from the villain’s perspective. I tend to love my villains in all my books so this was a perfect way to bring evil back to life in the Blood Prophecy Saga.
What were some driving ideals behind your character’s Tall Dark Man’s development?
The main idea about the Tall Dark Man is that you will never get a complete description of his face. I will bring out bits and pieces of certain characteristics but because evil can come in many different forms, this was a perfect way to bring him to light. In the next book, Fate of an Angel, readers will learn that he looks different to different people. Evil has many different forms. The Tall Dark Man is also a man, but an evil one. He is not a supernatural being but can possess supernatural abilities. The premise of evil and how it evolves is what gives the Tall Dark Man his edge, his nature and the persona that my readers embrace.
When you first sat down to write this story, did you know where you were going, or did the twists come as you were writing?
I never know how my story will begin or end. I just tend to write and let my characters do the talking. The twists and turns come naturally to me, allowing my creativity to dominate. I can’t sit down and plot my stories, but I definitely do research and travel to locations I write about.
Where does the story go in the next book and where do you see it going in the future?
Fate of An Angel is the next book in the trilogy, The Dark Prophecy Series and will focus on the relationship between the Tall Dark Man and Zaraquel, the Avenging Angel. She is under his spell and faces the turmoil of giving into evil to be with him or to choose the light and save her family. Together, they embark on a journey that the Tall Dark Man learns could be his undoing or his success in overthrowing the queen.
There will also be novellas on the Tall Dark and his witches, just like I had done in the Blood Prophecy Series.
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Website
The queen and her friends threw me into the dark pit three years ago, and I sought a way out, having used the power and life force of the others who were also thrown in. Today, I am free and planning my vengeance against her and the others.
In a supernatural world filled with vampires, werewolves, witches, demons, and angels, I will have my revenge against them. I am the epitome of evil and didn’t die like they thought. There’s a third prophecy with a nice little catch! This prophecy is meant for me; my revenge will turn the tables on the queen and her friends. I will turn them all against her, and according to the prophecy, the avenging angel be mine. Forever. As for the others, they will serve me.
It’s time for me to rise, beginning with the birth of a new hunter, new demons, and an angel that will be mine. Vengeance against the queen will be mine.
Rise of the Hunter is the fourth book in the Blood Prophecy series and is the first book of a new trilogy for the Tall Dark Man. It is full of dark magic and vengeance with a twist of good vs. evil but will good win this time? This supernatural book is set in the modern-day world between supernaturals to control the world and unleash evil as the world prepares for peace.
