The Writing Cave #102
Why I still believe in us.
Welcome,
There is a story I keep coming back to. It is not fiction, though it could be. It is about a person, maybe you, maybe me, who wakes up one morning and realizes they cannot tell what is real anymore. The headlines fight each other. The comment section looks like a war nobody can win. Every swipe of the thumb pulls them a little deeper into a tunnel built by machines that seem to know their fears better than they do.
We have all been there, even if only for a day.
The internet said it would bring us together. Said it would make the world smaller, kinder, more connected. Instead it built a million small rooms, each one with a mirror on the wall. You stand in front of yours and at first you like what you see. The mirror nods back. It agrees with you. But the longer you stare, the stranger it gets. The reflection starts to look angry. Certain. A little too sure of itself. By the time you realize you are trapped in your own room, the door is already gone.
When I was writing Secrets from a Serial Killer, I kept thinking about that kind of fall. The slow slide away from what is real. The killer hides in plain sight because the town does not want to see him. People repeat what feels safe. They trade facts for comfort. They tell the same stories again and again until they sound like truth. Small-town gossip becomes gospel, and nobody wants to look too close at the shadows.
Shauna, the chief, spends the whole book fighting that blindness. Trying to see clearly in a world that keeps whispering lies. Maybe that is what all of us are doing. Trying to push through the noise to the small, stubborn truth that still beats underneath it all.
I do not write thrillers just to make hearts pound. I write them because every mystery is a mirror. The killer in Secrets is terrible, yes, but he is also what happens when a person stops questioning the story in their own head. When they decide their truth is the only one that counts.
That is the quiet horror of our time, the thought that we might all be curating our own madness.
I still believe most people are good. Maybe not perfect, but trying. I’ve seen it at book tables, in the way a stranger says thank you and means it. I’ve seen it in the quiet corners of the internet, where someone stops arguing long enough to listen. When the power goes out or the storm comes through, people still grab a flashlight and go check on their neighbors. That counts for something.
There’s grace in that. There’s hope in the act of paying attention.
So maybe this week, step out of the feed for a while. Call someone you’ve written off. Read something that makes you uncomfortable. Sit by a window and just watch the light move across the floor.
The truth’s still out there, waiting for us to look up long enough to see it. It always was.
Be safe,
J.C.
A Bestseller in Mystery Series!
Three women. Two dead. One still missing.
Chief of Police Shauna Peterson thought she knew every corner of her quiet lake town. But when a third young woman vanishes and a stitched body turns up with a message no one can ignore, it becomes clear the killer is bold, methodical, and watching.
And he’s not done yet.
Readers who picked up Secrets From A Serial Killer had this to say:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Couldn’t put it down. Gritty, fast, and real.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Dark, brutal, and believable. Exactly what I wanted.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Characters argue, doubt, and second-guess like real people. Refreshing.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Not just a thriller. It’s about a town carrying scars.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐“The characters are compelling with the strengths and weaknesses common to us all”
Bestseller In Vigilante Justice
They came for him. They killed her instead.
Frank Mallory walked away from the life. Ex-enforcer. Quiet job in a PI office. A home with Patricia, he never thought he deserved.
Then a pro hit misses and takes Patricia.
Grief burns out the man she made. What’s left is the old Mallory: patient, watchful, lethal.
He hunts the shooters and cuts into the city’s underbelly. Old debts surface. Darker secrets move in the shadows. Each step pulls him closer to the monster he used to be.
In the end he has to choose. Vengeance, or the last piece of his soul she left behind.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“There’s grief under the gun smoke. You actually feel for Frank, even when he’s doing terrible things. That’s good writing.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Mallory’s world feels lived in…the pawn shops, diners, back alleys. You don’t just read it, you walk it with him, step by dangerous step.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Momentum is relentless, yet the story keeps checking on his soul.”
Out Soon
Preorder The Winter Of Hidden Knives. $2.99
A dead man. A black feather. A pact no one talks about.
When old secrets thaw, Police Chief Shauna Peterson races a winter killer through Shadow Bay.
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