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As a boy, J.D. Barker was drawn to the shadows. He imagined monsters in his closet and wrote stories about the witches and ghosts he was certain lived in the woods outside his home. His active imagination kept him awake at night—it also turned him into a New York Times and international best-selling author.
Today, the award-winning author has an ever-growing list of spine-tingling thrillers, including several co-authored books with James Patterson and praise from the master of horror, Stephen King.
Barker’s work encompasses elements from several genres, presenting them in what has been broadly described as suspense thrillers. Horror, crime, mystery, science fiction, and the supernatural all have a role to play in his books, bringing the same level of intensity his mentors incorporate into their novels. The monsters that scared him as a child are now captured in the pages of his stories.
A Young Author Drawn to the Shadows
Mysteries were the first to grab Barker’s attention, reading the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series as a child, but eventually he moved onto the classics and found his home in the works of Shelley, Stoker, and Edgar Allen Poe. Soon, he was writing his own stories, exploring the depths of his fear and producing tales of the monsters he was sure lived under his bed.
The literary life continued to call for Barker, even after receiving a business degree. When an article he wrote for a college assignment ended up in the hands of Paul Gallotta from the pop culture magazine, The Circus, he was invited to join the staff of 25th Parallel Magazine, an American lifestyle periodical. This unexpected path led him to interview celebrities for popular magazines, such as Seventeen, TeenBeat, and other national and local publications, and it wasn’t long before he had his own syndicated newspaper column called Revealed which centered around the investigation of haunted places and supernatural occurrences.
These early endeavors served as a crash course in writing, and he began working as a book doctor and ghostwriter, helping others fine tune their writing and readying it for publication. The experience proved invaluable. It taught him what works and what doesn’t in today’s popular fiction, and it led to his first venture into writing a novel of his own.
Tapping Into the Mind of the Masters of Horror
Forsaken, Barker’s first novel, was independently published in late 2014. Incorporating horror master Stephen King’s character Leland Gaunt from Needful Things offered Barker the opportunity to get his novel in front of King, who granted Barker permission to utilize the character in the novel, and the book went on to hit several major milestones. It landed the #2 spot on Audible (Harper Lee with Go Set a Watchman held #1), #44 on Amazon U.S., #2 on Amazon Canada, and #22 on Amazon UK. Forsaken was also nominated for a Bram Stoker Award (Best Debut Novel) and won a handful of others including a New Apple Medalist Award. Soon Bram Stoker’s family reached out to Barker and asked him to co-author a prequel to Dracula utilizing the original notes and journals from Stoker’s own archives, much of which has never been made public. The novel, titled Dracul, sold at auction to G.P. Putnam & Sons, with film rights going to Paramount.
The success of his first novels drew the attention of traditional agents and publishers and in early 2016 his debut thriller, The Fourth Monkey, sold in a series of pre-empts and auctions worldwide, with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt set to publish in the U.S. and HarperCollins in the UK. The book has also sold for both film and television. Barker has since gone on to write numerous titles which have appeared on bestseller lists around the world and is a frequent collaborator with James Patterson. His books have been translated into two dozen languages, sold in more than 150 countries, and optioned for both film and television.
From a child afraid of monsters, to an author who creates them, J.D. Barker has thrived on writing stories that thrill, excite, and scare people who love those mysterious bumps in the night. It’s a full circle journey that has given him a career that continues to thrill his growing fanbase.
Chanticleer is proud to host J.D. Barker at the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC) and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025, where he will be sharing his expertise in advertising and author branding.
Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from one of the literary world’s bestselling authors!
Register now! Space is limited!
Follow this link to reserve your spot at this special event!
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