Blood Shackles was a difficult book to write: personal, challenging and unflinching. Passionate about slavery and human trafficking, I knew this would be an important book. As a writer of the paranormal, I asked: what would happen if humans enslaved Blood Lifers?

Blood Shackles was reviewed this week: Readers’ Favorite awarded 5*

“When Light is captured, he refuses to lose himself, despite how his captors try to break his spirit and force him into submission. Being sold to Grayse is the ticket he needs out of his cell, even though her father owns the company that enslaves him… Blood Shackles is brutally honest, tragic, triumphant, addictive and somehow hopeful… Johns succeeded in creating a world, characters, and a story that pulled me in until I had to finish reading it… This is a novel everyone should read, along with Blood Dragons” – Readers’ Favorite

That brutal honesty? Light calls it ‘the truth flayed bloody‘. Same thing for a writer: your Soul wide open. Takes courage that…but I was never one to play it safe.

Blood Shackles is written as the Slave Journal of Light: it’s direct and immediate for the reader. A diary? Means you live each day in Light’s mind. You become the slave as well…if he’s ever truly one.

The journal is meant to control Light’s thoughts – no secret can be hidden – but Light is anything but a reliable narrator. His fangs might’ve been taken but he still has his words. And to Light? They’re a weapon.

‘So, dear Reader (because I know you’re reading this), did you reckon giving me this poncey journal – all softness and stink of leather – would make me spill my Soul? You already have my body, bought and paid for. You think you have my mind. My thoughts, however..? They’re my own. Write in it every day, you’d ordered, with that little smile. What do you think this is: Bridget Jones’s Diary?’ (Blood Shackles)

To dive into the world of the Blood Club click here.

To read and share the full Readers’ Favorite review click here.

The reviewer says, “I was so engrossed in Light’s story that I didn’t notice my Kindle was dying until it died.”

And that? Is why a writer flays their Soul.