Paul Johnson

Hi, and welcome to my author page on Amazon.

I am in my mid-forties, happily married with three teenage kids, and have an absolute love of writing. Above all else it takes me into a whole different world, where I live as different characters - imagine role playing everything from a twisted serial killer to a vulnerable teenage girl, to an elderly woman contemplating suicide, and everything in between!!

Writing is not without it's challenges of course, and seems to be a roller coaster between absolute self-belief and crippling self doubt. But what an exhilarating ride :)

I have always loved reading, and have a wide range of favourite novelists from Harlan Coben and Simon Kernick, to Ken Bruen, Jason Starr, Charlie Higson, Bernard Cornwall, Mark Billingham, Jeff Lindsay and his beautiful creation Dexter, Howard Lindskey, the inimitable Chuck Palaniuk, and adopted Sheffield lads Ben Cheetham and John Featherstone.

Alongside this I enjoy some non-fiction, which tends to be around personal growth and development and spiritual traditions. Favourites include the amazing Geoff Thompson, Dan Millman and Wayne W. Dyer.

So far my own published writing consists of:

Smoke Without Fire - my first full length novel, which opens when a father of two teenage girls is mistakenly arrested on child pornography charges. Whilst the main character struggles to convince his friends, family and community of his innocence, a brutal killer starts targeting local businessmen. As the murders get closer to home, our hero finds out secrets about his own upbringing, and does not know whether he will be able to keep his family safe.

This book simply came from an idea about the opening scene, where the main character is surprised to answer the door to the police. How would you react to being arrested? Would the people around you believe your protests of innocence? All of them? And how did this awful material get onto your laptop in the first place?

The Big 'V' - a novella which follows a man in his late thirties as he goes into hospital for surgery which he does not expect to survive. This gives him cause and space to consider his life, which he uses to good effect after receiving a reprieve. After rediscovering his wife and family, and finally appreciating finding peace and contentment, life takes another turn, and he is left facing a very deadly foe.

This has a very different feel from my other work - it was written as two monologues wrapped around each other, converted into a script for theatre (not produced), and then back into a novella. I hope you enjoy it.

Choose Life - my first published book - is a tale of personal growth and development set against a world of stress, anxiety and the hectic pace of modern living. After falling apart, I tripped over a number of universal truths, and set out to share them with others, to help anyone else who may feel trapped by life, and be struggling to get up off their knees.

This is perhaps one of the most honest books you will ever read, and is not typical of the self-help genre. It offers no quick fixes or latest fads, but instead provides the genuine means to look at and deal with life in a very different way.

Well, that's me...the only other passion I have is training in marital arts/self defence, which has been a fascination for over 20 years - the last 10 of which have been studying Goshinkwai Combat, which is not so much self defence as a personal combat system. A story for another day, perhaps...

Finally - after reading any of my books, please do give feedback via the Amazon ratings and my author page on Facebook - 'Paul Johnson Author'

Ratings and feedback are hugely important, particularly to me as an independent writer.

Thanks, and happy reading!

Paul