Death and the Dream
“Subtle, soul-touching horror.
14 haunting tales from contemporary New York make up this dark and thrilling short story collection. Death suddenly becomes an inescapable part of life in scenes set in the Catskill Mountains, Brooklyn, the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, City Island, and the City’s science research labs.
A child left home alone plays with matches in a deserted rural valley on a hot summer day. A college student searching for love in New York City gets trapped in a dream of a lost boy. A young scientist accidentally gets locked in a laboratory room with her research mice in an experiment turned nightmare. An aging hitman confronts the murderer of their childhood trauma in a Lower East Side park one fateful spring morning. An abandoned German Shepherd bolts in front of a newlywed couple driving home for Christmas in a blizzard.
J.J.Brown expertly weaves lyrical and poetic stories of psychological terror reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe.
In each story death becomes an inescapable part of life.
Readers are saying
“Once I had to literally stop and wait to finish when it wasn’t dark and I wasn’t alone. Really great writing – dark yet exciting…”
“Brown takes ordinary people and showcases their darkest moments in such a subtle way, the reader doesn’t know the horror is coming until it’s *there*. ..“
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Vector, a Modern Love Story
Set in New York City, Rome and South Africa. A young and impressionable music student falls in love with an older HIV-positive man running an AIDS nonprofit foundation. J.J.Brown’s coming-of-age novel Vector shares the struggles and hopes of women and men living with HIV.
Readers are saying
“Beautifully written and tightly plotted, Vector draws the reader in to the very real seeming world of the characters, and subtly notches up the tension as each vivid character is drawn inexorably toward their fate.”
“A cautionary tale and yet, without a warning, it whisks the reader away into an exploration of the darkest of human desires. The prose sucks you in, and doesn’t let go till the last page.”
“An incredible journey through pain, loss and hope.”
“A beautiful tale of innocent first loves and sudden realization that life can be a mined territory of selfish self-confessed “love” and deception.”
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The Doctor’s Dreams
Set in Brooklyn, New York. A female doctor was expected at home for a quiet New Years’s Eve celebration but inexplicably goes missing. Looking for clues, her brother discovers the doctor’s secret diary of nightmares in the first novella of this collection, the The Doctor’s Dreams.
Set in New York City. A middle-aged workaholic chemist finds herself out of work one fateful morning. Feeling like a decapitated head of household while needing to support two sons, she faces the unthinkable in the second novella, After the Layoff.
Readers are saying
“In an era when almost nothing is private and no topic taboo, J.J.Brown reaches into the recesses of our psyches and pulls out the forbidden…”
“I felt like I was in an old Twilight Zone episode waiding to hear Rod Serling’s narration, or perhaps an episode of Alfred Hitchcock presents…”
“J.J.Brown’s The Doctor’s Dreams seems to have been visited by the spirit of Kafka…”
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American Dream
Set in New York City and upstate New York. A young and struggling artist miraculously finds himself in line to inherit an abandoned family castle. Severe depression complicates the artist’s struggle to claim his unexpected inheritance. He had become estranged from his own son and his tragically dysfunctional family. But he finds his creativity has a mysterious and healing power.
Readers are saying
“The dynamic of family issues, broken ties, deception, loss and suffering, alternate the spiritual journey of the Artist and the strength of a creative vision, the vivid impulse of inspiration that wins over all…”
“In undertaking the journey to resolution the novel unfolds to confront every fear, doubt, insecurity, dream, and past memory in battling depression. What must be done when the dream becomes a nightmare? Every single page in this book is a revelation. ”
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Comorbidity, Expressions of Love
Experiences and ghost stories mingle in these collected poems: Mother’s Love, Women’s Voices, Ghostly Love, Comorbid Love, Family Ties, and Meetings.
Readers are saying
“This edgy, often heart-breaking collection of poems left me at times exhilarated, devastated, crushed, and redeemed…”
“I discover a thrill in this poetry that sometimes I don’t understand, but that always I FEEL…”
“Brown’s style is beautiful and expressive, filled with happiness and pain in equal parts...She is a wonderful poet, and I thoroughly enjoyed this collection…”
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Brindle 24: the Last 24 Hours in the Life of a Town
Set in upstate New York and New York City. A scientist investigating a pet cat’s sudden death suspects chemical contaminants in the ground. Follow the fates of a teenager, her pregnant mother, war veteran father, and their neighbors, in J.J.Brown’s 24-hour environmental apocalypse fiction novel, Brindle 24. The ecology-themed story is based on extensive research, scientific and medical reports about very real effects of fracking (hydraulic fracturing to extract underground natural gas) on nature and on us.
Readers are saying
“All the elements of a thriller are here: love, lust, greed, drama, and the uncomfortable knowledge that the terrifying impact of fracking is all too real... difficult to put the book down…”
“A suspenseful and tension filled thriller, combining an audacious fictional analysis of many things already experienced by US communities who have been immersed over the last couple of years in fracking activity on their doorsteps…”
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Stream & Shale Coloring book
Set in rural Pennsylvania. Take young readers and artists on a trip to the country during the gas rush. J.J.Brown’s Stream and Shale Coloring Storybook is the true story of a Citizen’s Tour she joined traveling through gasland. It exposes hidden effects of fracking (hydraulic fracturing for gas) on nature and families who live nearby. Meet the little red cow and white tailed deer, and follow the streams leading through the rocks of the Marcellus Shale. Learn about how drilling chemicals affect our health and environment along the way.
Readers are saying
“J.J. Brown’s story and artwork certainly got to me and made me think a lot more about the many ways in which the environment we live in, and the food we eat, is affected by what we do to the land...”
“Stream & Shale is a beautiful way to learn about fracking and how to take care of the nature that came before us and (hopefully) will live on long after we’re gone.”
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J.J.Brown Author 