Welcome to the website of Mystery / Thriller writer Donnie Light
Here you will find information on Donnie’s books, latest news, and upcoming events and publications. Donnie is the author of numerous novels and shorter works and has been featured two anthologies. He lives in rural Northern Illinois.
Donnie tends to write fiction that makes you wonder, what if?
What if a company released a dangerous virus, only because they already have the cure? Find out in Delaney’s Cure. What if Jack the Ripper was really stalking vampires in Whitechapel? Discover the answer in The Ripper Trilogy. And there is more… ghosts, witches, creatures and mysterious artifacts. His stories may be dark, but there is always a shred of hope.
Be sure to take a look at Donnie’s Books Page – a complete list of everything he has published. And then pick your next adventure.
Live Event News – Click Here for Details
June 21, 2022
The first book in a new series – The Lightning Ghost – is now available on Amazon.
Jenny McLane can travel to the past… as a ghost.
While recuperating from a bizarre accident, Jenny finds a stash of old photos of her parents—the parents she never knew. Her mother died on the day Jenny was born, and her father mysteriously vanished later the same day.
While staring at one of the photos, she falls into a trance-like state and suddenly finds herself in the past, at the very moment the photo was taken… but as a ghost.
She can see her parents, young and vibrant. She can hear their conversations, see their interactions.
But nobody can see Jenny. Nobody can hear her. She can pass through solid objects and sometimes, the people in the past can sense her presence.
Jenny discovers that during her trance, her spirit travels to a place she comes to call The Fray. She soon realizes she is not alone in The Fray. There are other beings, other ghosts, and strange creatures that want to feed on Jenny’s energy.
But Jenny’s desire to know about her parents overrides her fear, and she continues to visit the past to learn of her parent’s fate.
Jenny soon discovers that her parents not only knew about The Fray, but had joined with others to help stop that world from encroaching on ours.
Now, it’s Jenny’s turn to uphold the family legacy.
“I recently reconnected with some relatives I had not seen since childhood. One of them told me that I used to tell ghost stories that would keep her awake all night. I considered that quite a compliment.”
~Donnie
“Just a month or so ago, I visited one of my cousins. Her adult daughter was there, and 
reminded me of a time when she was a little girl, and I told the story of a possessed Cabbage Patch doll to her girl scout troop while they sat around a campfire at night. I had forgotten about that, but then remembered that I made that story up on the spot, and used the Cabbage Patch doll because they were new and hot and every kid wanted one. Now that I think about it, I think they were a little creepy, too…”
~Donnie
Why I read and write Horror and Thriller Novels
Imagine this: I’m in line at some social function, standing next to a woman who is my mother’s age. We strike up a conversation, and she eventually asks what I do. “I’m a writer,” I say. Of course, she responds with “Oh? What kind of books do you write?” So I begin to describe my books and she hears words like paranormal, vampires, voodoo, demons, zombies… you get the idea. I watch her face turn from a pleasant smile to one of confusion, then to the verge of repulsion. I’m sure she was thinking that I look like a nice, reasonable guy, but somewhere in our conversation things took a turn from that course.
Truth is; I am a nice, reasonable guy. A nice reasonable guy who loves to read and write stories that take the reader away from cozy and comfortable, and to a place where life is more difficult and challenging. A place where danger awaits at every bend in the road, and vile creatures exist who have evil on their mind. A world where you have to stay on your toes to survive, and every breath could be your last.
Perhaps there remains in my DNA, some fragment that was passed on from my distant ancestors. Those ancestors who didn’t need a scary story to get their adrenaline pumping through their veins because a saber-toothed tiger just ate one of their clan. They saw it happen, and they know the beast is still nearby-and still on the hunt. Or from the ancestor who went to war with a horde of barbarians who knew no morals and killed and tortured for the sick thrill of conquest. No, those ancestors didn’t need a guy like me to make up stories to tell around the campfire. They lived in a time when being scared and wary was a way of life and necessary to stay alive. Those who were not afraid in those times had a name – victims.
But now things are different. We live in a civilized society, and for the most part, we lead pretty easy lives. We don’t have to walk the path in the forest gathering berries to survive, knowing the saber-tooth is nearby and still hungry. The horde of barbarians has gone the way of the mammoth, but we psychologically have replaced them with hordes of fictional zombies. We need something other than exercise to get our pulse rate up. We need an element of the unknown to keep us guessing and second-guessing ourselves. We need something to scare us other than the price of gas. We need something for our brains to chew on, in which no answer is right, wrong, or even possible.
The lady I mentioned above will go on to tell me that she reads romance novels and poetry. She may mention that if I ever write a romance novel, she would be happy to read it.
Our conversation has lost a bit of the niceness it began with, but I tell her that I have written a romance story.
Her eyes brighten just a bit, and the smile returns to her face. Then I tell her that in my romance novel, the hero is battling an evil vampire who killed his fiancé, and if he kills the vampire he will free her soul from an existence in Purgatory. But the vampire is protected by a Voodoo Queen who controls an army of Zombies…
The confusion returns to her face, then to the verge of repulsion. She says it’s been nice talking to me, then turns to the person in front of her and starts another conversation, probably about romance novels and poetry. Another lady of about the same age taps me on the shoulder. “Do you really write books?” she asks.
“Yep,” I reply. “But probably not the kind of books you read.” She goes on to tell me she’s a huge Stephen King fan, and here I was thinking she looked like a nice, reasonable woman. We hit it off, then we go on to talk about Aliens, Bigfoot and Werewolves.
~Donnie
