Title: Fear and Jonathan Friend
Author: Barry Creyton
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 10/20/2026
Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 34600
Genre: Horror/thriller, M/M romance, psychological thriller, no sex but offhand mention of M/F affair, amnesia, author, newspaper reporter, hurt/comfort, mental illness, PTSD/post-traumatic stress
Add to Goodreads
Description
Jonathan Friend, a successful novelist, is left shattered by the tragic death of his husband, Andy. He suffers a breakdown, spends months of therapy in London, and returns to the US, only to endure a catastrophic plane crash in which he is the sole survivor.
After recuperating in the hospital, he returns to his rural Connecticut home. Here, Jonathan is haunted by a paralyzing fear of the cellar where Andy died and plagued by surreal nightmares, often reliving Andy’s death by impalement on garden shears. His rationality declines further when he discovers disturbing truths about the crash.
Bernie Jensen, local newspaper editor, seeks an interview with Jonathan. Initially met with hostility, over time, a romantic bond forms. As Jonathan confides his fears and hallucinations to Bernie, he investigates Jonathan’s claims.
As shocking truths are revealed, Jonathan loses his grip on reality and attacks Bernie, wounding him. He is arrested, but escapes custody to confront his fears at his home. Here, the devastating truth about Andy’s death is finally revealed.
Excerpt
Fear and Jonathan Friend
Barry Creyton © 2026
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
A violent jolt woke him from a deep, dreamless sleep.
He pushed the sleep mask up to his forehead and tried to orientate. He was sitting up, comfortable enough, covered by a thin blanket, a pillow behind his head.
“This is the first officer again.” The disembodied voice filled the cabin.
Of course! He was on a plane. He was going home.
“Please make sure your seat belts are securely fastened.”
He raised the shade on his window and saw only gray, lit intermittently by the flicker of lightning.
“The weather hasn’t cleared as we hoped, and traffic is heavy around JFK. We’re in a holding pattern and will land you as soon as we can.”
The cabin shuddered violently, and he grabbed at his diary as it slid from the tray table. The notebook he deemed “diary” was a gift from his publisher—bound in deep green leather with his name tastefully embossed in gold.
“Those of you who have connecting flights will be given priority at customs, and airline staff will conduct you to the appropriate gates.”
The announcement was replaced by a tinny version of the old waltz, “Fascination.” Jonathan smiled to himself as he pondered the judiciousness of playing a song written in 1900, and probably played on the Titanic, on a sleek modern aircraft at present battling a storm.
The shaking subsided. He glanced across the aisle. A matronly looking woman of around sixty was staring at him. She wore a little too much makeup, and the jewels which glinted at her throat, ears, and on her manicured fingers were clearly the real thing. She clutched a hardcover book that bore the title The Persistence of Memory by Jonathan Friend.
She turned the book over and inspected the picture of Jonathan on the rear of the jacket, then turned a squint to Jonathan. “Jonathan Friend, right?”
Jonathan smiled courteously and nodded.
“Geraldine Weissman.” She opened the book at the flyleaf and held it out to Jonathan. “You mind, honey? Put ‘to Geraldine.’ Don’t put the ‘Weissman.’ I want my friends to think I’ve known you twenty years.”
Jonathan took the book from her. He slid the small gold pen from the spine of his diary and wrote:
To my old friend Geraldine
with fondest wishes,
Jonathan Friend.
He passed the book back to her.
She read the inscription and chuckled. “I’ll treasure this, honey. I’ve read all your books. I’m what you might call a fan.” She reached into the seat pocket and withdrew a purse. She rummaged around for a moment before finding a small, elaborately inscribed card which she handed to Jonathan. “You’re ever in Brooklyn Heights, look me up. I mean it.”
Jonathan nodded and slipped the card into the pages of his diary.
Geraldine sobered somewhat. “I read about your loss. As who didn’t? Tragic, honey, real tragic. You don’t mind me bringin’ it up?”
Jonathan shook his head.
“‘Life is but a day,’ you know? ‘A fragile dew-drop.’ That Keats said a mouthful.”
Jonathan registered no emotion, none he cared to display, and changed the subject. “Are you coming from London?”
“Via London. From France. I just did Paris.”
“How did you like it?”
“Too much scenery.”
The cabin lurched, and Geraldine clutched at the armrest. “Oh boy!”
The tinny, banal orchestration of “Fascination” became a little more obtrusive, and Jonathan rubbed his forehead to ease a growing headache. He leaned out of his seat to take a look at the passengers to his rear.
Behind, on the aisle, a businessman in a dark suit and thick-lensed glasses sat rigid with fear, clutching a briefcase. He stared straight ahead with a frown of concentration, as if willing the aircraft to follow a smooth trajectory. Behind him, a young couple who seemed to Jonathan to be newlyweds, though there was no overt evidence beyond the occasional shy looks they exchanged. Next to them, a middle-aged woman with a washed-out, downtrodden appearance, wearing a plain cotton print dress which underlined the impression of a housewife from a 1950s TV commercial, unused to being out of a kitchen. She seemed out of place in the privileged trappings of first class. Jonathan chastised himself mentally, briefly, for thinking like a snob. With the woman was a young girl of perhaps four who laughed happily as the plane shuddered and bounced. She held a brightly colored ball and waved at Jonathan. Jonathan waved back.
His gaze returned to Geraldine who was no less apprehensive than the other passengers. “This kinda thing scare you?” she asked.
Jonathan shrugged. “I’ve had my fair share of turbulence.”
Geraldine took the oblique reference to personal tragedy at face value and shook her head. “Scares the shit outta me. The late Mister Weissman used to say, ‘if God meant us to fly, we woulda been born with airsick bags.’ Of course, he never went farther east than Atlantic City in the whole of his—”
There was a decisive shudder. The plane dipped into a steep downward dive. Oxygen masks fell; overhead bins flew open, spewing bags, clothing, and more. A woman somewhere to the rear screamed. Jonathan strained against the sudden velocity and peered through his window as the aircraft broke free of the clouds.
A flight attendant stumbled down the aisle checking seat belts. He grabbed her arm. “Are those trees out there? Aren’t we a little close to the—?”
A shriek of tortured metal overtook the roar of the engines, then a hideous grinding, and the world turned 360 degrees.
Flames.
An explosion.
Black.
Silence—broken only by the distant droning of the waltz, “Fascination.”
Purchase
NineStar Press | Books2Read
Meet the Author
Barry Creyton has worked extensively in British and Australian theatre and television as actor, playwright and director. His plays are produced in more than twenty languages. Awards include the prestigious Kessell Award for his outstanding contributions to Australian theatre, the L.A. Ovation Award, and the Noel Coward International Writing Award. He resides in the United States. Learn more at Barry’s website.
