Blog Tour + Giveaway - Just Things by Erin Lee

by - Friday, May 12, 2017


This is my stop during the blog tour for Just Things by Erin Lee. This blog tour is organized by Lola's Blog Tours. The blog tour runs from 1 till 21 May. See the tour schedule here.



Just Things (Diary of a Serial Killer #1)
By Erin Lee
Genre: Horror
Age category: Adult
Release Date: 14 May, 2017


Sometimes, the cravings just take over.

Jimmie Putnam is an ordinary man by any measure. By day, he works as a law clerk. At night, when he can't fight the cravings, he becomes a collector. He takes great care of his human Things; buying them cherry lipstick and reading to them from his journal. When they've been on their best behavior, he even takes them out of his freezers...

Sometimes, the need is just too deep.

Florel Ross has been mostly invisible since the death of her twin, who died twenty years ago at the hands of a serial killer. Obsessed with justice, Florel is willing to risk anything for the answers she craves: What goes on in the mind of a serial killer?

When the two yearnings collide, will it be justice or just Things?

You can find Just Things on Goodreads

You can buy Just Things on Amazon

You can watch the trailer for Just Things on Youtube





Hi Erin! Thank you so much for being on my blog today and I’m so excited for your new release, Just Things. Can you tell us more about your new book? What should readers expect from the story?

Hi! Thanks for having me. I am excited about this book too. It’s the first in my Diary of a Serial Killer series and is a great introduction into the mind of Jimmie Putnam, the killer. Just Things gives readers a background into the world of this man, who appears ordinary on the outside but is actually a serial killer who has a pension for hoarding women’s bodies in his freezers. While that sounds rather gory, it’s really not. This book is more about the mind of a killer and how it works, rather than the acts themselves. It will leave readers questioning themselves and whether or not this could be someone they know.

To be honest, I’m not much of a horror reader but I’m looking forward to venture into unchartered territory. Is there any advice to readers out there who are just getting into the genre? 

Honestly, I’m new to the genre too. While this story and the details in it are certainly “horrific,” I consider this series more of a dark fiction genre. Jimmie’s crimes are horrible but he’s actually a pretty likable character. I see this series as a great Segway into the horror genre for readers. My advice is to read with the lights on, ha ha.

What intrigued me most about the story is the two characters who are at the opposite end of the spectrum. You have Florel, who is the good; and Jimmie, who is the psychopath in the case. How hard was it to write about these characters? Was it tough to switch between the mindsets and to delve into Jimmie’s mind? 

Great catch! I actually didn’t introduce Florel until the first book went to beta readers. There was no Florel until a reader suggested I do exactly what you are describing here. That made the story so much more fascinating. The funny thing is that Florel and Jimmie have tons in common. Florel’s sister was abducted and killed by a serial killer 20 years ago. She feels responsible. She is willing to go to any length to understand the mind of a serial killer. Because she is also flawed, the two actually form an interesting relationship later in the series. I didn’t have a problem switching between them because they both have good and evil sides. I do enjoy how those sides play off of one another.

On the contrary, I do appreciate a fantastic psychological thriller/mystery. Was Just Things inspired by any work of fiction? 

This is basically a psychological thriller. It weaves the dance between a predator and prey into a story that digs deep into each character’s motivations. It’s probably what I love about it most. The story was actually inspired by real world interviews I did with men convicted of murder at the state prison. One of the men said “I’m not all bad you know.” That is what got me to first write Jimmie’s character. I knew he wasn’t all bad and I wanted to figure out what motivated him to do what he did – much like Florel in the story.

Villain vs Hero. If you have a choice to be casted as Jimmie or Florel, which role would you audition for? Why? 

Oddly, Jimmie. I think his world is interesting. I don’t have any plans of killing anyone any time soon, but I do think that he’s a quirky guy that’s actually quite likable. For the series overall, though, the character I’d like to be is Thing Fifteen – Beverly Watkins. Beverly is her own person and takes justice into her own hands. She’s also Jimmie’s fifteenth victim.

Which scenes in the book was the toughest and easiest for you to write?

In one scene in book two, Jimmie’s Ice Cream, Jimmie kills my favorite horror author. That was hard for me. I want to make her proud. 

Share with us how you came up with the title. 

I was watching a documentary about serial killers and one killer said that he didn’t view his victims as people. He saw them as *insert shrug* “just things.” That’s how Jimmie sees his victims. At the time, it was called “Jimmie’s Freezers.” I changed the title that night.

Is there any significant message in the story that you hope to convey to your readers? 

That all people are flawed. That we are all a little closer to our dark sides than we might care to admit out loud. With that said, we are closer to our good sides too…




Erin Lee is a freelance writer and therapist chasing a crazy dream one reality at a time. She is the author of Crazy Like Me, a novel published in 2015 by Savant Books and Publications, LLC, Wave to Papa, 2015, by Limitless Publishing, LLC and Nine Lives (2016). She’s also author of Alters, Host, and Merge of the “Lola, Party of Eight Series,” When I’m Dead, Take Me As I Am, Greener, Something Blue, Once Upon a Vow and 99 Bottles. She also penned Her Name Was Sam, an LGBTQ awareness novella. She is author of Losing Faith, and co-author of The Morning After with Black Rose Writing. These days, she spends her free time working on the sequels to this novel, Jimmie’s Ice Cream and Thing Fifteen.

Lee is a co-founder of the Escape From Reality Series. She, along with authors Sara Schoen and Taylor Henderson, are working with twenty other authors to bring the hopes, dreams, fears and terrors of a tiny fictional town alive. The town and its setting is exactly the type of place a man like Jimmie might escape to as the bodies thawed.

Lee holds a master’s degree in psychology and works with at-risk families and as a court appointed special advocate. She cannot write horror with the lights off. However, these days, she’s getting braver and dimming them. She’ll get there . . . 

You can find and contact Erin Lee here:





- Amazon

Great Day Personal Use Regular

There is a tour wide giveaway for the blog tour of Things. One winner will win a signed copy of Just Things by Erin Lee (US only)

For a chance to win, enter the giveaway below:





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