Book Review: HARMED AND DANGEROUS by Jasper Bark

HARMED AND DANGEROUS by Jasper Bark (Crystal Lake Publishing, to be released February 20, 2026) HARMED AND DANGEROUS is very inventive, a time travel story like no other. What if you could go back in time and change the past? The task could prove to be even more difficult, if you were only visiting the past through the eyes of another person living in that timeline. That's the premise of the novel and it enters into horror and Twilight Zone territory when the time traveler learns about what may have caused childhood trauma, as the viewpoint is through the eyes of a serial killer. Worse yet, the killer has a connection to Kyra, the main character.  Bark pulls readers into this world almost effortlessly, as Kyra and other characters in the story are engaging and easy to empathize with. He understands every character's point of view and shares it with us. The author describes this work as a Southern Gothic, paranormal thriller - - which says it best. Indeed. As it winds its way through ever-meandering and engaging side trips, I came to love these characters and worry about them fiercely. Near the end the tale morphs into what it may always have been about at the core - - a heart-warming story about the importance of family. EXTRA NOTES  I love the imagery in Chapter 1: Constance lumbered down the aisle, stretching and yawning to shake off the sleep. Kyra was dragged along in her wake, like a minor planetary body, uncertain how to break out of Constance's orbit. Stepping from the bus was like crossing a threshold. The cool, sterile air of the bus was replaced by the dirty, humid fug of New Orleans. The heat was so intense Kyra could taste it at the back of her throat, like cayenne pepper in a gumbo. Her pores yawned open and sweat soaked into her parched clothes. She was pulled along in Constance's wake instead, like an errant piece of luggage, or a helium balloon losing its buoyancy. Bark seems to know his way around Louisiana or he's just a great researcher as the background of this story feels very realistic. (I'm assuming Bark still resides in the U.K.) It is impossible not to notice the symbolism and inclusion of so many 'eyes' in various forms. Even the main character's name, Kyra, which is pronounced k-EYE-rah. More cool word imagery . . . . Kyra had flown up the stairs like a cinder carved by the inferno of her rage. She just wanted this pain and anger to let up, to leave her alone so she could breathe for a few minutes. But it didn't. It built and built inside her. A pressure with no valve and no release. The burn an open wound, soothed by the night air, throbbed its morse code of pain. Thanks to Jasper Bark and Crystal Lake Publishing for providing an advance digital review copy. I wrote this review without obligation.      The publisher's information:

Harmed and Dangerous by Jasper Bark will be released February 20th. Kindle pre-order is live! Put yourself in Kyra’s place.   You're seventeen years old, lost and alone in a remote town in Louisiana. You're searching for the birth parents you never knew. The heat is crippling. The river often floods, washing houses away and lifting corpses from the ground. The locals treat you with suspicion. You don't belong here. They're hiding something. All over town, in nooks and hidden alcoves, there’s evidence of a forbidden faith. They keep the old ways here, but no one will tell you what they are.

There's an intangible presence following you. Hiding in your peripheral vision. You can't see, hear or touch it, but you know it's there, waiting for its chance to claim you. Then the episodes start.   Your vision goes and when it returns you're seeing the world as it was fifteen years ago. Physically you're in the present, but everything you see happened a decade and a half ago. Suddenly you realize.   You’re seeing through the eyes of the serial killer who murdered your birth mother. He takes control of you, forcing you to watch as he stalks and brutally murders her.   And there’s nothing you can do to stop him. Because he died by lethal injection more than a decade ago.