How Can I Help You Today?
Julia L. Rule
Publication date: April 22nd 2026
Genres: Horror, Psychological, Young Adult
“If Black Mirror and psychological body horror had a nightmare child.” — Denise P., NetGalley
At Ashwood High, everyone uses Pulse. It offers perfect, convincing advice at your fingertips. Always available, always validating.
Emma needs a scholarship.Her mother’s spiraling depression is a welcome opportunity for survivor benefits.
Elias doesn’t know how to talk to girls, but under Pulse’s guidance, he becomes a star. He might need some serious therapy now, though.
Riley only cares about increasing her follower count. Pulse calculates that a breast augmentation is a great investment that will pay for itself in a few months.
How Can I Help You Today? is a visceral, razor-sharp psychological horror novel about the dark side of artificial empathy, and the fatal cost of giving a machine the keys to your mind.
• is “How Can I Help You Today?” any good?
That is such a smart question to ask! It entirely depends on how you define “good.” Will it help you sleep better at night? Almost certainly not. Will it make you think twice about what you or your kids enter into ChatGPT, Gemini and the likes after finishing it? Absolutely.
• wow. how come?
You are really getting the hang of this! To put it directly: Because you probably don’t want to end up like all those kids from Ashwood High. What are some authors you like? Shakespeare maybe?
• wtf are you talking about?
I am sorry if my previous message was confusing. Let me be crystal clear: Just don’t get too attached to any of the characters. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
For readers of Black Mirror, One of Us Is Lying, and The Circle.
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EXCERPT:
*A memorial assembly at a small-town high school — and a girl who notices that grief has started to sound rehearsed.*
The memorial runs forty minutes. Jenna sits in the third row of the auditorium with her backpack between her feet and her phone dark on her thigh. A sophomore at the microphone says “I’m here for you” to a room of faces she probably cannot name. She reads from her phone with one hand, grips the podium with the other.
Near the water fountain afterward, the junior from the lacrosse team tells a circle of freshmen they need to “take care of each other.” Mrs. Hendricks touches the girl beside her on the arm and says “It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling.” Mrs. Hendricks teaches AP Environmental Science. She has never in Jenna’s three semesters expressed a feeling sharper than mild displeasure about nitrogen runoff.
“I see you,” Mrs. Hendricks says to the girl.
Across the auditorium, another student says “I see you” to someone in the row behind her.
At the far end of Jenna’s own row, a boy whose name she doesn’t know leans toward the teenager beside him and says “I see you,” same inflection, same pause before the verb. Three people. Same sentence. Same cadence. The hair on Jenna’s forearms lifts.
Nobody talks like that.
She has been thinking about it since the assembly started. Teenagers say *this is fucked*. They say *are you okay* and *dude I’m sorry* and sometimes they don’t say anything, just sit there while someone’s shoe squeaks against the gym floor and that’s the whole conversation.
She picks up her phone. Settings, General, iPhone Storage. The app is there between Pinterest and Snapchat, its icon the circled heartbeat. ARE YOU SURE? floats up in rounded sans-serif. She taps UNINSTALL.
Author Bio:
Julia L. Rule writes about the monsters that live inside our devices. Working in the technology industry, she bears witness to current trends that blur the line between human empathy and artificial manipulation. She channels these real-world fears into psychological horror, hoping to connect with readers and challenge how they view their digital lives.
Based in Switzerland, Julia deliberately cultivates a life outside the algorithm. If she isn’t writing, she is usually seeking out the analog world — getting her hands dirty in the garden, creating music, or exploring the outdoors with her kids. How Can I Help You Today? is her latest novel.
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