While Erik Goddard is most comfortable writing complex plot lines, intriguing premises, and detailed characters, he is particularly comfortable writing about unpleasant and unexpected things happening to these characters.
 
The word suspense can be shortly defined as "anxiety or a state of uncertainty or excitement about the outcome of something." When reading Goddard's work, expect to see likable characters killed off, plots twisted to stifle happy endings, gray skies and cold. 
 
His work spans a few different themes: mostly thriller/suspense, horror, and sci-fi. He also writes some young adult themes of adventure and discovery.

He grew up reading stuff like Willard Price, Hardy Boys, Robert Arthur Jr., Edgar Rice Burroughs, Whitley Streiber, Stephen King, James Clavell, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Lovecraft, Arthur C. Clarke, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, George Orwell, Vonnegut, Phillip K. Dick and so many more. He loves mysteries, crime, historical, and literary, but his true love is suspense, thrillers, horror and sci fi. Some of his favorite titles include Salem's Lot, The Shining, Rendezvous with Rama, Dracula, Lord of the Rings, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Collector, Dune, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Haunting, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Great Expectations, Turn of the Screw, Love in the Time of Cholera, Devil in the White City.