Novels by Crystal Lake Publishing

Based on the untrue writings of the Satanic Panic. The Satanic Panic was a moral outcry in the United States over supposed “satanic” influence in media that were warping the youth of America. Claims that playing an elf in Dungeons and Dragons could lead to demonic possession, that playing heavy metal music backwards would reveal satanic messages, and that therapists could uncover repressed memories of satanic ritual abuse, were all too common. Volumes and volumes of material were produced on this fake subject. These texts lead to What Hell May Come, which takes a look at what the world would actually be like if all of the claims of the satanic panic were true. Set in 1986, Jon St. Fond’s life is a living Hell. Deliberately abused and neglected by his parents, the only joy he has in life is an escape into a fantasy land of role playing games. Soon he discovers that his parents are part of a secret occult religion with hidden ties all across the world. As Jon and his friends dig, they learn more of the secret history of the world and discover the power of making deals with creatures from Beyond. However, power has its price, as Jon and his friends quickly discover. One-by-one they begin to become consumed by their own desires and hatreds. Jon learns there is method behind the madness of his life, as his Father begins to bring him closer and closer into the ways of the cult. Ultimately, Jon must make a choice between all the pleasures of the earth and the future of his soul. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

It’s end of October 1985 and the crumbling river town of Dubois, Iowa is shocked by the gruesome murder of one of the pillars of the community. Detective David Carlson has no motive, no evidence, and only one lead: the macabre local legend of “Boris Orlof,” a late night horror movie host who burned to death during a stage performance at the drive-in on Halloween night twenty years ago and the teenage loner obsessed with keeping his memory alive. The body count is rising and the darkness that hangs over the town grows by the hour. Time is running out as Carlson desperately chases shadows into a nightmare world of living horrors. On Halloween the drive-in re-opens at midnight for a show no one will ever forget. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Barry Ocason, extreme sportsman and outdoor travel writer, receives a magazine in his mailbox and opens to an ad for an adventure in the Bavarian Alps. Initially dismissing the invitation, which seems to have been meant specifically for him, he soon finds himself involved in a larger plot and seeking answers to why an individual known only as the elephant man is terrorizing his family. Barry and his daughter Kristen, who survived a twin sister taken from the family at a young age, travel from Juneau, Alaska to the sinister Spider Festival in Rio Tago, Brazil, before he ultimately answers the call to Bavaria, where the puzzle begins to come together. Amid tribulation, death, madness, and institutionalization, a document emerges describing a scientist’s bloody bid to breed a theoretical “third twin,” which is believed to have the potential, through its connection with its siblings, to bridge the gulf between life and afterlife. The godlike creature that soon emerges turns out to be Barry’s own offspring, and she has dark plans for the world of her conception that neither her father nor any other mortal can stop. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love. With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there...people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother. Only something isn’t quite right in the Val. Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets...or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Miles Landry is trying to put violence behind him when he takes up work as a private detective focused on humdrum adultery cases. But when a Tibetan monk hires him to find a missing person, things get weird fast. Charged with tracking down the reincarnation of a man possessed by a demonic guardian from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Miles is plunged into a world of fortune-tellers, gangsters, and tantric rituals. The year is 1991 and a series of grisly murders has rocked New York City in the run up to a visit from the Dalai Lama. The police attribute the killings to Chinatown gang warfare. Miles–skeptical of the supernatural–is inclined to agree. But what if the monster he's hunting is more than a myth? ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

‘It’s not that there aren’t good people in the world. It’s that the bad ones are so much easier to find.’ A teen mother raises her daughter on a looping road trip, living hand-to-mouth in motel rest stops and backwater towns, stepping occasionally into the heat and chaos of the surrounding cities. A life without permanence, filled with terrors and joys, their stability is dependent on the strangers—and strange men—they meet along the way. But what is the difference between the love of a mother, and the love of a friend? And in a world with such blurred lines, where money is tight and there’s little outside influence, when does the need to survive slide into something more sinister? ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

This award-winning, psychological experience is back in print, and includes the exclusive sequel The Sound of his Bones Breaking, a novella that will leave you truly shaken. Board for free. But the cost might be your life. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Thirty years ago, a progressive rock band called The Yellow Kings began recording what would become their first and final album. Titled “The Final Reconciliation,” the album was expected to usher in a new renaissance of heavy metal, but it was shelved following a tragic concert that left all but one dead. The sole survivor of that horrific incident was the band’s lead guitarist, Aidan Cross, who’s kept silent about the circumstances leading up to that ill-fated performance—until now. For the first time since the tragedy, Aidan has granted an exclusive interview to finally put rumors to rest and address a question that has haunted the music industry for decades: What happened to The Yellow Kings? The answer will terrify you. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

England, 1876. Twenty-year-old Maraina Blackwood has always struggled to adhere to the restrictive standards of Victorian society, denying the courage and desire that burn within her soul. But after a terrifying supernatural encounter, Maraina's instincts compel her to action. Maraina soon discovers a plot to unleash a new world—one of demonic aristocrats, bloody rituals, and nightmarish monsters. Putting her upbringing aside, Maraina vows to fight the dark forces assuming control of England. But as her world transforms, Maraina finds that she too must transform...and what she becomes will bring out all that she once buried. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

The sleepy English locality of Middletown is about to get even sleepier, as a strange malady starts to affect the population. It spreads quickly, causing the authorities to quarantine this small city, and seek out the only person who might be able to help: Doctor Andrew Strauss. However, Strauss has a secret, one that has linked him to this place all his life, one that has linked him to a particular person there, though he doesn’t yet know who. But he’s not the only one hiding things – and as he ventures into Middletown to collect samples with an army escort, a mixture of UK and US troops, cracks soon begin to appear in the operation. Especially when his team comes up against the most terrifying threat humankind has ever known.

What if you were held captive by your own family? Emma Rawlins has spent the last year a prisoner. The months following her mother's death dragged her father into a paranoid spiral of conspiracy theories and doomsday premonitions. Obsessing him, controlling him, they now whisper the end days are finally at hand. And he doesn’t intend to face them alone. Emma finds herself drugged and dragged to a secluded cabin, the last refuge from a society supposedly due to collapse. Their cabin a snowbound fortress, her every move controlled, but even that isn't enough to weather the end of the world. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing Everything she knows is out of reach, lost beyond a haze of white. There is no choice but to play her father's game while she plans her escape. But there is a force far colder than the freezing drifts. Ancient, ravenous, it knows no mercy. And it's already had a taste...

Patrick and Clare wake up trapped in a basement, a thin wall separating their cells. Their captor is mysteriously absent, which at first seems like a blessing. As more time passes with no food or water, they begin to realize a clock is ticking for their survival.They know their captor is still out there, and it is only a matter of time before he returns.©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Beatrice is back to face her greatest threat since. . .well, the last time! In Cooper’s Cove a hapless team of archaeologists unleash the vengeful spirit of a 16th Century witch on the sleepy seaside town of Dorsal Finn. Hexes and curses fly as Beatrice and her friends must find out what links the appearance of this incredible foe and The Spirit of the Ocean, a super-yacht hosting the biggest celebrity charity event the town has ever seen. As the population of Dorsal Finn succumbs to witchcraft, so Beatrice must gate-crash the party with her motley-crew of friends and allies in the hope of stopping the witch's sinister plan, and save everyone from endless oblivion. . . Again. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

1943. Soviet Union is under attack as WW2 is raging. Fighting in the doomed battle of Kursk, Andrei finds himself in a strange city where Svetlana, a girl he has never seen but who looks eerily familiar, saves him from a fist-faced creature. When Svetlana’s family is lost, the two embark on a harrowing odyssey across the snow-covered plain, battling deformed former humans and taken prisoners by the army of black stars. Against impossible odds, they reach their destination where they discover a secret that will change history.©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Twelve years after Katrina, Jeannine is a new attorney who returns to New Orleans to save her old friend Curtis Jones-now a local thief and trafficker of stolen goods-after he is arrested for the murder of Jeannine's captors, whose bodies have recently been found. But Jeannine discovers more than she bargained for when she uncovers a family mystery that includes ghosts, dark voodoo magic, and an unholy alliance with an ancient evil Haitian god.©️ Crystal Lake Publishing