Korengal Valley Road

After finals ended, the most popular girl in class organized a graduation trip. She proposed hitchhiking the entire way, crashing in budget hostels, and seeking food and shelter from nomad camps along the route. At 200 dollars a head, she said they could ride the Ridgeline Highway all the way to Alvor Base Camp. Freedom and adventure, that was the pitch. My family ran a highland travel agency. I knew exactly how dangerous that route was. Every year, budget backpackers vanished along the Ridgeline without a trace. Young women traveling alone were the most vulnerable. In my past life, I did everything I could to stop it. I called every parent, one by one, and talked them out of letting their kids go. The whole class backed out, except Phoebe Harding, who left on her own. She went radio silent three days in. A week later, her body was found in the Barrens. I got my acceptance letter to Kingsley University. On the first day of orientation, my childhood friend Wyatt Morse stabbed me in front of everyone, screaming that it was my fault. "If you hadn't stopped us from going with her, Phoebe wouldn't have died alone! Now, you're going to pay for it!" Most of my classmates turned on me, forgetting I had saved them. They even cheered and said I deserved it. When I opened my eyes, I had gone back to the day the trip was first pitched.

Eryx, the dethroned King of Werewolves, is on the run. His rivals have stolen his crown and now hunt him down like prey. To survive, he flees into the human world, hiding, watching, and waiting for the right moment to reclaim his throne. On the other hand, Mira is bold and carefree, a party-loving woman who takes on odd jobs, incluing a one-night stand girl just to pay her rent and survive. She never knew her parents, grew up on the streets, and lives with no ties. The only thing she knows for sure is she will continue to survive until she find her parents and her real identity. In the bustling nightlife of the city, Eryx crosses paths with Mira. And that was the start of everything, including Mira becoming Eryx’s personal driver.

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

A blizzard had buried the mountain, turning every road into a death trap. Locals called it Deadman's Pass—seventy-two icy switchbacks with zero room for error. As the only person who had ever made it through without a scratch, I'd just gotten a million-dollar rescue call from beyond the final curve. Ten years ago, I went there once. My seventeen-year-old daughter, Maya, was skydiving with her classmates when a violent air current forced an emergency landing. The rescue came too late. She died there. Later, I learned my husband, Jayden Boone, had ignored Maya's safety. He poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the rescue effort and redirected every team to save his ex's daughter instead. The girl had only sprained her ankle on a hiking trip. The day Maya died, I walked away from my career as a professor and stayed here, living as a broke driver. I risked my life running Deadman's Pass again and again until I knew every turn by heart. In the ten years since, no one else had died on that road. Today, a friend shoved a million-dollar rescue job in front of me and told me to leave right away. I looked at the face in the photo—the one I could never forget. Then I smiled and tossed my keys onto the table. "I can't take this job."

The town of M'ri Kassia has been living a life of misfortune after the Kurim, the stone given by their god, Kassia, was stolen and lost by the witches who pretended to be pirates. Reeve, the son of the town leader, travels far and wide to search for it until he finds an unexpected treasure that will change everything he knows about his life and his people.

All her life, Veronica Vane has always been an unstoppable force of nature, in battle, strength, arcane magic, and wits. That is until the tables have turned on one mission that completely changed her life: destroying Nuella Sangre, a union between Werewolves and Vampires. No matter how strong Veronica was, it backlashed against her when she found herself falling for one of the richest businessmen in the world, The Prince of Nuella Sangre, Giovanni Felix Thorn. As she was falling in love, she realized how wrong she was, and fought alongside Nuella Sangre when it was threatened by her own half-sister, Elspeth Vane. For failing her mission, the evil forces of Dexo Fernia have rallied to end the reign of their own Queen, Veronica Vane, for her vulnerability. Little did they know, they will enter the lion’s den, as Veronica unleash the oldest magic amongst them; Yxorix