Small Santa Muerte Tattoos

The things we want are so very rarely the things we need. Clifton Heights, a modest Adirondack town, offers many unique attractions. Arcane Delights sells both paperbacks and hard-to-find limited editions. The Skylark Diner serves the best home-cooked meals around, with friendly service and a smile. Every August, Mr. Jingo’s County Fair visits, to the delight of children and adults. In essence, Clifton Heights is the quintessential small American town. Everyone knows everyone else, and everyone is treated like family. It is quiet, simple, and peaceful. But shadows linger here. Flitting in dark corners, from the corner of the eye. If you walk down Main Street after dark, the slight scrape of shoes on asphalt whispers you're not alone, but when you look over your shoulder, no one is there. The moon shines high and bright in the night sky, but instead of throwing light, it only seems to make the shadows lengthen. Children disappear. Teens run away. Hunters get lost in the woods with frightening regularity. Husbands go mad, and wives vanish in the dead of night. And still, when the sun rises in the morning, you are greeted by townspeople with warm waves and friendly smiles, and the shivers pass as everything seems fresh and new... Until night falls once more. Handy's Pawn and Thrift sits several blocks down from Arcane Delights. Like any thrift store, its wares range from the mundane to the bizarre. By daylight, it seems just another slice of small town Americana. But in its window hangs a sign which reads: We Have Things You Need. And when a lonely traveling salesman comes looking for something he desperately wants, after normal visiting hours, after night has fallen, he will face a harsh truth among the shelves of Handy’s Pawn and Thrift: the things we want are rarely the things we need. ©️ 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

Hunter had to take his father's position unexpectedly. He wasn't ready for that.. neither Adriel. Chaos started. Things happened. When Neal picked up the small shiny thing out of curiosity, he didn't know it will lead him to a world he wasn't aware of.

A small accident that happened to Rajata in the courtyard of Prambanan Temple brought him to meet Kalyana, a woman who was finishing her novel because she would soon go abroad with Armand, her future husband. The encounter, which they thought was fleeting, turned out to be continued when Kalyana, hurt by Armand’s actions, invited Rajata to accompany him to visit Yeh Pulu, Bali. Rajata, who was trying to forget his love for a girl from his high school days, accepted the invitation. In Yeh Pulu, a local elder gave Kalyana a startling vision of an incident from several centuries ago. Intrigued by what really happened at that time, they decided to ask for a favor from Harso, Kalyana’s old friend who worked at CERN, Switzerland. Unexpectedly, their investigation, which relied on a sophisticated computer named Lidia lead them into an amazing adventure, an adventure that opens new perspectives to their understanding about history, and triggered them to learn from history in facing the future.

When my son was born, I noticed a small, round birthmark on his arm. But the weird thing? By the time I opened my eyes again after giving birth, it was gone. I figured maybe I'd imagined it. That is, until the baby shower. My brother-in-law's son, born the same day as mine, had the exact same birthmark. Clear as day. That's when it hit me. I didn't say a word, though. Not then. I waited. Eighteen years later, at my son's college acceptance party, my brother-in-law stood up and dropped the truth bomb: the "amazing" kid I'd raised was theirs. I just smiled and invited him and his wife to take their "rightful" seats at the table.

The air between them became hotter as she bit her lip, trying to stop herself from smiling so much. The closet was dark and stuffy, so small that their bodies were almost touching, her heart thumped like crazy. "D-Derek" She called out as he hummed in response, holding unto his sides for some unknown reason. "Will you be my boyfriend?" She blurted out, closing her eyes so she wouldn't see his reaction, he groaned, it almost broke her heart but when she looked down, she saw his shirt was now soaked. Blood trailing down his abdomen which made her gasp, slamming open the closet door. "Somebody call an ambulance!" She yelled as the guy she had just asked out dropped limp to the ground like a pack of soggy spaghetti. *A Nigerian themed novel* |16+

26-years-old Stacy Cyrus is living her life in a very normal way: working in a small newspaper company; feeding her stray cat occasionally; indulging herself reading books; going to the nearest cafe for Strawberry cakes. Until one her best friend, Mikaela pleads with her to help in her job in a royal suite. All she needs to do is wear a nice dress, put on makeup and wait until Mikaela comes. But she hasn't signed up for a handsome, tall man to appear in the room in a tuxedo and demanding her to strip.

Cassandra grew up in a wealthy and well-known family in the small town of Palo. The only daughter and sole heiress of the Regaña family. She is living like a princess until she founds out that her father lost everything in a bet. In just a snap of a finger, everything she valued was taken away from her- including the hacienda. The hacienda is the only place she doesn't want to let go of because of her mother. Now she was left with no choice but to seek the person who got their hacienda and how to claim it back, only to find out that it was Kyle Sebastian- the man she loved in the past. She doesn't know why he hated her. But out of desperation, she is willing to trade herself for the man who only wanted to get revenge. Can she take all the pain or just give up? Will love still prevails? Will they find forgiveness in their hearts?

Natalia Shaw and Noah Shaw had always looked very happy to the general public, and everyone who knew the Shaw couple wanted to be like them. But there was something else... Nobody else knew about it, even Natalia's best friend, but Noah had a bad habit of hurting Natalia. It had started out small, like all bad habits did, but then later, Noah had morphed into someone that Natalia could not recognize. Piero Teodoro D' Ricci was Noah newest acquaintance, and he got invited to Noah's home by Noah, himself. Piero is able to recognize the signs of abuse, no matter how subtle, and after meeting Natalia, the warning bells in his head kicked in. He left their house eventually, promising to get to the heart of the case. He met Natalia again in a social gathering, and then he proceeded to use that to his advantage, and spoke to her, trying to get her to tell him what she was passing through. Natalia did not open up, but she did get two of his business cards "in case she lost one.", he had said. The abuse from Noah got to a head and Natalia eventually decided to contact Piero, and then she let him know that she was ready to open up and receive his help. Natalia and Piero worked together, and all seemed fine until she showed up with divorce papers and got beaten up by her husband, Noah. Piero stood by Natalia in the dark, as she did not want him to in public, as a friend and attorney. And maybe as something else too. What happens when Noah finds out that his wife was in cahoots with an acquaintance of his? And what would happen to Natalia when her drunken affair with Piero gets to light?