Upon A Hill Across The Blue Lake Novels & Stories

…from his responsibilities as a father, hiding out from his pregnant girlfriend, and working as a groundskeeper in a rural graveyard. He’s running from a lifetime of guilt and bad decisions, but principally he’s running from the murderous entities that have possessed the very ground at his feet. Jim has no idea what these entities are, but they’ve done unspeakable things to everyone in the graveyard and now they’re hunting him down. There is nowhere Jim can hide, nowhere he can walk and nowhere he can run that isn’t under the lethal power of the things in the ground. If he stands any chance of survival he must uncover the link between his murderous tormentors, three mysterious graves and an ancient heresy that stretches back to the beginning of time. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Have you ever woken one morning with a burning, insatiable desire to go out and kill someone? Sarah Killian, a notoriously foul-mouthed and mean-spirited serial killer for hire, along with her cohort assassin Mary Sue Keller, are back on assignment for the Trusted Hierarchy of Everyday Murderers (T.H.E.M.). After receiving an ominous warning from a mark-gone-wrong, it becomes clear that Nick Jin—Sarah’s former nemesis—is still at large and singling her out. Sarah and Mary Sue are dispatched to Tennessee to discreetly kill off an accused family of KKK organizers, but their true mission is to lure Nick Jin into a trap. But will Nick—always several steps ahead of T.H.E.M.—see their bait for what it is? One thing is guaranteed: blood will be shed. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

During a family dinner, I, Ingrid Sutherland, bring up divorce. My husband, Samuel Ziegler, lets out a cold laugh in exasperation. "Are you mad just because I peeled a banana for Whitney two days ago? I can't believe you're still throwing a tantrum over that now! She's my sister-in-law. What's wrong if I show her a little bit more care?" He did the same thing in my past life. Ever since his older brother, Charles Ziegler, got seriously hurt, Samuel always put me last and prioritized taking care of the supposedly weaker Whitney Lovette. Whenever I voiced my dissatisfaction, he would criticize me while standing on an irrefutable moral high ground. He would say, "Why can't you be more understanding and cut Whitney some slack?" When it was Whitney's birthday, she proposed going on a skiing trip. But then, an avalanche hit us. Samuel protected her the whole time and led her down the mountain. However, he left me to die in the avalanche. It was then I realized that Whitney was not just his sister-in-law, but also the one he loved. When I remain silent, Samuel chuckles derisively. "You'd better not regret it." It's like he's sure I'm just throwing a tantrum. In one fluid movement, he glides a pen across the bottom of the page, confident and composed. But this time, I'm really giving up on him for good.

Welcome back to Clifton Heights. Sheriff Chris Baker and Father Ward meet for a Saturday morning breakfast at The Skylark Diner to once again commiserate over the weird and terrifying secrets surrounding their town. Sheriff Baker shares with Father Ward the story of a journal discovered in the ruins of what was once an elaborate koi pond and flower garden, which regales a tale of regret, buried pain, and unfulfilled debt: “Sophan” – Jake Burns has always been a bit...off. Rude, awkward, sometimes brutish, he's tolerated by Nate Slocum and his friends because he hits a mean line drive, and because they all know but don't discuss the abuse he faces at the hands of his troubled father, a Vietnam veteran consumed by his demons. But Jake is suffering something far worse than domestic abuse, and when Nate discovers what, he faces an impossible choice: help Jake and put himself in the path of evil, or abandon him, only to damn himself in the process. ©️ 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

‘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

Laureffaine Epstein, a twenty-six year old Lead Warrior She-Wolf of The Blue Lake Creek Pack. Not your average were woman but she still wants to be the Luna of The Blue Lake Creek Pack. But no, Alpha Xavier Lambeth already has a chosen mate so Laureffaine settles as his mistress and is just waiting for Xavier who happens to also be her best friend to leave his Luna for her. But now her dreams can't come to reality because she found her true fated mate, the rarest thing in the world of shifters today. She should be happy and want him. Firstly because the mate bond is rare and secondly she would be having one of the best things in life, the love of a true mate but she doesn't want it. Because her mate is something they all thought was a myth, something she couldn't bring herself to accept. He was Lupus de Algerenéé, The Rogue Alpha.

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

So . . . what am I told? A familiar small town. A wrathful, metamorphic killer with supernatural abilities. A young girl whose time has come—angel of life, and death—is the only one who can stop his unspeakable deeds. Katie Franklin has turned twenty-one at last, and been released from the Ransom Sanitarium. And hell has been released with her. Now it’s back to the Val, where monsters are real . . . Something evil is stalking the shadows of Blackwater Val, and it wants lifeblood and flesh. What she finds waiting in the unhallowed darkness there will forever haunt her—and you. Return with her if you dare. To see the dead children. Feel their torment. To face the old terror. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Eidolon Avenue: Where the secretly guilty go to die. One building. Five floors. Five doors per floor. Twenty-five nightmares feeding the hunger lurking between the bricks and waiting beneath the boards. The sequel to Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast (“a great read...powerful and jarring” - Cemetery Dance) returns to the voracious Eidolon as it savors The Second Feast. A narcoleptic man in apartment 2A battles a vengeful past determined to rob him of everything as he runs from the barbaric disaster of a delusional love. A woman in 2B, reinventing herself to please a callous boyfriend, discovers the horrors that wait in the shadows of her self-renovation. The man in 2C, a teacher at the nearby Catholic girl’s school, collapses beneath the brutal consequences of his lecherous desires. An older woman in 2D, after decades dedicated to the church, is cornered at last by the grisly carnage beating at the hollow center of her faith. And a college student in 2E, hungry to escape an ignored life of invisible anonymity, finds herself captured between the pages of a ravenous book. All thrown into their own private hell as every cruel choice, every drop of spilled blood, every silent, complicit moment of cowardice is remembered, resurrected and relived to feed the ancient evil that lives on Eidolon Avenue. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing