Dallas London’s brother is presumed dead after going missing off the coast of Maui. Now back home in San Francisco, Dallas does denial in style: no sleep and a steady diet of stale pizza, cigarettes, and intrusive thoughts about her brother’s decaying body. But when a philanthropist’s son disappears under eerily similar circumstances and Dallas starts seeing demons lurking in the shadows of her apartment, even she can’t pretend she’s fine.
Enter: Death. In the form of a snarky, sexy young woman, Death is drawn to Dallas’s issues just as much as Dallas is drawn to Death’s mysterious magnetism. Desperate, Dallas makes a deal with Death: Dallas will find out who is stealing the souls of the drowned, in exchange for protection from the demon hunting her. The cost? Dallas must come to terms with her incredible loss, even though it makes her wish she’d be the one to sink in the Pacific abyss.
Treading Water came in first place in the Horror category of the 2024 PNWA Unpublished Novel Contest. Ready to dive in? Read chapter one.
Below is a running playlist that gets me in the mood to work on this book.
Lyana and her panther-like familiar escaped the king’s prison after learning Lyana’s sister, Astrea, was murdered. But running isn’t easy after being starved, tortured and drugged by the king’s necromancer and closest advisor, Videl. Not to mention the life-threatening injury Lyana’s familiar sustained during their prison break. Lyana’s life is tied to her familiar’s. If one dies, they both do. With no support or resources, Lyana’s only hope is to trust a passing mage. He heals them and reveals that Astrea still lives and is said to be traveling to a temple housing incredibly strong ancient magic.
Lyana, her familiar, and the mage set out to find Astrea, but are dogged by the king’s men and plagued by an evil sorceress infecting Lyana’s thoughts and dreams. On her journey, Lyana attracts rebellious allies—including the mage that saved her, a young knight who idolizes her, and a clan of shape-shifting werebears—who view her as a symbol of revolution—a role that she doesn’t want or need. They arrive at the temple, but are ambushed. With the misguided hopes of Lyana eventually leading them to some sort of insurgency, the rebels join her on her quest. But when they arrive at the temple, Lyana learns that no one in her life is to be trusted—especially her own family.
The Silvestrian is book one in a planned trilogy. Clawing for a sneak peak? Read chapter one.
Below is a running playlist that gets me in the mood to work on this book.
Thirty-three-year-old Annabeth Jefferds has spent her entire adult life trying to de-program the lessons she learned as a child of the South: stay quiet, do what you’re told, don’t ask questions. She has it pretty good living in Seattle now. She no longer feels the stress of living under a roof with her emotionally reclusive father and playing mother to her little sister, Bean. Things are looking up until Annabeth receives a phone call. Bean is sick and her father is MIA. Annabeth must go back to her family home, Hellebore Manor.
The more time Annabeth spends at Hellebore, the more she realizes there’s something strange going on. Built in the 1700s, the massive plantation home had always been meticulously cared for. Now, the house is so decrepit it looks like it’s dying. Kudzu is climbing the exterior walls. The wallpaper is peeling like flakes of skin. And the once perfectly polished wood accents throughout the house are cracking. Annabeth also thinks she sees strange animals lurking on the edge of the forest, but that can’t be. Rabbits don’t have human thumbs for ears and deer couldn’t have human arms growing out of their neck. Annabeth is imagining things. Meanwhile, Bean spends her days lying in bed, in and out of coherent thought, and their father wastes his time on the property’s lake, fishing and muttering to himself.
Back at Hellebore, Annabeth learns that southern roots run deep, and they’ll always pull you back down.
Dig in. Read chapter one.
Below is a running playlist that gets me in the mood to work on this book.
User The_Moore_The_Merrier is a day-one listener of NorCal Creeps—a podcast dedicated to real-world accounts of spooky tales. As a dedicated superfan, they started the NorCal Creeps forum. They nurtured it. Watched it grow. In just three years, the forum’s fan base is as big as the podcast itself. It’s where people go to share theories about the latest episodes and argue about the veracity of each one. The_Moore_The_Merrier does their best to moderate—pulling out the truly heinous vitriol like one might pull weeds from a garden.
User Aletheia_Darling started listening to the podcast one year ago, after her mother went missing on a canoe trip along the Russian River. They became a moderator shortly thereafter so that they could read everything on the forum before Merrier censored it. Aletheia has a theory about a few of the stories on NorCal Creeps, one they’re not sure they can keep to themselves much longer. Some of the stories are real. Something is wiping people, things, and sometimes entire towns from reality. Aletheia is going to find out who. The answers lie in the stories. They just have to keep listening.