|| ✨ 2022 WATTYS WINNER ✨ || || x8 FEATURED || Kill the monsters. Claim the bounty. Escape to Alaska. ------------ Ten years ago, an event known as The Turning upset the balance of Earth's ecosystems. Demons emerged from the depths of Hell, dragging along with them obscure creatures from old myths and legends. In the midst of all this chaos, eighteen-year-old Raine Barlow makes a living by hunting monsters. No price is too high, no monster is too deadly. Her goal is simple: to make enough money to escape to Alaska -- where her parents are rumored to be held. And Raine just might be able to do it: the mayor of Eureka has agreed to pay her $10,000 to escort his young daughter to the City of Dust -- a former metropolis surrounded by walls and secrets. Armed with poison-tipped crossbow bolts, her own brand of small magic, and an aging battle-elk named Winston, Raine and her charge must trek across the dust-covered and desolate stretches of a California highway, all the while trying to avoid the monsters and demons who are trying to take over the world. Cover created by @Shreya_VA

✨A WATTYS 2022 PARANORMAL & "BEST CHARACTERS" WINNER✨ A college basketball star risks everything to prove his innocence with a girl who can communicate with ghosts. *** Ace Jones isn't certain about a lot of things in life, but basketball has always come easy. This is until he finds himself as the prime suspect of a murder he knows he didn't commit. Lucky for him, Devyn Brooks knows he didn't commit it either. But not because she witnessed it--she simply sees the victim as plain as day and even endures her incessant talking. Though Devyn usually does everything in her power to hide her supernatural ability, she'll have to start embracing it in order to save Ace from a common fate. And Ace will discover a deeper part of his identity that challenges his notions of the world. Will they be able to solve a case that America is so eager to pin on another Black man? ✨| FEATURED ON WATTPAD READING LISTS | ✨ 💕 Wattpad Editor's Choice Dec. 2022 💕 @StoriesUndiscovered, Thrills N Spills 2022 @SpeculativeFiction, The Crypt 2022 ⛈ A Stormy Nights Challenge Participant 2022 ⛈

When the sun goes down, the gravestone statues in Willow Hills Cemetery come to life--including Gretta. As a granite guardian of the dead, it's her job to make sure her charge--the snarky, hot-headed, lesbian spirit Quinn Rivera--crosses over and finds spiritual peace. But that's a little hard to do when Quinn's twin brother Jason blames himself for her premature death. And for Quinn to agree to cross over, he must learn the truth of her accidental passing and the bipolar episodes that led her to shut him out beforehand. But reaching out to the living is against the rules, and to break them would mean facing the most power-hungry and terrifying spirit of all: Death. *** Inspired by 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘥𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘰 (but not a retelling), Willow Hills is a southern gothic story with paranormal/horror elements. 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 (𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐥) C/W: Gore, some violence, and light to moderate swearing. Neurodiverse and LGBT #ownvoice rep.

|WATTYS 2022 WINNER - HORROR| Shawn, a convicted criminal, never thought she'd see the sun again, let alone call another star system her home. When she's offered an out from her prison sentence, she embarks on a dangerous interstellar expedition along with 18 of Earth's most intelligent criminals. Their task is to set up a base on a supposedly habitable planet and prepare it for colonization. Although the planet has liquid water and a breathable atmosphere, it is believed to host only microbial life. However, upon arriving, Shawn and the rest of the colonists learn that assumption was grossly incorrect. In a brutal attack from rampaging wildlife, everyone but Shawn and four other colonists are killed. The five survivors retreat to the cavernous network beneath the ground seeking safety, but they soon come to a terrible discovery. These caves aren't ordinary caves, and they are no safer down under than they were on the surface. [][][] This was originally my entry for the 2021 Open Novella Contest, and it received an honorable mention! It has now been expanded into a full length novel. I used prompt number 53: "When wildlife starts rampaging, all the humans are forced underground. However, they come to a terrible discovery that being underground is no safer than being on the surface."

☆ 2022 ᴡᴀᴛᴛʏꜱ ᴡɪɴɴᴇʀ!! ☆ "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." On the cusp of the 20th century, blue blood heiress Lucy Penn has lost everything: her betrothed, her family and home, and even her ability to walk in the sunlight. As she struggles to acclimate to her new nocturnal existence, she makes the acquaintance of Dr. Thomas Reed: an intelligent and tortured immortal, still haunted by the horrors of his past. As the pair grow closer, Lucy becomes privy to a frightening world far below the surface of polite society, in which beings of ancient and unfathomable power live outside the confines of humanity. Carpe Noctem (or "Seize the Night") follows Lucy on her journey through the shrouded streets, eerie hospitals, and aristocratic parlors of nighttime London. As she seeks to exhume the insidious and terrifying purpose behind her transformation, Lucy finds herself drawn deeper into a dark nocturne world of unimaginable folklore and intrigue, begging the question: can love be found after death? HIGHEST RANKINGS ~ #1 Carpe Noctem #1 Period Fiction #1 Nocturnal #1 Gothic Romance #1 Gothic Horror #3 Dracula #3 Shakespeare #8 Vampire #17 Victorian #46 Historical Fiction

Criminal necromancer & vampire private eye team up to solve the case of the missing barista. *** When a client drops dead in her fortune telling parlor, 'reformed' necromancer Isla has no choice but to illegally resurrect the poor gal. Your girl's got priors, alright? Hiding a corpse will send Isla back to the slammer. The client's just a Tourist, so Isla is certain nobody will notice. But you know what they say: The only things certain in life are death, taxes, and a handsome vampire poking his fangs where they don't belong. Gregor, a vampire private detective, has been hired to find another vamp's misplaced favorite bloodbag-- I mean, barista. Greg knows the fraudulent and distractingly attractive psychic, Isla, is the key to the barista's whereabouts, but he just can't put his fangs on what it is she's hiding from him. If her little whoopsie is discovered, Isla fears both the otherworldly authorities and an ancient vampire will have her throat. So she does what any girl would do in her situation. She hires Greg to find the risen barista for her first so that she can undo the resurrection. Sparks fly and blood splatters as Greg and Isla investigate Philadelphia's secret paranormal society, throw literal bones at the werewolf mafia, commune with the spirits of dead vampire-brides, dodge arrest by the magic fuzz, and occasionally pop off for late night cheesesteaks. The Vampire Always Bites Twice is the Wattys 2022 Grand Prize Winner! The "Bites Twice" Mysteries 1 - The Vampire Always Bites Twice 1.5 - Doubull Indemnity [revised version coming soon) 2 - Shadow of a Curse (Coming Fall 2025) This book contains explicit sexual content, paranormal violence, animal harm, and gore.