|| WATTYS 2022 WINNER || Don't ever take anything from me. Don't ever wrong me. I try hard to be a tolerant and a forgiving person, but I am unrelenting in my vengeance and my desires. Thirty years ago, a man wronged me, stole from me the most precious thing in the world, and I've been wreaking my vengeance on him ever since. I don't give up, I don't stop, and I don't ever just go away. I'm a drinker of blood, and I live the life I choose.

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.

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.