[2022 Wattys shortlisted story] A missing family. A twenty year old murder. An old ghost story. And a private detective from London. But what do they all have in common? It's the job of DCI Neo Denzel to figure it all out. In the quiet town of Marton, Shropshire, a place where nothing really happens, a car sits abandoned. The Bennett family have simply disappeared without a trace. It's the job of the town's DCI to find them, but with so little evidence it could prove impossible. Until Charlie Hoggins is hired to find the missing family. It doesn't take long for the DCI to get his feathers ruffled by the interloper into his case, and yet she may end up being one of his most useful assets, as long as he can remember that the case comes first. As their feelings change for each other, will they ever solve the case and finally put their ghosts to rest?

Hannah lost her twin sister Hailey when she was 12 in an accident, or so they believed. The case had been closed, everyone seemed to move on except for Hannah. So what will she do when she starts receiving letters ten years later from an unknown person, who reveals himself to be her sister's killer? How will she find the mystery killer? And above all that, what does he want now for it has been almost ten years since her sister's death? --- Achievements- #88 in Mystery/ Thriller on 13th Oct, 16 (debut) #3 in Mystery/ Thriller on 12th May, 17 #2 in Mystery/ Thriller on 26th May, 17 #1 in Mystery/ Thriller on 19th Jun, 17 :O :D Wow! Thanks a lot :D

When senior students at Lincoln High receive the same deadly text message, it falls upon Helena Gallagher and an unlikely companion to solve the mystery and catch the killer. •••• High school student, Helena Gallagher is a murder fanatic. A devoted admirer of all things mysterious. Always watching crime documentaries on Netflix, she longs for a more exciting life. What she doesn't expect is for her small town in Michigan to become the centre of a very public murder investigation. What starts off as a harmless game soon turns sinister. Students are dying. Secrets are spilling. No one is safe. Would you die to keep a secret? * •Cover design by @laurellwrites

[COMPLETE] Twenty-six year old photojournalist Sara Brusseau knows that if she stays with her abusive partner, Shane, she will die. She plots a daring escape to a tiny town in Nova Scotia, where the solace she initially finds quickly turns to terror. Something stirs in the historic house she's rented. And it wants to be heard. The house in Locke's Harbour is at once a sanctuary and a source of unease. It holds the dark secrets of Elva Baxter Burns, whose spirit is sealed forever in the home, each room preserving the echoes of her anguish. Drawn to Elva through her own terrors and secrets, Sara must choose: stay and dig deeper into the ghost's tragic tale or keep running.

For months Summer is trapped in a cellar with the man who took her - and three other girls: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. His perfect, pure flowers. His family. But flowers can't survive long cut off from the sun, and time is running out...

An unfinished written piece, penned many years ago. Written by myself (Samantha Ruth).

After escaping from police custody, Clover tries to piece his life back together. Determined to return to home and be reunited with his family, he has to first elude the country wide man hunt. Will he be able to resist his old ways in order to remain undetected? After hearing that Colin has escaped, Summer and Becca prepare themselves for the inevitable; Clover is coming back for them. Will the police and their families be enough to protect them? Clover's coming back and he's determined to prove to the girls; 'You'll always be mine'.

A campus thriller: suspense, murder & one handsome roommate. ***** When Haley Bell is offered a scholarship to study at the exclusive Woodcreek College, famous for moulding the world's brightest thinkers, politicians and entrepreneurs, she jumps at the opportunity. Except when she arrives, the murders start. In a campus hidden from civilisation in the mountains of Colorado, Haley's classmates are slowly turning up dead. As the bodies pile up and eyes of suspicion turn on her, Haley finds that there's a reason why she was brought to Woodcreek. And it wasn't to study. "That opening line will hook you (I still think about it) & it DOESN'T STOP! I binged this like crazy" - Leah, Sr. Editorial Manager @ HQ [[word count: 90,000-100,000 words]] Cover designed by Ellie Sita

WATTPAD BOOKS EDITION Griffin Tomlin is dead. And Clara's sister killed him . . . Four months after the murder, the entire town of Shiloh is still in shock. For Clara Porterfield, the normal world has crumbled around her in a million chaotic pieces. Now Clara lives in a new reality, where her sister awaits trial for murder, her mother obsessively digs in a dead, frozen garden, and her father lives and breathes denial. At school, Clara is haunted by her classmates' morbid curiosity-and all of the unspoken questions they won't ask. But none of them knows what she knows . . . Now Clara's sister wants something from her-the one thing in all of this that Clara isn't ready to face: the truth about what really happened that night. Because this story didn't die with Griffin Tomlin. There's another story that needs to be told. And sometimes, the lies we're told are nowhere near as deadly as the lies we tell ourselves . . .

Adele knows she witnessed a murder - what she doesn't know is just how personal it is. ***** A girl was brutally murdered in the basement of a sorority house in spring 2011. Adele Theroux thinks she saw the killer - and the killer definitely saw her. What she doesn't know is why this all happened and who this guy is. As she tries to solve the mystery from a distance while in witness protection, the connections keep getting weirder and more personal. Might she be able to relate to the killer in a way that no one else can? And what does that mean about her own psyche? *2019 Watty Award for Mystery/Thriller* [[word count: 50,000-60,000 words]] Cover designed by April Alforque