❝ THE LAW AIN'T NEVER BEEN A FRIEND OF MINE. ❞ in the year 1864, twenty-four-year-old american outlaw jesse jordan gets caught and hanged, but his story doesn't end there. he ends up in hell, but he manages to slip through the devil's fingers. he snags a completely new body along with one of hell's treasures - an intricately carved, delicate golden ring that stops any supernatural creature from locating him with ease. but hell doesn't let its sinners go so easily. a demon is sent to get him, to catch him and return him to hell where he will face eternal torment. to make it as hard for them as possible, jordan hides himself away in the smallest, most out of the way town in america he could possibly find - graymore, california. There, he meets his ex-boyfriend casey hawkes and lives in graymore for a while in relative peace - until things begin to happen. animals are found dead, drained of their blood and organs. houses are found burned down in the mornings, but no one remembers smelling any smoke. a little girl disappears. jordan must find out the reason graymore has gone from a charming, sleepy village to a place that positively reeks of terror, the damned, and something much, much worse. he may be the only one that can save the inhabitants of this little town, quite possibly at the cost of his own soul, but damn him - jesse jordan has never been a good man.

❝ Things are only as beautiful as you make them, Charlie. Including murder. ❞ It's the opening night of Burton Abbey's production of Romeo and Juliet and all is going smoothly - that is until the climactic death scene. Romeo takes a big gulp of the poison to be with his lover, except it really is poison and Elijah, who plays Romeo, is now dead. Charlie Monet, in charge of props, is the first suspect but soon the suspicion around her turns to worry as it seems she's the next target. Khaleel Rahim, an aspiring writer, is dying for a mystery to solve at his new school. When he sees Charlie sneaking around at night he thinks he's finally found something worth writing about. After discovering Charlie's ability to see visions of the past, Khaleel decides that they're the perfect pair to solve the mystery. With threatening notes, a quiet library and poison disguised as props; somebody in the school is blurring the lines between theatre and reality and the fast friends are about to discover that there's more to boarding school than just silly rumours. [2022 Watty's Shortlist]