WATTPAD ORIGINAL EDITION Seven letters, seven confessions, seven clues. Elliot Parker has what he needs to find out who killed his best friend... But is he hunting down the killer? Or is the killer hunting him? ***** When Colton Crest returns, unharmed, to his small town after mysteriously disappearing for two months, his best friend Elliot Parker breathes a sigh of relief. But days later, on the night before graduation, Elliot finds Colton in the lake. Dead. And on the day of his funeral, Elliot finds a letter in his jacket pocket with four words that send him spiralling: I killed Colton Crest. There are six more letters to find, six more confessions about Colton, six more clues to uncover why he was murdered. Elliot has no choice but to play this sick scavenger hunt, and with each new revelation, he begins to question whether he really knew Colton - or anyone else in that little town of dark secrets. [[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]

****Taken down for publication with Parliament House Press in 2019*** ****Bonus Story Available: The House of Seven Smiles***** ***Wattys 2015 Winner!!!*** Magic runs bone deep... In a world overrun by monsters, humans struggle for survival underground. Magic is feared and reviled, but rooted deep in the bloodlines of families, cropping up once a generation. These individuals are cast out, banished to the Above where humans are far, far down the food chain. When her younger brother is tainted by magic and forced to the surface, Azzy follows, determined to save the only family she has left, no matter what he becomes. ***Lovely Cover by @mulanjiang*** ***#2!! in Adventure 2/28/16*** ***#6!! in Fantasy 8/15/16***

The Red Man is coming ... Five years after her sister disappeared, seventeen-year-old Adrienne finds the strength to return to her father’s home in New Orleans. But soon after she arrives, the mark of a curse appears on her, leaving her worried. Will she be the next victim of a four-hundred-year old family curse ... the next to be claimed by a serial killer roaming the back alleys of the city? The day before his senior year begins, Jayden is given a skeleton key passed down through his family for generations -- a gruesome reminder of how his ancestors betrayed their own people and sold them into slavery. He doesn’t believe in the curse the key allegedly bears and puts it away with the intention of forgetting about its message. Until he meets Adrienne, a girl he’s compelled to for more reasons than her beauty. He’s not the only one who notices her. A man in a skeleton mask and a voodoo gang member are also drawn to Adrienne. One is determined to protect her. The other intends to mislead her. Haunted by the mythical Red Man, all are connected to the ancient curse. Can they overcome their misgivings about one another and prevent the dark prophecy looming over them? Or will they be lured away from each other by evil’s siren song?

Every Tuesday during football practice, sixteen year old Sem Bolton finds himself stealing glances at the gorgeous college boy jogging down the path next to the fields. He was his dirty little secret. His guilty pleasure. His unobtainable fantasy: safe and distant on the other side of the chainlink fence. Then, through a series of unpleasant events including being forced on a camping trip, it turns out his unobtainable fantasy is not so unobtainable after all. Not only is gorgeous college boy gay as well, he also wants to date Sem. Now, Sem was never one to play it safe. But outing himself was in a whole different league than testing his mother's patience or taking hits in the boxing ring. Was he really ready to date a guy, all consequences included? As if internal struggles weren't enough, count on girls, friends, and an estranged brother, to complicate stuff even further. Photo on the cover by: https://unsplash.com/@nickkarvounis

An acclaimed, award-winning thriller, published and translated around the world, now freely available on Wattpad. Paul Wood is a modern vagabond, a man who chooses to leave the comforts of San Francisco to spend months backpacking through some of the world's most challenging terrain. While hiking in the Himalayas, Paul gets more of a rush than he bargained for when he finds the body of a murdered hiker - mutilated in a way he has witnessed once before, in Africa, years ago and thousands of miles away. The police in Nepal, anxious to quell a scandal, close the case and declare the victim a suicide. Only Paul is left to search for answers. He reaches out to his farflung tribe of fellow backpackers for help, and his discoveries lead him to a terrible conclusion: a killer is stalking the international backpacker trail, preying on victims in wild places far beyond the reach of any authorities. A killer whom Paul may already know. Finding the murderer becomes an obsession that leads Paul from Himalayan peaks, through the jungles of Indonesia, across the bleak Sahara desert -- and into some of the darkest places imaginable... Dark Places won the 2005 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Reviews "You're hooked ... the characters are delightfully delineated ... beautifully controlled ... Evans contrives to slip the necessary specialist net-head detail into the plot without being boring or patronising. He can also pin down a character with a few details deftly brushed in ... A pacy thriller for the 21st century." - The Times "Anyone would enjoy Evans' clever, relentlessly absorbing debut thriller that becomes a lot more than just another serial-killer mystery." - The Ottawa Citizen "In this haunting suspense debut, Evans takes the reader on a page-turning adventure across five continents ... (a) spooky, inventive tale." - Publishers Weekly

Jo Mast had a rough start to life. Up until she was seven, Jo had lived in an abusive household with only her pretend adventures in the tree house next door with the neighbor boy to keep her sane. Now, Jo is all grown up and the dark memories of her early years have faded. She now had Jasper and a full ride scholarship to college and she’s happy with her life. However, when she moves to go to school that just so happens to be in her old hometown, Jo must dig up old memories that she had spent many years burying. And that just might include finding the boy from the tree house that she’d said goodbye to so many years before. With the help of her friends, old and new, Jo finds a way to maneuver through the struggles of moving away from home and really finding out what it feels like to grow up.

Once upon a time, Day fell in love with the Night, and everything became chaos. ::::::: Highest Rank Short Story : #68

When Jane Madarang's neighbor Natalie kills herself and leaves behind cryptic instructions, it's up to Jane and her classmates to unearth deadly secrets. ***** Natalie Driscoll is dead. She threw herself out a window and left her neighbor Jane to unravel their town's darkest secrets. Following Natalie's instructions leads Jane to three other high school students who all have something to hide. The four of them must carry out Natalie's final errand while solving the mysteries written in her diary. But the secrets they unearth may be far more dangerous than what they ever imagined. Content and/or trigger warning: This story contains scenes of suicide, violence and murder that may be triggering for some readers. [[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]

Holly Thorne has a normal life in Minnesota. Normal friends and family and grades. Her personality may be a little hyper and bubbly, but all in all, she's normal. Well, except for the fact that her brother, Jackson Thorne, is the world's most famous teen actor in Hollywood. He left their family two years ago in Minnesota and ever since then, he's had nothing but success. So, Holly hasn't seen her brother in two years, but now, she's moving in with him for the summer. What she didn't know about her brother, was that he is best friends with Ryder West. Hollywood's golden boy, aka Holly's obsession. She also comes to terms with the fact that not only are they best friends, but Jackson also lives next door to Ryder and his family. This summer just took a very interesting twist for Holly, Jackson, and the whole West family. © 2014 Madeline States. All rights reserved Buy the paperback edition on Lulu! http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/writerbug44