Book One of the Downworlder Series ~~~~~~~~~~~ Do you know what it feels like to have your current reality torn from your grasp and a new one shoved in its place? Neither did Sutton Kendrick. Sutton had lived on Haven her entire life, floating above earth and the beasts that inhabited it. They were strange creatures. Half beast, half human. They were animals as far as she was concerned. Haven was safe. It was for the preservation of the purity of the human bloodlines. However Sutton's reality ends when after her eighteen birthday she discovers she has a beast of her own under her skin. Her world ends in a night of pain and the bang of a gavel because she is no longer human. No longer pure. She is thrown to the wolves. Her life changing in an instant. She has to learn how to survive, how to run, and how to live on a planet that is hellbent on devouring her whole because those that go to the downworld never return.

A jolt. A small hitch in the rhythmic beating of my heart. Dèjà vu didn't even begin to describe it. ... My heart stopped, my breath jostled forward, shock rippling through my system. It happened again. For a few precious seconds my mind froze up and, together with my body, went into a complete lockdown. It was the same each time I saw him.

Well, you could stare at a white wall until you were blue in the face, it would never be more than a white wall. The same was true for the master vampire. A vampire was a vampire was a vampire. Period. (Anna Johnson)

... for a moment I thought that everything was back to normal, that I was okay. But then it came crashing down on me. Blood was valuable. Blood was life. The loss of blood had a price. A high one.

They are born in the darkness, and they own it like no one else. Anna Johnson stays clear of vampires. She knows what they are capable of. As a witch of the air she is working for the Circle as a researcher, closing her eyes to that which lies in her past. Until one phone call changes everything.

After escaping a stalled elevator into a zombie apocalypse, Emily must learn how to trust people again or risk losing everything in this terrifying world. ***** For Emily, every day of the last two years have been a blur. She keeps her head down, takes her college courses online, and only goes out to work at her mandatory internship. But all that changes on the day the office elevator breaks down, leaving her trapped when the screams begin. And when the doors finally open, revealing a dystopian world ruined by bloody teeth and disease, Emily is launched into a terrifying run for her life, caught between the strangers she's not sure she can trust and the man-eating monsters that hunger for her flesh. Now she must learn not only how to survive in this new and dangerous world, but also how to overcome her own inner demons before they cost her something more precious than her life. [[Wattys' Shortlist]] [[Promoted by AMC]] Content and/or Trigger Warning: The story contains some gore, violence, strong language, and dark themes. [[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]