WINNER OF THE KINDLE AWARD FOR BEST HORROR/SUSPENSE 2020Adam, a young alcoholic, slowly descends into madness while dealing with the psychological scars of childhood trauma which are reawakened when his son and wife die in a car accident that he feels he is responsible for. After a failed suicide attempt, and more group meetings that he can mention. Adam hears a rumor of a Haunted Island off the Coast of Maine, where "if someone wants it bad enough" they could be reunited with a lost loved one. In his desperate attempt to connect with the ghost of his four-and-a half year old son, he decides to go there, to Dagger Island, desperate to apologize to, or be condemned by, his young son. Adam is not sure what he deserves or even which of these he wants more. While staying in a crumbling old boarding house, he becomes involved with a beautiful and manipulative ghost who has spent 60 years tormenting the now elderly man who was her lover, and ultimately her murderer. The three of them create a "Menage-a-Guilt" as they all come to terms with what it is that ties them so emotionally to their memories and their very "existence".Beautiful, Frightening, and Silent is a poetic fever dream of grief, love, and the terrifying ways that obsession can change who we are.

Mildred Muhammad shares her story about rising up from the domestic abuse she endured from her ex-husband, John Allen Muhammad, the convicted D.C. Sniper. Mildred witnessed firsthand John’s bizarre behavior after he returned from the Gulf War, but no one—including her family, friends, and local police—took her warnings seriously. Even when John kidnapped their three children for eighteen months, changing their identities and living with them on the run in Antigua, or when he threatened to kill Mildred, her pleas for help went unfounded and she was forced to live undercover for eight months in a women’s shelter. Everyone knew John as a charming and intelligent man. No one could fathom that he posed a serious threat to Mildred, let alone the ten innocent victims he and his seventeen-year-old accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo would later kill to carry out John’s heinous plot to get custody of his and Mildred’s children...permanently. What began as a domestic case eventually victimized millions. And it has taken years for Mildred and her children to heal from the fear and psychological trauma they endured. In Scared Silent, Mildred shares her personal story to show how domestic violence devastates entire families, including the children, and hopes that what she reveals will give new insight on this national social ill.

An introverted young girl finds her voice through reading and the power of imagination in this stunning debut picture book. How do you find your voice, when no one seems to be listening? In David Ouimet’s spellbinding debut, a young girl struggles to make herself heard, believing she is too insignificant and misunderstood to communicate with the people in her life. Anxious about how she thinks she should look and speak, the girl stays silent, turning to books to transport her to a place where she is connected to the world, and where her words hold power. As she soon discovers, her imagination is not far from reality, and the girl realizes that when she is ready to be heard, her voice will ring loud and true. Ouimet’s stirring and haunting illustrations masterfully capture how it feels to be a lonely, self-conscious child unsure of how to claim a space in the world.

What if your lifelong curse is the only thing keeping you alive? Abandoned at birth, life has always been a battle for Jane Walker. She and her best friend, Sadie, spent years fighting to survive Vancouver’s cutthroat underbelly. That would have been tough enough without Jane’s mysterious afflictions: an intricate pattern of blood-red birthmarks that snake around her body and vivid, heart-wrenching nightmares that feel so real she wakes up screaming. After she meets the first man who isn’t repulsed by her birthmarks, Jane thinks she might finally have a chance at happiness. Her belief seems confirmed as the birthmarks she’s spent her life so ashamed of magically begin to disappear. Yet, the quicker her scarlet marks vanish, the more lucid and disturbing Jane’s nightmares become—until it’s impossible to discern her dreams from reality, and Jane comes to a horrifying realization: The nightmares that have plagued her since childhood are actually visions of real people being stalked by a deadly killer. And all this time, her birthmarks have been the only things protecting her from becoming his next victim. Blood Mark is the first in a brand-new paranormal thriller series by JP McLean, author of The Gift Legacy series and whose writing has been described as “. . . deftly crafted, impressively original, and inherently compelling from first page to last.”

Jane stands alone between a powerful artifact and the wrong hands. Jane Walker’s alarming dreams, in which she sees events that have yet to happen, have finally subsided. The man who killed her parents and kidnapped Jane is behind bars. So it’s the perfect time for Jane and her partner Ethan to set out on a road trip to unravel the secrets of her ancestry. But their journey takes a spine-chilling turn when they encounter a gang of men who stare at Jane as if they recognize her. That can only mean one thing: they’ve met her in a dream she has yet to experience. When the gang begins stalking her, Jane realizes she must have witnessed a deadly event. But what could it be? She slips into hiding and waits for the disturbing dream to arrive. And now her BFF, Sadie Prescott, is dating a cop whose curiosity about Jane leads him to unearth the mysterious deaths that litter her past. When his latest investigation crosses paths with Jane’s stalkers, Jane must intervene and turn the skeptical cop into a believer before he kills himself and causes the deaths of his entire law enforcement team. Immerse yourself in a supernatural thriller where dreams and reality meet, weaving a web of suspense that will keep you turning the page until the final, heart-stopping revelation.

Appalachian literature is filled with silent or non-discursive characters. The reasons for their wordlessness vary. Some are mute or pretend to be, some choose not to speak or are silenced by grief, trauma or fear. Others mutter monosyllables, stutter, grunt and point, speak in tongues or idiosyncratic language. They capture the reader's attention by what they don't say.

Jane’s nightmares are back—and this time, they’ve unleashed a brutal killer. Jane Walker’s nightmares aren’t imaginary—they’re glimpses into the traumatic past; and the past can be dangerous, especially now that Jane’s protective birthmarks are gone. Worse, she’s no longer invisible within her dreams—and learns this the hard way while using her power to incriminate a ruthless killer. Inadvertently revealing her ghost form, she launches him on a relentless hunt to track her down. Even more disturbing, Jane knows this man. She once tried to use her power to save him from injury, but instead set him on a path of violent crime. Now, he’s targeted the man she loves, and Jane must keep one step ahead of this cold-blooded assassin before he gets rid of Ethan permanently. Jane has one last chance to fix the mistake that altered this man’s history, but that means taking her most dangerous dream journey yet—one from which she might never awaken. Ghost Mark is the second installment of the Dark Dreams Series by JP McLean, an author whose writing the Ottawa Review of Books calls “relentless and original.”