Dessie McKendrick has spent ten years consumed by obsession. A decade ago, her husband disappeared during their honeymoon in a small Scottish Highland village, vanishing without explanation or trace. Most people would have eventually moved on, returned to their old lives, found some way to accept the inexplicable loss. Not Dessie. She bought a bed and breakfast in the very village where he was last seen and has spent every day since conducting a detailed, methodical investigation that everyone else dismisses as the delusions of a grieving widow 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Then it happens again. Another bride wakes up to discover her groom has vanished overnight, gone without a trace in the same village, in the same inexplicable way. For Dessie, it’s vindication—proof that she wasn’t crazy, that her husband’s disappearance wasn’t random, that something sinister is operating in this picturesque Highland community. The pattern she’s been tracking for a decade suddenly has a second data point, and finally, someone else might believe her 🔍

The evidence begins pointing toward a local women’s club, a group Dessie has always found unsettling but never quite suspicious enough to investigate directly. When she follows a suspicious person on a dark night, she witnesses something that shouldn’t exist in the modern world: cloaked figures performing what appears to be a ritual sacrifice. The quaint village conceals a pagan conspiracy, and the women’s club isn’t what it seems. Dessie discovers that her one ally—the only person who believes her—is actually a witch with conflicting loyalties, someone caught between their own magical community and a growing conscience about what’s being done 🌙

Felicity Green weaves a cozy mystery with genuine stakes and supernatural elements that feel both ancient and immediate. Dessie is a stubborn, determined protagonist whose decade-long obsession would seem unhealthy in any other context, but here proves to be justified paranoia. The Scottish Highland setting provides isolation and old magic, a place where modern skepticism brushes against traditions that predate Christianity. As Dessie closes in on the truth about what happened to her husband and the other missing men, she must expose a dangerous conspiracy while avoiding becoming the coven’s next victim 🔮

What makes this irresistible: A Scottish Highland mystery blending cozy elements with genuine witchcraft, featuring a persistent widow who’s been right all along about dark magic in her village. Perfect for readers who enjoy supernatural mysteries with determined amateur sleuths and atmospheric settings. First in the Scottish Witches Mysteries series. 🧙‍♀️

Being admitted to a hospital during a pandemic is already a nightmare scenario—you’re vulnerable, isolated from loved ones, dependent on overwhelmed staff, surrounded by disease. But for ex-cop Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels, ex-criminal Phineas Troutt, and ex-private eye Harry McGlade, all recovering from a near-fatal encounter that landed them in the same medical facility, the pandemic is about to become the least of their problems 🏥At night, when the hospital’s skeleton crew is stretched thin and the halls are mostly empty, someone is prowling. Patients are being drained of their blood, left pale and lifeless in their beds, discovered only when morning shift arrives. The method is surgical, precise, disturbing. The hospital administration wants to keep it quiet, worried about panic and lawsuits. The police investigation is hampered by pandemic restrictions and lack of access. And Jack and her friends are trapped in their rooms, healing but helpless, knowing a predator is operating somewhere in the building 🩸

The killer suffers from Renfield’s syndrome—a genuine psychiatric condition involving the obsessive consumption of blood, named after Dracula’s disturbed servant. Whether they believe they’re a vampire or simply derive psychological satisfaction from the act is almost irrelevant; the result is the same. Patients are dying, and the killer has developed a particular fixation on Jack and her friends. They’re targets now, confined to hospital beds, unable to run, limited in their ability to defend themselves, waiting for nightfall when the prowling begins again 🦇

J.A. Konrath delivers a claustrophobic thriller that traps familiar characters in an unfamiliar nightmare. Jack Daniels has faced killers before, but never while physically compromised, never while bedridden and healing, never in an environment where calling for help means waiting for an overworked nurse to respond. The hospital setting during a pandemic creates layers of isolation and vulnerability, and the Renfield’s syndrome angle adds psychological depth beyond simple slasher horror. The question isn’t just who the killer is, but how do you stop a predator when you’re the one who can’t escape? 🌙

What makes this essential: A high-stakes thriller that combines locked-room tension with pandemic-era vulnerability, featuring series veterans forced to fight a serial killer while recovering from injuries. Perfect for readers who appreciate clever protagonists at a disadvantage and psychological horror grounded in real conditions. Twentieth in the Jack Daniels series. 🔪

Ancient legends don’t come back to life. They’re stories told to children, cautionary tales and heroic myths that explain the world but don’t actually shape it. The vast, winged draykoni that once ruled the skies of the Seven Realms—unstoppable, uncontested, magnificent—they’re just stories. Entertaining tales from a distant past that everyone knows never really happened. Except sometimes, the most far-fetched stories turn out to be plain, simple truth 🐉Llandry Sanfaer’s life changes forever when she discovers a new type of jewel unlike anything seen before in the Seven Realms. The gem is beautiful, yes, but it’s also wrong somehow—wonderful and terrible simultaneously. It exerts a strange influence over everyone who beholds it, compelling attention, inspiring obsession, driving desire that escalates far beyond rational appreciation of a pretty stone. Soon people are dying for it, killed by those desperate to possess it, and Llandry herself becomes a target as word spreads about her discovery ✨

But the deaths are only the beginning. As bodies accumulate and the jewels multiply—because Llandry’s discovery wasn’t unique, more of these starry gems are appearing throughout the realms—questions proliferate faster than answers. What are these jewels that no one can resist? Why do they call so powerfully to certain individuals, Llandry most of all? Who is the killer stalking the night, murdering gem owners and stealing their prizes? And why do the gems seem connected to the ancient draykoni legends that everyone dismissed as fantasy? 💎

Charlotte E. English builds an epic fantasy where myths aren’t metaphors and legends aren’t exaggerations. Llandry is a shy young woman thrust into events she doesn’t understand, discovering that her connection to the mysterious gems reveals a destiny she never imagined. The Seven Realms are about to learn that the draykoni weren’t just stories, that the ancient powers everyone thought safely extinct are stirring again, and that sometimes the past doesn’t stay buried—it returns with wings and fire and purpose. Llandry’s quiet life is over; her true nature is awakening, and the realms will never be the same 🌟

Why this deserves your attention: An epic fantasy that transforms familiar dragon legends into something fresh and mysterious, featuring a reluctant heroine discovering her connection to ancient powers. Perfect for readers who appreciate world-building that reveals its secrets gradually and protagonists who grow into their destiny rather than claiming it immediately. First in The Draykon Series. 🔥