Misty Hollow Series
Book One: Mermaid Mayhem
My name is Marina Estuary, and I’m a mermaid.
Actually, I’m a lot more than a mermaid—I’m a siren, but I have to keep that little tidbit on the down-low. Why? Because anyone who hears the song of the siren will either lose their mind or become desperately in love with me.
That’s usually a buzzkill to most people.
Anyway, not only am I a siren-in-hiding, but I’m also a private investigator. And I’ve been called to the newest of the supernatural hollows, Misty Hollow, to investigate the disappearance of three women.
Not only did the women go missing from the blossoming hollow (which is more like an old west boomtown dropped into the middle of a Louisiana swamp), but the facts behind their disappearance are hazy at best.
I’m not entirely sure that the quick-talking, devious and secretive vampire mayor of Misty Hollow, Alistair Beaumont, didn’t have something to do with it.
Or could the truth lie with the unfriendly leader of the weregator community, Jean-Baptiste, a man as surly as he is sexy?
Good thing for me that I’m an expert at unearthing truths that don’t want to be unearthed…
Book Two: Big Girls Don't Scry
My nine-year-old daughter and I have just moved to an outpost of a Hollow called Misty Hollow.
As a Bruja (a Latin-American witch), I’ve been hired by the mayor to help build the warding infrastructure for the blossoming town.
But there are a few things I wasn’t aware of before I agreed to take on this job:
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The mayor is a bloodsucking vampire, and as a witch, there’s nothing I despise more than the undead.
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There’s something sinister going on in Misty Hollow, and, more specifically, that something sinister is located in the swamp.
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The last witches who attempted to do this job left, and I’m not sure why…
As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s the foreman, Smith.
Look up ‘surly’ in the dictionary, and you’d find a picture of the man. Brooding, ornery, and always scowling, I immediately get on his bad side almost as soon as I set foot in Misty Hollow.
Oh, and to make matters worse? Smith is my boss.
While a smarter woman might tuck her tail and head back the way she came, I’m nothing if not stubborn. And as far as Misty Hollow is concerned—there’s a mystery here I want to solve.
Book Three: Gorgon Gone Wild
I’ve been hired to protect the weregator community, just outside Misty Hollow, from whatever is living in the swamp—something that continues to claim lives.
Why would a group of machismo gators need the protection of a woman like me?
Easy—I’m a gorgon, and with my stare that can turn any creature into stone, I’m basically at the top of the supernatural food chain.
But when six more weregator youth go missing, we all realize there’s something inside the swamp that’s bigger than all of us.
In fear for our lives, we must seek solace inside the protected perimeter of Misty Hollow. But seeking that protection means asking the mayor, Alistair Beaumont, for help.
And that’s not easy because Beaumont essentially stole the land Misty Hollow sits on, and the weregators still haven’t gotten over it.
When we’re denied entrance to Misty Hollow, I decide to take up the case personally and make it my own mission to approach Beaumont.
What I’m not counting on, however, is the sudden attraction I feel toward the scoundrel. Nor the way he reacts to me.
While my hormones are certainly reacting to the vampire, I’m also reasonably sure that Alistair Beaumont isn’t all he seems—and, more particularly, that he’s hiding something. Something big.
Good thing for me that I’m just the type of woman who likes to solve mysteries because this is one mystery that affects us all.
Book Four: Fangs and the Furriest
All I wanted to do was go camping.
Just to prove to myself that I could erect a tent and spend one night in the middle of BFE with only a few mosquito bites as souvenirs.
What I really wasn’t planning on was getting attacked by the biggest… wolf I’ve ever seen—not to mention the fact that wolves have no business being in Louisiana.
Fast forward to the wolf attack, and I’m now waking up to the second chapter of my middle-aged life as a vampire.
Yep, you heard me right.
Last I remembered, I was a forty-two-year-old widow with only creditors coming calling, and now I’m a blood-sucking fiend with two oversized fangs. And to make matters worse? My sire is a self-centered jerk who wants nothing to do with me.
Since I’m on a feeling-sorry-for-myself streak, might I also add that the only friend I had (one I also had a crush on) just so happens to show up in this weird outpost of civilization known as Misty Hollow?
What are the chances, right?
Well, turns out the chances are pretty good because Thorn actually isn’t human at all. In fact, he’s some sort of mystical creature called a ‘griffin’ and he’s also working for the mayor of Misty Hollow.
And let’s not even discuss the enigma that is Fox Aspen, a monster hunter sent to Misty Hollow to wrangle the wolf (turns out it’s a werewolf) that attacked me.
Fox is some kind of fae prince, and he’s also so hot he makes me go wobbly in the knees.
Wobbly knees or not, this girl needs to figure out what the heck is going on in this town, pronto, because something wicked this way is definitely coming from the swamp.
And I’m pretty sure that ‘something wicked’ is threatening my undead life…
Book Five: Siren's Call
I have a lot of secrets.
But one of those secrets, the one that causes me the most guilt, just got uncovered on page six of the Times Picayune newspaper.
And that secret has everything to do with my former partner, Mike Stewart—the man who accidentally heard my siren song and it made him lose his mind.
Now Mike is dead—stabbed to death in New Orleans—and I’m determined to solve his murder.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned by now, it’s that nothing in Misty Hollow is ever straightforward.
Not only am I trying to find out whodunit to bring justice to Mike, but just when things start to get a little, ahem, hot between weregator, Jean-Baptiste, and me… we get attacked.
And when I find out the attack has nothing to do with the creature in the swamp, I’ve now got two mysteries to solve.
Two mysteries that will see me reconnoitering with demons in the underground, appealing to the mercies of a surly witch, and literally facing a fate worse than death…
Book Six: Masonry Mojo
Living in Misty Hollow hasn’t been perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s been a nice break from always being on the run.
But owing to the nightmares that keep plaguing my daughter, Luna, I know we can’t stay here much longer.
And adding in the fact that another two vampires have just moved to town? Yeah, that’s an added reason we can’t stick around.
Even though I might be a bruja, I’m still a witch. And the rule that witches and vampires hate one another still stands.
Of course, I can’t seem to stop myself from noticing that one particular vampire who used to be a cop isn’t so bad.
Or maybe Mike is so bad, and I’m stupid for thinking he’s anything other than a bloodsucking leech…
Book Seven: Coiled Conjunctions
I’ve never been a big fan of my family. My sister, Cressida, yes, but my father? No, not by a long shot.
So, imagine my surprise when Alistair and I arrive at the airport to pick up Cressida, and I come face to face with my father.
And he despises me just as much as he ever did.
Good thing I’ve got my vampire mayor to play interference.
But things in Misty Hollow aren’t great—not by a long shot. We now know what’s lurking in the depths of the swamp, but we still don’t know how to get rid of it.
And that means we’ll have to go back to the beginning—before there was Misty Hollow, before there was Louisiana, before there were humans.
And that’s where my sister comes in—Cressida is a gorgon seer, and even though she’s frail, the hope is that she’ll be able to tell us how this entity came to be and how we can destroy it.
Little do I know that I’m about to set off on the journey of a lifetime, and I’m going to learn a few things about myself I never believed possible…
Book Eight: As The Crow Dies
Charlie:
Things in Misty Hollow are bad.
So bad, in fact, that we’ve left the Hollow to seek shelter from Swamp Thing in the freezing cold of the Faerie land of Winter.
Now, you might wonder why we’re seeking refuge in Winter, which is currently ruled by the evil would-be queen, Janara, and you’d be right to ask.
Unfortunately, Fox Aspen, otherwise known as Prince Reynard of the Autumn Court, was nearly fatally wounded by Swamp Thing. In his weakened state, the only portal he could open was to Winter.
So, here we are.
If I hoped being in Faerie would somehow help Fox heal, that’s simply wishful thinking. The truth is, Fox’s condition is worsening before my eyes. As someone who works on healing others, I feel utterly helpless because I can’t seem to do anything to help him.
Not only that, but I’m painfully aware that my feelings for him run deeper than I realized. That’s a difficult reality to face—not only because I don’t know if Fox will survive, but also because I’m breaking the heart of another man—my best friend, Thorn.
But matters of the heart will have to wait, because soon we find ourselves prisoners of the enemy in an enemy land, and Fox is our only hope for escape to the safety of Haven Hollow.
I can only hope we make it.