Is Still Lives Worth Reading?

I die in the basement after being burned by acid. My family doesn't recognize me, and they don't call the cops. My mother picks up the scalpel that hasn't been used in years and debones me. My father excitedly mixes my skeleton with concrete and turns me into an exquisite statue. My sister uses the sculpture she's made out of my flesh and portrays herself as a genius sculptor whom everyone admires. Later, the sculpture is shattered, revealing half a broken finger inside. That's when everyone panics.

Luna Grimes has never believed in fate. As a photographer, she thrives on capturing truth—the unfiltered, raw moments hidden behind Hollywood’s illusions. But when she’s assigned to photograph Deverell Blackwood, the industry’s most untouchable star, truth becomes the one thing slipping through her fingers. He is arrogant, infuriatingly perfect, and worst of all—familiar. She hates the way he looks at her, as if he knows her. Then the impossible starts happening. Distorted photographs. A missing reflection. A name whispered in dreams that don’t belong to her. Luna knows she should stay away from Deverell. But he won’t let her. And the closer she gets, the more she realizes… this isn’t the first time they’ve met. It won’t be the last.

Desperate and with nowhere left to turn, Ivy Carter accepts the strangest job offer of her life. Marry a dying billionaire. The deal is simple. A wealthy heiress who no longer wants to marry her disabled fiancé needs a substitute bride. Ivy looks enough like her to fool everyone. She only has to play the role of a loving wife for six months. After the billionaire dies, she'll walk away with a fortune, and the real bride will return to claim everything. It should have been easy, except the billionaire isn't the cold, broken man everyone believes him to be. Beneath his pain is a lonely soul who has been betrayed by the people he trusted most, and as Ivy's kindness begins to heal wounds no doctor ever could, the impossible happens, her husband starts to fight for life again. But miracles have consequences. When the woman who abandoned him returns to reclaim her place, she discovers the man she expected to inherit is no longer dying, and the substitute bride she hired has become the only woman he truly loves. With jealous rivals, dangerous family secrets, and a fortune worth killing for, Ivy must decide whether to walk away with the money she was promised, or risk everything for the man she was never supposed to love.

There are monsters in this world. And they used to be us. Now it's time to euthanize to survive in a hospice where Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. Post-infection Chicago. Christmas. Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as ‘Smilers.’ Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred. Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore – at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse. It won't be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

The tale of a widow's harrowing journey through grief and peril into the cold remnants of a dead world. Damon Sharpe had in part found victory, he believed, in his battle to unearth a truth obscured by time. By autumn, he was dead, leaving to his wife Anne a house of unfulfilled wishes, remnants, and the key to the enigma of his obsession, the Mourner’s Cradle. A journey through grief and peril delivers Anne Sharpe from her home in St. Charles to the faraway skeletons of a long-dead civilization where she will find the desperate answers she seeks…or die trying. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

When disgraced journalist Elliot Dorne receives an anonymous invitation to Wintercroft Hall—a decaying mansion on a fog-shrouded island—he is promised the story of a lifetime. But upon his arrival, Elliot finds himself among six strangers, each with their own shadowy past. Their enigmatic host, the frail and reclusive Vivienne Ashworth, claims she has summoned them to reveal a deadly truth about the Ashworth family legacy. Before she can confess, Vivienne collapses, and chaos ensues. A violent storm traps the guests on the island, and the discovery of a gruesome murder sets paranoia ablaze. As Elliot uncovers cryptic messages, hidden rooms, and a chilling photograph that ties him to the Ashworth family, he realizes that nothing about this gathering is random. With the mansion’s dark history unraveling and secrets surfacing at every turn, Elliot must confront the ghosts of his own past to survive. But the deeper he digs, the clearer it becomes—someone inside Wintercroft Hall is playing a deadly game, and not everyone will make it out alive. When disgraced journalist Elliot Dorne is invited to the remote and crumbling Wintercroft Hall, he’s promised the story that could save his career. But the mansion’s sinister halls conceal more than just secrets—they harbor a legacy of betrayal, murder, and lies. Elliot is joined by six strangers, all summoned by the enigmatic Vivienne Ashworth. Frail and reclusive, she claims to know the truth about their darkest sins. Before she can reveal anything, a violent storm cuts them off from the outside world—and the first body is discovered. As cryptic messages and chilling clues emerge, Elliot realizes that his connection to the Ashworth family runs deeper than he could have imagined. Someone in Wintercroft Hall knows the truth about his past, and they’ll stop at nothing .