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Mystery Box

Central mystery that drives the plot

13 items found (2 series, 11 stories)

He Called Her Birdie

He Called Her Birdie

Story

by Sammie Settlemire

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Wren is three when her mother asks who she wants to live with. It is not a question. It is a trap, and the answer she cannot say splits her childhood in two. What follows is the story of a girl who learned to read rooms before she could read words, and the people who saw her when her mother would not.

Cozy
Unexplained Phenomena
Mystery Box
Self-Discovery
Homestead Mennonite Village Christmas Edition

Homestead Mennonite Village Christmas Edition

Series

by Author DeeAnn Gorman

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**The Snowstorm worsened more than ever. Looking out into an abyss of flocked trees outside. Intricate ice cycles hung from the awnings of the homestead and the barns. What a beautiful place to live.** **Marks of sleigh runners, Belgian horses hooves marked the snow like a rubber stamp might have.** **Made for a picture book, snow fell slowly piling up.** **Folks baking for Christmas , pies, cakes, cookies a must.** **Besides candied hams, roast beef, roasted potatoes a must. Sure enough guest caught in the snow storm gather. Singing old fashioned Christmas songs. Such fun after a very bad storm and thieves steeling.** **The women in the kitchen and girls. Men and Boys down in the barn enjoying animals and old time religion music.** **Snow calms serene hearts.**

Mystery Box
Small Town
HELARA: Before I Was Lara

HELARA: Before I Was Lara

Story

by T. N. Harsh

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Lara has always known who she is. At least, she thought she did. As her birthday approaches, small fractures begin appearing in the life she has always considered ordinary. A strange scar she can’t explain. Dreams that feel more like memories. A symbol she recognizes despite having no idea where she’s seen it before. And glimpses of a place that shouldn’t exist—but somehow feels familiar. Then reality begins answering back. The harder Lara tries to hold on to what she knows, the more impossible it becomes to ignore the feeling that something has been buried inside her for a very long time. Something older than memory. Something waiting. Because Lara isn’t simply discovering another world. She’s beginning to remember who she was before this one.

Ancient Secrets
Atmospheric
Hidden World
Self-Discovery
Mystery Box
Till Death

Till Death

Story

by Nikki Rollingwood

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**Till Death: A Gripping Psychological Thriller** **SHE STAGES THEM AS LOVERS. SHE SEES THEM AS PREY.** > *A campus killer stages fake romantic suicides. To stop her, Tauny must tap into the dark instincts inherited from her serial killer grandfather.*   When two popular university students are found dead in their dorm room, locked in an intimate embrace beside an empty neon vape pen, local authorities and campus officials are quick to label it a tragic accident—a mutual overdose pact amidst a growing student drug crisis. Case closed. Except for Tauny May Baker. To the rest of the student body, Tauny is just a quiet, reserved graduate student trying to blend into the background. But beneath her ordinary surface lies a terrifying secret: she is the granddaughter of one of the country’s most infamous serial killers. And along with his blood, she inherited his clinical, predatory radar—an ability to see the meticulous calculation behind human violence. Where the police see grief and reckless youth, Tauny sees impossible symmetry: hospital-corner bed folds, unnatural body posture, and a crime scene arranged like a gallery exhibit. She knows instantly that a killer is hunting on campus, hiding in plain sight behind the mask of a grieving, "perfect best friend" who is obsessed with turning her victims into eternal legends. When Detective Jase starts investigating the deaths, Tauny must play a dangerous game of hide-and-seek. She has to drop subtle clues to steer his investigation toward the truth without revealing *how* she knows—or risking Jase uncovering her own dark lineage. But as Tauny quietly digs into the killer's social circle, the killer takes notice. To outsmart a monster who treats murder as fine art, Tauny is forced to do the one thing she fears most: stop fighting her genetics, tap into her grandfather's ruthless mind, and embrace the darkness inside her to survive.

Atmospheric
Dark
Thought-Provoking
Friends to Lovers
Mystery Box
Going Down

Going Down

Story

by Curtis Alcutt

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**GOING DOWN**\ *A Supernatural Anthology Thriller* Every elevator ride in Mason Towers tells a different story. A nervous woman riding down to meet a blind date. A guilty man confessing to a stranger who turns out to be a detective. A widow returning to the building where his wife disappeared fifty years ago — and finding her waiting. But beneath the building, carved into the sub-basement floor directly under the elevator shaft, something has been waiting far longer than any of them. Mason Towers is a 33-story Freemason-built high-rise in downtown Oakland, California. It was constructed in 1923 on a site the builders chose deliberately — a convergence point where something ancient, something sealed, something that predated even the Templars by centuries, lay dormant beneath the earth. The building was never meant to be just a building. The elevator was never meant to just take people somewhere. Every 33 years, on the night of October Friday the 13th, the building takes three lives. Fire. Fall. Electrocution. Always the same three methods. Always ruled accidental. Always before dawn. Someone has always known. He has worked in this building for thirty years. He is mute, which means everyone talks freely around him. He hears everything. He has been preparing for October 13th, 2025 his entire career. His name is Earl. And he has never said a word. *Going Down — ten episodes. One season. The elevator is waiting.*

Atmospheric
Ancient Secrets
Dark
Mystery Box
Haunted House
NSFW
The Last Good Day

The Last Good Day

Story

by Gina Murdock

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Jake Miller is living the best morning of his life. Pancakes, laughter, his wife's hand in his, his daughter buckled safely in the back seat. He has no idea it's about to become the worst.  When tragedy strikes on an ordinary Wednesday, Jake wakes up the next morning to find it's the same Wednesday again — 6:12 a.m., the same golden light, the same choices waiting to be made differently. He's the only one who remembers. And no matter what he changes, the day seems determined to take something from him before it lets him go.  The truth, when it finally surfaces, is worse than anything supernatural: someone built this. Someone patient, brilliant, and devastated — a woman whose life's work Jake's own hands helped destroy, and whose grief has spent years hardening into something with a plan.  As the walls close in — a stranger's car parked down the street, a note left in the dark, a friend who pays a price for helping — Jake has to face not just what's coming for his family, but what he's already done to deserve it.  Some debts don't get canceled. They just wait for the right Wednesday.

Fish Out of Water
Slow Burn
Survival
Mystery Box
Revenge
NSFW
You Are Here

You Are Here

Story

by Mike Cohee

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NINE STRANGERS\ ONE ABANDONED MALL\ IT’S 1985…AGAIN\ For years, an abandoned shopping mall has sat empty on the edge of town, sealed behind chained doors and fading memories. Former employees begin returning, each drawn back by something they can’t quite explain. At first, everything feels wrong in the right way. Stores appear exactly as they remember them. Neon signs. Synth Music. Styles frozen in another era. Even the food court feels untouched by time. And scattered throughout the corridors are shoppers who shouldn’t be there. As the night unfolds, they realize the abandoned mall has been waiting decades for its shoppers to return. As the night unfolds, they realize the mall was never truly abandoned. It feels like nostalgia. A second chance. A return to the past…or so they thought. ` For some, the past haunts them.
 For others, it calls them back.`

Haunted House
Mystery Box
Atmospheric
Nostalgia
The Hunted

The Hunted

Story

by Christina Hull

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In a world where a myth becomes reality, maybe too real. A legendary beast terrorizes a backwoods town. Sheriff Brody investigates a mysterious disappearance that happened during a 9-1-1 call about an alleged sighting of the rare BigFoot. Join Jake and Maria, Park Rangers of Blackwood Forest, as they aid Sheriff Brody in the missing person's case. Will they succeed in their mission? Or become victims of the elusive beast themselves?

Survival
Mystery Box
Haunted House
Storm of the Silver Wolf

Storm of the Silver Wolf

Series

by M. N. Watkins

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In Frostfang territory, the mate-bond doesn't ask permission. It doesn't negotiate. And it definitely doesn't care that you had other plans. Storm of the Silver Wolf follows two parallel bonds forged the same chaotic midsummer morning — Crystal and Aiden, shoved together by a pull neither of them asked for (and both are handling with the emotional maturity of two people who'd rather fight a bear); Halvard and Violet, caught between duty, desire, and a kingdom that picked the worst possible moment for a crisis. As their stories collide, one truth surfaces that neither pack saw coming: the disappearances haunting their territories trace back to the same woman — and she's been sitting at the table the whole time. A slow-burn werewolf romance series full of claiming, trust issues, and men who communicate exclusively through growling and grand gestures. Love isn't simple here. But it is very, very worth it.

Political Intrigue
Slow Burn
Underdog
Mystery Box
Through Blood & Stone

Through Blood & Stone

Story

by Haüden

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## **Isilme is dying.**  \ Once a prosperous nation whose exports sustained the continent, Isilme has sealed its borders, displaced its people, and vanished from the world stage. Trade collapses. Refugees flood neighboring lands. Entire economies begin to fail. No one knows the truth. Hidden beyond the mountains, the Belserion Empire— a nation so secret most believe it nothing more than a myth— is slowly destroying Isilme from within. As the consequences ripple across the continent, every nation mistakes the symptoms for isolated disasters. Ancient rivalries erupt into rebellion. Immortal rulers tighten their grip on power. A medical catastrophe threatens countless lives. Noble houses abandon centuries-old alliances in pursuit of influence, reshaping the political landscape with every move. From the royal courts of Anaria to the hospitals of Ossira, from the immortal throne of Oplines to the fractured Great Houses of New Vufriycia, people from every corner of the world— nobles, scholars, soldiers, rebels, rulers, and outcasts— are swept into conflicts they never chose. Each nation believes it faces a different enemy. None realize their struggles all begin with the same forgotten empire. As kingdoms edge toward war, governments fracture, and civilizations fight to survive, the truth behind Isilme's fall remains buried beneath centuries of secrecy. But secrets cannot stay hidden forever. And by the time the world learns the Belserion Empire is real, it may already belong to it.

Ancient Secrets
Atmospheric
Dark
Mystery Box
Thought-Provoking
NSFW
BLOOD MONEY

BLOOD MONEY

Story

by Oriyomi Ismail

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When Jason Carter arrives in Houston searching for a better future, the last thing he expects is to become entangled in the world of billionaire Richard Blackwood. After unknowingly saving Blackwood’s life, Jason is drawn into a dangerous web of wealth, corporate power, family betrayal, and long-buried secrets. As hidden truths begin to surface, Jason discovers that the greatest inheritance is not money, but the burden of a legacy built on sacrifice, deception, and blood. With powerful enemies closing in and every decision carrying life-or-death consequences, he must fight for his future while uncovering the truth about his past. **BLOOD MONEY** is a BOOKY Award-winning crime thriller filled with suspense, emotional twists, unforgettable characters, and shocking revelations that will keep readers turning pages until the very end. Its feature screenplay adaptation was officially selected by the ICJ International Film Awards.

Dark
Mystery Box
Big City
Atmospheric
Political Intrigue
NSFW
The Memory Clinic

The Memory Clinic

Story

by Gina Murdock

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Investigative journalist Mara Reynolds has built her career on uncovering the truth, but she's about to discover that her own life is built on lies. When Mara interviews billionaire tech entrepreneur Elijah Williams about his revolutionary energy project, the Prometheus Initiative, she's drawn to his charisma and vision. As their professional relationship evolves into something more intimate, Mara begins experiencing disturbing fragments of memories she can't explain—nightmares about guns, blood, and a murder she witnessed as a child. But every time Mara gets close to remembering the truth, something pulls her back. Therapy sessions with Dr. Catherine Reeves seem to help at first, but soon Mara realizes she's been manipulated in ways she never imagined. The "random" mugging that traumatized her wasn't random at all. Her mother's early-onset dementia may not be natural. And the gaps in her own memory aren't accidents—they're erasures. As Mara digs deeper, she uncovers a horrifying conspiracy: twelve years ago, she witnessed the murder of Elijah's parents by his younger brother David. To protect his family's reputation and his brother from prosecution, Elijah hired a pioneering neurologist to erase Mara's memories. But this wasn't a one-time intervention—Elijah has been manipulating her memories for over a decade, erasing and rewriting her reality every time she gets too close to the truth. The Prometheus Initiative isn't just about clean energy. It's a cover for something far more sinister: a facility where Elijah has perfected the technology to manipulate human memories on a massive scale. Mara is just one of seventeen victims whose lives have been systematically erased and rewritten. Now, as fragments of her true past surface, Mara must race against time to expose Elijah before he can erase her again—permanently. But with her best friend compromised, her mother's mind destroyed, and powerful forces aligned against her, Mara faces an impossible question: How do you fight someone who can rewrite your reality with the touch of a button?

Dark
Big City
Mystery Box
Survival
Slow Burn
NSFW
Bloom After Midnight

Bloom After Midnight

Story

by Sabine Phoenix

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After the death of her beloved grandmother, botanist Evelyn Thorne returns to Moonshade Manor, a forgotten estate deep within the Louisiana wetlands that has been abandoned for generations.   While exploring the surrounding swamp, Evelyn discovers a flower unlike anything she has ever encountered. It blooms only at midnight, glows with an otherworldly light, and seems to recognize her. When she reaches out to touch it, a whisper breaks the silence:   "You came back."   Drawn into a mystery spanning more than a century, Evelyn uncovers hidden journals, a locked greenhouse, a vanished woman, and a forbidden love story that her grandmother spent a lifetime protecting. As long-buried family secrets emerge, she realizes the mysterious bloom is far more than a rare plant.   It is a doorway.   To uncover the truth, Evelyn must confront the past, unravel the curse that has haunted Blackwater Manor for generations, and decide whether some secrets should remain buried forever.   Filled with Southern Gothic atmosphere, unforgettable mysteries, and touches of magical fantasy, Bloom After Midnight is a story about family, love, sacrifice, and the hope that can blossom even after the darkest night.

Atmospheric
Ancient Secrets
Hidden World
Mystery Box
Self-Discovery