Keri Lake

When I was a little girl, I dreamed a handsome knight would come and rescue me from my wretched mother. He'd ride up on his white steed and break the curse I've been fated to carry since the day I was born. Funny how things changed over time. How the fairy tale twisted into something far more crooked, darker than I ever imagined. In reality, my knight is scarred and broken, living alone in a castle of bones that overlooks the sea. He isn’t searching for me. He never was. Lucian Blackthorne is as cursed as I am, and equally shunned by the locals, the fishers of men, who believe him to be the devil in the flesh. Perhaps he is, with the way his amber eyes draw me in, ignite me like an infernal blaze. And the sins he whispers in my ear are as wickedly intoxicating as the man himself. Yet, his touch is heaven and his will is my weakness. He calls us forbidden, an unsalvageable tragedy, with no happy end. Maybe we are. But in this story, he’s the one who needs saving.

This island alone boasts more ghost stories than all of Louisiana combined. And I'm one of them. In the Louisiana swamplands, ghost stories are as much a part of childhood as chasing fireflies and crawfishing. They never much scared me, though, nor the possibility of evil out to do me harm. Until the night I watched shadows come to life and butcher everything I loved. With a stranger's help, I managed to escape to an isolated place miles north, and, in time, became my own ghost story. A cautionary tale for the locals. Nearly a decade passed, before I returned to my birthplace, in hopes of unearthing long-awaited answers. Instead, I found something I wasn't looking for. Someone. A remedy for my loneliness. Or so I thought. Turns out, Thierry Bergeron is no elixir. He's a deadly poison, cursed by the demons of his past, and feared by those who call him the elusive Rougarou of the bayou. A devious rogue, whose seductive whispers and rough hands haunt my dreams. The big bad wolf that defiles me without apology, or remorse. I should resist him, but I can't. And when the shadows return to stake their claim on me, his darkness is the only safe place to hide.

A new gothic dark fantasy coming in 2024 Only the banished know what lies beyond the woods ... There are whispers about what lurks in Witch Knell—the forest where sinners go to die. The villagers call it The Eating Woods because what’s taken is never given back. Only those who’ve lost their senses would dare to go near it. Or the banished. Maevyth Bronwick knows better than to breach the misty labyrinth of trees, but a tragic turn of events compels her beyond the archway of bones, to a boundary no mortal has crossed before. One that cloaks a dark and fantastical world that’s as dangerous as it is alluring. It’s there that he dwells, the cursed lord of Eidolon. The one tasked to keep her hidden from the magehood that seeks to crucify her in the name of an arcane prophesy. Zevander Rydainn, known to his prey as The Scorpion, is the coldest, most calculated assassin in all of Aethyria and he’d sooner toss his feisty ward to a pack of vicious fyredrakes than keep her safe. If only he could. Maevyth’s blood is the key to breaking his despised curse and vanquishing the slumbering evil in Witch Knell. Unfortunately for Lord Rydainn, fate has other plans for the irresistible little enchantress. And his growing obsession with her threatens to destroy everything. Including himself.

A dark, atmospheric tale of deadly secrets and forbidden love.Mortui vivos docent.The dead teach the living.After watching my mother succumb to a mysterious illness, I promised myself two things. I’d find the cure for what ravaged her. And leave the godforsaken city where she abandoned me.Four years later, I receive an acceptance letter from Dracadia University, one of the oldest, most prestigious schools in the country. Nestled on a secluded island off the coast of Maine, it’s rumored to be haunted by the souls of the mental patients exiled there centuries before. Those whose bones are said to make up the island’s white sandy shores.And restless ghosts aren’t even its most daunting peculiarity.Devryck Bramwell, known on campus as Doctor Death, is a brilliant pathologist in charge of the midnight lab. He’s also my devastatingly handsome professor, who seems to loathe tenacious first-years, like me. Except, his dark and enigmatic gaze tells me all the ways he’d devour me if given the chance, and his stolen kisses burn my lips with forbidden jealousy.I crave his authority.He aches for redemption.Together, we’re toxic. Delicious fodder for the prying eyes hellbent on exhuming the rotted skeletons of our pasts.For the dead have much to teach, and it’s only a matter of time before Dracadia’s most depraved secret is resurrected.Nocticadia is a standalone dark academia gothic romance.