KAITLIN CORVUS
The Long Way Down
Here lies the heart of Riley Avens
It’s been one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine days since Riley’s tasted freedom. Taken from the streets at fourteen after a town fair and held captive against her will, Riley makes a brutal escape. Now that she’s free, returned to her family, she’s learning how to be her again, wading through trauma, heartache, and the remnants of her old life. It’s not the same as it used to be, but then again, neither’s she. Wildly destructive, wildly fearless, and starved to death for all the things she’s lost, she chases a feeling she doesn’t have a name for. Her favourite way to feel alive is to leap from Muller’s Bridge at night, into the faceless water below.
Wesley Draper is caught in the inertia. Him and his brother Cal have done what it takes to survive in the years since their parents were arrested. Things have been hard. Things have been awful, and life certainly isn’t what he thought it would be, despite the clean cottage, fresh coats of paint and family photos strategically placed around the living space. There’s a lot to be hidden beneath the thick veneer, but it’s starting to run thin as Cal’s enemies realize that the best way to get to Cal is to go through Wesley.
Riley chases the danger around Wesley with the determination of a storm, ready for anything and everything, she thinks. Things are different now, though. It’s not just her she’s pulling under the water every time she lets go of the guard rail and falls back. It’s everyone she loves, too.
Dark Dark Heart
A killer hunts the humid streets of Sadie, leaving a calling card at the scene of each crime: a black construction paper valentine. The victims, each carefully chosen, are left the same way, broken and heartless.
Haunted by the ghosts of the dead, Rina Henley will stop at nothing for truth and justice, but in her quest, she has brought the spotlight to her and now plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
Summer Lin, Rina’s roommate, thinks of herself as the Vanishing Girl. When things get rough, she can disappear like a ghost herself, and promises Rina she can help her disappear, too. After all, she’s been on the fringes for weeks now, to escape the ugliest of truths.
As the summer simmers around them and Sadie is gripped by terror and tangled rumours, twisted love notes and secrets bring Rina and those closest to her to the very brink of destruction.
Sorrow’s Forest
Sorrow’s Forest
Sorrow’s Forest teems with beasts, some ugly, some beautiful, all unnatural. A ban restricts travel beneath her branches, existing for as long as Lakeview Township has, and most who disobey do not return.
To win a bet, twelve-year-old Mackie King enters the forest, and in its depths, he discovers a boy-like devil. Then he steals him from the trees.
In as little as an hour, the devil names himself Blue and fits seamlessly into the Kings’ life. No one seems to remember he wasn’t always there. Only Mackie knows the truth.
Now, Mackie and Blue are grown, Queen Sorrow has awakened, and she wants her devil back. She’s willing to tear the town apart to reclaim him. Mackie has always been resourceful, but it will take every bit of ingenuity he and Blue possess to thwart Queen Sorrow and her minions, save the town, and free themselves from the shadow of the bittering forest.
Sorrow’s Blight
There's a hole in Mackie King's memories. It's ugly and sore, like a wound gone septic.
He's overwhelmed with the anxiety that he's doomed to be like his father, memories riddled with gaps where important people and places used to live until he dies, small and alone, either strapped to a hospital bed or wandering the wilds of Lakeview's forest, never to be found again.
Desperate to keep encroaching reality at bay, he fills his time with work, toiling in the car shop he's managing for the summer before his final semester of college, or helping Sam and Dora fix up the old house Dora bought.
It's here in this house that feels like a threat that Mackie sees something he can't explain—a beast in the basement that tries to take his life. It flees before any serious damage is done, but now Mackie is looking in the dark corners wherever he goes, and what he finds is unsettling: creatures with long mouths and longer teeth lurk in the shadows of the trees, waiting for him to misstep. Flowers open intelligent eyes and nip at him with sharp teeth. Long-clawed beasts bait him under the forest canopy, and—worse yet—something prowls the depths of the river, promising him answers if he'll just come into the water.
As Mackie tries to make sense of this hidden world, bits, and pieces of his fragmented memories form like blood clots, each one more deadly and inescapable than the last.
Kaitlin Corvus is from Ontario, Canada. The north holds the best part of her. She writes about nobodies, monsters, and gutter glitter, loves the stars, the deep dark sea, and a good horror mystery.
She can be found on Twitter @KaitlinCorvus