Harlan Winter
2 primary works
Book 1
In a small Appalachian town, an amateur detective unearths a dark conspiracy and his own haunted past, in a chilling novel about sacrifice, art, and revenge.
Med school dropout Harlan Winter returns to his impoverished West Virginia hometown, where the law is scarce, arsonists are turning everything to ash, and his family’s turbulent history lingers. All he wants is to keep the peace in a community cowering from the Lighthouse, a local cult preying on people’s fears. Harlan’s own fears, too, when he’s hired to play detective and find a young couple gone missing.
The vanished artist and his girlfriend have left behind a series of paintings that enrage the Lighthouse’s Pastor Logan, who believes art can have divine power. It’s not easy to believe for a rational man like Harlan. And impossible to ignore when his investigation is haunted by visions of the dead lurking in the shadows of his own violent past.
Revelations about the disappearances are being unearthed. The Lighthouse’s grip on the community is tightening. And Harlan fears he’s losing control. As the threats against his town, his sanity, and his life begin to mount, Harlan doesn’t know which is more terrifying: what’s real, or what’s in his mind.
Book 2
The southbound trail of a stolen spell book becomes a nightmare road trip in a propulsive novel about the unrelenting power of evil by the author of Lighthouse Burning.
Harlan Winter has returned to his corner of Appalachia, where his fiery history with a depraved cult has made him a legend. All Harlan wants is to run his occult bookshop and get on with his life—if only his unsettling visions would let him. But when a fellow devotee of the dark arts moves to Coopersville and Harlan’s coveted grimoire is stolen, he’s pulled into a world deadlier than the one that already scarred his soul.
The foolish thieves are two local teenagers hightailing it out of Appalachia in a stolen car and heading south to Florida where a buyer for the coveted grimoire is waiting. They have no idea what evil lies on the road ahead. But Harlan does. Blood has already been spilled. He’s following them mile by mile on a mission to save them before it’s too late. Because once their prized possession is in the wrong hands, there will be hell to pay.