THE MADDENING OF
HOLLY ROBIN
A MISSING GIRL. A NORTHERN TOWN.
A SINISTER TRUTH CLAWING ITS WAY OUT OF THE THAW.
Fleeing a scandal that could destroy her career, sociologist Julia Saint Hilaire accepts a summer teaching post in Fort Parry, a middle-of-nowhere town above the treeline in Manitoba. She expects mosquitoes, endless sunlight, and an isolated spot to disappear until the rumors back home die down. Instead, she encounters Holly Robin, the town’s missing bad girl, presumed dead for six months.
No one has seen Holly since the night she vanished—at least not in the flesh. As her ghost sighting grows into an obsession, Julia becomes increasingly haunted while trapped in a town bound by silence, superstition, and fear. Holly’s diary reveals hints of blood magic, old folklore, and something lingering in the backwoods. But Fort Parry protects its secrets, even if its dead refuse to rest. Now, as mental blackouts, threats from locals, and visions of death close in, Julia must uncover what really happened to Holly on the night she disappeared…before the same cold fate claims her next.
Set in a subarctic landscape of buried violence and restless spirits, The Maddening of Holly Robin is a chilling northern gothic mystery about lies, obsession, and the terrible cost of waking what should have stayed sleeping beneath the frost.
THE BLACK MOTH
THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED MAVE MICHAEL SERIES RETURNS...
WITH A HAUNTING GOTH-THEMED WEDDING THAT UNLEASHES A MURDERER.
“ANOTHER THRILLING RIDE FROM TOPDJIAN.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR MYSTERY HORROR FANS.” —BOOKLIST
Ever since the hitman's daughter, Mave Michael Francis learned she is the owner of a crumbling grand hotel, life has been upside-down. Not only is she struggling to fit into her new role and to reconcile with her incarcerated father, but a string of bizarre burglaries is plaguing the nearby village. Meanwhile, the hotel director is running ghost tours to drum up desperately-needed revenue, and Mave's staff is scrambling to host an over-the-top goth wedding. Mave needs to ensure the event is a success to rescue the hotel from bankruptcy. But when she discovers the mask of the Château du Ciel's rumored ghost in the defunct greenhouse where the wedding ceremony is booked, her priorities fracture.
Months ago, the supposed ghost, Holden Frost saved Mave's life, then vanished into thin air. It's an enigma and debt she can't forget. As she plans for the big wedding by day, Mave secretly digs into Holden's true identity and disappearance by night. Her search takes her to the most sinister place: the darknet. And instead of answers to decode Holden's whereabouts, she attracts a stranger online who also wants Holden Frost found—and who will kill Mave's father in prison unless Mave delivers Holden's location, dead or alive. Ticktock. As the clock winds down to the wedding and her father's potential murder, Mave becomes increasingly ensnarled in Holden's troubled past. And while she's being used as bait to raise Holden from the dead, the stranger online may be closing in for the kill—and may be closer to her at the hotel, than her father in prison.
THE
HITMAN'S DAUGHTER
A CRIMEREADS BEST PAPERBACK RELEASE OF SUMMER
ESCAPE INTO A TWISTY & ATMOSPHERIC MYSTERY-MEETS-GHOST STORY...
The Château du Ciel was once the destination for the rich and famous to play, drink and ski—complete with a private railway to shuttle those desiring extra luxury. Now, however, the guests are few and far between. The New Year's Eve party was supposed to hoist the rundown hotel back to its former status, until a massive blizzard hits, trapping the guests who've come to celebrate the grand hotel's last hurrah. The circumstances might even be romantic, if the Château wasn't reputed to be haunted.
When hotel employee Mave Michael finds the resident artist dead, and shortly thereafter security finds Mave alone with the body, the reputation that Mave has fought long and hard to outrun comes back to haunt her: Her father is a notorious hitman serving multiple-life sentences in prison. She has changed her name and location dozens of times, but he somehow manages to track her down—even sending her a postcard on the eve of her birthday, January 1st. She's the perfect choice to frame for murder, and now the number one suspect. Mave can no longer deny the lessons in survival her father taught her, or her uncanny sixth-sense in “finding” lost objects. To save herself, she not only has to stop running from her own past, she must unearth the history of the hotel, its elite guests and buried secrets—one deadly sin at a time.
PRAISE FOR THE HITMAN'S DAUGHTER
. s h o r t f i c t i o n
“Mother Daughter.” Tales to Terrify. Episode 754.
“Itch.” Dreamers Magazine. Issue 3.
“They Come for Girls.” PRISM international. 55:4.
“The Wasp and the Willow.” Firewords Quarterly. Issue 8.
“Prophet.” Ontario Writers’ Conference Contest Winner.
Artist: Wenting Li
. e s s a y s +
“Modern Murder Inn: The New Wave of Hotel Thrillers and Mysteries.” CrimeReads.
“I Write Books, So I Can't Log Off: 6 Don'ts For Authors on Social Media.” Women Writers, Women's Books Magazine.
“Double-Crossing the Devil's Nest.” Hamilton Artists Inc., Exhibition Publication.
“5 Reasons Querying is Good for You.” Write It Sideways.
“Humanimal Crossings: Posthumanism and Body Politics in the Work of Cole
Swanson.” Out the Strong, Something Sweet. Art Gallery of Guelph, Exhibition Catalogue.
“Shape-Shifting Beauty: The Body, Gender and Subjectivity in the Photographs of Claude Cahun.” Resources for Feminist Research. Volume 32. Nos. 3 & 4.
Artist: Cole Swanson