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MURDER suspense series

THE WILLOW HOLLOW FILES

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Some secrets are better left buried.

When forensic science senior Addison Lane joins a classmate for a peaceful weekend mushroom hunt, she stumbles upon a shallow grave—uncovering not just a body, but a chilling chain of murders stretching back into her own forgotten past.

Now, someone is watching her. Someone who knows what she survived. Someone who’s ready to finish what they started.

As Addison digs into a web of academic cover-ups, sealed juvenile records, and a killer obsessed with psychological control, she must face the most terrifying truth of all:

She was never just a survivor.

She was the experiment that got away.

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Where Family Ties Are Rooted in Murder

A crumbling vineyard.
A long-buried letter.
And bones that refuse to stay hidden.

When graduate student Addison Lane joins a forensic anthropology practicum in the Ozarks, she expects dirt, science, and maybe a few local legends. What she doesn’t expect is to unearth a string of shallow graves—and the key to a mystery that connects her past to a decades-old murder.

As Addison, Dr. Svoboda, and their unlikely ally Alexander dig deeper into the overgrown rows of Reznik Vineyard, secrets begin to surface—ones tied to Viktor Reznik’s final diary, a warning letter never sent, and a cross clutched in the hand of the third victim.

When a former classmate is stalked and Addison becomes the next target, the past turns dangerous—and intensely personal.

Because the final clue isn’t buried in the vineyard.

It’s buried in her blood.

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Some truths are planted deep.
Others refuse to stay buried.

When Addison Lane returns to Reznik Vineyard, what begins as graduate research quickly spirals into a chilling unraveling of the past. Bones Surface. Secrets awaken. And the shadows of Willow Hollow grow darker with each discovery.

Together with Calvin and Alexander, Addison follows a trail that winds through forgotten archives, shattered loyalties, and sacred ground. But unearthing the truth means confronting a legacy cloaked in silence. And risking everything to set it right.

As the vineyard is torn down and replanted, so too are the lives of those left behind. The Dead Still Watch is the powerful conclusion to The Willow Hollow Files. A story of reckoning, redemption, and the roots that bind us.

And even now, in the quiet hills of Willow Hollow, the dead still watch.

© Susie Clifft Smith

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THE PORCHLIGHT FILES

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When small-town florist Shelley Harper hosts a yard sale to clear out clutter, she expects a few bargains and maybe some gossip—not a box of evidence linked to a decade-old crime.

At first, the items seem odd but harmless: a dusty apron, a flash drive, a photo taken from her own yard. But when a human skull turns up and a stranger with too many secrets steps out of the shadows, Shelley realizes someone planted more than junk—they planted a trap.

Now, the sale is shut down, her shop’s under watch, and her quiet life is unraveling. With a missing girl’s name resurfacing and the sheriff’s badge beginning to tarnish, Shelley must decide how far she’ll go to uncover the truth… and who she can trust when the killer may be someone she’s known all along.

A cozy mystery with a twist of menace, The Junk Sale Murders is a story of forgotten things, buried secrets, and the danger of underestimating a woman who notices everything.

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