What does Mothman have to do with my new novel These Haunted Hills? Can you set a paranormal romance in this area and not at least mention Mothy?!? The above picture is from this past week’s Winter Festival in Gallipolis OH, which is right across the river from Point Pleasant. It was a balmy 27F out the day I took this picture which I absolutely love.

Josh couldn’t resist taking Brendan for a visit to the igloos at the TNT factory (where the Mothman was first spotted). It might not be ghost related but you can’t let a good cryptid pass you by.

Snippet:

Brendan didn’t know what to expect but it hadn’t been a relatively boring igloo of graffiti-covered concrete.

“What are we supposed to do here exactly?”

“Take a couple pictures, get out before someone creepy shows up, and say, ‘Hey, I braved the Mothman.’” Josh smirked.

“I see. And I couldn’t have made the claim with the statue selfie from the town square?”

Josh shook his head. “That’s for tourists. This is the real thing.”

Point Pleasant does have its ghosts too and they are hinted at it in the story. It was just a fun excursion for the characters.

Here’s the famous statue from the square. The Lowe hotel is behind me. To the left is now the Mothman Museum and to the right is Coffee Grinders coffee shop.

Blurb:

Young wildlife conservation professor, Joshua Zimmerman, adores foxes, steampunk, and paranormal investigation. As a geek of the first order, Josh is a collector of nerdy memorabilia and tattoos, and he’s an avid steampunk cosplayer. When his favorite author hires him for some ghost hunting for his new project, Josh can hardly believe his luck.

As an author of the wildly successful urban fantasy series, The Green Tablet, Brendan Halloran should have it all. And he did until his young son, Connor, died of cancer. Heartbroken and drowning in grief, Brendan stops writing, stops living his life. His marriage has disintegrated, leaving Brendan trapped in the moment Connor died.

When Brendan rents a cabin in Ohio’s Hocking Hills, it’s ostensibly to research his next book, an adult paranormal tale. Brendan hires a local professor who is an expert on the paranormal, thinking if he does pull out of his tail spin and makes good on his plan to write a new book, he might as well do it right. And the perfect place to investigate could be the remains of an old hotel constructed to suit the serial killer who built it.

Brendan finds himself swept away, completely unprepared for the joy and enthusiasm Josh brings to everything he does. Step by step, Brendan reenters life. His head might not be convinced he’s ready to love again, but his heart disagrees. Unfortunately for him, the ghost is every bit as vicious as the killer was in life, and he and Joshua have a target on their backs.

Preorder Link: https://ninestarpress.com/product/these-haunted-hills/