Tau Delta
Stephanie arrives at college determined to reinvent herself and join Delta Zeta. But when she lays eyes on Chelsea, she’s captivated. She needs to earn a place by her side. Unfortunately, the entity possessing Chelsea needs her just as much.
Stephanie abandons her sorority interview for Chelsea, and instead, they form Tau Delta. Their sisterhood gathers weekly at Chelsea’s very pink house for truth or dare, which starts innocently enough: eat an entire pizza, streak through the neighborhood. But their gatherings only feed the thing inside Chelsea.
Watching Chelsea’s every move, Stephanie is the first to notice that something’s wrong and the only one to witness a black cloud pouring into Chelsea. Stephanie should be horrified. Instead, she’s enthralled by the beauty she sees in the darkness. Chelsea wants the entity gone, but Stephanie can't bring herself to help. Intoxicated by its magnetic power, she stands by as the entity burrows deeper into Chelsea’s mind. Soon, the dares escalate: break up with your boyfriend, sacrifice a small animal. Tau Delta begins to fracture, and as Chelsea fades, Stephanie must decide whether to save the friend she's obsessed with or surrender to the entity consuming them both.
These Hollow Hills
Lily is a shadow-demon who wants to understand why her mother chose to stay on the surface when the rest of the shadows were bound to the underworld. But the ancient treaty enforced by both her father and a monster adapted to the scent of shadows keeps her in the dark caves beneath the Ozarks until erosion, sinkholes, and mines cut deep enough to merge the underworld with the surface.
But when Lily finds a human woman lost in the caves, she has an idea. Lily inhabits the woman’s body to sneak past the monster and finally see the surface world for herself. As she ascends, Lily meets Ben, a nature-loving Ozarker who is exploring the cave that connects their two worlds. Her curiosity and beauty enrapture him, and she falls for his knowledge of nature's wonders. But their romance risks triggering a prophecy that a halfling child—part human, part shadow—will destroy the Ozarks, and Lily’s father orders the shadows to prevent it at all costs.
Hunted by her own people, Lily hides within a cult that worships her estranged mother, but neither her mother nor nature itself wants her there. To protect her family, Lily must choose to stay where she isn’t wanted or follow in her mother’s footsteps and abandon them.
Mount Pleasant
Alice blames herself for her parents' deaths and has spent years trying to fill the void they left behind. She clings to her boyfriend, Jake, while carrying on a secret affair with his brother, but neither relationship feels like home.
Hoping a bikepacking trip across Missouri will help her untangle her life, Alice instead finds herself stranded in the isolated town of Mount Pleasant, when a violent thunderstorm forces the trio off the trail. Every bed-and-breakfast claims to be fully booked except for a single room, so they take it. Expecting a vibrant town full of visitors, instead, they find empty streets. And the few locals they encounter know unsettling details they shouldn't—where the group camped the night before, where they’re headed next, even Alice’s vegetarian diet.
By midnight, Alice discovers why—the whole town is a trap.
The residents of Mount Pleasant surround the inn, waiting in the rain with weapons in hand. Jake is captured, his brother is killed, and Alice runs…right back into the grasp of the townsfolk, who she learns are a cult devoted to an ancient goddess who doesn’t let outsiders leave alive.
Forced into the cult's deadly ritual, Alice and Jake are given an impossible choice: kill the other and walk free, or refuse and die together. Alice has already betrayed Jake once. To survive Mount Pleasant, she'll have to decide whether saving herself is worth betraying him again.
