Rural Legends

There is a presence in the deep timber that does not belong to the modern world. When you step off the trail, you enter a domain where the rules of civilization no longer apply. This archive examines the most chilling reports of territorial aggression and predatory behavior in the North American wilderness. These are not simple sightings from a distance. These are the structural sieges, the subsonic rumbles that vibrate in the chest, and the realization that something massive is watching from the shadows with cold, calculated intelligence. From the intense bombardment at Honobia Creek to ...

What if the local legends were true? What if the whispers from the past never faded? In the quiet corners of New England, where history holds a grudge, some stories are best left untold. From a lonely Vermont trail where a mysterious lantern lures hikers to their doom, to a historic Salem house where a 17th-century diary is not a journal but a trap, this collection unearths the terrifying truths behind the region’s most unsettling folklore. Venture to a salt-scoured lighthouse on the coast of Maine where the dead keeper still stands watch, walk the silent grounds of a Harvard graveyard ...

Everyone in Silver Bell, Arkansas has heard of Walter Lorry. Rumors have been circulating about the strange old man around town for years. He’s weird. Stooped and odd-looking. Always keeps to himself and never speaks to anyone. At one time, he had a wife and kid, but no one has seen them in forever. Then there’s the matter of him sleeping on his front porch every night when there’s a perfectly good bed inside his house. Who in their right mind would do that?

A village that is abandoned on every 14th of June. Legend has it that deadly witches, or churels, visit it on that cursed night. A kund where demons are exorcised out of the possessed people. Legend has it that if a pandit of the kund dies an unnatural death, he comes back unless he is beheaded. A jungle in which no one dares to step on a full-moon night. Legend has it that it is haunted by women from a nearby village who turn into blood-thirsty human bats, or chamgadarni, and eat their prey alive.

#1 Best Seller in Rodeo, Rural Life Humor, and Extreme Sports and Winner of the 2016 Will Rogers Medallion Award for Excellence in Western Literature 🤠 Legend of the Arena – Meet Lecile Harris, four-time PRCA Clown of the Year and rodeo hall-of-famer who spent over 50 years bringing laughs (and saving lives) in the wildest sport on dirt. 😂 Stories That'll Make You Holler – Packed with outrageous true tales, side-splitting moments, and heartwarming memories from life behind the chutes. 🐂 A Real Cowboy's Life – Not just for rodeo fans—this book is a slice of American history,...

Alien Harvest: The Ozark Connection In the mist‑covered hills and deep hollows of the Ozarks, a century of strange encounters comes to life in Alien Harvest: The Ozark Connection. Drawing from firsthand accounts, regional folklore, and long‑whispered legends, FK Sterling explores a landscape marked by unexplained lights, mysterious beings, and stories that refuse to fade. From crop circles carved into remote fields to rumors of hybrid experiments and the eerie “Bobbys” said to emerge from the corn at night, these tales blur the line between myth and possibility. A longtime Ozark ...

There’s something precious hidden in the hills. But everyone who seeks it never returns… WWII vet Hayward Yost happily enjoys retirement in small-town Oklahoma, a million miles away from his war years. But when a buddy dies under mysterious circumstances and the police rule it an accident, the grizzled old-timer is convinced there’s something terribly wrong. And as rumors resurface about the legendary lost treasure of Belle Star, he digs into the case that looks more and more like murder. With shifty characters circling the little community and a Cherokee fable of Bigfoot protecting ...

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires meets Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in this twisty, fresh take on a Southern gothic that follows a mysterious, charming bachelor as he makes his way into a small town, bringing a plague and the devil with him, from GMA Buzz Pick author...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes, a thrilling, genre-bending mystery about two murdered girls, a town with dark secrets, and a race to break a deadly cycle Anna Maybourne never imagined herself living in a place like Harper’s Creek, a nowhere town full of dusty...

A comprehensive account of the rich folk culture preserved in the rural secret societies of the British Isles Describes the secret rites, ceremonies, and initiation rituals of guilds and rural fraternities such as the Shoemakers, Horsemen, Toadmen, Mummers, and Bonesmen Explains their...

New York Times bestselling humorist Michael Perry makes his fiction debut with this hilarious and big-hearted tale, a comic yet sincere exploration of faith and the foibles of modern life that blends the barbed charm of Garrison Keillor, the irreverent humor of Christopher Moore, and the...

Behind quiet main streets, shuttered diners, and towns with only one stoplight, stories are passed down in lowered voices. Everyone knows them. No one agrees on the details. Urban Legends of Small-Town America is a chilling collection of short, atmospheric tales inspired by rural whispers, local secrets, and places where nothing ever seems to happen—until it does. Each chapter explores a different town, legend, or unexplained event: disappearances no one reports anymore, buildings locals refuse to enter, people who are spoken of in the past tense even though they’re still around. These ...

Some monsters live in the home. Others wait in the woods. Elara Voss needs to disappear. Fleeing a violently toxic relationship with Michael McClean, she retreats to a remote, off-grid cabin deep in the Appalachian mountains. The isolated hollow offers the silence she desperately craves, a place to heal her bruises and finally breathe. But she isn’t alone in the timberline. Every night, the woods come alive with concussive tree knocks, heavy bipedal footsteps, and the overwhelming scent of musky wildness. Gifts of violently acquired prey are left on her porch. Something massive is ...

Anastasia isn’t the least bit interested in a romance with Jed when her sister’s job placement agency sends her to work as a temp at The Sweetwater Ranch bakery. She finally has a chance to make one of her dreams come true by doing a great job managing the bakery. Maybe she’ll even get to ride the horses on the Wyoming ranch in her leisure time, or catch a glimpse of the wild horses she longs to own. Jed’s laid back, fun-loving personality hasn’t helped him find a woman to settle down with, but he’s perfectly content working as a wrangler at The Sweetwater. However, he can’t ...

A Mystery of Magic, Loyalty, and Ancient Secrets Strange things are stirring again in the quiet village of Doona. When a fisherman returns from the dead and whispers of leprechauns begin to spread, twelve-year-old Bridgie Campbell finds herself at the heart of a growing mystery. The Leprechauns of the Western Wild—thirteen in all, led by the cheerful but weary King Rua—have been locked out of their hidden home, Doona Hollow, nestled deep beneath the Sandy Banks. Without the Doona Hollow Key, a powerful magical relic once hidden in a chest of ancient Spanish gold, they cannot return. And...

From debut author Jessie Sylva comes the cosy tale of a halfling and a goblin who must learn to love each other despite their differences. How to Lose a Goblin in Ten Days is brimming with warmth and popular small town romance tropes, perfect for fans of The Honey Witch and The Spellshop. ★...

You can escape the woods. But you can never outrun the bloodline. Elara Vance survived the Briarwood Holler massacre. She escaped the fire, the fangs, and the horrific truth of what slumbers beneath the Appalachian ridge. The official report called it a tragic forest fire that claimed her research team. But Elara knows the truth. The deep, cellular chill inside her has nothing to do with the trauma. Her silver scar thrums with a dark, terrifying rhythm. She brought a piece of the holler back with her—a gnawing, ravenous emptiness that grows stronger as the moon waxes. She is a ticking ...

When a strange wind stirs off the coast of Ballycroy and the old foxhole reopens, twelve-year-old Bridgie Ned and her gang find themselves pulled into a mystery older than their village—and deeper than the sea. A forgotten monastery. A vanished island. A warrior princess on the run. And monks who’ve stepped out of another century. As shadows rise and rune-marks appear on doorways, Bridgie must piece together a truth that stretches across time. But the answers may lie in the hands of a figure feared in every old tale: Old Sheelie, a druid woman with ties to a dark Viking queen—and a ...

Eli Cutter has seen sixty-two deaths. None of them looked like this. When a woman is found dead in a remote Appalachian holler—official cause: exposure—Eli is called in to confirm the obvious. But there’s nothing obvious about her face. She looks… expectant. Like she saw something coming. Like she recognized it. And she didn’t run. Eli rents a room from the victim’s estranged daughter, Maura Rowe—a woman who doesn’t trust him, doesn’t want him there, and definitely doesn’t want him digging into her family’s past. Because women in her family don’t just die. They go up...

A spine-tingling thriller set in the real-life ghost town of Jerome, Arizona. In the infamous mountain town of Jerome, rumor has it that a once-friendly ghost named Mac has embarked on a crime spree. Reporter and nonbeliever Gera Stapleton gets the assignment but she knows it’s just a fluff piece, until a local man is murdered in the middle of town. When the townspeople blame Mac, Gera knows the true killer is getting away with murder. In a town filled with curiosities and ghost legends, Gera is determined to find the truth, even if it puts her own life in danger. "The whole time I’ve ...