Deadly Promises Under Midnight Skies
Paperback
Publisher: Jake Markolt
Published: Aug 9 2026
Pages: 146
Weight: 0.39
Height: 0.34 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
In the shadowed valley of Hollow Creek, the stars don't just watch, they wait.
What one knows, all know. What one hides, all hide. Twenty years ago, three childhood friends stood atop the jagged limestone of Devil's Peak and made a blood pact under a rare celestial alignment. But when the ritual ended with a scream and a disappearance that haunted the town for two decades, the Starlight Pact became a death sentence.
Elena Vance, a private investigator who traded her family's dark legacy for the cold reality of the city, is forced back to the birthplace of her nightmares following her father's suspicious death. She returns to find Blackwood Manor a skeletal ruin of its former glory, its halls choked by a suffocating Atmosphere of Ash a physical residue of a cosmic energy that shouldn't exist.
There, she encounters Julian Thorne. Once her first love, he is now the heir to the family that has been the Vances' greatest rival and secret partner for a century. Together, they are pulled into the Orion Line, a terrifying global infrastructure of Witnesses who have spent generations harvesting human static to stabilize a bridge between worlds.
As the Midnight Eclipse approaches a rare event where the phantom stars of the Hidden Triad align to open a gateway to the void Elena and Julian must navigate:
The Ledger of Lost Souls: A secret archive revealing that the town's elite have been planting sacrifices for a hundred years.
The Observatory's Secret: A blood-stained telescope that looks through the fabric of reality rather than the sky.
The Betrayal of the Third Friend: The return of Marcus, the boy presumed dead, who has become the cold architect of the mountain's final purge.
From the claustrophobic acoustic chambers beneath the town library to a high-stakes final stand at the summit of Devil's Peak, Elena realizes that the deadly promise they made as children wasn't about loyalty, it was about silence.
To save the town and their own souls, Elena and Julian must choose to speak the truths that the stars have tried to bury. But in a world where the stars are indifferent and the shadows have memories, can a promise made in blood ever truly be broken?
The Witness is watching. The ledger is open. The alignment has begun.
Get the full story in Deadly Promises Under Midnight Skies and discover what happens when the silence finally breaks.
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