P. Hartwell

11 booksLiterary FictionMysteryHistorical Fiction

P. Hartwell is an author of mystery and romantic suspense, with a signature blend of atmospheric tension, emotional depth, and a whisper of the uncanny. Drawn to the places where history falters and secrets endure, he crafts stories that linger in the charged space between beauty and terror, love and fear, truth and illusion. Raised along the windswept shores of Lake Erie and shaped by global travels, ancestral lore, and a reverence for forgotten histories, Hartwell brings a cinematic sense of place to his work. His novels unfold in immersive, shadow‑laden landscapes where grief stirs beneath the surface, the past refuses to stay buried, and every silence speaks volumes. With a keen eye for psychological nuance and elemental unease, Hartwell invites readers into worlds rich with tension, secrets, and haunting echoes—where every clue carries weight, and nothing stays hidden for long.

Books

The Glass Anchor of Presque Isle

Great Lakes Gothic Mystery

Literary Fiction
Mystery
Historical Fiction

Libby Fray comes home to inventory wreckage. That is the story she tells herself. Fray Manor sits on the Presque Isle shore like something the lake has already begun to claim: salt-stained stone, rusted iron, rooms that smell of wet wood and old paper. Her grandfather filled those rooms with salvage from Lake Erie, then lost his reputation when a shipment vanished. Libby is an archivist without a job and a marriage already half gone. Cataloging his collection looks like work she can finish and leave. Then she finds the glass anchor. Official records say it never existed. Each evening an unnatural fog rolls ashore. Ship bells sound where no hull should be. Letters contradict the wreck that destroyed her family. A boatwright named Gideon Buchner has his own grief on that water, and Jack Sterling, the town's most trusted man, has every reason to keep the past underwater. Someone is living in the manor's shadow. Every clue Libby lifts from a ledger or a lighthouse log can be explained. Every one of them can also be something else. The Glass Anchor of Presque Isle is a Great Lakes gothic mystery of inherited guilt, slow-burning suspense, and a truth that will not stay submerged.

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THE ORCHARD BENEATH THE LAKE

The White Woman of Erie

Gothic Horror Romance
Mystery Thriller
Supernatural Suspense

The lake doesn't just hold water; it holds the things we tried to forget. Disgraced novelist Joe Nappo returns to Barcelona Beach looking for a quiet place to hide from a public scandal. Instead, he finds the Orchard Beneath the Lake—a place where the wind carries voices and the water remembers every tragedy. Inheriting a decaying house on a crumbling bluff, Joe is drawn into the local legend of the White Woman, a spirit said to lure the lonely to their watery graves. Then he meets Clara Baker. She is intelligent, enigmatic, and looks exactly like a woman appearing in the town’s archival photographs from over a century ago. As Joe falls for her, he begins to dream of black water and white dresses, uncovering secrets that bridge the gap between folklore and a terrifying reality. With a massive storm gathering over Lake Erie, Joe must navigate a labyrinth of hidden tunnels and buried history. Is Clara his salvation, or is she the latest face of a curse that demands a terrible sacrifice? In this windswept Gothic mystery, the truth is more dangerous than the legend, and the most haunting ghosts are the ones we invite into our hearts.

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ASHES OF THE CENTURION

Bound by Ashes

Mystery
Paranormal
Thriller

Pete Strobe is just trying to survive the night. A twenty-one-year-old college dropout working as a courier, his life is a series of dead ends until his father vanishes, leaving behind a heavy Roman funerary tablet sealed with iron. When the seal breaks, the air turns cold and the shadows begin to move. Awakened from a two-thousand-year slumber, Dex Varro is a centurion of the Tenth Legion who was executed for a crime he didn’t commit. Now a spectral force of nature bound to Pete, Dex seeks a vengeance that has simmered for centuries. But they aren't alone in the rain-slicked city. The Custodes Umbrae, a secret order led by the immortal Stylian Blasio, is hunting them both. To Blasio, Dex is the final key to shattering the veil between the living and the dead. To Pete, Dex is a terrifying glimpse into a history that refuses to stay buried. Caught between a ruthless enforcer and an ancient conspiracy, Pete and Dex must forge an uneasy alliance. In a world where iron binds spirits and shadows have teeth, the only way to find Pete’s father is to embrace the ashes of the past. Some ghosts don't just haunt you—they fight back.

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Where the Hollow Ones Gather

The earth has learned their names.

Horror
Fantasy
Historical Fiction

The thaw has come to Buffalo Creek, but it brings a harvest of horrors rather than life. As the snow melts, the ground begins to speak with the voices of the buried, pushing up stone-calcified remains that should have stayed hidden. Jonas Farlow is a man whose very soul is tethered to the vibrations of the earth. He realizes too late that the ritual meant to seal the valley has only sharpened its focus. The entity beneath is no longer a slumbering force; it is an active consciousness using the lives of the frontier residents to reconstruct its own shattered memory. As the creek turns metallic red and flows backward, Jonas, the iron-willed Widow Grier, and the observant Sera Redwillow must navigate a landscape physically reshaping itself into a subterranean archive. To save what remains of the settlement, Jonas must descend into the deepest 'thin place' and offer the entity the one thing it lacks: a coherent ending. In this haunting sequel to the Hollow-Eyed saga, the boundary between stone and self dissolves. Survival is no longer about escaping the dark—it is about what you are willing to become when the earth starts to wake.

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WHEN THE EARTH STARTS TO WAKE

The Hollow-Eyed Were Only the Beginning

Horror
Historical Fiction

THE LAND DOESN'T FORGET. IT STIRS. The valley was never silent. Jonas Farlow hears it now. Something ancient is waking beneath Blackwater. The river runs darker. The ground shifts. The Hollow-Eyed are no longer lurking at the edge of the trees-they're moving through them. After the horrors of last winter, Jonas and the few who remain are left with only questions and fading hope. But when the earth itself begins to tremble and the dead start to rise from a place that should have stayed buried, they realize the truth: THE HOLLOW-EYED WERE NEVER THE ONLY ONES WAITING. To survive, Jonas must descend deeper than anyone ever has-into tunnels that were never meant to be found, uncovering a history older than the valley itself. And what wakes beneath the earth... hunts everything above it.

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GRAVESHORE SETTLEMENT

Where the Tides Keep Their Dead

Horror
Thriller
Fantasy

Ray Vance knows the Florida Keys are built on secrets, salt, and rot. As an illegal salvage diver, he’s used to pulling up things that should have stayed submerged. But when he discovers a brass-encased relic in the wreckage of Graveshore—a settlement erased from every map and memory—he uncovers something far more dangerous than gold. Touching the artifact triggers a 'memory bleed,' a psychological infection that forces the agonizing lives of the drowned into Ray’s own mind. He isn't just seeing the past; he’s losing himself to it. Now, Ray is caught in a lethal crossfire between the Foundation, a shadow organization dedicated to burying dangerous truths, and Dr. Julian Vane, an archaeologist whose obsession with defeating death has turned into something monstrous. As the line between his own identity and the ghosts of Graveshore begins to dissolve, Ray realizes the ocean isn't just a graveyard—it’s an archive. And the archive is opening. To survive, Ray must navigate a world of sinking marinas and rusting shipyards where the water remembers every crime, every bargain, and every name ever whispered in the dark. But how do you fight an enemy that lives inside your own head? Some truths are meant to stay buried, and some tides are impossible to outrun.

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WHEN THE HOLLOW-EYED COME

When the silent watchers appear in the woods, something ancient and terrible follows

Horror

The settlers along Buffalo Creek know the rules: avoid the deep trails after dark, ignore the shadows between the pines, and never speak of the figures with the hollow, lightless eyes. They don't hunt. They don't attack. They simply watch—and when they appear, death is never far behind. Jonas Farlow knows the frontier, but he doesn't know why a young man has turned up dead near the water with no wounds, no blood, and an unnatural emptiness where his eyes should be. While the town’s leaders look the other way to protect their interests, Jonas senses a rot spreading through the soil. Sera Redwillow, a Seneca woman who remembers the old warnings, knows the truth: the Hollow-Eyed Ones are not the threat. They are the heralds of a primordial consciousness awakening beneath the creek—something older than memory that views the living as nothing more than temporary sediment. As the creek turns oily and the weather defies the seasons, Jonas and Sera must confront a darkness that bridges the gap between folklore and cosmic dread. In a land defined by silence, the loudest screams are the ones that never reach the surface. The first installment of The Hollow-Eyed Trilogy is a grounded, atmospheric journey into the heart of wilderness horror.

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Notes Found Under Still Water

The Ocean Keeps What It Cannot Kill

Thriller
Horror
Romance

Some things survive by being remembered. Others survive by consuming the memories of those who find them. John Sullivan is a man who trusts the physical world: the weight of his dive gear, the pressure of the Gulf, and the steady rhythm of his own breathing. But when a freak recession of the tide reveals a prehistoric ruin off the Florida coast, John discovers something that defies logic. Hidden within the salt-stained stone are journals—waterlogged notebooks from different centuries, all ending mid-sentence. As John begins to read, the horror becomes personal. The entries describe his private thoughts, his childhood secrets, and conversations he hasn’t had yet. The deeper he descends into the cave system, the more the world above begins to fray. Photographs change. Friends remember events that never happened. His own past is being rewritten by a presence beneath the waves that is learning what it means to be human by stealing his identity. In this atmospheric psychological thriller, the line between the explorer and the explored dissolves. To protect the surface from the encroaching darkness, John must decide if his own sanity is a price worth paying. Because under the still water, the ink is still wet, and the entity is finally ready to finish the sentence.

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THE DARKNESS WE FELL INTO

Some shadows pull you under. Others set you free.

Romance
Erotica
Mystery

Amber Rowan came to Cherry Creek to vanish. A brutal attack two years ago stole her memories, her boyfriend's life, and her sense of safety. The police called it unsolved. Her friends stopped calling. Now, in this sleepy New York town, she's rebuilding with flour-dusted aprons and quiet nights. Until the messages start. Intimate details. Sickly familiar threats. Only her attacker could know. Enter Dalton Vale. Ex-special forces. Mechanic with haunted eyes. He appears like a shadow—intense, protective, dangerously magnetic. Their connection ignites a slow, scorching fire that burns through her walls, leading to nights of raw surrender and whispered confessions. But Dalton knows too much. Shows up too often. And when a woman linked to Amber's past turns up dead, the truth fractures. He's not here by chance. Someone is hunting her. Someone who thinks Dalton stole their prize. As obsession collides with desire, Amber must unearth the memory she's buried—or lose herself forever. From P. Hartwell comes a dark romance where love is the deadliest obsession, and the past never truly dies.

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THE GUARDIAN’S HUNGER

A dark sacrifice, a parasitic bond, and the monster that demands everything

Mystery
Fantasy
Horror

Kieran Hallowell was prepared to die for his kingdom. As a captain of the borderlands, he accepted his fate as a ritualistic groom to Vespera, the ancient beast of Shadowveil Hollow. He expected a swift end; instead, he found a terrifyingly beautiful nightmare. Bound by a genetic pact he never chose, Kieran discovers that his life force is the only thing keeping the rot plague at bay. But the price of protection is absolute. As his soul tethers to the guardian, a parasitic hunger begins to take root, physically altering his body and threatening his very sanity. This is no holy sacrifice—it is a slow consumption. While his sister Jora risks execution to expose the corruption within the Royal Priesthood, Kieran finds himself falling for the monster he was sent to appease. As thorns and antlers sprout from his skin, the line between man and beast blurs. To save his people, Kieran must choose: remain a martyr for a kingdom built on lies, or embrace a monstrous evolution that could destroy the world he swore to defend. In this pulse-pounding dark fantasy, the hunger is only the beginning.

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The Hollow Axle

A mechanic uncovers a town’s dark secret where human lives are just mechanical failures

Thriller
Horror

In the quiet Hudson Valley town of Hendricks, silence isn't just a virtue—it’s a survival tactic. Mike Hart is a young mechanic who knows the sound of a well-tuned engine, but when he finds a sedan with sabotaged subframe bolts in his uncle’s shop, he discovers a rhythm much more sinister. This isn't a simple mistake; it’s a blueprint for murder. For twelve years, Arthur Carver has run a sophisticated operation, staging vehicle accidents and processing human victims like line items in a ledger. Joined by Mara Ionescu, an ER nurse who has seen the grisly medical inconsistencies of these 'accidents,' Mike begins to peel back the layers of a conspiracy that spans from corrupt law enforcement to cold-blooded medical professionals. But when the concrete floor of the shop gives up its secrets—the remains of forty victims—the investigation turns into a fight for his own life. With the Sheriff in Carver’s pocket and Mike framed for the mechanical failures he tried to prevent, he must race to save a surviving victim from a remote farm before the system grinds them both to dust. The Hollow Axle is a chilling, atmospheric thriller that explores the high cost of silence and the brutal mechanics of evil.

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