Sunshine Walkingstick

Sunshine Walkingstick is half mountain, half Cherokee, and 100% monster hunter. Book 1, Greenwood Cove: Sunny is challenged by a childhood friend to discover the cause behind damage done to docks along Lake Burton's Greenwood Cove, and she's never one to resist a challenge when monsters are involved. Book 2, The Deep Wood: Sunny’s search for a monster terrorizing the county leads her into a past she never knew. Book 3, Cemetery Hill: After her uncle is framed for murder, Sunny must figure out who, or what, really killed her uncle's ex-wife....

I had three loves in my life: my daddy, him what my mama killed in cold blood; my son Henry, God rest him; and tall as an oak Riley Treadwell. I lost all of 'em, one way or t'other, 'til Riley showed up on my stoop with a monster problem and tried to wiggle his way back into my life. Only, weren't no monster bothering him; was the one bothering his ex-girlfriend what'd stirred up a hornet's nest out on Lake Burton amongst the muckity mucks. Weren't no never mind to me, see?

When my boy Henry was killed, I tracked a pooka through the deep wood for three days with no food in my gut and only my daddy's hunting knife for comfort. Was what got me into the monster killing business, that pooka, and I ain't regretted a single day of it since. The day I stumbled on a four-legged critter with human eyes, the rightness of my revenge begun to unravel, leading me to a clan of two-natured shifters what'd been living under my nose the whole time.

After my uncle Fame run his wife off for messing around with his brother, we thought for sure we seen the last of 'em. Good riddance to bad blood, right? Only, weren't no Happy Ever After in store for any of us....

The day Terry Whitehead showed up on my door, I shoulda knowed trouble was hot on his heels, Terry being the feller what planted my boy Henry in my belly, then left me so fast, my head spun. Seems his daughter, Henry's half-sister, went missing and the police done give up on finding her. Much as I hated having anything to do with Terry, I couldn't hardly abandon a young'un, especially one what was close kin to my boy, God rest him. Only, little Sophie weren't the only kid missing, and whatever took her left a trail of dark magic in its wake.

The thing about monsters is, they show up when you least expect it. I come home from a romantic weekend with my feller and found one sitting on my couch. This'un wanted me to hunt down Athena's Gorgoneion, an ancient Greek amulet, and was willing to pay dearly for the work. Meanwhile, my friend Miss Jenny went missing, her feller Proteus, a primordial Greek god, was trapped in his house by cyclops, and a hellhole opened up out on Devil's Branch. Trouble was brewing and brewing big.

My itchy feet drug me to the ATL one night for a light flirt, but I didn't get me no R and R. 'Stead, I found a hobo, a ghost, and a trio of vampires, and me with my best weapons locked in the trunk of my daddy's car. That'll learn me to drive down to the city, if I made it off the Gold Line alive.

On the seventh day of Christmas, I and my buddy David Eckstrom finally got around to holding that shindig we've been talking about for so long. Only, we weren't the only bodies looking for a good time on New Year's Eve. There were monsters afoot on the lake, and the remedy for 'em was something I didn't expect at all.