Heather Crews's Blog

Hello again! Here's a playlist for my upcoming novel. I chose songs that capture the vibes of the book: dark, ominous, sexy, terrifying, etc. You know, the usual.

“What Else Is There” - Enslaved
“Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1)” - AURORA
“Helm” - Ritual Howls
“Wasting” - The Soft Moon
“Dancing Barefoot” - Caress
“Strange Harvest” - Tempers
“Vicious Pastimes” - House of Harm
“This Place Called Nowhere” - Box and the Twins
“Into the Wild” - Agent Side Grinder
“The Storm” - Hante.
“Goodbye Gemini” - Blood Ceremony
“House of Metal” - Chelsea Wolfe
“The Darker the Weather // The Better the Man” - MISSIO
“Dark Stone” - Holy Fawn
“Don’t Fear the Reaper” - Keep Shelly in Athens

Shoutout to my friend Nenia for suggesting the Chelsea Wolfe and MISSIO songs!

I'm currently on my second round of editing. CURSE should be out soon! More updates to come. :)

Add The Curse of White Oak Grove on Goodreads!

I feel like sharing a few details about my WIP! For once! Usually I shy away from that before I've written a complete rough draft, but whatever, here we go.

The working title is THE CURSE OF WHITE OAK GROVE, but it's a title that's growing on me, so it might stick around. It's about a girl who visited her grandma one summer at age 13, and bad things happened, so she tried to forget the town even exists. But after a death in the family twenty years later she returns, and guess what? She hasn't quite escaped those bad things! Luckily, this time she gets to bang a couple of hot dudes who may or may not have their own agendas, and probably don't care about her best interests.

- small town with dark secrets and horrifying traditions (of course)
- creepy ghost mansion
- non-virgin heroine who has a young daughter (not an overly precocious or annoying one, don't worry)
- heroine has sex with two different guys (not together, and not concurrently)
- the sex is explicit and spicy AF
- villianous love interest(s)
- dub-con
- one love interest has been celibate a long time
- messy relationships, etc. etc.
- me trying to out-toxic myself, let's goooo

My heroine, Aubyn, is a fool for love, which means she makes really bad romantic decisions and tends to ignore obvious red flags. She's not an idiot or TSTL; she just really wants love, and sometimes this translates into sex that may be detrimental to her emotional well-being. It just so happens that the sex in this book is too hot to resist, so maybe that's understandable. And I just really want to write a bunch of toxic smut. :P

I'm currently at about 74000 words (yay me!). I haven't quite decided on the ending, because I tend not to do things like "plan ahead" when I'm writing, so some details will probably change. I do have a good idea where I'm going though, and I'm pretty excited. I know I'll go through several stages of agony before I finally finish it, but that's just the way it goes. I'm hoping to have the book out later this year, so stay tuned. :)

I've been working hard (AND hardly working) on DEAD LOVE, the next installment in the DREAMS FOR THE DEAD series. It was difficult to come up with a plot (WHAT EVEN ARE PLOTS) and then it was difficult to implement that plot, but I think I've managed to do it in a way that will segue into the next book (which I'm planning to make full-length, hopefully). I have almost 30k words, and it won't be much longer. I didn't want to drag this out for very long, because oh my god, Leila is TRAUMATIZED. But she deserves a happy ending, and I hope some people will want to read it.

In the meantime, here's the playlist!

It's been almost two months since I published my latest book, Some Velvet Sin, a dark YA love story. I promised myself I'd take a good long break before starting my next project, because when I write I tend to neglect things like my health (although I sometimes neglect that when I'm not writing, because being healthy is hard!!!).

Anyway, I did take a little break, but I also wrote. Because that's what I do. I already have almost 20k words! The difference is that this time I'm really trying not to put added pressure on myself. Even just sending rough chapters to my wonderful beta reader, Nenia, I feel such pressure to be perfect. But I really shouldn't hold myself to standards that I don't hold others to!

So, yes, my next book is underway, and I will do everything in my power to make it great, but I want to make the process just a little more enjoyable.

I don't have a title yet, but this book will feature toxic love in a small town, murder, weird families, and a haunted house! Oh, and plenty of smut. There will probably be a few trigger warnings, I'm guessing. I'm already pretty much in love with June and Dante, and I'm basically shouting "NOW KISS" as I write (they have not yet reached the point of kissing).

Now I'm off to do something that is not writing, because I DO deserve breaks! But rest assured, I'm always mentally plotting. :)

It's been two and a half months since my last update, and I've been working hard to finish my next release. SOME VELVET SIN is a YA love story full of angst and death and cool teens, set in the 1950s. Love is doomed... or is it???

I have another round of edits to do before the final draft is ready, and a synopsis to write (gulp). I've also been working on the cover! The release date (no set date, just whenever I'm done) is getting close. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm actually really sad to be finished writing about these characters. That's not normally something I feel when I'm done with a book, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

As usual, I've put together a list of songs. This one ranges from 1950s rock 'n' roll to psychobilly, with a couple others thrown in for mood.

"Poor Little Fool" - Ricky Nelson
"Young Blood" - The Coasters
"Need Your Lovin' (Oh So Bad)" - Ronnie Hawkins
"Let's Elope Baby" - Janis Martin
"You're My Halo" - Jeremy and the Harlequins
"Please Don't Leave Me" - Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'N' Roll Trio
"You Break My Heart" - Charlie Thompson
"Insane" - The Meteors
"Fallen Angel" - Pokey LaFarge
"Lust" - The Raveonettes
"Graveyard Tree II" - Koffin Kats
"DESPERATE LOVE" = J.D. McPherson
"Flowers by the Door" - T.S.O.L.

Bonus songs for the prologue and epilogue: "Don't You Want Me" by Human League and "Space Age Love Song" by A Flock of Seagulls

Listen on Spotify!

Add SOME VELVET SIN on Goodreads!

It's been almost a year since I did a writing update, and I've published two books since then! I thought I'd take the time to list some new projects I have planned, including my WIP.

Some Velvet Sin: This is my WIP, and it will be the first YA I've written since Psychopomp. Like PSYCHOPOMP, it's a mature YA with dark themes. My inspiration for it comes from many places: a dream I had years ago, movies made in the 80s/90s but set in the 50s, psychobilly music, and a dash of mythology, to name a few. SVS is about cool dead teens and love that lasts beyond the grave. It takes place in the 1950s U.S. and the underworld.

Untitled: My next smutty romantic thriller has no title yet, but I've been thinking a lot about it (which is annoying since I'm not currently writing it). I have a lot of characters to work with and some evil plotting to do. This will take place in a small, desert Texas town, where everyone remembers the past and dark secrets make people do bad things. Like in A Pale Shadow, I plan to make the romance hot and toxic. >:D

Dead Love: OH HI LEILA. I haven't forgotten about you. I've come up with a new idea for how to tell Leila's story, and I hope to feel inspired enough to write it soon. It won't be a long book, but I'm having trouble making her story interesting because I happen to have no idea how she ends up with a fulfilling life. Poor girl, she can't catch a break. Stay tuned.

I have a few other ideas on the back burner, but they aren't realized enough for me to say much about them just yet. These ideas include supernatural men up to no-good shenanigans (obvs) and a third book in the Aecoria series! So many ideas, so little time.

A PALE SHADOW is now available to buy on Amazon! You can also add it on Goodreads. I love how it turned out, and I hope others do too. I'm still thinking about the characters even though I'm done writing it!

This book does come with trigger warnings, and I've done my best to list them all in the Goodreads blurb. I'll list them here too: neglect, mentions of alcoholism, mentions of abuse, abuse of minors, suicide, rape, death, mature sexual situations

As usual, I've made a soundtrack for the book! I wanted to keep it somewhat nostalgic, as much of the book takes place in the nineties and early 2000s. But there's also some random stuff thrown in for fun.

"Hey Everybody" - Rubblebucket
"No Signs of Pain" - Azure Ray
"Sugar Kane" - Sonic Youth
"Graffiti" - Throwing Muses
"July Flame" - Laura Veirs
"Landmines" - The Action Design
"Found Out About You" - Gin Blossoms
"Violet" - Hole
"Heaven or Las Vegas" - Cocteau Twins
"Goddess on a Hiway" - Mercury Rev
"Mistaken for Strangers" - The National
"Rusted Wheel" - Silversun Pickups
"Night Time, My Time" - Sky Ferreira
"Blinding" - Florence + the Machine
"Feeling This" - blink-182
"Love" - Caress
"Ghost" - Gouge Away
"Lemon Eyes" - Meg Myers

Happy reading!

With WILDFLOWER HEART coming out soon (hopefully in the next month, which would be about a year since I released Lament!), I thought I'd share the soundtrack that helped inspire me to write. It was tough to pick songs for this book, but I think my choices fit it well.

"Ashes on the Riverbank" - Thieving Irons
"A Forest" - Bat For Lashes
"Be Wild" - M83
"It's A Good Life" - The Horrors
"Your Way" - Ecca Vandal
"Fish" - Wye Oak
"Time to Wander" - Gypsy and the Cat
"Warm Water" - Bear in Heaven
"The Death of Me" - Meg Myers
"Holy Places" - BRANDENBURG
"Dancing Barefoot" - Caress
"NARC" - Interpol
"Old Leaves Shiver" - Laura Carbone
"Lover" - In the Valley Below
"I Feel Free" - DILLY DALLY
"Drift Away" - GOLD ZEBRA
"Madder Red" - Yeasayer
"Dreams Never End" - New Order
"Armida" - Lust for Youth

Listen on Spotify!

Updates to follow! Find me on Goodreads in the meantime!

Hey all! I can't believe it's been only four months since my last book came out. Feels like an eternity. Anyway, here's the timeline of my upcoming projects.

Wildflower (tentatively titled): This is a sequel to Sea and Sky. It takes place in the same world (Aecoria) but follows all new characters. I'm also moving it away from the sea and into a mist-shrouded valley beside the forest. There's an adventuresome heroine and a grumpy but secretly sweet hero. Plus a silly brother who drinks a little too much! Plus a forest sprite who keeps trying to kill people!

Dead Love: This is going to be a short installment in my Dreams for the Dead series. It will follow Leila, Dawn's best friend, as she deals with the trauma of having been held captive by a psycho vampire. I've written a little so far, and it's pretty bleak. Because... trauma. Not everyone wants to bang a vampire, you know?

A Pale Shadow: I have always planned to write a coming-of-age story, but I kept running into dead ends with my ideas. They were all just so blah and boring. Then I finally figured out a way to put my own spin on the genre, and like magic, the ideas started flowing. So this will be a sexy coming-of-age story (thriller, perhaps?) about a girl who moves to a town with deadly secrets. I'm very excited, since these characters having been sitting around for years with nothing to do.

And that's it for now! Happy reading! <3

Heyyyyy. My new book is out now! The Dead Rule the Night is only $0.99 in the Kindle store, and it's also available in KU! A few things to know about it: smut, smut, blood, creepiness, smut.

Anyway, you know what a new book means: a super awesome soundtrack to go along with it.

"KILL4ME" - Marilyn Manson
"Your Joy Is My Low" - IAMX
"Gloom Forever" - American Nightmare
"6 Undergound" - Sneaker Pimps
"My Heart Is Immortal" - Cold Cave
"Can't Be Love" - Pink Turns Blue
"Colors (Take Me Away)" - T.S.O.L.
"Pretty Baby Scream" - Lords of the New Church
"Dead Love" - The Soft Moon
"Ghost Dream" - Blouse
"Sedated" - Hozier
"I Get Off" - Halestorm
"Chokehold" - Adam Lambert
"A Little Death" - The Neighbourhood
"Masochism World" - Hüsker Dü
"Orphans of the Smog" - Death of Lovers
"Motel" - Meg Myers
"Blood Bitch" - Cocteau Twins
"Neon Gleam" - Night Sins

Listen on Spotify!

Special thanks to my amazing pals Karly and Nenia for suggesting some of the songs! <3