Stillhouse Lake · #5 / 7
Heartbreak Bay
An Amazon Charts, New York Times, and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling series.
They’re hunting a killer so silent, so invisible, that his unspeakable crimes are the only proof he exists.
A car submerged in a remote pond. The bodies of two girls strapped into their seats. The mystery of their mother, vanished without a trace, leads Gwen Proctor and Kezia Claremont into dangerous territory.
On the surface, Gwen’s life is good — two children approaching adulthood, a committed partner, and a harrowing past dead and gone. But that past is attracting the attention of someone invisible... and unstoppable. Trouble’s just beginning. So is the body count in this backwoods Tennessee town.
As threats mount and Gwen’s hunted by an enemy who pulls all the strings, Kezia has her back. But working to solve these vicious and unreasonable crimes will expose them both to a killer they can’t for the life of them see coming.
The series
In the quiet shadows of a lakeside town, a mother’s fight for survival becomes a relentless game of cat and mouse. What begins as a nightmare behind closed doors erupts into a haunting journey through paranoia, identity, and the question of how far someone will go to protect their children.
Read full series description
This chilling thriller series unfolds in a world where trust is fragile and the line between victim and suspect is constantly shifting. At the center is Gwen Proctor, once just a suburban wife and mother, now a fugitive defined by the crimes of the man she thought she knew. When the truth about her husband shatters everything, Gwen doesn’t break—she disappears, taking her children with her and building a new life on the run.
But escape is never clean. Harassment follows her like smoke from a burned-down life, and danger creeps into the corners of even the safest-seeming towns. Each book draws deeper into a psychological storm, steeped in tension and hard-earned resilience. As Gwen navigates murder investigations, stalkers, and the ever-present ghosts of her past, she becomes something rare in the thriller genre—not an invincible heroine, but a mother who fights dirty because she has no choice.
Tautly written and emotionally charged, the series explores survival not as a dramatic moment but as a way of life. The atmosphere is thick with unease, every chapter brimming with dread and the quiet fury of a woman who has been hunted too long. It’s not just the crimes that keep readers hooked, but the quiet moments of doubt, the fierce protection of family, and the devastating cost of being believed too late.
Built on raw suspense and grounded in human vulnerability, this series doesn’t ask who the villain is—it asks what justice even looks like when the system fails you. It’s a portrait of trauma turned into armor, of motherhood sharpened into a weapon, and of a life rebuilt with grit instead of hope.
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