YA Horror | Ellwyn Autumn

Darkest Delights

by K.M Jenkins and Ben Merical

Genre: YA Horror, Dark Fantasy

Book Blurb

Don’t trust what lies within…

They don’t forgive, They destroy

Welcome to Medge Pond, a town where mischievous children go missing beyond the forest border. Something evil lurks within the forest, and those who enter are never seen again.

There are two rules you must follow: Do NOT enter the forest and never touch the berries. Ever.

If you break them, beware—not even your screams will save you.

**On Sale for Only .99cents until the end of October!**

Excerpt

I went to my room to wash up for supper and glared at myself in the mirror. She could have been more friendly. I would be lucky if Rob shows up tomorrow as planned. But whatever if he is a baby and chickens out, I guess it is up to me.

With that, I changed my top and headed down for supper. My eagerness for tomorrow was growing by the second, and I was super excited. Who cares about the noise? It was probably only a squirrel or something?

My thoughts drifted through my plans for tomorrow as the night carried on, and soon bedtime came. I slept like a baby even though something deep inside said something horrible was going to happen tomorrow. So many horrible things had already happened in my life, why not one more?

Giveaway

$20 Amazon

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

https://bit.ly/DarkestDelightsTour

Author Guest Post

What inspired you to write this book?

The inspiration behind this story was our love for camp fire type horror books like Goosebumps growing up. Ben and I wanted to focus on a fantasy creature story for an anthology we were joining. The main topic was to have some type of mythical creatures.

We couldn’t shake the fact that we wanted to write something with horror in it. The idea was to create a forbidden area in a small town that held a deadly secret that the towns folks tried to not think about. But Gracie’s Aunt was the exception. The horror of the forest was always on her mind since she lives on the borderline. Just in the backyard, she can step from safety into a deadly zone that could be the end of her.

The problem comes to fruition when Aunt Margaret takes in Gracie. She is in her teens and likes to get a sense of adventure throughout her day. Gracie has trauma of her own with her mom dying so she is trying to get her mind on other things.

Kids are always wanting to go into the woods and see what magic it can hold. I was one of those kids when I was young. My dad would take me to the forest to walk around and see what animals we could find. We would do this for hours. This feeling of wonder and adventure was one of my reasons for choosing this background for the story.

I also had an enormous love for faeries growing up. My goal was to twist the stories of faeries that were evil or sprites that would live in the forest to taunt children. Also, I have pulled some inspiration from movies I have seen in the past. One, for example, was: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. That was one of the horror movies that scared me with faeries.

A lot of elements inspired the story, but it all came together when Ben and I put our heads together. You should give it a read to see the ins and out of our writing on this project.

About the Authors

Ben and Katie tied the knot in September 2024 but not before putting pen to paper. Together they crafted their first horror story together titled: “Darkest Delights,” back in 2022.

They loved stories like Goosebumps growing up and decided to create their own campfire story that would leave a little fright for the younger readers to enjoy.

They plan to work on more in the future. Make sure to subscribe to K.M. Jenkins’ newsletter to get updates on books when they hit the stores: https://www.subscribepage.com/author_km_jenkins

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