BooksThe Folcroft Ghosts
When their mother is hospitalized, Tara and Kyle are sent to stay with their only remaining relatives. Their elderly grandparents seem friendly at first, and the rambling house is full of fun nooks and crannies to explore. But strange things keep happening. A bedroom remains locked at all times. Doors slam and curtains shift when no one is inside. And there are whispers of a sister who drowned in the lake long ago.
Something is being hidden away, kept safely out of sight…and the children can’t shake the feeling that it’s watching them.
When a violent storm cuts off their only contact with the outside world, stranding them in the haunted manor, Tara and Kyle must find a way to protect themselves from their increasingly erratic grandparents… and from the ghosts that haunt the Folcrofts’ house. All at once, they’re forced to confront the secrets of the manor. But can they ever hope to escape the unforgivable secret that has ensnared their family for generations?
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7 books in catalog
Atmospheric haunted house mysteries, wilderness survival thrillers, and eerie gothic horror stories form the foundation of a widely read body of work that includes books like The Haunting of Ashburn House. Darcy Coates established her place in modern horror through novels centered on isolated settings, spectral forces, and chilling supernatural encounters.
Her books frequently explore isolated locations, ancestral curses, and haunting mysteries that keep suspense at the forefront. As a USA Today bestselling author, Coates has published dozens of horror, gothic, and thriller titles.
Coates began her writing career in 2013 by self-publishing her debut novella, Once Returned, through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing program. She continued to write independently, producing over twenty novels and novellas that gradually expanded her fan base. Her early breakthrough occurred with the 2015 publication of The Haunting of Gillespie House, which achieved strong sales and brought increased attention to her backlist. Following years of success as an independent author, she was approached around 2019 by publisher Sourcebooks, who acquired the rights to her catalog and republished her books under their mystery and suspense imprint, Poisoned Pen Press.
In addition to standalone novels and popular series like the Gravekeeper series, Coates has expanded her creative work into tabletop gaming by writing the expansion pack for the mystery adventure game The Shivers. Based on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia, she lives surrounded by wilderness and mountain ranges, environments that directly inspire the overgrown forests and remote settings featured throughout her fiction.
A hallmark of Coates's writing is her emphasis on claustrophobic, highly atmospheric environments that serve as central forces in her narratives. From crumbling country estates and snowbound lodges to submerged shipwrecks, her settings amplify the vulnerability of her characters and heighten narrative tension. She combines classic gothic elements—such as ancestral secrets, cryptic messages, and ominous architecture—with modern pacing and accessible prose.
Rather than relying on visceral gore, Coates focuses on psychological dread, slow-building suspense, and ghostly lore. Her stories typically balance dark, unsettling supernatural threats with grounded themes of human endurance, friendship, and resilience, offering eerie narratives that emphasize mystery and survival.
