The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

by Kelley Armstrong

Genres: Supernatural suspense; Horror

Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong comes a nail-biting supernatural horror about a haunted lakeside property and twisted family secrets.

When Samantha Payne’s grandfather dies, she figures she won’t even get a mention in the will. After all, she hasn’t seen him in fourteen years, not since her father took his own life after being accused of murdering a child at their lakefront cottage. Her grandfather always insisted her father was innocent, despite Sam having caught him burying the child’s body, his clothing streaked with blood.

But when she does attend the reading of the will at the behest of her aunt, she discovers that her grandfather left her the very valuable lakefront property where the family cottage sits. There’s one catch: Sam needs to stay in the cottage for a month. To finally face the fact she was wrong and her father was innocent, in her grandfather's words.

Traveling to Paynes Hollow, Sam is faced with the realities of her childhood and the secrets kept hidden in the shadows of her memories. When her aunt goes missing a couple days into their stay, Sam begins to question everything again. Plagued by nightmares and paranoia, she begins hearing sounds in the forest and seeing shapes crawling from the water as the rippling waves of the lake promise something unspeakably dark lurking just below their surface.

Release date: October 14, 2025

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 288

Reader says this book is...: emotionally riveting (1) entertaining story (1) haunting (1) supernatural elements (1) suspenseful (1) unexpected twists (1) unputdownable (1)

Sample

One

The morning of my grandfather’s funeral, I open the last email he sent me, the one that’s been sitting in my inbox for six weeks. Sitting there unread, and even now, I don’t feel the slightest twinge of guilt about that.

I pop it open, read and—

Fuck.

The text is innocuous enough.

Dear Samantha,

I think you need to see this.

Douglas Payne (your grandfather)

Who the hell signs an email to their twenty-six-year-old granddaughter that way? The same guy who insisted on calling me Samantha when from birth I was Sam, named after a character in a book my mother loved. As for the “your grandfather” part, that was just him being passive-aggressive, because he’s a jerk.

Was a jerk.

Damn it.

I sit up in bed and roll my shoulders, as if I can slough off the prickle of guilt. “Douglas Payne (your grandfather)” never deserved my guilt. Never deserved my respect. Never even deserved my love. He’d wanted the respect, and he’d sure as hell wanted the guilt, but the love was immaterial. He did not give it, and he did not expect to receive it. As for the respect, he forfeited that when he cut my mother off without a cent after my father’s death.

My father’s suicide, which is how Dad chose to deal with the fact that I’d caught him burying Austin Vandergriff.

I instinctively stanch the surge of rage. Then I pause, letting it wash away the irritating wisps of that misplaced guilt.

I cross my legs and pat the bed for my cat, Lucille. Then I remember Lucille is gone, put down last week because I couldn’t afford to treat her cancer. Grief washes over me, only to lift guilt back to the surface. The guilt of grieving over a cat but not my grandfather.

Well, one had been there for me, and one had not.

I wipe away tears and go to delete the email, only to remember why I’d cursed. Not because of the message, but because of the podcast link below.

My finger hovers over that link. Hey, maybe it’ll be so bad that I’ll have an excuse to skip the funeral.

I can’t do that. I’m going for my aunt. I owe Gail that and more. So much more.

I click the link, and as soon as I see the episode title, I exhale in a long hiss.

Paynes Hollow: The Bermuda Triangle of Upstate New York?

“The Bermuda Triangle isn’t a thing,” I mutter. “It had a normal amount of accidents for a high-traffic zone.”

I know that’s not the point, but I still seethe. At least the title tells me this will be nonsense. Thankfully, there’s a transcript, so I don’t need to listen to the episode.

Paynes Hollow is swathed in shadow when I visit. Massive maples and oaks cast the world into shade and shadow, the only sound the distant roar of Lake Ontario. It’s an empty place, desolate and overgrown, the wind howling through the trees, wisps of fog settling over the land. The kind of place where you feel as if you’ve stepped back in time, and the Headless Horseman will ride out at any moment.

I snort. “Wrong part of the state, dumbass.”

“Sleepy Hollow” was set in Tarrytown, just north of Yonkers, over a hundred miles from Paynes Hollow. While my grandfather did claim that Washington Irving wrote his story after a visit to Paynes Hollow, that was just more of his bullshit.

Also, it’d be weird to have the wind howling while it’s foggy, and the idea that Paynes Hollow is a desolate wasteland is ridiculous. I remember forests and beaches and a picture-perfect summer getaway spot, bustling with visitors.

I keep reading.

It’s not the Headless Horseman that resides in Paynes Hollow, though. It’s the Grim Reaper himself, riding across the land and slicing down the unwary. Yet the dead here don’t fall to the ground. They disappear.

For two hundred years, people have vanished around Paynes Hollow. Hikers. Boaters. Campers. Even local residents. Gone without a trace.

Until Harris Payne murdered a thirteen-year-old boy and was caught red-handed—literally—by his own daughter.

That’s how the story goes.

But is it the truth?

I don’t doubt young Samantha Payne saw something that day, but I believe, in that shadowy place, where nothing is what it seems, what she really witnessed wasn’t her father, but the Grim Reaper of Paynes Hollow.

My shaking finger jabs the X to close the tab and keeps jabbing long after it’s gone.

* * *

I know what I saw. I wish to God I could say otherwise, but I can’t.

I take a deep breath. This is why my grandfather exiled Mom and me from his life. Because he believed there was another explanation. Our father wasn’t the monster. We were, for thinking Dad could do that.

The last time I saw my grandfather, I’d been sixteen. He’d invited me to visit, and Mom wanted to seize the olive branch. I’d endured a week of my grandfather trying to convince me that I was wrong about Dad, until I broke down, shouting at him, my voice raw.

“Do you think I want to believe he did that? Do you think I wouldn’t give everything to be wrong? I loved my father. I adored my father. If I had any chance of getting him back—even just getting back the good memories—don’t you think I’d jump on it?”

I sit on the bed, fists clenched. When my phone buzzes, I almost pitch it aside, as if it’s my grandfather reaching out from the beyond. Then I see the text.

Gail: Pick you up in an hour? Grab a fortifying breakfast before the service?

The thought of breakfast sets my stomach roiling.

Gail: And by “fortifying” I mean so leisurely that, whoops, looks like we’ll barely make it to the service on time

I have to smile at that.

Sam: Sounds good. See you in an hour.

* * *

Gail zips into the funeral-home lot and snags the last spot reserved for family. We jump out, and we’re moving fast when a couple catches up. They look familiar, but I can’t place them in any context related to my grandfather.

The man is in his fifties, rawboned and angular with silvering blond hair and a tanned face. He reminds me of a cowboy, and that nudges a memory, as if I’ve thought it before.

His wife is about the same age, with close-cropped curls, smooth dark skin, and wide-set brown eyes that radiate kindness.

I’ve thought that before, too.

“You probably don’t remember us,” the woman says, extending a hand and a tentative smile. “Liz Smits. This is my husband, Craig.”

“Oh!” I shake her hand. “Mrs. Smits. Sheriff Smits. From Paynes Hollow. Of course.”

“I was hoping to see your mother again,” Mrs. Smits says. “It’s been far too long.”


Copyright © 2025 by KLA Fricke Inc.