Eight years after a boy killed a dozen people with an axe, the ground on Crow Island starts calling its residents to dig. J. H. Markert builds a horror novel out of what comes up.

Readical Key Points

• Supernatural horror novel set on Crow Island
• After the father of a long-dead killer begins digging, a compulsion to dig spreads across the whole island
• Content note: violence, including a past mass killing and violence between neighbors
• Hardcover, 352 pages (Crooked Lane Books, 2026)

Jericho Dodd was laid in a grave in his father's yard long ago, but the island has not been at peace since the massacre he committed. When his father starts digging up what he buried, the urge spreads until neighbors are tearing up their own ground and turning on each other. Even the tupelo honey the island is known for, gathered from swamp trees, begins to change as dread and paranoia rise.

The publisher calls it surreal horror, and it suits readers drawn to island dread, isolated settings and a supernatural pull working on an entire community. The residents believe they are hunting for buried secrets. The island wants something from them first.

About the Author

J. H. Markert is a producer and screenwriter. He spent twenty-five years as a tennis pro in Louisville, Kentucky, before leaving the game in 2020, and he studied history at the University of Louisville, graduating in 1997.

Condition: Brand New and Readical Ready.

Readical™ is an independent bookstore and reading-products brand built around a simple idea: books matter most when what we learn leaves the page and enters our lives.

Apply the Page. Get Readical™.