Advanced Reviewer Copy: Black Water
Cryptid Carl Chronicles (Book 2)
If you got this post, chances are you’ve shown interest in being an ARC reader for the next installment of the Cryptid Carl Chronicles, Black Water.
Black Water releases March 31, 2026, and your honest review will play a real part in helping this book and this series find its footing. Early readers make more difference than most people realize, and I don’t take that lightly.
So I want to personally thank each and every one of you for taking a chance on this book, these characters, and this strange little world I’ve built. I truly appreciate it.
I think you’re going to have a hell of a good time.
CCC02: Black Water
When the deadly Dogman tears into a group of campers, Cryptid Carl expects just another job and maybe a strange new specimen for his collection. Instead he discovers something far worse.
A sickness is spreading through the waterways of West by God, and Carl finds the same darkness seeping into his own mind. If he cannot stop it soon, the madness swallowing the forests will swallow him too.
With uneasy allies at his back and the ancient caves of Appalachia before him, Carl will have to dig deep to find the source of the madness... or lose himself to it forever.
If you love Robert R. McCammon and Christopher Buehlman, pick up this pulp adventure steeped in Appalachian folklore, haunted hollers, and backwoods monsters. Black Water is one ride you don’t want to miss.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OEKDRp_5ULbgAkgLmvZ3RS5ISkBaUu7T?usp=drive_link
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The Story So Far
I suspect most of you haven’t read the first book, Hollow King, so I’m including a brief synopsis below to catch you up with the story.
During the violent days of the Appalachian Coal Wars, a powerful coal baron named Indrid Cold (Coal Baron Cold) vanished after a mining disaster that consumed an entire operation in flame. Most believed him dead. They were wrong.
At the same moment in another realm beyond the veil of our world, a catastrophic war was unfolding. A parasitic swarm of carrion insects was devouring entire species of strange and ancient creatures. In desperation, the surviving cryptids gathered beneath the wings of the great Thunderbird. When the Thunderbird unleashed its power against the infestation, the attack tore a hole between worlds, scattering creatures from that hidden realm across Earth.
Decades later, Indrid Cold returned from the ruins of his abandoned mine and murdered his own son and daughter-in-law, leaving their young child orphaned. That child was Carlisle Boone Cold.
Raised alone in the wilds of West by God, Carl grew up half feral and fiercely independent. Over time he built a strange found family of misfit cryptids who had also slipped through the rift between worlds.
Among them are:
Squonk, a sorrowful empath whose body dissolves into tears
when confronted with his own reflection.Yaya Yellowtop, a blond sasquatch with a knack for radio tinkering and a love of dimes store novels.
Snarly Yow, a massive hellhound visible only in moonlight and loyal to Carl in her own jealous way.
As an adult, Carl survives as a drifter and occasional conman, traveling from town to town investigating cryptid sightings. The money he makes keeps the taxman from seizing the mountain preserve where he secretly shelters rare and endangered creatures.
Carl’s life changes when Beatrix “Bex” Beaumont, an ambitious college journalist, forces her way into his investigations in search of the story that will launch her career.
Their first major case centers on the reappearance of the legendary and mysterious Mothman and the disturbances surrounding the town of Flatwoods. What begins as another hunt quickly reveals something far worse.
Indrid Cold has returned. Cold is building a cult from the hollowed-out remains of small Appalachian towns. Infested by parasitic carrion bugs, his followers become obedient hosts to an alien intelligence spreading through the mountains.
Carl and Bex narrowly escape an encounter with Cold and his followers while attempting to rescue the Phantom of Flatwoods, an otherworldly being hunted by the cult. During their flight, Carl becomes trapped deep within a cavern system infested with Tommyknockers, goblin creatures that haunt abandoned mines. He survives only because of a mysterious subterranean entity known as Miss Sally, a strange eyeless being who reveals that Carl possesses a rare sensitivity to the fractures between worlds.
Soon after, Carl and his companions pursue another mystery: reports that the legendary Snallygaster is abducting children across Appalachia. When they finally confront the creature, they discover the truth is stranger than the legend. The Snallygaster is protecting a group of runaway children hiding deep in the forest.
Their discovery draws the attention of Cold’s cult. Two monstrous servants of the infestation attack in an attempt to capture the Snallygaster and bend it to Cold’s will. Carl and his allies manage to drive them off, but Carl is gravely wounded in the battle.
When he wakes in a hospital, he finds himself under interrogation by mysterious agents known only as the Men in Black, who seem to know far more about cryptids and the hidden world than they admit.
Meanwhile, Cold’s influence spreads across the mountains. Entire towns are quietly overtaken by the parasitic cult. In a final confrontation, Carl learns the horrifying truth: his own parents were not killed long ago as he believed. They were absorbed into the infestation.
Cold’s ultimate goal is far larger than simple domination. He seeks control of the Thunderbird itself. With that power he could tear open the veil between worlds and spread his influence across every reality.
In a desperate last stand, Carl, his companions, and the Men in Black unite against Cold and his growing army. The confrontation ends where the nightmare began: deep inside the ruined coal mine where Cold first vanished.
Carl lures his grandfather back into the mine and destroys it in a final explosion. He survives only by instinctively slipping through the veil between worlds for the first time.
Cold’s cult collapses, and the immediate threat is stopped.
But victory comes with a cost.
Carl’s beloved mountain preserve, the sanctuary he fought to protect, is quietly seized by the shadow government behind the Men in Black. The same secret powers that claim to protect humanity now own the land that shelters the world’s remaining cryptids.
Carl is offered a choice. He can lose everything he fought for. Or he can work for them. Carl chooses to stay on the mountain as its reluctant steward, guarding the fragile boundary between worlds and the creatures that slipped through it. But the veil is thinning. And the war that scattered the cryptids across Earth may not be over.
First of all, who’s your cover artist? 🤩
This series looks amazing!