(February 2023) Romance author, D.S. Stephens, joined Burckhardt Books (BB). Her first book with BB is tentatively set to be published in 2026. 

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The Haunted Hearts Series

Coming soon: Langston Watch Hotel, book 1 in The Haunted Hearts Series. A new contemporary, paranormal, close door romance series based on actual ghost hunting adventures the author went on in college. ​

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Dr. Samantha “Sam” Voss has spent her career studying the measurable world. As an experimental physicist, she trusts data, repeatable results, and explanations grounded in science. But when university budget cuts force her into an unpaid hiatus, scientific principles won’t pay the bills. So when her mother suggests she reluctantly take a job with the newly rebranded S.P.E.C.T.R. paranormal investigation team, Sam agrees. She isn’t there to prove ghosts exist. She’s there for a paycheck and to find rational explanations for whatever the team encounters.

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Their first investigation takes them to the historic Langston Watch Hotel in Willow Creek, Kansas, where stories of unexplainable activity have surrounded the property for generations. Almost immediately, Sam finds herself confronting evidence that isn’t so easily dismissed. Their equipment records bizarre readings with no obvious source. Photographs capture things no one noticed when the pictures were taken. Strange voices appear on audio recordings. And when contact with the hotel’s original cornerstone triggers a terrifying vision of the building engulfed in flames, even Sam has to question whether every mystery has a rational explanation.

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The investigation isn’t the only thing challenging her certainty. Sam’s attraction to S.P.E.C.T.R. leader Clay Barnes is obvious from the beginning, and apparently mutual. Matt Volks is another story. Hostile and argumentative from the moment they meet, the former Navy salvage specialist seems determined to make it clear that Sam doesn’t belong on his team. But when Sam and Matt become trapped together in the hotel elevator, the experience exposes vulnerabilities neither intended the other to see, and the antagonism between them begins turning into something far more dangerous.

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As S.P.E.C.T.R. digs deeper into the hotel’s history, the team brings in a trusted psychic hoping to shed light on what they have encountered. The investigation increasingly points toward Commodore Elijah Langston, the hotel’s long-dead founder, whose presence seems less threatening than purposeful. The question is no longer simply whether the phenomena can be explained. Sam must decide how much she trusts the evidence, her own experiences, and the feelings she never expected to find in a place haunted by the past.

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The Haunted Hearts Series Book 1

Langston Watch Hotel

Find more information on the full interview below the video.