Featured Post

Thursday, August 21, 2025

Suspense Rooted in the Mountains!

Mary Alford here—and I have to admit, I’m a sucker for a good mountain town. As many of you know, most of my novels are set in the mountains. It’s my absolutely favorite place to visit because depending on when you go, there’s always something new to see!




For many years now, my husband and I have visited Silverton, Colorado during each of our trips to the mountains. It’s a postcard-perfect little place cradled high in the San Juan Mountains. Picture colorful old buildings from the mining days, a single main street, and peaks rising so close it feels like they’re leaning in to listen.




One afternoon, I was walking past a row of historic buildings when I spotted a narrow, weathered alley between two of them. The sunlight barely touched the ground back there, and for the briefest moment I thought, this would be the perfect place to hide a clue—or maybe a body. That’s the way my writer’s brain works. Most people see quaint charm. I see charming… and just a little bit dangerous.

That’s the same feeling I get in Montana’s Mission Mountains—majestic beauty layered over secrets you can almost feel pressing against the edges of the light. And that’s where my suspense series, Deadly Mountain Secrets, takes root.

Because even in the mountains, some secrets refuse to stay buried.

Leah Miller faced the past that nearly destroyed her to stop a killer haunting her childhood.


Dalton Cooper carries the weight of betrayal and duty and is determined to find out the truth about what happened to his brother, Harrison.




Harrison Tucker returned from exile to uncover the truth and protect the innocent—even if it costs him everything.

Eden survived a nightmare no child should endure, and now she’s now fighting to find justice for the forgotten.




Each of these characters came alive for me against the rugged backdrop of the Mission Mountains, or in Eden’s case, the North Woods of Maine. Both are places where danger prowls in the timberline and faith is the only light that remains.

Next Book Up: Where Truth Hides
You’ll meet Deputy Ethan Burke—quiet, observant, and loyal. Former military, now serving with the St. Ignatius PD.
He was one of the first to the scene in Among the Innocent, but the case that haunts him most is the disappearance of an Amish boy during his rookie year. No body. No answers. Now, paired with a woman who has ties to the Amish community, Ethan finds himself caught in a new string of cryptic threats—ones that might finally reveal the truth he’s been chasing for years.




In this series, you’ll get to keep in touch with old characters from past books and meet news ones as we go along that I hope you will love.

I truly enjoy creating stories that are firmly rooted in a place—because once you know the land, you can almost hear the stories it wants to tell. And the Mission Mountains? They have plenty to say.

So for a chance to win a copy of either Among the Innocent, or Beside the Dead, tell me—


What’s the most unsettling thing you’ve ever stumbled across while traveling?

 

— Mary Alford
www.maryalford.net

52 comments:

  1. I love Silverton, Colorado! I love all those old Mining towns in the mountains. And you're right, so many stories can come out of them. Congrats on the new book, Mary!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I feel the same way, Katy. I just love its history.

      Delete
  2. can't think of anything
    bn100candg at hotmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Not stumbled across but we had just gone to bed when we heard someone coming up the outside stairs AND they opened the door to our room! Three of us yelled and I think we scared him worse than us. Apparently the desk clerk gave him the wrong key!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh gosh! That would have been so scary. I'm glad it all worked out!

      Delete
  4. Not unsettling but spent time in Jerome Arizona which was an old mining town 30 plus year ago i was there. Love seeing places before all the human footprints on the old towns.

    ReplyDelete
  5. When I was a young girl, my dad who loves getting deals, ended up booking a night at a cheap hotel and our room was infested with palmetto bugs. If you have no experience with them, they look like giant cockroaches. Needless to say, I did not sleep well due to the fear that one might crawl on me. It was a traumatic experience. cherierj(at)yahoo(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Not sure, but we traveled a mountain pass to Cripple Creek, only one car could be on & if we’d met another vehicle not sure what we would have done. Lots of places along the way for a mystery.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yes! That's scary on those narrow mountain passes without meeting someone. I can't even imagine having to try and figure out how to pass when you have a sheer drop off.

      Delete
  7. We love the mountains so much that after retirement we sold out, picked up and moved to the place we loved to vacation in to build our forever home.
    Not entering the contest because I want someone else to enjoy the chance of reading a book from this FIVE STAR series.
    Oh, I can't wait to meet up with Deputy Ethan Burke in WHERE TRUTH HIDES!
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love that you went all in. My hubby and I keep wanting to do that but it's hard.

      Delete
  8. People pulling over at Walmart and sleeping/camping there! Which would include my son telling us that he does this. I just started reading Among the Innocent,by the way. Regards,Mark chicowill57@aol.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We've used Walmart once for our RV and it was okay, but I don't think I'd want to sleep in my car there. I hope you enjoy Among the Innocent, Mark.

      Delete
  9. In St.Augustine, Florida my husband and I came across a medieval torture museum and the advertising in itself was unsettling. Khodde95@icloud.com

    ReplyDelete
  10. People on the bus getting drunk and fighting. Lot of bad words be used. I move to a seat far from them.

    ReplyDelete
  11. We were in California and my husband niece was driving and she turned on a one way street going the wrong way. We were blessed no one was coming and we got back on the right road . linda- henderson@ att.net

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is scary. It can be confusing when you aren't familiar with the layout.

      Delete
  12. Oh, my goodness, I love the pictures you paint with your words, even in this blog post! I cannot remember anything disturbing while traveling. Thank you for sharing about your books!

    ReplyDelete
  13. My sisters and I took our kids to visit my parents when they lived in Louisiana. Traveling from Ohio, at night so the kids would sleep, we broke down somewhere in KY. A man from the nearest garage got it started but needed more repairs. We followed him to his friends place up in a holler. We thought for sure we were going to be killed. The man was very nice and charged us a low price. We were young and stupid for trusting, but God watched over us. ceedee1958@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was scary, Cyndi. I'm so grateful that God protects us from ourselves sometimes.

      Delete
  14. I cannot wait for Ethan's story!

    ReplyDelete
  15. My husband and I saw 4 wild pigs dead on the sides of the road, there were actually 2 on each side of the road as we drove by. It was kind of scary and it was sad, like they had been killed purposefully. Sincerely, ALICIA HANEY

    ReplyDelete
  16. My great aunt's house. It always haunted me as a child. It did not help that my cousins would tell me stories about ghosts coming for little girls. Finally, my Dad took me over there to show me it was just a run down house that was sinking into the earth. There was nothing to be scared of. My cousins were having fun with me by tormenting me. Thank you for the opportunity. God bless you. dpruss@prodigy.net

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Still, that had to be scary for a little kid. That would have scared me, too.

      Delete
  17. I live in the foothills of the Rockies and I love the mountains!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Traveling in a rented car many years ago before GPS, the most unsettling things we saw were road signs that did not name the road we were looking for!

    ReplyDelete
  19. the above was from Janice M.
    pjrcmoore@windstream.net

    ReplyDelete
  20. This summer my daughter and her daughters were on a trip and we're sleeping at our hotel sleeping when a stranger just let themselves into our room with a key card. They walked straight in and then backed out when they saw us apologizing. It scared us to death. My daughter got dressed and went to the front desk to report it and got new cards made. Luckily we were leaving later that day. And no it was not the maid.

    Msredk at aol . Com

    ReplyDelete
  21. The most unsettling thing I ever stumbled on while traveling was while I was on a trip in Mexico with four of my cousins to see the original Hotel California. The radio was blasting Hotel California by the Eagles as we traveled on these very narrow one lane dirt roads with nothing but a huge cliff on the one side. One slight move of the steering wheel and we’d have been over the cliff. My cousin’s wife was screaming for him to turn around but, of course, there was no place to turn around. That road trip totally unnerved me. We arrived at our destination and had a lovely time. jeannek330@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That does sound terrifying. I really hate those narrow roads with sheer drop offs. My mind always imagines the worst!

      Delete
  22. I Love reading stories in the mountains!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Me, too, Sarah! It just seems to add to the suspense.

      Delete
  23. The most unsettling thing I've experienced while traveling was on our honeymoon. We were on our way home and had already boarded the plane when it was announced that there was an issue and we'd be waiting while they worked to fix it. We all had to stay on the hot plane for hours - and at that point, not knowing what had or was wrong, it was especially scary to think that we'd be flying over the ocean in that large plane, hoping that all was well.

    Fortunately, it was.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I haven’t really traveled much just through a couple states with my family as a kid and then two a state over from mine as an adult nowhere further. So idk. Probably the people in certain places lol. Some people act super weird in certain places. Drugs or what not.

    ReplyDelete
  25. This looks like an excellent series. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Sorry, but I can't think of anything.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Don't enter me, I have both books...but the most unsettling thing was a cockroach in the one place I stayed while on a mission trip to Mexico several years ago. It was in the bathroom :-p

    ReplyDelete
  28. Nothing unsettling has happened to me while traveling. Never been to the mountains.

    ReplyDelete