Category: Now Available

Now Available: Where Voices Go to Hide

 

A Haunting New Phone-Anxiety Thriller by Angela Grey


What happens when every telephone call reveals more than the person on the other end intends to say? Where Voices Go to Hide, the first novel in Angela Grey’s new Phone Anxiety Thriller series, is now available.

Elena Sterling has always dreaded answering the phone. The ringing triggers an immediate surge of fear—the racing heart, tightened chest, shallow breathing, and overwhelming urge to let the call go unanswered. But Elena’s fear is not simply ordinary phone anxiety. When she finally answers, she hears two voices. One belongs to the person speaking. The other reveals what they are trying desperately to conceal. Buried beneath polite greetings and carefully chosen words, Elena hears fragments of terror, guilt, resentment, and violence. She hears thoughts that were never meant to leave the safety of another person’s mind.

Then an unknown woman calls Elena’s fiancé. The woman’s voice sounds controlled, but beneath it Elena hears panic. She also hears a thought belonging to her fiancé, Theo Lockhart: Not again. Those two words open the door to a pattern of missing women, carefully protected secrets, and a past Theo refuses to explain. As Elena begins questioning everything she believed about the man she loves, the telephone becomes both her greatest source of evidence and the instrument of her deepest fear. Every call brings her closer to the truth. Every voice gives her another reason not to trust anyone. And someone already knows what Elena can hear.

A Thriller Born from a Real Fear 

Where Voices Go to Hide was inspired in part by my own experience with phone anxiety, sometimes called telephobia. For people who experience it, an incoming call can cause genuine emotional and physical distress. The sound of a ringing telephone may trigger dread, racing thoughts, nausea, trembling, difficulty breathing, or an intense fear of saying the wrong thing. Even listening to a voicemail or returning a routine call can feel overwhelming.

I wanted to explore what might happen if someone already terrified of telephone conversations suddenly had an even greater reason to fear answering. What if every caller carried a hidden voice? What if silence felt safer—but answering was the only way to stop something terrible?

About the Novel

Blending psychological suspense, relationship secrets, missing-person mystery, and the claustrophobic fear of unwanted communication, Where Voices Go to Hide follows a woman whose unusual ability forces her to confront truths that others have spent years concealing. The novel explores:

Phone anxiety and the fear of unexpected communication
Secrets hidden within intimate relationships
The difference between spoken words and private intentions
Manipulation, obsession, and buried guilt
The dangerous consequences of believing you alone can hear the truth

This is a dark, atmospheric thriller for readers who enjoy morally complicated characters, unsettling domestic secrets, psychological tension, and stories in which the person uncovering the mystery may be hiding something too.

The Beginning of a New Series

Where Voices Go to Hide introduces the Phone Anxiety Thriller series, a collection of suspense novels centered on telephone calls, concealed voices, private fears, and the terrible things people reveal when they believe no one can hear what they are truly thinking.

The next installment, A Frequency of Secrets, is currently in development. The telephone may stop ringing. The voices do not.

Get Your Copy

Where Voices Go to Hide by Angela Grey is now available in paperback and ebook formats. Step into Elena Sterling’s world—but think carefully before answering the next call. Some voices speak aloud. Others wait beneath the words. And some truths should never be heard.

In My Life Is Finally Here: A Story Worth the Wait

After an unexpected delay during the editing process, I’m thrilled to announce that In My Life has officially been published! While the extra time wasn’t part of the original plan, it allowed the manuscript to become the strongest version of itself, and I couldn’t be happier to finally share this story with readers.

To celebrate the release, I’m also excited to unveil the brand-new book trailer and enhanced Amazon A+ Content, giving readers an even deeper look into the heart of In My Life. The new trailer captures the emotion, nostalgia, and enduring spirit woven throughout the story, while the Amazon A+ pages offer an engaging visual introduction to the book, its themes, and the journey behind it.

A Story Rooted in Memory, Family, and Place

In My Life is a heartfelt reflection on family, resilience, love, loss, and the moments that shape who we become. Through richly drawn characters and deeply personal experiences, the novel explores the connections between generations and the landscapes that leave lasting impressions on our hearts.

One of the inspirations behind the story comes from my own memories of growing up around the Missouri River bottoms south of Bismarck, an area affectionately known by locals simply as “the desert.”

Those windswept fields, cottonwood groves, riverbanks, and quiet off-road back roads provided the backdrop for countless teen adventures and moments of reflection. As I wrote In My Life, I often found myself reminiscing about those special places and the people who made them unforgettable. While I did alter the people’s histories to protect the real-life adolescents back then, my thoughts of them still swirl in my mind from time to time, as do those of that location. That sense of place became an important thread woven throughout the novel.

Highlights Readers Can Look Forward To  Discovering:

  • A moving story of family bonds that endure through life’s greatest joys and challenges.
  • Vivid settings inspired by the landscapes of North Dakota and the Missouri River.
  • Characters whose hopes, struggles, and triumphs feel authentic and relatable.
  • Themes of faith, perseverance, healing, and the lasting power of memory.
  • A celebration of the places we come from and how they continue to shape us throughout our lives.

Thank You for Your Patience

I want to sincerely thank everyone who waited so patiently while In My Life made its way through the final stages of editing and publication. Your encouragement, messages, and enthusiasm have meant more than you know.

Now the wait is over, and I’m excited to finally place this story into your hands. I hope you’ll enjoy watching the new book trailer, exploring the enhanced Amazon A+ Content, and, most importantly, experiencing the journey of In My Life for yourself.

Thank you for being part of this incredible journey. I can’t wait to hear what you think of the story.

Echoes Along the Shore book release

The forests whisper, rivers bleed, and Superior keeps its echoes. Campers think they’re hunting a killer, but the wilderness hides more than storms. In the mist, one truth cuts clear: the danger is already among them.

Some places keep secrets. This one keeps the dead.

Echoes Along the Shore is a place-driven psychological thriller where the landscape exerts agency, truth emerges through pattern recognition, and survival is both the protagonist’s greatest strength—and her most dangerous liability. The same instincts that kept her alive are pulling her deeper

They came for fresh air, campfires, and peace.
They found that some campers won’t survive the weekend.
And one of them may never have planned to.

On the edge of Lake Superior, the next echo could be your last.

After surviving a string of brutal murders in their hometown, Leah, Nick, and Jake escape north, hoping the vast wilderness of Minnesota’s Arrowhead region will offer peace to forest bathe. Instead, the forests of Tettegouche and the roaring rivers bleeding into the great lake draw them into a nightmare more cunning than anything they left behind.

Gripping, atmospheric, and merciless, Echoes Along the Shore is a psychological survival thriller that asks: what if the deadliest predator isn’t lurking in the woods at all, but stoking a fire nearby?

Perfect for readers of atmospheric psychological thrillers, survival suspense, and character-driven mysteries set against the haunting landscapes of the western Great Lakes & upper Midwest, where the lake has already decided what it will give back .

North of Ordinary: Short Stories That Live in the Quiet Between Things

A Midwestern atmospheric literary fiction collection rooted in place, season, and complicated lives

Some towns don’t change. They just learn how to hide it better.
In the northern Midwest, ordinary lives bend quietly, until they don’t.

In the quiet towns and backroads of the northern Midwest, nothing stays buried forever.

Set against apple orchards, corn mazes, gravel roads, and wind-cut fields, North of Ordinary is a literary short story collection that traces the

Blending contemporary literary fiction with the textures of rural America, this collection captures the quiet drama of people caught between obligation and desire, memory and reinvention. Each story is grounded in Midwestern landscapes—where the air carries cider, dust, and something unsaid—and where even the smallest decision can echo.

Perfect for readers who love:

  • character-driven fiction and emotionally resonant storytelling
  • small town drama and layered relationships
  • atmospheric literary fiction with a strong sense of place
  • coming-of-age themes, family tension, and quiet unravelings
  • the work of Elizabeth Strout, Annie Proulx, and Raymond Carver

North of Ordinary is a collection about what lingers—
in towns that remember,
in families that fracture and hold,
and in the long, quiet moment before a life changes course.

“Whimsy and Bliss” by Angela Grey

 

Shady Oak Press (2025)
ISBN: 978-1961841468
Reviewed by Stephanie Elizabeth Long for Reader Views (09/2025)

Abigail Whimsy and Lainey Bliss have been best friends since the second grade. Like yin and yang, their opposites somehow fit together like errant puzzle pieces. Whimsy exists in a world of vibrant dreams and imagination, while Lainey is pragmatic and even-keeled, which anchors Abigail. Because nothing good can last forever, the girls have one final summer together before Lainey goes off to a fancy college, leaving Abigail behind.

Before Lainey leaves, Abigail has devised a plan. They will create a map (complete with a detailed legend) and explore all the mysteries of their town—dismantle the “thin” places, using her late grandmother’s journal (chaotic musings) as a guide.

As they delve deeper into the journey, Abigail’s reality becomes skewed, and Lainey’s attempts to keep her friend’s sanity in check become more difficult. The places they visit awaken a humming within Abigail, and the more they add to the map, the louder the hum becomes.

Whimsy and Bliss is a coming-of-age literary masterpiece. Angela Gray’s writing is known for its vivid imagery and deep metaphors, and this novel is no exception. Readers will quickly be immersed in Abigail’s world of wanderlust, where magic and realism become blurred. Beyond that, the character-driven story explores themes of friendship, self-discovery, and bridging the transition from childhood to young adulthood.

Sometimes it can be hard to decipher the difference between imagination and illness. The author has done an excellent job of illustrating Abigail’s unraveling—the whispering of nature, the ebb and flow of the hum, and the excitement turned obsession. With every place Abigail and Lainey traversed, I fell more in tune with Abigail’s frequency, at times questioning what was real and what was fictitious—this is the type of story that makes you see the world differently.

Whimsy and Bliss certainly highlights the plight of mental illness, particularly hypomania. Still, at its core, the novel’s overarching message is one of connection and trust—it’s the impenetrable sisterhood between two young women on the cusp of adulthood. In a world that is often stuck in the me-versus-you mentality, the solidarity between friends is refreshing, teaching us that we don’t have to suffer alone; we can lean on others for support.

For readers who love young adult books about friendship and adventure with a focus on mental health, this literary gem will appeal to you. Angela Gray’s exquisite prose is unmatched, and the multilayered characters are memorable. Abigail and Lainey’s map of thin places will forever hold a special place in my heart.

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Of Laughter & Heartbreak book trailer

This is the summer of locked doors, fragile rituals, and the ghosts that keep count.

I’m Stevie Matthews—almost sixteen, the kind of girl people whisper about. “Bat-shit crazy,” they say. Maybe they’re right. This summer, the order cracks. Obsessive thoughts tighten like barbed wire, rituals multiply, and the only way forward is a hospital stay I never asked for.

Behind those doors, I meet strangers who feel both broken and familiar, each carrying their own secret galaxies of fear and hope. Together, we make a kind of map—messy, jagged, stitched with laughter, unraveling with heartbreak.

This is the story of how I learn that friendship can be born from accident, that healing isn’t neat or pretty, and that sometimes the bravest thing is to stay.

This book is a tender, unflinching portrait of adolescence, OCD, and the fragile alchemy of survival—equal parts bruised and luminous, like a diary written in ink and ghost light.

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When Characters Refuse to Stay Secondary: The Day One Draft Split Into Three Lives

Some stories begin with a single spark. For me, it was a scene in a psych ward where Nico and Zibby from The Cartography of First Love found themselves alongside Abigail Whimsy from Whimsy and Bliss and Aspen James from Shadows We Carry. At first, they shared the same space—four voices pressed together by circumstance, four fragile hearts mapping escape routes in whispers. But as I wrote, each one began to grow beyond the walls I had built, demanding not just a role in a shared narrative but the full breath of their own.

What began as one writing endeavor quickly branched into three novels. I realized I loved each of them too much to let them be shadows in someone else’s story. Nico and Zibby’s romance needed its own compass. Whimsy’s dreamlike adventures deserved to unfurl before her diagnosis became part of her arc. And Aspen’s haunted sketches needed the weight of silence and discovery only their own narrative could hold. By giving them individual pages, I gave them the freedom to tell me who they really were.

The backstories I first drafted in that shared ward became scaffolding—notes, fragments, hints of a life I would later let bloom fully. For Whimsy and Aspen, I wrote them at a point before hospitalization, while their lives were still luminous with magic and not yet marked by diagnosis, though Whimsy’s epilogue eventually folds that thread in. It was the only way to honor their wonder as much as their struggle. For Nico and Zibby, I leaned into the familiar rhythms of the ward itself—the routines, the hush, and the clamor—because their love story was inseparable from that claustrophobic yet strangely tender landscape.

Each character is close to my heart because their beginnings trace back to my own. I was hospitalized repeatedly between the ages of 13 and 15 for an eating disorder. I remember the unlikely friendships, the long hours, and the way we mapped impossible escape plans—California always our imagined salvation. Those memories, both heartrending and inspiring, found new breath through Zibby, Nico, Whimsy, and Aspen. What started as one shared room became three worlds, each carrying a piece of that past and reshaping it into a story.

Lake of Secrets is Now Available

Living beside the water should be peaceful until the bodies of mystery infants wash ashore. A nightmare scenario unfolds: the third in a string of dead bodies turns up in the suburban lake, rekindling the mysterious occurrence. Each is a premature baby, and they were delivered a year apart. DNA tests show they’re all related half-siblings with no mother in sight. No one around the vicinity can venture a guess as to whose offspring they are. Disturbed by the gruesome discoveries, the residents challenge the police to find the mythical woman responsible for the serial deaths.

Moving ahead ten years and new to this department, Detective Chayse Adler is at a loss with the cold case file. Tasked with tackling the enigmatic case may unearth a deadly secret and endanger the lives of those involved. But as she wades into the investigation, the alleged accessory list grows.

Everyone is guessing who it is that holds the deadly secrets in this gripping page-turner of emotional rawness that will have you racing for the anxiety-inducing finale. This book’s compelling plot will get under your skin and hook you with this fast-paced, fully-engrossing read.