Hazel Watson Mystery Series

 There may be more to an empty room than meets the eye. You may just find that you’re not alone.

NOW WITH THREE NOVELETTES!

Candy's Story

Candy Townsend enjoyed her life as a young bartender in the city of New Orleans. Sure, she had a complicated relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Brad, but she was in love with a new man and was hopeful for the future. Sadly, her life, and her future, changed forever after one fateful night. Candy struggled in her new state of being, until nearly a year later, when a young woman with a special ability entered her apartment. A young woman named Hazel Watson.

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Hazel's Story

Hazel Watson had newly graduated from law school and it was time for her to move into her own apartment and join the adult world. Something she was admittedly dreading. Unfortunately, the only place she could afford in the popular city of New Orleans had a reputation for being haunted. Undeterred, and desperate to find a place of her own, she moved in regardless. Using her hereditary ability to communicate with the dead, she befriends her new apartment’s resident ghost and teams up with the feisty spirit to help other lost souls she encounters.

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Haunted Holiday: The Soldier in the Stone Room

Settled into a new apartment with her spirit, best-friend, Candy, Hazel Watson prepares for her first Christmas as a fully functional adult. Her career as an attorney at the Public Defender’s office was demanding, so a little rest and relaxation was on her agenda. What Hazel does not need is a new ghost in her life, or a new obligation. So, when the spirit of a Confederate soldier shows up in her dreams, and in her bedroom, Hazel must figure out who he is and how he died so he can move on.

Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards!

There’s a killer hiding in plain sight in New Orleans. How far will the spirits of his victims, and the woman who can see them, go to take him down?

Still fresh to the community of public defenders, Miss Hazel Watson finds herself entangled in a case of embezzlement-with a liberal dash of the supernatural. Who was this spirit haunting her client? Why is this spirit's glimmering sapphire necklace so entrancing? And, most importantly, why could Hazel not communicate with her?

Since she was a young girl, Hazel had been helping spirits conclude their earthly business so they could pass over. Her ability to communicate with spirits was passed down from her mother, who was able to help guide her and hone her necromancy skills. Hazel was never a social butterfly, but she never had a problem communicating with the dead. Until now.

There are enough challenges being a young, female, public attorney. Still, this new case presents challenges Hazel could never have anticipated.

As Mr. Miller's trial date inches closer, with more questions than answers, Hazel, with the help of her spectral best-friend, Candy, are rushing against the clock to identify the dead woman, find her killer, and avoid becoming the killer's next victim herself.

Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards!

After surviving an abduction by the hands of a serial killer, Hazel Watson, along with her police officer boyfriend, and spirit best friend, are looking forward to their brand of normalcy.

But the spirit of a murdered man shows up in Hazel’s apartment. He’s not just any man, however. He’s the man Candy was murdered over. This, once again, throws their world into chaos, causing her to rethink what had never been questioned.

Did the police have the right man in prison?

Hazel tests powers she never knew she had and finds herself caught up in a tangled case of obsession and murder.

The more she navigates the killer’s past, the more entangled her life becomes, until it endangers those she loves.

Forced to put those closest to her in the line of fire, Hazel Watson marches into the dangerous world of a psychotic killer, led by the spirits of their victims. Can she bring their havoc to an end?

 Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards!

Many changes are happening in the life of Hazel Watson… good changes… but the demands of the spirit world remain the same. The exhausting, stressful obligations she’s dealt with since she was a child. Helping them is inescapable.

So, when the bodies of two women are discovered in the swamps of South Louisiana, the people of New Orleans are shocked… but not Hazel. She had been seeing the faces of those same two women in her dreams for weeks, haunting her and beckoning her to find their killer.

Having never been comfortable with sharing the nature of her abilities with others, Hazel struggles with having to do just that when she receives a ghostly warning about the impending abduction of another woman.

Can Hazel overcome her fear of being exposed, and of the swamp itself, before more women fall victim to the killer who stalks the Louisiana wetlands? 

The darkness of her mind keeps pulling her in, begging her to prevent a tragedy she’s powerless to stop.

Settling down and getting married was never something Hazel Watson saw in her future. At least, not before she’d opened her heart to the man she'd had a crush on for more than five years. Now, after everything they’d gone through since her abduction by an infamous New Orleans serial killer, he was someone she knew she could never live without. So once she and her ghost best friend moved into his suburban home, the natural next step was to walk down the aisle, settling down into a low-stress life now that her career as a public defender was a thing of the past. But the spirits she’s been seeing since she was a child won’t leave her in peace… but are they even spirits at all?

When Hazel and her fiance fly to Las Vegas with their ghostly best friends in tow to have a no-frills wedding, ominous visions plague Hazel’s dreams, giving her cryptic warnings from the mouth of an innocent child, a child whom Hazel knows isn’t actually dead. Adding to the fear and stress caused by her dreams, a family emergency brings Hazel back home to New Mexico, and to the family she’s been estranged from for many years.

Hazel’s never been able to see into the future before, and surely she cannot prevent events from happening. Yet the living child who’s found a way to infiltrate her mind from afar seems to think she can.

Are the warnings Hazel receives from an unexpected ally, in the darkness of her mind, real? And how are these meetings in her darkened mind connected to the sightings of an infamous urban legend in her hometown? Hundreds of lives hang in the balance as Hazel tries to solve this mystery before it’s too late.

She couldn't see Bella, but she heard her warning, crystal clear: "It's not over."

In C. A. Varian's sixth gripping installment of the Hazel Watson Mystery Series, "The Spirit Collector," readers are once again immersed in a world where the living and the dead intersect.

Hazel possesses a unique gift—the ability to communicate with the departed, especially her beloved friend, Candy.

However, in this chilling tale, Bella, whom Hazel connects with in the darkness, has disappeared, throwing New Orleans into a spectral crisis. The spirits that once haunted the city's streets are vanishing, leaving an eerie void in the supernatural tapestry.

As Hazel grapples with Bella's disappearance, she stumbles upon a sinister force at play. A dark malevolent presence conducts ominous rituals to control the spirits, coveting Bella's unimaginable power, even greater than Hazel's, to obstruct spirits from crossing over.

Now, Hazel must navigate the shadowy labyrinth of New Orleans' ghostly underworld to save Bella and unravel the sinister plans. Time is running out, and the fate of the spirit world hangs in the balance. In "The Spirit Collector," Hazel Watson's abilities face the ultimate test as she races against the clock to prevent a spirit apocalypse that could plunge New Orleans into eternal darkness.

A New Orleans-based paranormal mystery with a splash of romance