R.D. Parrish is an American author of Southern Gothic, Appalachian Gothic, historical, and speculative horror. His stories are rooted in ordinary people and familiar places where something has gone terribly wrong: forgotten towns, isolated farms, old cemeteries, flooded fields, mountain hollows, and stretches of country where the past has never quite stayed buried.
A Marine Corps veteran and living in the deep South, Parrish draws heavily from the landscape, folklore, history, faith, and contradictions of the American South. His fiction ranges from the interconnected mythology of the Darkwood Legacy to standalone novels and stories that explore grief, memory, family, belief, and the unsettling possibility that the world contains things humanity was never meant to understand.
Parrish favors character-driven horror with atmosphere, emotional weight, and a strong sense of place, but he is not afraid to let the darkness step into the light. His work moves between quiet dread and visceral terror, blending the supernatural, the unexplained, and occasionally the scientifically plausible while keeping the human story at its center.
His books include Hollow Ground, The Pale Quiet of Cedar Creek, The DeadRoot, the Darkwood Legacy series, and other works of horror and speculative fiction. He also writes nonfiction, bringing the same direct, personal approach to subjects involving faith, experience, and the questions people often find easier to avoid than confront.
Whether the threat comes from beneath the earth, out of the woods, from the pages of history, or from somewhere far above, Parrish is most interested in what happens after ordinary people realize the impossible is real.
R.D. Parrish lives in North Carolina with his wife, De.
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R.D. Parrish is an American author of Southern Gothic, Appalachian Gothic, historical, and speculative horror. His stories are rooted in ordinary people and familiar places where something has gone terribly wrong: forgotten towns, isolated farms, old cemeteries, flooded fields, mountain hollows, and stretches of country where the past has never quite stayed buried.
A Marine Corps veteran and living in the deep South, Parrish draws heavily from...
They cut down the Confession Tree. They should have left it standing.
For generations, people came to the old oak at the crossroads to confess the things they could no longer live with. Murder. Betrayal. Secrets buried so deep that even their families never knew.
On the morning of February 25, 1884, a strip of Chatham County, North Carolina, woke to red on the ground. Flesh and blood had fallen out of a clear sky onto a farm wife’s yard. The newspapers laughed. The preachers prayed.
Dr. Edwin Latham has steady hands and a habit of looking closer than he should. He takes a scrap of the stuff to his...
Sheriff Cass Holt is alone on rain-soaked Pineback Ridge when her truck dies inches from a four-hundred-foot drop. Fog swallows the road. The temperature plunges. Then something impossibly tall and bone-pale appears beyond her...
For three hundred years, the Confession Tree stood at a mountain crossroads—drinking guilt, passing judgment, demanding execution. In 2019, it was cut down. The wood was sold. Forty-three objects were crafted from...
HOLLOW GROUND
This is probably one of the most descriptive books I have ever read. I kept thinking I hope they make a movie because I want to see this. It kept my attention to the end!
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Lyininthesun
ONCE A MARINE
I could “feel” the heart of R.D. Parrish in Once A Marine. He disclosed some tough times during his teenage years. His time spent in the Marines helped to mold him into a great person while also bringing suffering to his life. A great read!
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David B..
HOLLOW GROUND
Packed full of suspense since the first page!! I loved it!!!
DRAGON, the first edition, was one of my earliest attempts at writing suspense mixed with a little terror and a bit of horror. As I settled into retirement and returned to my love of writing, I felt I improved with each work I completed. After finishing the ten-book Darkwood Legacy series and several connected short stories I call “The Lost Confessions,” I decided to revisit my earliest books. What I found nearly embarrassed me. But wait. I’m...
A barren woman conceived. A dying child recovered. A fisherman's nets came up full. For eight months the faithful came to the ancient log dredged from the Chao Phraya River, and the ancient log gave them what they asked for.
Grace Pritchard arrives in Ayutthaya, Thailand to find a congregation. Forty-three devoted worshippers. A monk being consumed in real time, grateful for every moment of it. A pregnant...
When the prayers start coming true, the dying begins.
A sacred log dredged from Thailand’s Chao Phraya River has become the heart of a miracle shrine — silk‑wrapped, incense‑lit, and adored by thousands. Lottery winners, healed children, answered prayers. But beneath the temple’s golden light, something ancient is feeding. It doesn’t bless. It consumes.
Grace Pritchard, the Oracle, and Marcus Webb arrive in Ayutthaya to investigate what looks like salvation and feels like worship. What they...
