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R.C. Barnes
PARANORMAL STORIES WITH FIERCELY HUMAN HEARTS
Magic with a memory. Power with a price.
R.C. Barnes writes hauntingly immersive YA urban fantasy and paranormal fiction for readers who like their magic gritty and their characters gloriously flawed. Her stories are rich with mystery, magic, and the kind of emotional honesty that lingers.
Her teens break rules, skip curfews, and accidentally summon something nasty while stress-eating cereal straight from the box. These are the stories of messy kids with big emotions and dangerous gifts—where secrets bleed, and power always comes with a price.
If you like uniquely relatable characters, shocking surprises, and riveting shared universes, then you’ll love R.C. Barnes’s flash of adrenaline.
WELCOME TO THE Tattoo Teller series
​Primary series are the Tattoo Teller series (featuring Bess Wynters) and the Tattoo Teller Mysteries (featuring Bess’ sister, Echo and her talking cat tattoo, Hocus). The Bess stories deal with real-life contemporary teen challenges and Bess is the only paranormal element. The Echo titles contain more paranormal entities and there is a trio of girls at the helm, with a talking cat.
The Tattoo Teller series takes diverse cultural narratives and intertwines them with real-world challenges. YA focused issues of identity, mental health and social justice are explored with paranormal themes.
The Tattoo Teller series uses a unique magic system. Tattoos are conduits for psychic abilities and offer intriguing challenges for the central characters. The stories explore tattoos from loved ones, traumatic memories, and even, ancestors.
What if every tattoo was a psychic echo?”
READ MORE
Ink is permanent—but what if it’s more than skin-deep?
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HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD
(AND THEN PUT THEM BACK)
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(release in anthology October 2025)
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A Tattoo Teller prequel mystery by R.C. Barnes
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Fifteen-year-old Echo Wynters has a secret—she’s a tattoo teller. Ink isn’t just ink to her; every tattoo she sees comes to life, moving, whispering, warning. It’s a strange gift, one she’s learned to keep under control—until a disastrous outburst lands her at Hillside House, a remote facility for troubled teens.
Hillside has a vacancy because Graydon, a fellow patient, vanished without a trace three weeks ago. The staff insists he ran away. The other teens think he left for love. But Echo isn’t so sure.
Because Graydon’s black cat tattoo? It’s still here. And it’s talking.
As Echo follows the cryptic clues left in the ink, she unearths a web of secrets darker than she ever imagined—one that ties Graydon’s disappearance to an ancient organization, a shifting reality, and a truth that refuses to stay buried. With danger lurking behind every door and trust a rare commodity, Echo must confront the most chilling question of all:
Is Graydon still alive? Or is something far worse waiting for her in the shadows of Hillside House?
Perfect for fans of eerie mysteries, psychological thrills, and stories where nothing is as it seems!
INK FOR THE BELOVED
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WHAT IF YOU COULD DISCOVER A PERSON'S DARKEST SECRET JUST BY TOUCHING THEIR SKIN?
Sixteen-year-old Bess Wynter is barely keeping her life together. Her mother, Terry, is a celebrated tattoo artist known for emotional healing ceremonies, but at home, she’s a whirlwind of bad decisions and reckless passion. Bess shoulders the responsibility of caring for her younger sister Echo and managing the tattoo studio—all while hiding her rare gift: she’s a tattoo teller, able to read the truth behind inked images with a single touch.
When Terry brings home Todd, a suspiciously perfect new boyfriend, Bess’s alarm bells go off. She senses something darker lurking beneath Todd’s charming surface—and his friends are even worse. But Terry is smitten, Echo is vulnerable, and no one believes Bess’s warnings.
After a devastating act of violence rocks their family, Bess’s gift becomes the key to uncovering the truth. With help from her best friends Rueben and Joanie, she embarks on a dangerous journey through the Bay Area’s tattoo subculture, reading memories from inked skin and following the trail of a man who never should have been trusted.
As the clues deepen and the danger closes in, Bess must harness her psychic ability, confront the shadows of her mother’s past, and risk everything to protect the people she loves most.
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INK FOR THE BELOVED is an exciting new urban young adult mystery series featuring a hellcat heroine with an unusual ability. Get your copy now!
PRAISE FOR
INK FOR THE BELOVED
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"Read the book and get on the list for the sequel. If it's anything like this one, it will be a winner."
E. Van Lowe
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"All I can say is, it was over too soon! This story got me going from the first page. It is fun, suspenseful, and a little bit CREEPY ..."
Amazon Shopper
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"Good characters depicted in quick brushstrokes. Reading of tattoos as a psychic trigger is ingenious!"
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S.P.H.
INK FOR THE DAMNED
Book Two of the Tattoo Teller series
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Some truths are inked into your skin. Others are buried in blood and fire.
After surviving a warehouse fire that nearly claimed her life, seventeen-year-old Bess Wynter is ready to step back into the real world: college applications, family healing, and a budding romance she didn’t see coming. But when the death of a mysterious family friend uncovers a lead on the father she’s never met, Bess can't resist the pull of secrets long buried.
What begins as a simple courthouse meeting spirals into a nightmare. Bess and her best friend Joanie are abducted by a doomsday cult known as the People’s Garden—where girls are bartered for marriage, children are separated from their parents, and tattooed skin holds the key to survival. With her psychic ability to read memories embedded in ink, Bess strikes a dangerous bargain to save Joanie. But power always comes with a price.
As fire threatens to consume everything once again, Bess must decide: will she burn for the truth—or fight her way to freedom?
Dark, immersive, and unflinchingly emotional, Ink for the Damned dives deeper into the mythology of the Tattoo Teller, where family ties cut like razors, and inked skin holds the power to destroy or deliver.
BOOK BLURB HERE
SPOOKY BAXTER,
PARTY CRASHER
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(release in December 2025)
A Tattoo Teller prequel mystery by R.C. Barnes
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In the coastal town of Bonner by the Sea, high school parties come with more than just drama—they come with ghosts.
Samantha “Spooky” Baxter has always been the odd girl out—sensitive, sarcastic, and saddled with an unexplainable link to ancient magic. When a party at a haunted fort spirals into supernatural chaos, Spooky is thrust into a nightmarish world of cursed rituals, cryptic runes, and restless spirits hungry for vengeance.
With malevolent forces threatening to consume her classmates, Spooky is forced to make an impossible choice: save the soul of the school’s resident mean girl—or risk losing her best friend forever. The cost of doing the right thing leaves scars she can’t hide—and questions she may never stop asking.
Armed with wit, grit, and just enough recklessness to get her into trouble, Spooky must navigate a town steeped in secrets and a destiny that’s darker than she ever imagined.
Perfect for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, this paranormal thrill ride blends high school angst with supernatural suspense in a town where the past never dies—and neither do its secrets.
THIS ARCHIVE IS CURSED
(PROBABLY)
​(release in March 2026)
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A Tattoo Teller prequel mystery by R.C. Barnes
Cristal Caleta is used to chasing legends—not living inside one. As the sharp-tongued host of MayanMija, a viral social media channel about Indigenous myths and hidden histories, she’s racked up millions of views and more than a few conspiracy theories. But things get real when she travels with her father, renowned archaeologist Hector Caleta, to a remote desert archive—only to find its curator missing, the doors locked, and the last message from him sent directly to her.
Inside the shuttered museum, clues lead Cristal into a maze of vanished artifacts, redacted research, and encrypted messages pointing toward something ancient stirring along the coast. The internet might think it’s clickbait, but Cristal knows better: someone is covering something up. And someone else doesn’t want her asking questions.
With her camera rolling, her instincts buzzing, and no backup but her own brain, Cristal chases the truth through cursed legends, cult whispers, and one very suspicious wing of the archive dedicated to bat gods and blood rites.
The deeper she digs, the clearer it gets: this story doesn’t end in the desert. It ends in Bonner by the Sea.
THIS ARCHIVE IS CURSED
(PROBABLY)
(release in March 2026)
​
A Tattoo Teller prequel mystery by R.C. Barnes
Cristal Caleta is used to chasing legends—not living inside one. As the sharp-tongued host of MayanMija, a viral social media channel about Indigenous myths and hidden histories, she’s racked up millions of views and more than a few conspiracy theories. But things get real when she travels with her father, renowned archaeologist Hector Caleta, to a remote desert archive—only to find its curator missing, the doors locked, and the last message from him sent directly to her.
Inside the shuttered museum, clues lead Cristal into a maze of vanished artifacts, redacted research, and encrypted messages pointing toward something ancient stirring along the coast. The internet might think it’s clickbait, but Cristal knows better: someone is covering something up. And someone else doesn’t want her asking questions.
With her camera rolling, her instincts buzzing, and no backup but her own brain, Cristal chases the truth through cursed legends, cult whispers, and one very suspicious wing of the archive dedicated to bat gods and blood rites.
The deeper she digs, the clearer it gets: this story doesn’t end in the desert. It ends in Bonner by the Sea.
