The Trailhead #10
readers are now in stanford’s head
It’s been both gratifying and unsettling to watch THE LOST DIARY OF GIL STANFORD begin to find its readers.
What started life as cut material—a true darling I hesitated to let go of—has quietly charted its own course, slipping into readers’ hands and minds and refusing to stay there peacefully. The diary deepens the lore first hinted at in THE TOWPATH, peeling back layers that were deliberately left lidded to preserve momentum and mystery. That restraint remains, but the lens has shifted. Experiencing the Valley through the fractured, obsessive mind of Gil Stanford makes the story feel more intimate… and far more disturbing. The mystery doesn’t dissolve—it sharpens.
Now available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle, readers are beginning to uncover this lost chapter for themselves. One described it as “a found diary format that makes the experience feel uncomfortably real,” while another called it “good horror… written in a unique format.” A recent EIN Presswire feature highlighted how the book manages to deliver striking emotional depth in fewer than ninety pages, noting how the entries—spanning 1997 to 1999—trace Stanford’s growing fixation on the cave system beneath the Valley, the cryptic inheritance passed down from his grandfather, and encounters with artifacts that hint at a history far older than anyone suspects. As paranoia mounts, violence simmers, and time itself begins to fracture, the diary quietly lays the groundwork for the events that unfold in THE TOWPATH.
But the diary doesn’t just look backward.
For readers paying close attention, THE LOST DIARY OF GIL STANFORD also offers a glimpse of what may be coming next—and it’s darker than even Stanford or the Portage Falls detectives could have imagined. The Valley doesn’t merely open fissures in time. It exhumes something ancient. Something patient. And in the aftermath of THE TOWPATH, that evil is no longer content to remain buried.
Get it on Amazon, available for Kindle too: https://a.co/d/eYdmmux
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