Crystal Portee Upcoming Releases
Summer & Late Winter 2026
Each of these upcoming titles is deep in development, growing chapter by chapter as I shape their worlds, mysteries, and characters. I’m drafting, refining, and polishing them with the same intensity and heart that define all my stories.
These books are scheduled to be completed by Summer/Fall 2026, with more updates to come as they move from manuscript to final form. Thank you for following along on this creative journey, your anticipation means everything.
In the fractured lands of Torlan, power is never given it's taken. Kingdoms rise and fall on betrayal, blood, and buried truths. At the center of it all stands Khalil, a man never meant to wear a crown, yet destined to shape the fate of empires. As tensions rise, King Jyn grows distant from his people, haunted by a past he cannot escape. Yelena, a witch, senses a darkness already rooted deep within their world. From the shadows emerges Callum. Alliances shift, loyalties are tested, and truths unravel.
(Interracial Romance, Gangster Romance, Forbidden Love, & Crime/Power) In Chicago, a city built on lines you do not cross, Tony Valera has survived by knowing where power lives and how to claim it. Born of Italian and Mexican roots, he has carved out a place in a world that never fully accepts him. In 1935, everything changes when he falls in love with Vera Johnson, an African American woman whose presence alone defies the rules that protect him. Their love is not hidden, and that makes it dangerous. As Tony rises in a world that demands loyalty over mercy, he must also prove himself worthy of Vera, her family, and a future the city refuses to imagine. Vera walks beside him with quiet strength, fully aware that love can be both shelter and risk.
(Psychological Thriller, Science Fiction Near-Future, & Corporate Conspiracy) A new psychiatric drug spreads through an elite university under the language of care. When students begin to move, stare, and react differently, a medical trainee and a groundskeeper uncover a treatment designed not to heal, but to regulate.
(Cyberpunk, Romance, Neo Noir, Tragic Love, Body Horror, LGBTQ, Romance, and Dystopian Fiction)Tallulah and Zinnia are real women in a city obsessed with replacements, dancing for survival while saving for a life beyond Halo City’s neon grip. What begins as friendship turns into love and a plan to escape, but Halo City never releases what it claims.
(Dark Magical Realism, and Eco-Fiction Environmental Fiction) When Nayra, a gifted tarot reader from the Andes, uncovers the truth behind a water corporation poisoning communities across Peru, she is forced to choose between exposure and retribution. As her magic deepens and the water begins to listen, the line between protection and curse dissolves.
(Mystery / Crime Thriller/ Supernatural Thriller, Paranormal Crime, Coastal Noir) When a series of unexplained drownings threatens Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the height of tourist season, forensic photographer Constance Costa and homicide detective Bastien Costa uncover evidence that defies logic and science. As the truth drags them beneath calm waters and darker myths from their past, they must confront a force that refuses to stay buried.
(Dystopian Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Feminist, & Dystopian Fiction) In the near future, the U.S. government releases a public Monthly Kill List, an online database that legally authorizes women to hunt one man each month. When Khalil, a charming and elusive man who lives under multiple identities, appears repeatedly on the list across three continents, a global pursuit begins. As the system closes in and additional hunters are activated, the line between justice, vengeance, are activated.
(Urban Fantasy, Afro-centric Spirituality, Coven Politics, & Gothic Fantasy) Salem has always belonged to witches, just not the ones history chose to remember. In 2016, four Black witches hold the city’s true balance, bound by Afro-centric bloodline magic rooted in Haitian, African, and Caribbean traditions. Other covens keep their distance. Some out of respect, others out of fear, but a new witch will rock the coven.
(Adult Literary Fiction, Urban Fiction, Crime-Adjacent / and Social Justice Fiction) The Houston Runners After Midnight is an adult literary novel set in Houston, Texas in 1983. The story follows nineteen year old Deja Cummings, a "runner" raised in the Cypress Oaks neighborhood who delivers what people need when official systems fail. Moving through the city after dark, Deja connects Black neighborhoods, Mexican communities, and white working class areas that are kept separate by design.
(Romani history, Hungarian folklore, Women’s lineage, Matriarchal stories, Historical fiction, & Cultural memoir) History did not record the Váradi women, but it felt their presence long after they passed through. From nineteenth-century camps under starlit skies to the modern world, the women carry an inheritance rooted in memory and consequence. When the past begins to stir, one descendant is drawn toward truths her family buried for generations.
(YA Emotional Mystery) When Ivy Monroe discovers a box of letters her late brother never sent, she begins a journey through the pieces of his hidden life. Each envelope leads her to someone he tried to help, and each revelation asks Ivy to confront her grief, and the legacy of kindness he left unfinished.
(Dystopian Fantasy, Postwar World, Dark Fantasy Series, & Magic) After a war where vampires witches and werewolves destroyed one another the world belongs to humans again. Cities lie in ruin magic is unstable and survival depends on fragile alliances. Seren walks through what remains carrying a secret that could either save this broken world or end it forever. As the last convergence of blood moon and spells she is the only being capable of sealing the magic that caused the wars, but hope has a cost.