A village that no longer exists on any map. And no one who will speak of it openly.Uncanny voices in the night. And one rule: whoever answers is lost.
Based on true events — two volumes of a true story from the Carpathians. Releasing October 15, 2026.
Both volumes release on 15 October 2026 in 7 languages on all major platforms. Book 1 »The Village of the Hanged« is available for pre-order now. Book 2 »Stafii« will be available for pre-order shortly – join the newsletter to be the first to know.
A True Story from the Carpathians · Book 1
eBook · €5.99
What if your grandmother's warning were a matter of life and death? When the narrator falls in love with Lena, a Romanian woman, he has no idea what he's getting into: a village at the foot of the Carpathians that the locals know by only one name — the village of the hanged. At first it's just small things: a cat that flees from his new girlfriend, voices calling names in the night, knocking at windows where no one stands. But the deeper he sinks into his new family's life, the clearer it becomes: a centuries-old curse lies over this place. The Village of the Hanged is a true story about love, family, and an evil that doesn't vanish just because you refuse to believe in it. Book 1 of the Carpathian Chronicles.
Every pre-order counts on release day – and helps the book to the top spots at launch.
Uncanny Voices in the Night · Book 2
A year after the events of The Village of the Hanged, the narrator returns to Lena's home village to marry her — and is drawn deeper into the darkness his first book only hinted at. He hears of Florica, who waited forty years by a window for a voice she had answered only once. Of men who vanished without a trace, and women found days later in the marsh, changed. And on his own wedding night, he must learn the family's second rule: whoever answers is lost. Stafii is a true story about love, inheritance, and an ancient voice that knows exactly whose name to call. Book 2 of the Carpathian Chronicles.
»The Village of the Hanged« is available for pre-order now in several stores. »Stafii« will follow shortly — sign up to the newsletter to be notified first.
Somewhere in the mountains lies a village that no longer exists on any official map. The people there don't call it by its real name. They call it only: the village of the hanged.
What is told here is not a novel in the usual sense. It began with a few lines in an old report, a handful of deaths no one could — or would — explain. The closer you looked, the more the thing slipped away.
The names have been changed. The place is real. Nothing more will be revealed here — some stories lose what makes them what they are the moment you say them out loud.
A place that stopped counting its dead.
A superstition that never disappeared.
And to this day, everyone there is silent about what really happened.
Folklore, superstition and the true motifs behind the Carpathian Chronicles.
Corben Vale is a pseudonym. The author lives with his family between Germany and Romania and has changed both his own name and the name of the village — out of respect for those involved and to protect his own family.
In the Carpathian Chronicles he tells what he encountered in Lena's home village: a true story about love, family, and an evil that doesn't vanish just because you refuse to believe in it.
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