ST Abby Books in Order

If you want her full dark vigilante arc: The Risk → Sidetracked → Scarlet Angel → All the Lies → Paint It All Red.
If you’re new to dark romance and thrillers: Start with The Risk; if you like the mix of FBI profiling and revenge, continue straight through to Paint It All Red in order.
If you prefer to binge cliffhanger novellas: Read The Risk → Sidetracked → Scarlet Angel → All the Lies → Paint It All Red back‑to‑back for one continuous story.

S.T. Abby was the dark‑romance alter ego of USA Today bestselling author C.M. Owens, a writer who built an unusually wide career across romantic comedy, paranormal adventure, biker romance, and high‑stakes psychological thrillers.

Christie Owens Cunningham, the woman behind the pen names, grew up in the American South in a close, creative family. Friends and relatives later described her as a quiet, unassuming “Southern girl” who was surrounded by music and performance, but who eventually realized her real voice lived on the page rather than on a stage.

Before publishing, she spent about a decade working long shifts in a plumbing distribution warehouse while raising a family. Writing started on the side—first poems and song lyrics, then stories—encouraged by a father who nudged her into attending a local writing seminar and taking her imagination seriously.

In January 2014 she released her first Kindle romance and quickly discovered that readers were hungry for her blend of humor, chaos, and heartfelt emotion. Within a couple of years she was writing full‑time, turning out small‑town and college romances like Hooked on the Game and building larger interconnected series such as Sterling Shore, The Wild Ones, and the paranormal Deadly Beauties books.

Owens liked to joke that she “only writes romance” but couldn’t stick to just one flavor. Under the main C.M. Owens name she leaned into loud, messy, funny stories; as Kristy Cunning she wrote reverse‑harem fantasy like Four Psychos; and as S.T. Abby she dug into darker, bloodier territory with the Mindf*ck novellas. Across all three names, her work centered on characters who are a little unhinged, very loyal, and determined to find love on their own terms.

The Mindf*ck series in particular showed how far she was willing to push a premise. Across five short books, Lana Myers—an artist by day and vigilante serial killer by night—falls in love with Logan Bennett, the FBI profiler unknowingly hunting her. The story mixes graphic trauma and small‑town corruption with banter, found family dynamics, and a slow, intense romance that has inspired rereads, essays, and a huge amount of online discussion.

Even as her catalog grew, Owens stayed closely connected to her audience. She built a lively online book club, chatted in reader groups, and shared advice with aspiring writers about self‑publishing, genre blending, and trusting your own odd ideas. Fans often describe her as generous with both her time and her sense of humor, happy to celebrate reader theories and favorite side characters.

In July 2021, at just thirty‑seven, she died after a tragic incident at her home in Cedar Bluff, Alabama. News of her death rippled quickly through the romance community, where readers and fellow authors shared memories of how her stories had carried them through hard weeks or pulled them out of reading slumps.

Today her books continue to circulate under all three pen names, often finding new life when a backlist series goes viral on social media. Whether you come to her work for chaotic small‑town antics, paranormal showdowns, or the razor‑edged revenge of Mindfck*, you can feel the same driving force behind it: a Southern storyteller who loved big feelings, messy people, and giving her characters a hard‑won chance at love.