the wizard of warp, the queen of the corkscrew twist, rachel the writer
r.a.t. dubrueler
official site of future best-selling author & storyteller
stories
“There are no rewards or punishments—only consequences.” —W.R. Inge
​
In the shadowed heart of distinguished Silver Circle, a judge’s home erupts into violence, and an already fractured family spins toward a midnight reckoning. In the kitchen, an eight-inch cleaver glints in the moonlight. A woman trembles beside a sink slick with blood.
A few houses down, a young mother struggles with the mounting bills, haunted by her suspicions that her baby’s father is hiding something worse than infidelity. Her heart sinks as she scans the search engine on the glowing screen left unattended—how to kill someone without getting caught.
Miles away, an aspiring singer pours herself into her dream of Broadway, waitressing to make ends meet, and every tip she pockets is a step closer to escape. No friends, no distractions, but then he came. Charming and unforgettable, butterflies bloomed in her stomach. She couldn’t have known that monsters don’t wear masks. They smile, showing up in the form of everything you've ever asked for.
Their stories shouldn't intersect, but murder doesn’t care for coincidence, and it doesn't have boundaries.
Best Served Cold is a psychological thriller that doesn’t just twist—it chokes—exposing the fallout of the choices we make, and the terrifying truth that one terrible act is never isolated. It spreads. It bleeds. And in Silver Circle, it is far from over.
Dear, suspicion. Meet obsession.
​
Fourteen-year-old Ben Whitlock earned the nickname "the Bird Killer" after one too many disturbing acts, but lately his behavior has curdled into something darker, something that even his homicide detective father can’t ignore. Paul Whitlock knows a murderer’s mind, and what terrifies him most is seeing it in his son.
​
But danger doesn’t live only in Ben’s eyes.
Paul’s wife, drowning in addiction and a twisted devotion to their sickly youngest daughter, is unraveling by the day. Her obsession poisons the air inside their crumbling home, and Paul is left desperately trying to pick up the pieces. In his wake: his oldest daughter left feeling abandoned, her world gutted by absent parents; his youngest child handed to a mother unhinged and unpredictable. And their neighbors? Well, the Whitlocks aren’t the only ones who are rotting from the inside.
What's Done in the Dark is a suffocating descent into the paranoia that festers behind picket fences and picture windows, an insidious tale of what happens when hysteria guides good intentions straight into the gutter. When fear becomes the loudest voice in the room, three families must choose: expose the truth—or be consumed by it.
Abby Peralta wasn’t supposed to come home. Now she wishes she hadn’t.
A gnawing feeling draws Abby back to her house—did she leave the curling iron on?—and she discovers a truth she was never meant to see. The basement door yawns open. A woman’s corpse lies twisted at the bottom of the stairs. And her husband, the charming Dr. Jasper Peralta, is nowhere to be found. Abby screams, but no one hears, and what remains are the questions that strip her bare, each demanding more than she’s ready to confront.
Have her suspicions her husband has been sleeping with other women been right all along? Did she fall in love with the man she married or his money? Which bothers her most, cheater or murderer?
Despite her best efforts, Abby knows reason doesn’t live where wrath does.
The possibilities spin in her mind, and pulse racing, she considers calling the police, but when she checks the basement again, the body is gone. And then, Jasper walks through the front door, light as air, smiling like the world hasn’t shifted.
Now, with reality splintering at its edges, Abby must untangle a nightmarish tapestry of secrets and deceit, facing the one question she doesn’t want to ask: what truth is so terrible you’d kill to protect it?
​
The Tangled Webs We Weave is a chilling plunge into domestic terror, where madness smolders behind perfect smiles and loyalty is the first thing to rot. In this unnerving tale of psychological suspense, darkness doesn’t just lurk. It pretends to be love.
Stone Cloud sees itself clearly—faithful, orderly, safe. A neighborhood of retirees, where lawns are trimmed, prayers are said, and gossip dies quietly behind closed blinds and carefully clipped hedges. But what good is vision when the whole neighborhood insists on keeping its eyes closed?
Betty Gibson realizes she hasn’t seen Margaret in weeks, and she knows her worries are rooted in something sinister. She reports it. The sheriff dismisses it. But Betty refuses to let it go. She knows something has gone terribly wrong.
Because Ruth—Ruth with the dead husband and the twin sister she once tried to kill—is acting stranger by the day, and no one seems to care. The neighbors continue to fill their birdfeeders and polish their garden gnomes, behaving as if Margaret’s absence is just another leaf swept off a porch.
But Betty keeps asking questions, and those questions start to echo. Who are the villains? Who’s lying to the law? Where in God’s name could Margaret have gone?
​
One thought torments Betty most: What if it’s all in her head? Her own daughter seems to think so.
​
Then, beneath a sky heavy with dread, the deputies find a body. And suddenly, Running with Scissors reveals that the scariest thing isn’t who’s missing. It’s who’s watching.
Are humans born good? Or are they simply monsters waiting for the right moment?
​
Dr. Mendoza has stared into the darkest parts of the human psyche. She believed she could help Oliver Fish—the intelligent child with an unsettling quiet—but she was wrong. Years later, he has become the nightmare she tried to prevent: a cannibalistic serial killer who left five women mutilated… and kidnapped a little girl no one can find.
Now, homicide detective Irene “Reenie” Pike must peel back Oliver’s mind to find her. He’ll speak, but only if she listens to him relive every kill in his personal journal, written in nauseating detail. Every page is a trap. Every sentence another wound, and what begins as an interrogation quickly spirals into a psychological battle. Oliver isn’t just recounting the horrors. He’s reliving them.
Reenie’s own past isn’t without scars. Her rise through the force was forged in trauma: a father killed before her eyes, a mother lost to madness, and whispers of nepotism she can’t shake. But she’s never faced anything like this. Oliver knows her darkness. He speaks to it, and as the line between hunter and prey blurs, Reenie must confront the possibility that she understands him a little too well.
Red Herring drips with dread as it explores mental illness, guilt, and the terrifying intimacy of violence. In Oliver’s own words, “Do you know what it’s like to kill someone?”
This isn’t just a case. It’s a reckoning. And Reenie may not escape it untouched.
bio
Rachel Ann Taylor DuBrueler has always felt most at home when she was alone and in the dark.
Raised by gloriously supportive parents who saw no issue with a toddler watching Psycho, she cemented a love for twisty plots, creepy atmospheres, and the uncanny ability to spot the killer faster than the opening credits.
​
A proud West Virginian, Rachel earned four degrees from her home state’s flagship university—Let’s go, Mountaineers!—and considers herself a lifelong learner, even if she ghosted her Mensa dues years ago.​
​
By day, she strategizes in corporate boardrooms. By night (and most weekends), she writes the stories that won't let you sleep.
She’s completed five psychological thrillers, each packed with sharp twists and layered tension, and she’s a proud member of multiple writing communities, including Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Virginia Writers Club, Appalachian Authors Guild, and the infamous Psychological Thriller Readers group on Facebook.​
Her home is shared with her husband and a rotating cast of rescued Doberman Pinschers who have the looks of security guards but the hearts of marshmallows.
​
When she’s not writing twisty tales, Rachel can be found passionately arguing about science, politics, or current events, whether or not anyone asked her to. And when the Steelers are on? Let's just say the neighbors know.​
in the press
The suspense of [pursuing publishing] is nothing compared to reading the book. There's more than one twist in this tale.
By Kathryn Ghion
WTRF 7 News
contact
follow me to get
#connedbytheblonde
For inquiries, please contact Agent Mira Perrizo at wordlinkagent@gmail.com.