Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
June 19, 2024
SPOILER ALERT: This journal entry contains insights about major themes in The Empty Lot Next Door. If you're trying to avoid spoilers, it's advisable not to read further until you've finished the book. Reading this journal entry may reveal important plot details you'd rather discover alone.
Candle Face Chronicles: The Lost Souls [Book One] has been available on Amazon since May 5th, 2024. I ordered a shipment of books, which arrived on June 14th. As expected, some of the books were damaged, but to my surprise, only four were affected. This is a significant improvement compared to last year when I ordered 100 copies of The Empty Lot Next Door, and 80 of them were damaged due to shady shipping, poor packaging, or subpar print/cutting work – issues many authors face when dealing with Amazon.
Despite the frustration, the fact that only four books were damaged felt like a victory. During the grueling refund process, I documented each damaged book. Three had pages fused together due to poor cutting, and one had a sticky substance on the front cover. Anticipating that Amazon might refuse a refund for the sticky book, I sprinkled baking powder on the cover to make the stickiness more visible. It worked, revealing a visible handprint. However, the camera still had problems picking up the handprint.
For those who have read my memoir, The Empty Lot Next Door, you’ll know Candle Face left handprints around my house, especially on the windows. As a child, I struggled to determine if Candle Face was real or just a figment of my imagination. Those handprints convinced me she was real. By the end of my elementary school years, I defeated Candle Face, and she disappeared. However, on the day of my high school prom, I found a small handprint on the inside of my car’s hatchback window, a sign that Candle Face wasn’t dead.
The handprint has always been a powerful symbol in my life. It represents the tangible yet elusive presence of Candle Face, a ghost who haunted my childhood. The handprints were her way of leaving a mark, a reminder that she was always near, watching. They were both a source of fear and proof of her existence. This duality—fear and proof—became a central theme in my life and writing.
I hadn’t seen or heard of Candle Face until October 2023, when I began researching her and the mystery of the empty lot next to my childhood home. Shortly after starting my research, lost souls—Candle Face’s victims—began visiting me, asking for help locating their bodies and identifying their killers. These visits reinforced the significance of the handprint as a symbol of unresolved mysteries and unfinished business.
Seeing the handprint on my car that prom night was an alarming reminder that Candle Face was still lurking in my life’s shadows. Now, years later, finding another handprint—this time on the cover of my book about Candle Face—evoked that same heart-stopping sensation. Why would Candle Face leave her mark on my book? Was it a message, a warning, or left by a printing press employee who used my book as a napkin?
Adding to the creepy connection, I’ve encountered Candle Face twice in the past few months during my research and the subsequent visits from the lost souls. Each encounter has left me questioning the boundaries between reality and the supernatural. The handprint on my book directly links my past fears and the mysteries I’m unraveling.
Could this handprint be a sign that Candle Face is closer than ever, watching my every move as I uncover the secrets of her victims? Or is it a twisted coincidence, a cruel trick of fate to remind me of the horrors I thought I had left behind? The recurrence of the handprint serves as a haunting reminder that Candle Face is real.
![Cover of Candle Face Chronicles: The Lost Souls [Book One] by Arthur Mills. Features Candle Face, a skeletal, ghostly figure emerging from mist, symbolizing lost souls.](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0658/7698/3862/files/candle_face_chronicles_the_lost_souls_book_one_front_cover_600x_7d96f118-4b48-439f-99d3-8e1fc002b1d2_550x.jpg?v=1743154248)
Is Candle Face real?
This is a complex and deeply personal question. On the one hand, there's the possibility that Candle Face is a manifestation of my childhood trauma, a figure created by my mind to cope with fear and emotional turmoil. On the other hand, the consistent details, physical evidence, and shared experiences with others suggest that Candle Face may be a genuine supernatural entity. Whether Candle Face is real or a creation of my psyche, her impact on my life has been undeniably profound. Ultimately, the answer to this question is up to you.
How are you able to communicate with the dead? Are you a psychic or medium?
I don’t consider myself a psychic or medium, although many in the paranormal community believe I have some kind of gift, perhaps one that I haven’t fully tapped into yet. Unlike those who claim to communicate with any spirit, my ability seems limited to connecting with Candle Face’s victims and Candle Face herself. While I’m not sure how this works, the connection is strong and focused on these particular Lost Souls, allowing me to share their stories and seek justice for them.
Do you use AI to create your content?
From October 2023 to around March 2024, I personally wrote the short descriptions you see on Google and social media platforms when my web pages or journal entries are shared or found in search results. These descriptions are those brief, 160-character summaries that pop up beside the URL. It was challenging to condense complex ideas into such a small space.
By March 2024, I began letting Wix, my website host, handle this task for me. Their AI generates these summaries much faster and often with more precision than I could manage within that tight character limit. It was a practical decision to let the system take over this small aspect of my work, allowing me to focus more on my writing and investigations.
The web pages and journal entries themselves are entirely my own. My writing encompasses a wide range of topics, including the testimonies of the Lost Souls, my investigations into Candle Face/Isabel, my books like Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook, as well as other works and research. Everything I write is rooted in my decades of experience in writing (over ten books in 15 years) and my 30+ years of expertise in intelligence analysis, missing persons cases, and human trafficking investigations. The core content you read always comes from me.
By early March 2025, I decided to create a Shopify account to sell copies of Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona, The Haunted Handbook, and to look for caretakers for The Scrolls of Souls. It was a tremendous amount of work to manually transfer all 130 journal entries from Wix to Shopify and recreate the Google SEO titles and descriptions for each entry. Shopify’s blogging platform also required a summary for each journal entry. Summarizing my work was taking around 30 minutes per entry, which became overwhelming and unsustainable.
To streamline the process, I allowed AI to create the summaries for me by uploading each journal entry and letting the AI generate the SEO descriptions, summaries, and ALT text for images. Here's a clear breakdown of what is AI-generated:
- Some journal entry titles.
- Nearly all SEO journal descriptions (up to 160 characters).
- Nearly all summaries (which are only available in the backend and not visible to the public).
Everything else you read comes from me, whether it’s documenting testimonies from the Lost Souls, researching Candle Face/Isabel, or writing my books. The AI simply handles the tedious, mechanical parts of the process, leaving the writing, storytelling, and investigations entirely in my hands.
I review all AI-generated summaries and descriptions to ensure they accurately represent the essence of my writing. My decision to use AI for these backend tasks is about maintaining efficiency and allowing me to focus on what truly matters: writing, storytelling, investigations, and giving voice to the Lost Souls, protecting the Fugitives, investigating Candle Face/Isabel, and exploring new projects. Your experience as a reader is shaped by my work, not by AI.
Why did you end the podcast?
I decided to cancel the Candle Face Chronicles Podcast for two key reasons. First, while the Get Haunted Network is a fantastic community for paranormal entertainment, it wasn't the right fit for the serious and important nature of my work with Candle Face Chronicles. The network's lighthearted tone didn’t align with my mission.
Second, the friends and family of one of Candle Face's victims reached out and asked me to stop discussing their loved one on the podcast because it was causing them too much pain. Their request made me realize that my work, while well-intentioned, was unintentionally hurting those who are still living and grieving.
These reasons led me to end the podcast, but I remain committed to continuing my mission to uncover Candle Face’s origins and methods with a renewed focus on compassion and respect for the living.
Why did you stop using www.candleface.com and start using www.branchingplotbooks.com?
I have had the branchingplotbooks.com domain since 2012, but I transferred the domain to Shopify to use it as my storefront. I needed to do this because Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona can't be published or sold via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing because of its spiral binding requirement. The same goes for The Haunted Handbook.
I decided to sell them, along with most of my other books, on Shopify because it allows me to provide a more streamlined and reliable experience for my readers. It also enables me to have full control over my work and how it reaches my audience. Additionally, all my books are still available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), except for Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook due to their unique binding requirements.
I also chose to use Shopify’s blogging platform, keeping all books, my journal, and the shopping experience located in one place.
I plan on keeping www.candleface.com up for the interim, but it will likely go down as well, or at least be redirected to www.branchingplotbooks.com. In the end, I want my work to be more streamlined and easier for the paranormal community and my readers to find my work, read and help the lost souls, protect the fugitives, and care for the Scrolls of Souls.
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