Literary Horror

A woman's past and present collide with unexpected results in this hauntingly beautiful debut novel set in rural Vermont. Forty-one-year-old school nurse Kate Cypher has returned home to rural Vermont to care for her mother who's afflicted with Alzheimer's. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered–a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del–shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl" –was brutally slain.

From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them - Cara first - dark and beautiful - then Peter - striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 in the rooms below hers while Frances is researching the architecture in the surrounding gardens. But she's distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she finds a peephole that gives her access to her neighbors’ private lives.

As a child, Henry Cadmus lived on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry's experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams are ones he associates with his childhood... and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals... and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed under mysterious circumstances. His calculating father, Manfred, fears that his dynasty will now come to an end and determines to marry his son's bride himself, despite the fact he is already married. But a series of terrifying supernatural omens soon threaten this unlawful union, as the curse placed on Manfred's ancestor, who usurped the lawful Prince of Otranto, begins to unfold.

Intruder in the Dust is at once an engrossing murder mystery and an unflinching portrait of racial injustice. Set in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, it is the story of Lucas Beauchamp, a black man wrongly arrested for the murder of Vinson Gowrie, a white man. Confronted by the threat of lynching, Lucas sets out to prove his innocence, aided by a white lawyer, Gavin Stephens, and his young nephew, Chick Mallison.

First published in the US in 1988 and in the UK in 1990, The Wine-Dark Sea contains eight unsettling stories that explore protagonists' fears and desires, at once illogical and terrifying, and culminate in a disturbing and enigmatic ending. Aickman's "strange stories" (his preferred term for them) are a subtle exploration of psychological displacement and paranoia; his characters ordinary people that are gradually drawn into the darker recesses of their own minds. For fans of the horror genre, Robert Aickman is a must read.

Phobia. Due to a sibling practical joke gone bad caused by his older brother, Matt Brewer grew up with intense phobias that have haunted him for the better part of his adulthood and was tired of living in fear. His lifelong dreams were starting to come true in every possible aspect and his relationship was starting to flourish, but without help he had the potential to lead his life to ruins and self-destruction. Simple day-to-day activities caused him to become overwhelmed with extreme panic attacks without any warning. After contemplating the benefits for hours on end and gathering the ...

Hundreds of thousands of people have totally lost the ability to sleep. Run by the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers, the Slumber Corps is at the forefront of the fight against this deadly new disease. But when Trish is confronted by "Baby A", the first universal sleep donor, and the mysterious "Donor Y", whose horrific, infectious nightmares are threatening to sweep through the precious sleep supply, her faith in the organization and in her own motives begins to falter.

The Black Knight Chronicles: lots of vampires. No sparkles. Serious snark. This bundle includes books one through there: Hard Day's Knight, Back in Black, and Knight Moves.

On the outskirts of Buenos Aires in 1907, Doctor Quintana pines for head nurse Menéndez while he and his colleagues embark on a grisly series of experiments to investigate the line between life and death. One hundred years later, a celebrated artist goes to extremes in search of aesthetic transformation, turning himself into an art object. How far are we willing to go, Larraquy asks, in pursuit of transcendence?

Hours before his wedding, fifteen-year-old Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is crushed to death. His father, Manfred, Lord of Otranto, sees only one recourse to protect the family lineage. He will divorce his wife and marry the boy’s bride-to-be. Her wishes be damned. When the fearful and resistant Isabella takes flight, Manfred follows in mad pursuit. But it is he who must outrun a greater fear: a curse cast on his family generations ago.

Octubre de 1932, penitenciaría de Cold Mountain. Los condenados a muerte aguardan el momento de ser conducidos a la silla eléctrica. Los crímenes abominables que han cometido les convierten en carnaza de un sistema legal que se alimenta de un círculo de locura, muerte y venganza.

When Kenneth and Corrie Tyler become suspicious of the town undertaker, they attempt to discover the truth. But what they find is far worse than they had feared.

In his third novel, award-winning author William Gay is sure to astound listeners with his dark themes and memorable characters.

A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens' novel depicts Pip's development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his 'great expectations'.

Honey, I just want you to have everything you ever wanted. That’s what Jacy’s mom always told her. And Jacy felt like she finally did. Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy and her new husband, Jed, embark on their first road trip together to visit his father, Dr. Ash, in Michigan’s far-flung Upper Peninsula. The moment they arrive at the cottage snug within the lush woods, Jacy feels bathed in love by the warm and hospitable Dr. Ash, if less so by his house manager, the enigmatic Mrs. Brandt. But their Edenic first days take a turn when Jacy has a health scare.

Collette LeSange is a lonely artist who heads an elite fine arts school for children in upstate New York. Her youthful beauty masks the dark truth of her life: she has endured centuries of turmoil and heartache in the wake of her grandfather’s long-ago decision to make her immortal like himself. Now in 1984, Collette finds her life upended by the arrival of a gifted child from a troubled home, the return of a stalking presence from her past, and her own mysteriously growing hunger.

Touch is an electrifying thriller by the author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and 84K. He tried to take my life. Instead, I took his. It was a long time ago. I remember it was dark, and I didn't see my killer until it was too late. As I died, my hand touched his. That's when the first switch took place. Suddenly, I was looking through the eyes of my killer, and I was watching myself die. Now switching is easy. I can jump from body to body, have any life, be anyone. Some people touch lives. Others take them. I do both.

Stylish and camera-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan thrive on the yellow journalism of the social-media age. They are lovers and competitors - nomadic freelancers in pursuit of sensation and depravity, encountering each other only in airport hotels and browser windows. Naomi finds herself drawn to the headlines surrounding Célestine and Aristide Arosteguy, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Célestine has been found dead and mutilated in her Paris apartment. Aristide has disappeared.

Every autumn, John Pentecost returns to the farm where he grew up to help gather the sheep down from the moors for the winter. Very little changes in the Endlands, but this year, his grandfather - the Gaffer - has died, and John's new wife, Katherine, is accompanying him for the first time. As the farmers of the Endlands bury the Gaffer and prepare to gather the sheep, they begin to wonder whether they've let the Devil in.

Everyone is invited to leave, but Will chooses earth. He has his reasons. Only, he didn't think about how hard it would be to stay clean, what might happen when he couldn't, or what kind of people would also choose to stay. When he lets Jack out of a jail cell, he has no idea what kind of evil he has just unleashed. Maybe Will should stop pretending to be a cop. Will finds light and a new chemistry in this dark world. Rachel believes in him, at first. A birthing civilization doesn't believe in Will at all, and they do not believe that Jack really exists. Will must learn to be a real sleuth ...