Paranormal Horror Fiction

Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross is renowned for his cutting-edge science fiction. This third entry in his “edgy … spoof of Cold War spy thrillers” ( Booklist) finds covert agent Bob Howard learning about a top-secret dossier that vanishes with his boss. Determined to discover the contents of this memorandum, Howard runs afoul of Russian spies, ancient demons, and apostles of a hideous cult planning to raise the Eater of Souls from the undead.

With this stunning series opener, Django Wexler leaps to the upper echelon of today’s best fantasy authors. The Thousand Names opens his Shadow Campaigns series with a tale of bloody rebellion that will reshape an empire -- and a world. Captain Marcus d’Ivoire and Winter Ihernglass see their fortunes rise under the command of military genius Janus bet Vhalnich. But Janus’ obsession with the supernatural portends a dire fate for the realm.

Bob Howard is a computer-hacker desk jockey, who has more than enough trouble keeping up with the endless paperwork he has to do on a daily basis. He should never be called on to do anything remotely heroic. But for some reason, he is.

Jacqueline Carey is the New York Times best-selling author of the award-winning Kushiel's Legacy series. Dark Currents introduces Daisy Johanssen, a hell-spawn living in a Mid-west resort town that also boasts fairies, vampires, and a Norse goddess. As police department liaison for the paranormal, Daisy takes notice when a drowning victim shows signs of eldritch involvement. Paired with officer - and werewolf - Cody Fairfax, she must solve the case before tourist season is ruined.

Someone is drugging the fairest of them all and hurting them in the dark corners of the forests around Port Mackenzie - shrouding the town in mystery and darkness. But nothing is as it seems. In the dark corners of the small town there is also a light, a cure to what ails the sick. But everything comes at a cost, a price that must be paid. Aimee James discovers that cost the moment she dies. She discovers there are worse things than dying. She finds herself cursed.

Paige Winterbourne was always either too young or too rebellious to succeed her mother as leader of one of the world's most powerful elite organizations - the American Coven of Witches. Now that she is 23 and her mother is dead, the Elders can no longer deny her. But even Paige's wildest antics can't hold a candle to those of her new charge - an orphan who is all too willing to use her budding powers for evil.

For as long as I can remember, I've been the girl who didn't fit in, the girl who collapsed in the middle of class, just because my brain decided to turn on me. I can't really complain, though. We don't live in the Middle Ages, so I have yet to be subjected to an exorcism. I can get treatment for my condition. Epilepsy aside, I can mostly be a normal person and have a normal life. There's just one problem. I'm not a normal person. I never have been. And the first time I find this out is upon receiving an exclusive invitation to The Academy of the Devil.

As a newly appointed junior manager within the Laundry - the clandestine organization responsible for protecting Britain against supernatural threats - Bob Howard is expected to show some initiative to help the agency battle the forces of darkness. But shining a light on things best left in the shadows is the last thing Bob wants to do - especially when those shadows hide an occult parasite spreading a deadly virus. Traders employed by a merchant bank in London are showing signs of infection.

Reais, a fractured abyss ruled by thousands of contesting Demon Lords no stranger to chaos, happens to be the birth place of a new chaos, a new threat. Punished for disbelief in a mortal life, a soul curses Deities for its unfair imprisonment and psychological torture. Set free by witless demons, this soul sees an opportunity for vengeance.

Shortly after her 16th birthday, Sunshine Griffith and her mother, Kat, move from sunny Austin, Texas, to the rain-drenched town of Ridgemont, Washington. Though Sunshine is adopted, she and her mother have always been close, sharing a special bond filled with laughter and inside jokes. But from the moment they arrive, Sunshine feels her world darken with an eeriness she cannot place. And even if Kat doesn't recognize it, Sunshine knows that something about their new house is just...creepy.

A quick read for those looking for dark fiction that you can devour in one sitting. These are creepy, crawly, and grotesque stories meant to make your stomach churn and your toes curl. The fierce auction of an abandoned storage unit leads to a mysterious box finding its final resting place. Assigned to a military post, a man watches security cameras capture the end of the world. An unusual illness leaks into society and leaves a man isolated and battling for his life. On a dark fall night, a happy family is tormented by an invisible beast from under the bed. A man with an overbearing mother...

For Rose Marshall, death has long since become the only life she really knows. She's been sweet 16 for more than 60 years, hitchhiking her way along the highways and byways of America, sometimes seen as an avenging angel, sometimes seen as a killer in her own right, but always Rose, the phantom prom date, the girl in the green silk gown. The man who killed her is still out there thanks to a crossroads bargain that won't let him die, and he's looking for the one who got away. When Bobby Cross comes back into the picture, there's going to be hell to pay - possibly literally.

Determined to find her mother when she disappears, Ash follows her to Quivara, Kansas, the spiritual commune she escaped long ago. But something sinister and ancient waits among the rustling cornstalks of this village lost to time. Her mother is nowhere to be found, but Ash is plagued by memories of her ancestor, Katia, which harken back to the town's history of unrequited love, murder, alchemy, and immortality. Charming traditions give way to a string of deaths. And Ash feels herself drawn to Dane, a mysterious, forbidden boy with secrets of his own.

After breaking the code of secrecy and facing the judgement of the High Council, Jess and Hannah have no choice but to become Trackers, working to take down those who would exploit the spirit world for profit or power. Their first assignment takes them into the deep South, where Jeremiah Campbell, a self-proclaimed spiritual guru, lures wealthy and desperate devotees with promises of a deeper connection with the dead. As the girls go undercover, it soon becomes clear that they, and the spirit world they are sworn to protect, are once again in unimaginable danger.

After stumbling upon the algorithm that turned him and his fellow merchant bankers into vampires, Alex Schwartz was drafted by The Laundry, Britain's secret counter-occult agency that's humanity's first line of defense against the forces of darkness. Dependent on his new employers for his continued existence - as Alex has no stomach for predatory bloodsucking - he has little choice but to accept his new role as an operative in training.

Sally has recently left an unfulfilling job to volunteer at a living history museum, where she is assigned to the Death House. Every day, she dons Victorian mourning garb and describes traditional funeral services to tourists. It sounds depressing as hell, but for Sally, it’s less depressing than her tepid marriage to her childhood sweetheart. This becomes all too clear when she accidentally travels through time and space to a liminal world where the ghosts of the living history museum haunt its grounds. There, she meets and falls hard for Victorian-era pretty boy Nathaniel.

Turning the one-time seaside B & B into a Halloween haunted house for a local fundraiser seems like a good idea. After all, Eva and Marie's ghosts are willing to help. However, the two spirit friends of Marlow House are not the only ghosts to stop by. Danielle and her friends are about to learn there might be something to that old legend that says on Halloween night the barrier between the living and dead becomes blurred and the spirits of the dead visit earth. Maybe not all of earth - but at least Marlow House.

The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place.

Seabury Quinn's short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales' original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. Collected for the first time, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all 93 published works featuring the supernatural detective.

As Jess Ballard is struggling to adjust to her new life in London without Finn Carey to watch over her, she has thrown herself into her role as a tracker, using her gift to communicate with and help as many spirits as she can. But just as she begins to settle into a new city, the city reveals a mystery too intriguing - and dangerous - to ignore. Something sinister is drawing restless spirits to a tiny old museum, luring them with a promise of salvation it cannot deliver upon.