Psychological Horror

There's a darker side to the festive season screaming to be let out in this Christmas edition of Twisted Tales... Read on in terror to five chilling stories of horror and suspense, with a couple centering around that magic time of year!

Hunter of the Light Series: Book 5 of 15 Does Rachel have Death in her grasp? Rachel and Adam are close to exposing who is behind the nightmares of Rachel’s dreams. When they come face to face with evil, Rachel is asked for something that she doesn’t think she can deliver. But Adam and Rachel and an unlikely ally have an explosive plan to rock all they know and believe.

“You’re going to get us killed, Rachel.” Although life has been quiet for months now, both Rachel and Adam struggle with allowing themselves to feel happy. Feelings other than fear and guilt start to surface, and their relationship begins to change. Do they deserve happiness with all they have been through? Maya feels frustrated and beaten down by her life with Alexander until an unlikely ally gives her a glimmer of hope. But after trying to escape again and her many tantrums and outbursts, Alexander’s demeanour changes, and Maya starts to see him for who he truly is. Will she be ...

We expect our judges to be honest and wise. Their integrity and impartiality are the bedrock of the entire judicial system. We trust them to ensure fair trials, to protect the rights of all litigants, to punish those who do wrong, and to oversee the orderly and efficient flow of justice. But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe? It’s rare, but it happens. Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct.

The final book in the Hunter of the Light series. How will Rachel react to the story of her past? Everything is beginning to fall into place. The past is unveiling itself as the future closes off. The past and the future do not just link up in the present; they bind them together. As Rachel and Adam uncover the tragic history of the Iniijibay people, Maya and Alexander discover secrets about their pasts and their powers. These discoveries will bring them together, but they must act quickly to stop the evil that is threatening the world. Will their efforts be enough, or is the wage of sin ...

It started the night journalist Briar Thorne’s mother died in their rambling old mansion on Chicago’s South Side. The nightmares of a woman in white pleading to come home, music switched on in locked rooms, and the panicked fear of being swallowed by the dark…Bri has almost convinced herself that these stirrings of dread are simply manifestations of grief and not the beyond-world of ghostly impossibilities her mother believed in. And more tangible terrors still lurk outside the decaying Victorian greystone.

Gordon's name was a joke. It was given to him by Anthony Zola, a controlling, and abusive father, to taunt his wife over her love of cheese, and the fact that she had been steadily gaining weight since their marriage. Andrea was a doting mother, and maybe a little overprotective of her boy, but she didn't see that as a bad thing. On discovering a secret, one the child had been told to keep to himself, everything changes. Now she must do whatever she needs to keep her, and her boy, alive. Needs must.

Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of New Haven. Ben Bookman, bestselling novelist and heir to the Blackwood estate, spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the book’s release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life.

When Eleanor Harper becomes the director of a renowned artists' retreat, she knows nothing of Cliffside Manor's dark past as a tuberculosis sanatorium, a "waiting room for death". After years of covering murder and violence as a crime reporter, Eleanor hopes that being around artists and writers in this new job will be a peaceful retreat for her as much as for them.

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when 14-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession.

In a sweeping saga of music and vengeance, the acclaimed author of The Vampire Chronicles draws listeners into 18th-century Italy, bringing to life the decadence beneath the shimmering surface of Venice, the wild frivolity of Naples, and the magnetic terror of its shadow, Vesuvius. This is the story of the castrati, the exquisite and otherworldly sopranos whose graceful bodies and glorious voices win the adulation of royal courts and grand opera houses throughout Europe. These men are revered as idols - and, at the same time, scorned for all they are not.

Hunter of the Light Series: Book 4 of 15 Is Rachel losing control? Rachel is worried her new abilities have a stronger hold over her than she wants to admit. After finding herself standing over another body, holding a knife again, Rachel begins to worry that she is losing control. New alliances and new dreams lead Adam and Rachel on a quest to rescue a group of people. They find tunnels and chains, but they also find something more daring. They find guilt, grief and betrayal.

Eric disappeared when he was three years old. Ben looked away for only a second at the grocery store, but that was all it took. His brother was gone. Vanished right into the sticky air of the Florida Panhandle. They say you've got only a couple days to find a missing person. Forty-eight hours to conduct searches, knock on doors, and talk to witnesses. Two days to tear the world apart if there's any chance of putting yours back together. That's your window. That window closed five years ago, leaving Ben's life in ruins.

Hidden deep beneath Manhattan lies a warren of tunnels, sewers, and galleries, mostly forgotten by those who walk the streets above. There lies the ultimate secret of the Museum Beast. When two grotesquely deformed skeletons are found deep in the mud off the Manhattan shoreline, museum curator Margo Green is called in to aid the investigation.

It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there. Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black. Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.

- A henpecked husband makes a stand against his surly wife.- Is a mysterious stain on the ceiling of a prison cell a product of the inmate's imagination or something more sinister?- A woman trapped in a loveless marriage finds magic in a gift from a friend.- Something is alive in the outhouse…- A young boy longs to venture beyond the walls of his post-apocalyptic city, until he learns the terrifying truth about what’s out there.- A terminally ill teen’s forbidden love affair turns tragic.- A young witch and her talking dog are tasked with ridding their home of unwanted guests. Magic ...

Craig Finnigan is determined to finish his book this summer, but being an aspiring writer while wrangling his seven-year-old daughter is not easy. So when Alice makes fast friends with a neighborhood boy, Levi, Craig is happy she has a distraction from her constant visits to his home office. But that happiness soon turns to misgivings as Levi’s behavior evolves from that of a shy, odd boy into something far more disturbing.

In the city of Raventon, where the gothic shadows of old Europe bleed into modern spires of glass and steel, a reclusive aristocrat arrives, captivating high society with his charm—and chilling those closest to him with a haunting presence. Lord Adrien Varnham is ageless, cultured, and impossibly beautiful. But behind his mesmerizing smile lies a dark secret buried for centuries. Evelyn Ashcroft, a young scholar mourning the loss of her father, finds herself drawn to Adrien’s mystery. But as people around her begin to die in bizarre and bloodless ways, she’s forced to question ...

Decapitations in California. Torture in Mexico. Mind games in North Dakota. Three crazed serial killers are cutting a deadly swath from Ensenada, to San Diego, all the way up north to a little town called Scab Wood. Vigilante billionaire Cain Cullen is after them, and his might be the most disturbed mind of them all. Grim Reapers is a four-part suspense/horror novel originally presented in eBook format under the titles Twisted Tales Volume 16, Head Game, Next Kill, and Crazy Bob.

On the night of a fierce storm, Reilly seeks refuge from the elements in the imposing abode of Manor Lannigan. There, over dinner, the current Lord recounts the tale of his ancestors Alice and Edward. When Lannigan's story ends and bedtime beckons, will it all end well for Reilly? With Five Stars from Readers' Favorite, The Cries of Manor Lannigan is a marvelous and haunting tale of the supernatural that will linger in the imagination long after you've finished reading.