Classic Literature Dark

Killing children is an ugly business, but the alternative is so much uglier. Abner Slate just watched his five-year-old daughter Olive kill his wife and son. Olive is a sopath. Born without souls, sopaths are children who will lie, cheat, rape, and murder to get what they want. There's one in every family these days, destroying America's heartland from within. After murdering his daughter in self-defense, Abner is taken in by a secret network of sopath victims called Pariah.

When several young girls are abducted from various locations in Edinburgh, Detective John Granger and his brother Alan, a reporter, investigate the cases from different directions. The abductor is cunning, always one step ahead, and the only clue he leaves behind at each scene are the brutalized corpses of black swans.

A brooding monster. A quirky professor. A small Indiana town with a soul of its own. Christine Grace finds her predictable scholarly life comforting, if a bit boring. Her live-in boyfriend presses her for marriage, but she's too philosophically inclined to take an interest. So, really, why does she suddenly start imagining things in the window's reflection? Is time truly starting and stopping all around her, or is she inexplicably cracking up?

High Plains Moon has something for everyone: The old West, American Indian mythology, werewolves, vampires, land wars, and even a little romance. Funny, fast-moving, and building to a climactic finish, High Plains Moon is a worthy and satisfying second novel in the acclaimed Night Marshal series.

In modern America, two soldiers will fight their way through the magical legacies of Poe and Hawthorne to destroy an undying evil - if they don't kill each other first. US Army Captain Dale Morton is a magician soldier - a "craftsman." After a black-ops mission gone wrong, Dale is cursed by a Persian sorcerer and haunted by his good and evil ancestors. Major Michael Endicott, a Puritan craftsman, finds gruesome evidence that the evil Mortons, formerly led by the twins Roderick and Madeline, have returned, and that Dale might be one of them.

The Maiden Thief by multiple NYT and internationally best-selling author Melissa Marr is a dark fantasy novelette about a teenager whose town is plagued by the annual disappearances of girls and young women.

Welcome to six of the most amazing fantasy stories you'll ever hear. This volume includes five full-length fantasy stories plus an exclusive bonus short story.

In the second installment of The Back Road to Wonderland ... Kayden, our sexy adventurer is betrayed by the King he loves as the lines of good and evil within Wonderland begin to blur. After a period of bondage will the seeds of madness take its toll on his soul or can a young mysterious man who followed "the bunny" down the rabbit hole show him he can love again and mend his bleeding heart?

Alexander walks, and agrees to walk with William through Hell and talk to the people there as they go.

In 782 AD, a beast prowls the forests of northern Germany. He is Wulfhedinn, wolf demon - scourge of the Christian Franks. He is also Gerwulf, the man, a wretched outcast and bastard of a Christian woman and pagan father. Gerwulf emerges from the shadows to escape his demons and seek deliverance. To redeem his mortal soul, he serves the legendary Charlemagne in a savage Holy War against the pagan Saxons

As the son of a wealthy man, Enitan Javed has spent his life frivolously - drinking, fighting, and making love. But after his father dies, Enitan is unjustly accused of murdering him and is given the harshest sentence possible. Judged irredeemable, he is banished to the Downs. As even young children know, nothing lives in the Downs except demons who delight in torturing the condemned. Brutalized by the men who transport him to his fate, Enitan has nothing left but his thirst for vengeance.

Sarah Wilkes is desperate enough to do anything, even make a deal with the devil - or in her case, a familiar spirit. After her twin Lea is murdered, Sarah finds college life impossible and longs to escape. Everything changes when Sarah realizes a familiar spirit is stalking her and offers to transport her to the terrifying and fantastical realm of Unreal City.

Dennis Short thought his tour of duty was over...but now he has stepped into another war. Short, a Navy medical corpsman stationed in Hawaii after his ordeal in Vietnam, is looking forward to his two-week excursion to the island of Kahoolawe. But from the first day, he is plagued by an oppressive sense that he is being manipulated. Each night he slips into a dreamlike world of half-human mythical creatures who tempt him, frighten him, force him to become part of their battles with one another.

In the midst of an undead invasion, Kallie is gifted powers by a dying priest. His last wish is for her to use them against the Necrolords in a way his faith would not allow. Reborn as Dirge and free of the priest's conscience, she is more than happy to do so.

Imagine your life as a vampire. How would you survive? What would you eat? How could you handle yourself around other humans who have beating hearts? How would you face the one you really love? Would you tell them that you are a vampire? Would you change them? Or would you lead them on with a web of lies?

Where do superstars go when they die? A special Heaven, of course, where the music and parties go on forever. But when Stag the movie star gets there, he soon discovers that all is not as it seems. Hidden horrors lurk around every corner, and every angel has a devil inside. Worst of all, a deadly menace brews in Heaven's heart, a force of pure evil about to turn both Heaven and Earth into full-on, blistering hells.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the 19th century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. Carmilla is Le Fanu's famous classic vampire story which has been filmed numerous times, including Vampyre (1932), Blood and Roses (1960), Crypt of Horror (1964), The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Carmilla (1999).

If Asher Hearst had a superpower, it would have to be his ability to take a punch, laugh it off, and keep on swinging. So yeah, immortality comes with a few perks. As a college student slash small-time fixer, he's about to take a job that's best left to the pros. A proposition by a dryad to save witches from the Inquisition is a first, but he isn't one to balk when the odds are stacked against him. Especially not while he's drinking on someone else's dime.

Fell's Hollow: a seedy, thief-riddled, sorcerer-plagued city tucked away in a hidden cove. Here you'll meet the most fascinating characters, characters that live and die by the skill of their blades, the breadth of their wit, and the whim of their luck...Meet these characters and more as they struggle to survive in a city smothered in crime, threatened by war, and haunted by a bloodsucking creature that stalks the streets at night. Enter the world of Fell's Hollow, where swords, sorcery, and sinister dealings are the daily fare!

In an ancient Wales that never was, the twin brothers Emyr and Idrys are cursed to live as hounds: Emyr by night, and Idrys by day. The twins believe they will be trapped this way forever, until they meet the fierce and curious Áine, a changeling woman born with fey blood and gifts struggling to fit into a suspicious human world. Áine unravels the fate of Emyr and his twin as all three of them fall in love. To free her lovers from the curse, she embarks on a journey to the realm of the fey where she confronts her own gifts and heritage.