Dark Fantasy Mystery Thriller

For more than 30 years, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror fans crave. Now, with the 11th volume of the series, Daltow's back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. This light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows.

After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school. But when Maeve’s ex-best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace.

The ghosts of Myrtle Beach are restless, trapped by love, secrets, scandals, and spells, keeping Simon busy protecting the living from the unhappy dead. Someone from Vic's past is out to destroy him and everyone he holds dear, and the high-profile trial of the first case Simon and Vic worked together puts them in the spotlight - and put a target on their backs. As a deadly trap closes around them, can Simon and Vic tie up the loose ends to stop the threat, or will they become the newest ghosts of the Grand Strand?

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny have been dispatched to assist a group of scientists who are investigating a mysterious black hole which has appeared on a Somerset hillside. Could it really be a doorway to another dimension, an opening into another world? When one of the scientists disappears into the hole – with fatal consequences – Ishmael must prove whether it was an accident – or murder.

Anita Blake is a vampire hunter. But when someone else sets his sights on her prey, she must save them both from the inferno.

Growing up on the magical island of Avalon should be great...but I have no magic to speak of. And my parents forbid me from leaving. So when I sneak out to Earth for a night and meet a hottie named Julian, of course I say yes to a date with him. But when Julian pulls me through a magical portal, I realize he isn’t human. He’s a half-blood faerie sent to bring me to his realm of the Otherworld. Because apparently, I’m a half-blood faerie, too. And I’ve been chosen to compete in the annual Faerie Games - a brutal, gladiator-like competition where half-bloods fight to the death.

Everyone is separated, and no one is safe. Raven Danvers didn’t think her life could get any crazier since the night a demon attacked her in an alley and abducted her mom. She was wrong. Because now that same demon has abducted her too. He’s thrown her into a secret bunker with a group of humans who have unique abilities that make them “gifted.” They don’t know what the demons want with them, and the bunker is impossible to escape.

Ever since Edgar Allan Poe looted a family's ignoble secret history for his classic story "The Fall of the House of Usher", living in the shadow of that sick dynasty has been an inescapable scourge for generations of Usher descendants. But not for horror novelist Rix Usher. Years ago he fled the isolated family estate of Usherland in the menacing North Carolina hills to pursue his writing career. He promised never to return. But his father's impending death has brought Rix back home to assume the role of Usher patriarch - and face his worst fears.

It’s been a busy month for 32-year-old Jack Mitchel: Three weeks ago, he died. Two weeks ago, he founded the first Faction in the ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. A week and a half ago the world ended, destroyed by a cataclysmic asteroid. Seven days ago, he conquered the Imperial city of Rowanheath, bringing all of Eldgard to the brink of war.

Picking up right where A Longer Fall left off, this thrilling third installment follows Klementina and Eli, both wizards from the Holy Russian Empire, as they enter Ciudad Juarez. On a mission to find the descendants of Grigori Rasputin, Eli and Klemintina are in a race to discover the wizard’s magical blood - but they’re not the only ones. A group of grigoris is after the same person - Felicia, Rasputin’s granddaughter.

Felicia, Lizbeth Rose’s younger half-sister and student at the Grigori school within the capital of the New Holy Russian Empire in San Diego, is caught between secrets and powerful family struggles. As a distant relative to the Tsar, she provides an essential service to him by providing blood transfusions for his hemophilia, and she is thus given rare access and dismissed as if cattle. At the Grigori school she is seen as a charity case, a poor orphan with no prospects and no sign of magical prowess—the latter which Felicia keeps purposefully hidden.

If the Knights Magica want a war, I'm willing to give them one. I damned my soul long ago. What I do from this point forward is about redemption. If I burn in Hell because of fighting for others, for shouldering their sins, so be it. The Knights are powerful, and they have taken control of the Universal Church. All across the world, the Knights find themselves in conflict with other paranormals and supernaturals. Human governments scramble to cope with the new reality of magic.

Step into the world of Shadow Falls, a camp that helps teens tap into their special…talents. Once you visit, you'll never forget it - and you'll never, ever be the same. From the moment Kylie Galen arrived at Shadow Falls Camp, she's had one burning question: What am I? Surrounded by vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, fairies,0 and witches, Kylie longs to figure out her own supernatural identity…and what her burgeoning powers mean.

Before he became Shadow, he was just Sean. Though to the media, the FBI, and a hundred police agencies he was The New Jersey Devil, The Steel Samurai, The Saint Louis Slaughter, and dozens more. These stories are the tales of how Sean learned discipline and the martial arts skills that have served him so well: from his time in college, where a series of accidents leads to him finding his sensei, to his life at Boston Implantables as one of their most gifted and inspired engineers, to becoming one of the more successful serial killers of the superhero era.

Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school - and her reputation - behind to follow her mother's trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted.

A secret island. A sadistic society. And the woman who defies all odds to bring it down. Yesterday, Valoria’s worst problem was getting her sister to school on time. Today, she’s a slave in a perverse world. And an even worse fate awaits her sister if Valoria can’t become a cold-blooded killer. On a private island, the world’s most powerful people recreate their deviant fantasies in cosplay of Ancient Rome. Forced to fight and maim for other’s enjoyment, Valoria’s only hope of survival is to embrace the ruthless teachings of the cold, watchful man assigned to train her.

Deadwood meets Cthulhu in this wild and profane Western romp featuring zombies, werewolves, evil spirits, and one pissed-off gunslinging preacher. The Wild West has never seen the likes of the Reverend Jebidiah Mercer, a hard man wielding a burning Bible in the battle between God and the devil, in an endless struggle he's not sure he cares who wins. With its five stories laced with fast-paced action, nonstop humor, and spine-tingling horror, Deadman's Road is your ride to hell....

I thought this would be a simple profiling case. Just another Jack the Ripper wannabe, prowling London’s streets, searching for easy kills. I was wrong. This killer is fae, and he’s as elusive as smoke on the wind. But I’m an FBI profiler, and it’s my job to track him down. It doesn’t matter that one of the main suspects - a lethally alluring fae - is trying to seduce me...or kill me, I’m not sure which. I won’t be stopped, not even when panic roils through the streets of London or when the police start to suspect me.

One night Kylie Galen finds herself at the wrong party, with the wrong people, and it changes her life forever. Her mother ships her off to Shadow Falls - a camp for troubled teens, and within hours of arriving, it becomes painfully clear that her fellow campers aren’t just "troubled". Here at Shadow Falls, vampires, werewolves, shapshifters, witches and fairies train side by side - learning to harness their powers, control their magic, and live in the normal world. Kylie’s never felt normal, but surely she doesn’t belong here with a bunch of paranormal freaks either. Or does she?

Upon returning to the city of Khelathra-Ven after five years fighting a war in another universe, Captain John Wyndham finds himself looking for somewhere to live, and expediency forces him to take lodgings at 221b Martyrs Walk. His new housemate is Miss Shaharazad Haas, a consulting sorceress of mercurial temperament and dark reputation.