Dark Horror

Fourteen-year-old Nessa lives in a world where every teen will be "Called". It could come in the middle of the day, it could come deep in the night. But one instant she will be here, and the next she will wake up naked and alone in the Sidhe land. She will be spotted, hunted down, and brutally murdered. And she will be sent back in pieces by the Sidhe to the human world...unless she joins the rare few who survive for 24 hours and escape unscathed.

Wren owes everything she has to her hometown, Hollow’s End, a centuries-old picture-perfect slice of America. Tourists travel miles to marvel at its miracle crops, including the shimmering, iridescent wheat of Wren’s family’s farm. At least, they did. Until five months ago. That’s when the Quicksilver blight first surfaced, poisoning the farms of Hollow’s End one by one. It began by consuming the crops, thick silver sludge bleeding from the earth. Next were the animals.

The series takes place in a world similar to our own, but one where vampires, witches, werewolves, and shape-shifters live among humans without their knowledge. These supernatural races make up a secret society known as the Night World, which enforces two fundamental laws to prevent discovery: (1) Never allow humans to gain knowledge of the Night World's existence, and (2) Never fall in love with one of them.

Amityville baywoman Ellie West fishes by day and bootlegs moonshine by night. It's dangerous work under Prohibition, but Ellie's desperate to see her brother go to college. So desperate that when wealthy strangers ask her to procure libations for an extravagant party, Ellie sells them everything she has, including some booze she acquired under unusual circumstances. What Ellie doesn't know is that this booze is special. Distilled from foul mushrooms by a cult of diabolists, those who drink it see terrible things - like the destruction of Long Island in fire and flood.

Occult investigator Quincey Morris and his "consultant", white witch Libby Chastain, are hired to free a family from a deadly curse that appears to date back to the Salem witch trials. Fraught with danger, the trail finds them stalking the mysterious occult underworlds of Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York, searching out the root of the curse. After surviving a series of terrifying attempts on their lives, the two find themselves drawn inexorably towards Salem itself - and the very heart of darkness.

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.

What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Now from this brilliant writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales - one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon.

Elsabet or Elizabeth Bathory's life is notorious and, for the most part, known to history. What she's done since is another story altogether. Haunted by the crimes of her life and by her bloodfather, Vlad Dracula, Elsa seeks a life of her own in the New World. But her past will always catch up to her and she must face her demon.

My "true love" conspired with my stepmother to have me killed and stole my throne. But they failed. I've been in hiding and refining my vengeance. I'm no longer the damsel they mistook me for once upon a time. I'm coming for them. And my kingdom, too. Who needs dwarves when you have wolves? Who needs blades when you have arrows? My name used to be Snow. Now they call me the Winter's Arrow. Because I'm here to destroy them all.

When Magpie discovers her own dead body one misty morning in Bristol, it prompts her to uncover the truth of her untimely demise. Her investigations take her on a terrifying journey through multiple realities, experimental treatments, technological innovations, and half-memories in a race against time and sanity. Accompanied by a new friend who is both familiar and strange, and constantly on the run from the terrifying relentless presence of the mysterious predator known only as Silhouette, Magpie must piece together the parts of her life previously hidden.

Sexual obsessions running amok, a stagnant lake full of abominable horrors, and a secluded clinic with a secret wing that no one’s ever entered. These are just a few of the goings-on in this macabre tech-horror story in which veteran novelist Edward Lee takes the mad-scientist theme into shocking new territory. Security manager Clare Prentiss swears she’s being watched during her nightly rounds on a remote federal nature preserve.

Not all ancient secrets are lost. Father Winthrop's insanity and eloquence turn a rabble of starving militiamen into an army with a new purpose. With the spore eating away at William's humanity, he finds a new place in the world as the survivors from the Ancient City expeditions discover a remnant of the past that could change everything.

Feeling the weight of sustained injuries, Halm decides upon his future with the Ten, prompting a crippled Pig Knot to contemplate his own remaining days. And an act of vengeance drives Borchus into hiding. Within the underbelly of the Pit, arrangements are made to introduce Sunja’s most despised and dangerous criminals into the games, including a captured group of Nordish Jackals. Meanwhile, the House of Ten prepares for a day of blood matches—when the gladiator known as Junger is sure to become a legend.

Dorian Lake spent years cornering the Baltimore hex-crafting market, using his skills at the hermetic arts to exact karmic justice for those whom the system has failed. He keeps his magic clean and free of soul-corrupting Netherwork, thus avoiding both the karmic blow-back of his practice and the notice of the Presidium, a powerful cabal of practitioners that polices the esoteric arts in America.

The sequel to the best-selling Zombie, Ohio, this explosive supernatural thriller from Scott Kenemore tells the story of three Chicagoans who have been thrown together by a bizarre, interconnected series of events during the first 24 hours of a zombie outbreak in the Midwest's largest city. A partnership is crafted between a pastor from Chicago's rough South Side, an intrepid newspaper reporter, and a young female musician, all of whom are fighting for survival as they struggle to protect themselves and their communities in a city overrun with the walking dead.

Wellman’s work will be remembered, and should be preserved because it combines the dark gothic tradition of the American pulps with a detailed snapshot of regional history and culture. This mixture is shown through the lens of the American modernist tradition, revealing something that is larger than the sum of its parts.

Darkness, both literal and psychological, holds its own unique fascination. Despite our fears, or perhaps because of them, listeners have always been drawn to tales of death, terror, madness, and the supernatural, and no more so than today when a wildly imaginative new generation of dark dreamers is carrying on in the tradition of Poe and Lovecraft and King, crafting exquisitely disturbing literary nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss - and linger in the mind long after.

Layla Cassidy has always wanted a normal life, and the chance to put her father's brutal legacy behind her. And in her final year of university she's finally found it. Or so she thinks. But when Layla accidentally activates an ancient scroll, she is bestowed with an incredible, inhuman power. She plunges into a dangerous new world, full of mythical creatures and menace - all while a group of fanatics will stop at nothing to turn her abilities to their cause.

The new ghost in Nathalie's head remembers who he was in life, providing Andrew and her with indisputable proof that he is real and not a figment of her imagination. Convinced that she is a Dormant, Andrew decides to go forward with his transition immediately after the rescue mission at the Doomers' HQ. Fearing for his life, Nathalie pleads with him to reconsider. She'd rather spend the rest of her mortal days with Andrew than risk what they have for the fickle promise of immortality.

Reverend Deacon Elder does the Lord’s work in his own unique way. A former marine with the ability to detect and cast out demons, Deke goes where the need—and the evil—is greatest. After receiving a terrifying warning of a botched exorcism, Deke shows up in Somerton, Tennessee, ready for battle. The demon possessing sixteen-year-old Carlyss Bolerjack had only partially been driven out, and Deke must convince a traumatized Carlyss to submit to a second exorcism.