Dark Horror

The Saturnalia carnival marks three years since Nina walked away from Philadelphia's elite Saturn Club--with its genteel debauchery, arcane pecking order, and winking interest in alchemy and the occult. In doing so, she abandoned her closest friends and her chance to climb the social ladder. Since then, she's eked out a living by telling fortunes with her Saturn Club tarot deck, a solemn initiation gift that Nina always considered a gag but has turned out to be more useful than she could have ever imagined.

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.

Elizabeth Lavenza hasn't had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver", and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets...until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything - except a friend. Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable - and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk.

An aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband. Elsewhere, an accomplished surgeon is approached by a cabaret singer, whose beautiful appearance belies the grotesque condition of her heart. And while the surgeon's jealous lover vows to kill him, a violent envy also stirs in the soul of a lonely craftsman. Desire meets with impulse and erupts, attracting the attention of the surgeon's neighbor - who is drawn to a decaying residence that is now home to instruments of human torture.

Derry and her eight siblings live in an isolated house by the lake, separated from the rest of the world by an eerie and menacing forest. Frank, the man who raised them after their families abandoned them, says it’s for their own good. After all, the world isn’t safe for people with magic. And Derry feels safe - most of the time. Until the night her eldest sister disappears. Jane and Derry swore to each other that they’d never go into the forest, not after their last trip ended in blood, but Derry is sure she saw Jane walk into the trees.

A dead body. A missing daughter. A silver blade. All the clues point to one person: Me. My name is Evangeline, and I’m a retired assassin who wants nothing to do with the underworld. But an edict from a Demonic Lord forces me to return to the man and the life I left behind. I have seven days to prove my innocence. Whoever set me up is going to die.

Jeremy Bremen has a secret. All his life he's been cursed with the ability to read minds. He knows the secret thoughts, fears, and desires of others as if they were his own. For years, his wife, Gail, has served as a shield between Jeremy and the burden of this terrible knowledge. But Gail is dying, her mind ebbing slowly away, leaving him vulnerable to the chaotic flood of thought that threatens to sweep away his sanity. Now Jeremy is on the run - from his mind, from his past, from himself - hoping to find peace in isolation.

Having no fortune, a negligible reputation, and an appearance that could only be described as plain, Miss Olympia Daventry has few prospects. Unless, of course, she elects to remain in her aunt's home dodging her uncle's amourous advances and his sermons, both of which are dished out in equal measure. Out of desperation, she accepts an offer of marriage from a man she has never met. Married by proxy, she travels to his home and at her first sight of it, begins to wonder if perhaps she has not made a terrible mistake.

It feels like a fairy tale when Alberta ”Bert” Monte receives a letter addressed to “Countess Alberta Montebianco” at her Hudson Valley, New York, home that claims she’s inherited a noble title, money, and a castle in Italy. While Bert is more than a little skeptical, the mystery of her aristocratic family’s past, and the chance to escape her stressful life for a luxury holiday in Italy, is too good to pass up.

A young girl’s life is about to change. By her father’s arrangement, Gabriella is to marry a local merchant twice her age in the spring of 1693. Though she fears leaving her family, the fifteen-year-old understands she must do her duty. As she prepares to become a wife and mother, another change soon finds her. When Gabriella is discovered by a nobleman and hears his voice telepathically, a door to another life opens—one that promises forever. In the secret world of immortal beings, Gabriella finds she only has so long to discover her powers before she must use them to save her life.

Having survived the harrowing experience of her courtship, Isla must now make a decision - a decision that will affect the course of her life and that, if she chooses unwisely, indeed might end that life before it's truly begun. But before she can take control of her future, there are things she needs to know about the lover who remains so much a stranger. Is this dark, tormented man merely misunderstood? Or is he, in fact, the Devil made flesh? What truly motivates him - and what does he want from her?

Harmony Black is much more than your average FBI special agent. In addition to being a practicing witch, she's also an operative for Vigilant Lock, an off-the-books program created to battle occult threats - by any means necessary. Despite her dedication to fighting the monsters threatening society, Harmony has become deeply conflicted about her job. Her last investigation resulted in a pile of dead bodies, and she suspects the wrong people are being punished for it.

Phantom of the Opera meets Beauty and the Beast in this gothic-inspired dark fantasy romance. A haunted tower, a mysterious instructor, and the lure of the music of the night...After the death of her father, Aria is left penniless and destitute. To avoid working the streets, she becomes the ward of a Count and moves to a remote town called High Tower. High Tower is a gloomy place with one vivid attraction: The theater. Lords and ladies come from afar to be seduced by a night of unforgettable entertainment.

Magic is seeping out of the world, leaving the witches who've relied on it for countless centuries increasingly hopeless. While some see an inevitable end of their era, others are courting madness - willing to sacrifice former allies, friends, and family to retain the power they covet. While the other witches watch their reality unravel, young Alice Marin is using magic's waning days to delve into the mystery of numerous disappearances in the occult circles of New Orleans.

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.

Sebastian Pana is a sin-eater, a shaman-like figure who can absolve the dead of their transgressions before they move on to the afterlife. But when a tear in the fabric of reality allows hideous beasts to invade the small arctic town he calls home, Sebastian must wage battle with them the only way he knows how: by unleashing the power of sin itself. Thus, the stage is set for an epic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, in which a mother monster strives to save the dying land around her.

In the dark and dangerous Warhammer world, the desperate and the depraved live hand in glove. In this anthology of stories, reacquaint yourself with some of its more morally ambiguous denizens, including ‘Filthy’ Harald Kleindeinst and the scryer Rosanna Ophuls, Baron Johann von Mecklenberg, playwright and self-confessed genius Detlef Sierck and, of course, the vampire Genevieve.

When a portal opens in a distant enclave city, Gryff and his monster response team find that the Shadowscape creatures are becoming smarter and more organized. Someone, or something, is leading them. Now Gryff finds that he, and the three women he loves, are all that stands between the hordes of evil monsters and humanity.

The vampire hunter known only as D has been hired by a wealthy dying man to find his daughter, who was kidnapped by the powerful vampire Lord Meierlink. Though humans speak well of Meierlink, the price on his head is too high for D to ignore and he sets out to save her before she can be turned into an undead creature of the night. In the nightmare world of 12090 AD, finding Meierlink before he reaches the spaceport in the Clayborn States and gets off the planet will be hard enough, but D has more than just Meierlink to worry about.

A series of ritualistic murders are discovered six months after Max Elliot turned in his badge. Victims of the media-dubbed “Chinatown Surgeon” are little more than piles of flayed skin. The bones of each body were stolen. This torturous method of execution had only been seen once before and that case remained unsolved.