English Gothic

When you’ve already died, there should be nothing left to fear… When Adam Ramsdell pulls Elle’s half-frozen body from the surf on a lonely California beach, she has no memory of what her full name is and how she got those bruises ringing her throat.

Really, it's too much to expect any normal man to behave like a staid accountant in order to inherit the fortune he deserves to support the lifestyle of an earl. So when Derek Saunders's favorite elderly aunt and her ill-conceived - and possibly fraudulent - Lady Travelers Society loses one of their members, what's a man to do but step up to the challenge? Now he's escorting the world's most maddening woman to the world's most romantic city to find her missing relative.

The Phantom of the Opera is Gaston Leroux's exquisite blend of Gothic horror and tragic romance that formed the basis for a world-renowned stage musical. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes by Mireille Ribiere and an introduction by Jann Matlock.

In the summer of 1959 Stella Raphael joins her psychiatrist husband, Max, at his new posting - a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. Stella soon falls under the spell of Edgar Stark, a brilliant sculptor who has been confined to the hospital for murdering his wife in a psychotic rage. But Stella's knowledge of Edgar's crime is no hindrance to the volcanic attraction that ensues -a passion that will consume Stella's sanity and destroy her and the lives of those around her.

Banished from Dreagan eons ago because of a betrayal that shattered his entire existence, his sole focus in life is to exact revenge against the Dragon Kings. A formidable fighter with centuries of rage on his side, Ulrik will stop at nothing to take down those who exiled him.

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.

Medusa's Ankles celebrates the very best of A. S. Byatt's short fiction, carefully selected from a lifetime of writing. Peopled by artists, poets, and fabulous creatures, the stories blaze with creativity and color. From ancient myth to a British candy factory, from a Chinese restaurant to a Mediterranean swimming pool, from a Turkish bazaar to a fairy-tale palace, Byatt transports her listeners beyond the veneer of the ordinary - even beyond the gloss of the fantastical - to places rich and strange and wholly unforgettable.

Since the dawn of human civilization, two warring factions of near-immortals - the descendants of the gods of old - have been secretly shaping its destiny. Amanda's small clan champions progress and peace, while their powerful enemy, the Doomers, propagates ignorance and war. Descending from a single goddess - the only one to survive the ancient cataclysm that wiped out her kind - Amanda's clan members are forbidden to each other.

Swept away from Louisiana bayou country as a child, Miranda Miller is a woman without a past. She has a husband and child of her own and a fulfilling job in a Manhattan museum, but she also has questions - about the tragedy that cut her off from family and caused her to be sent away and about those first five years of her life, which were erased from her memory entirely. Summoned to the bedside of Willy Pedreaux, the old caretaker of her grandparents' antebellum estate, Miranda goes back to Louisiana at last, hoping to learn the truths of her past and receive her rightful inheritance.

I didn't ask for her as my bride. I just made her mine. Her father had to be taught what happens when you cross a King, but that isn't why Genevieve Rossi is sore, well-used, and waiting for me to claim her in the only way I haven't already. She's sore because she thought she could embarrass me in public without being punished. She's well-used because after I spanked her I wanted more, and I take what I want. She's waiting for me in my bed because she's my bride, and tonight is our wedding night.

A neuroscientist walks out of her life and isolates herself in the woods, intending to blow the whistle on a pharmaceutical company and its creativity drug gone wrong. A recently orphaned graduate school dropout is hired as a "literary detective" to decode the work of a mysterious Internet poet who writes about disappearances and murders with an inexplicably precise knowledge of private details. And a virologist discovers her identity has been stolen by a conceptual artist in whose stories someone always goes missing.

When Kian confesses his true nature, Syssi is not as much shocked by the revelation as she is wounded by what she perceives as his callous plans for her. If she doesn't turn, he'd be forced to erase her memories and let her go. His family's safety demands secrecy - no one in the mortal world is allowed to know that immortals exist. Resigned to the cruel reality, Syssi is determined to enjoy what little time she has with Kian, one day at a time.

Strangling vines and meat-hungry flora fill this unruly garden of strange stories, selected for their significance as the seeds of the villainous (or perhaps just misunderstood) 'killer plant' in fiction, film and video games. Step within to marvel at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's giant wisteria and H.G. Wells' hungry orchid; hear the calls of the ethereal women of the wood and the frightful drone of the moaning lily; and do tread carefully around E. Nesbit's wandering creepers. Every strain of vegetable threat can be found within this new collection.

Taylor has been able to reunite all the different races. The witches, vampires, and werewolves will fight with all they have to keep the fey from taking over our world. Taylor holds onto Jesse and together they take on the impossible. When Taylor gets kidnapped and is taken into a secret portal world by The Ice Pack, her life will be changed forever. Doomed to live the rest of her existence there, she fights to get back home to Big Bear Lake, to be with the one she loves.

London, 1885. Gabriel Utterson, a 17-year-old law clerk, has returned to London for the first time since his life—and that of his dearest friend, Henry Jekyll—was derailed by a scandal that led to his and Henry's expulsion from the London Medical School. Whispers about the true nature of Gabriel and Henry's relationship have followed the boys for two years, and now Gabriel has a chance to start again. But Gabriel doesn't want to move on, not without Henry. His friend has become distant and cold since the disastrous events of the prior spring, and now his letters have stopped altogether.

Bram Stoker, despite having a name nearly as famous as his legendary undead count, has remained a puzzling enigma. Now, in this psychological and cultural portrait, David J. Skal exhumes the inner world and strange genius of the writer who conjured an undying cultural icon.

On December 19th, 1851, a crime took place in the center of London. One of the few who knows what truly happened is Countess Alina Bronskaya. But she will never speak of it. The crime is her curse and her salvation.

I was not asked. I was chosen. Every year, the creature who keeps our community safe requires a virgin as tribute, and every year, she is thoroughly ravaged and then returned ruined for any other man. No one will tell me exactly what is in store for me; I only know he's not going to be gentle. But the elders underestimated me, and when they left me in the sacred clearing, I took the chance to escape. Now, the beast hunts me, and if he finds me, I can only wonder what he'll do to me....

All Bram wanted was to disappear - from her old life, her family's past, and from the scandal that continues to haunt her. The only place left to go is Louth, the tiny town on the Hudson River where her uncle, James, has been renovating an old mansion. But James is haunted by his own ghosts. Months earlier, his beloved wife died in a fire that people say was set by her daughter. The tragedy left James a shell of the man Bram knew - and destroyed half the house he'd so lovingly restored. The manor is creepy, and so are the locals.

It is 1889 and The Scottish Play is coming home. But before the darling couple of London theatre, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, take their acclaimed Macbeth to the Edinburgh stage terror treads the boards. A grisly message found smeared across the cobbles in blood, foretelling someone's demise. As the bloody prophecies continue to appear Edinburgh's own beloved pair - Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray and Inspector Ian Frey - enter the scene.