Ghost Fiction

A short ghost story from the best-selling author of Abbot's Keep. A photographer reluctantly agrees to take images of an abandoned manor house on the Dorset clifftops only to find the building is not completely empty.

Seeing the dead has never been easy, but the last thing I expected was to be a pawn in a serial killer’s game. Moving in with Maddox was supposed to be the only thing we needed to worry about. Not a dead teacher, and not the fact that a serial killer knows my abilities. Following the trail left behind leaves us racing against time to figure out how to stop the murders before the final victim falls.

When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become parents themselves. Abby just has so much love to give—to Ralph, to Laura, and to Mrs. Bondy, her favorite resident at the long-term care home where she works. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life with her is hellish.

A pool boy enters a secluded Bel Air property and discovers two bodies floating in the bright blue water: Gio Aggiunta, the playboy heir to an Italian shoe empire, and a gorgeous, even wealthier neighbor named Meagin March. A married neighbor. An illicit affair stoking rage is a perfect motive. But a “double” in this neighborhood of gated estates isn’t something you see every day. The house is untouched. No forced entry, no forensic evidence. The case has “that feeling,” and when that happens, Milo turns to his friend, the brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware.

When autumn arrives in Frederickport, it brings surprises-some welcomed. Meanwhile, the residents of Beach Drive learn there are some things more frightening than ghosts.

After years managing a haunted hotel and estate, I thought things were good. Sure, the ghosts can be a handful—nosy, opinionated, interfering—but they’re also friendly and fun. We have a system. Everything was under control. Cue hysterical laughter. But after a minor blip with a demon in the basement and a vortex to the spirit world, the ghosts swear they have no more secrets. The danger is gone, and we’ve done everything we can to make the vortex safe. It should be fine. Nothing’s come through it for 50 years. It’s never that easy at Mannix Estate.

A convoy of cars carrying several family members of the President’s cabinet to Camp David for “Family Day” is ambushed, killing and wounding wives, husbands, and children. Immediately in the aftermath, Vick Harwood watches a Facebook live feed of his former ranger buddy Sammie Samuelson’s apparent suicide and confession in his Thurmont, Maryland apartment, just one mile from Camp David. Remnants of a firefight are in the background: sniper rifle, rocket launchers, and ammunition. Simultaneously, an intruder breaks into Harwood’s house.

Magic-wielding Churchwitch and secret addict Chess Putnam knows better than anyone just how high a price people are willing to pay for a chemical rush. But when someone with money to burn and a penchant for black magic starts tampering with Downside’s drug supply, Chess realizes that the unlucky customers are paying with their souls—and taking the innocent with them, as the magic-infused speed compels them to kill in the most gruesome ways possible.

Midas, Cassidy, and the Gulf Coast Paranormal team take on a new client, one with a disturbing problem. Reports of tree knocks, scratch marks, screams in the woods, and even a missing hunter have made Crenshaw Road a frightening place to live. Midas isn't quite sure what he's up against, but he agrees to help Aaron's grandmother, Nina, get to the bottom of it all. The investigation takes a surprising turn when an unknown entity appears and the team is put to the test, in more ways than one. Will the answers lead them to the Creature on Crenshaw Road?

During a midnight journey snaking through the Carpathian Mountains, these are the words whispered to Cath Fenwick. It is the warning she will later wish she'd taken more seriously. When Cath receives her invitation to The Event - a monetised retreat for social media influencers - she can't believe her luck. Irene Jobert is the most famous influencer in the world and now Cath will be one of the five participants chosen to stay with Irene in a renovated Transylvanian monastery.

What happens when the safest place you know becomes the center of your nightmares? In the third and final book of this hit series, we follow the Benard family as they slowly discover that the secrets of their little town run deeper than they could have ever imagined. With the discovery of security footage found buried on Rich Lowery’s property, a new round of suspects in Grady’s seedy criminal underground ring emerge. Will they be apprehended before they can commit more heinous crimes, or will the residents of Grady Lake have to take justice into their own hands?

With two weddings on Beach Drive, Danielle's plan to temporarily close Marlow House Bed and Breakfast is put on hold. Not everyone showing up on Marlow House's doorstep is a welcome wedding guest. Nor is everyone from the living world.

"Mom seems off." Her brother's words echo in Sam Montgomery's ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone. She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam's excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out. But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be.

In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to see a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the once grand house is now in decline. Roddie Ayres, who returned from World War II physically and emotionally wounded, is desperate to keep the house and what remains of the estate together. But as Dr. Faraday becomes increasingly entwined in the Ayreses’ lives, signs of a more disturbing nature start to emerge, both within the family and in Hundreds Hall itself.

Once there was a young woman from a well-to-do New England family who never quite fit with the drawing rooms and parlors of her kin. Called instead to the tangled woods and wild cliffs surrounding her family’s estate, Margaret Harlowe grew both stranger and more beautiful as she cultivated her uncanny power. Soon, whispers of “witch” dogged her footsteps, and Margaret’s power began to wind itself with the tendrils of something darker.

Abandoned as a baby, twenty-five-year-old Lizzie Bartholomew spent her childhood moving between foster homes and has had more than her fair share of troubles. Now a holiday in Morocco seems to be the perfect escape. Especially when she meets Philip, a fellow tourist. After a brief affair, Lizzie returns to England, only to find a solicitor's letter waiting for her. Philip Samson has died and has left Lizzie a gift of £15,000 in his will. But there are conditions attached to this unexpected legacy that will soon force Lizzie to confront terrifying secrets from her past life.

The night after her father's funeral, Claire meets Lucas in a bar. Lucas doesn't know it, but it's not a chance meeting. One thoughtless mistyped email has put him in the crosshairs of an extremely put-out serial killer. But before they make eye contact, before Claire lets him buy her a drink—even before she takes him home and carves him up into little pieces—something about that night is very wrong. Because someone is watching Claire. Someone who is about to discover her murderous little hobby.

For years, the abandoned MacKenzie mansion remained hidden in rural Wisconsin. Rumors and stories of apparitions, odd noises, accidents, and strange deaths in or near the property were enough to convince the townsfolk it was haunted, and they stayed away. Lucas MacKenzie and his brother, Nate, know nothing of this when they inherit the property and decide to bring their families to Wisconsin for a major renovation project with HGTV stardom in mind. As they tear out old fixtures and open shuttered windows, the house begins to reveal secrets of a terrible past.

Assembled and edited by Julian Hawthorne and first published in 1907, the Old Time English volume of The Lock and Key Library features ten classic mysteries and ghost stories by Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Robert Maturin, Laurence Sterne, and William Makepeace Thackeray. This volume of The Lock and Key Library is sure to haunt and charm fans of ghost and detective mysteries alike.

After a near-death experience caused by the park's star haunted attraction, Ben has come to Ghostland seeking to reconnect with his former best friend Lilian, whose post-traumatic stress won't let her live life to the fullest. She's come at the insistence of her therapist, Dr. Allison Wexler, who tags along out of professional curiosity, eager to study the new tech's psychological effect on the user. But when a computer virus sets the ghosts free and the park goes into lockdown, the trio find themselves trapped in an endless nightmare.