Historical Horror Fiction

Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.

A compelling wartime drama from the author of The Street, perfect for fans of Pam Weaver and Kitty Neale. Rosie Gardiner is having a tough war. She's had to leave her job as a nude at the Windmill in Soho after a horrific assault which left her pregnant and is now living back at home with her recently remarried dad. Despite her best efforts, Rosie and her dad just can't get along, and the strain of coping as a young, unmarried mother is getting to her.

In this exquisite, transporting debut, 15-year-old Polly Kimball sets fire to the family farm, killing her abusive father. She and her young brother find shelter in a Massachusetts Shaker community called The City of Hope. It is the Era of Manifestations, when young girls in Shaker enclaves all across the Northeast are experiencing extraordinary mystical visions, earning them the honorific of "Visionist" and bringing renown to their settlements.

It begins with a rumor, an exciting whisper. Anything to break the tedium of the harem for the shah's eldest daughter. People speak of a man with a face so vile, it would make a hangman faint, but a voice as sweet as an angel's kiss. A master of illusion and stealth. A masked performer known only as Vachon. For once the truth will outshine the tales. On her birthday the shah gifts his eldest daughter, Afsar, a circus. With the circus comes a man who will change everything.

La leggenda del golem, ben nota a tutti coloro che sono passati per Praga, ispira questo suggestivo romanzo di Meyrink, romanziere ed esoterista. Questo libro, suo primo romanzo, fu pubblicato nel 1915, ed ebbe un successo straordinario. La magia e la suggestione della città e del ghetto si mischiano alle tematiche occultiste che vennero poi riprese dall’autore nei suoi romanzi successivi, e che furono oggetto dei suoi studi per gran parte della sua vita.

When the smoldering remains of werewolves are discovered, the alpha of the Lykaonas Pack has one suspect, Dr. Sophia Katsaros, the only human to learn their secret and live. The Efarmostís, a trio of cinder-colored werewolves: A law unto themselves, they have done the dirty work of the pack for thousands of years. Once dispatched, they won't stop until they catch their prey. As the body count rises, Sophia fights for her life and the lives of those she loves. Out of desperation, Sophia strikes a dangerous bargain.

There’s a certain kind of silence when you wake in the deep of night, in a strange bed, knowing that someone else is in the room. And seventeen-year-old May has just awoken to...what? A ghost girl. A girl with May’s face, hair, and complexion. A ghostly twin named Cristofana. And this twin wants a favor of May: Come to Old Florence; come to the year 1348. In modern-day Florence for the summer, May is soon seduced into saying yes. And when she encounters a brooding medieval painter, her curiosity about the past explodes into desire.

Uprooted from Shanghai with her father and twin brother, young Cassandra finds the Black Isle's bustling, immigrant-filled seaport, swampy jungle, and grand rubber plantations a sharp contrast to the city of her childhood. And she soon makes another discovery: the Black Isle is swarming with ghosts. Haunted and lonely, Cassandra at first tries to ignore her ability to see the restless apparitions that drift down the street and crouch in cold corners at school. Yet despite her struggles with these spirits, Cassandra comes to love her troubled new home.

Seemingly invincible since his transformation into a vampire, Jonathan Barrett must admit his own weakness when he unexpectedly meets a four-year-old boy who strangely resembles him. Armed with a powerful weapon to use against him, his love for his son, Jonathan’s enemies have gained an advantage. The only hope for Jonathan and his child’s survival lies in the return of the mysterious Nora Jones.

230 Menschen gehen auf sein Konto: Herman Webster Mudgett, den unglaublichsten Serienmörder aller Zeiten. In Chicago errichtet er eigens ein Hotel, um seine Taten zu begehen. Ein Hotel, in dem es Falltüren, verborgene Räume, Geheimgänge, einen Foltertisch, ein Säurebad und eine Gaskammer gibt. Seine Opfer erleichtert er um ihr Geld und verkauft ihre Leichen an Mediziner. Niemand weiß, was im Kopf dieses Menschen vor sich geht. Bis die Polizei ihm auf die Spur kommt und eine gnadenlose Jagd beginnt.

Dr Thomas Bond, Police Surgeon, is still recovering from when Jack the Ripper haunted the streets of London - and a more malign enemy hid in his shadow. Bond and the others who worked on the gruesome case are still stalked by its legacies, both psychological and tangible. Now the bodies of children are being pulled from the Thames, and Bond is about to become inextricably linked with an uncanny, undying enemy.

Shelly Parker, a sixteen-year-old servant who works for the tyrannical Pastor Dobbins and his family, has had the gift of sight for as long as she can remember. She's grown accustomed to coexisting with the spirits of the dead who roam Black Mountain, telling Shelly their stories and warning her of the dangers that surround her. When the ghost of Arleen Brown, a poor woman who died on the mountain during childbirth five years earlier, begins to pursue Pastor's daughter Faith, Shelly is the only person that can help her.

Clearly an independent woman, Rheanon had always been wild and impetuous. She could turn stone into dust and best anyone at whist, even play cards with the finest gentleman in England and win. What she couldn't do is wait any longer for the man she loved to come back to her. She tried her hardest to find out where he was, writing letters and talking to his dear mother who was her aunt by marriage. Rheanon even tried hard to keep her special abilities a secret.

In post Civil War New York City, Detective Pat O'Malley is living inside Poe's Cottage in the Bronx. O'Malley is haunted by Poe one night, and the detective finds a strange note. As a result, O'Malley decides to prove that Edgar Allan Poe did not die in Baltimore from an alcoholic binge but was, instead, murdered. O'Malley quickly becomes embroiled in a "cold case" that thrusts him into the lair of one of the most sinister and ruthless killers in 1865 New York City.

Sullo sfondo della brughiera battuta dai venti, una ragazza umile ma volitiva trova lavoro come istitutrice nella casa di un uomo aspro e malinconico. Tra di loro nascerà inaspettata una grande passione, che dovrà però fare i conti con un segreto scabroso. Un capolavoro di una modernità dirompente, un cult che continua ad affascinare generazione dopo generazione.

Maria Dahvana Headley blends history, romance, and the supernatural for a fantastic tale set in ancient Egypt. Upon hearing news of her husband Antony’s death, Cleopatra is distraught. In an effort to resurrect him, she summons the fearsome warrior goddess Sekhmet. Striking a deal with the deity, Cleopatra pays a terrible price in the bargain and is transformed into a terrifying vampire-like creature whose lust for blood is only matched by her desire to exact vengeance upon those who have wronged her.

In the weeks following the Omega Virus outbreak, survivors form desperate clusters, uniting to defend against hordes of the walking dead. But they can only hide for so long …Father Xavier Church never wanted to be a leader. Nonetheless, he’s grown attached to his fellow survivors, and he won’t let anyone cause them harm - though he may be the one who inadvertently leads them to destruction …

From the internationally best-selling author, a lush and imaginative novel that crisscrosses time as passion and obsessions collide. An orphan named René le Florentin is plucked from poverty to become Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. Traveling with the young duchessina from Italy to France, René brings with him a cache of secret documents from the monastery where he was trained: recipes for exotic fragrances and potent medicines - and a formula for an alchemic process said to have the potential to reanimate the dead.

It is the eve of the Great War, and English chemist Lucilla Osbourne finds herself trapped on hostile German soil. Panicked and alone, she turns to a young Frenchman for shelter. Together they spend a night of intense passion, but their dangerous circumstances won't allow more than a brief affair.

Branded an outcast by the noble branch of his werewolf clan, Cort Renier had come to San Francisco seeking fortune—and revenge. What he found was a mysterious beauty who could not—or would not—reveal who she truly was. At first glance she seemed vulnerable and afraid, like so many girls caught up in the debauchery of the city's whiskey-soaked gambling dens. But one look into her stunning turquoise eyes and he knew he'd found the winning hand.