Horror Gothic Thriller Mystery

Yorkshire, 1606. A man vanishes from a locked gatehouse in a remote village. 300 years later, it happens again. Autumn 1930. Journalist Nell Fagan knows there's only one person who can get to the bottom of this mystery: Rachael Savernake. But someone wants Nell dead, and soon, while investigating a series of recent deaths at Blackstone Sanatorium, she's missing entirely. Looking for answers, Rachel travels to lonely Blackstone Fell, with its eerie moor, deadly waters and sinister tower.

Listeners know that few authors are able to create an atmosphere of unease and terror as well as Oates, a fact confirmed by the four novellas presented here. All the novellas in this collection revolve around the theme of love gone wrong - horribly, shockingly wrong.

There’s something in the lake at Wren Hall. At least, that’s what the locals say. Not that Meg cares much about the rumors. When she’s asked to spend Halloween weekend at the Ireland retreat of the wealthy Wren twins, she recognizes the invitation for exactly what it is: her last, and only, chance to save her spot at Greyscott’s, the exclusive British art school she attended on scholarship until last summer. Clever, beautiful, and talented, the twins are the pride of Greyscott’s, and kindhearted Lottie Wren was once Meg’s closest friend. But not anymore.

One hot summer's day, John Cole decides to shut his bookshop early, and possibly forever, and drives out of London to see his brother. When his car breaks down on an isolated road, he goes looking for help and finds a dilapidated house. As he approaches, a laughing woman he's never seen before walks out, addresses him by name and explains she's been waiting for him. Entering the home, John discovers an enigmatic clan of residents all of whom seem to know who he is, and also claim they have been awaiting him arrival.

Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot, and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water - until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes...not drowned, not lost, simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.

A mysterious woman pleads for the help of Inspectors Frey and 'Nine-Nails' McGray. Her son, illegitimate scion of the Koloman family, has received an anonymous death threat - right after learning he is to inherit the best part of a vast wine-producing estate. In exchange for their protection, she offers McGray the ultimate cure for his sister, who has been locked in an insane asylum after brutally murdering their parents: the miraculous waters that spring in a small island in the remote Loch Maree.

Where Death leads, I follow. Nothing will stop me from my duty—not even the darkness that claims me. It’s the music that leads me from the dark, returning me to my brethren and a new foe that has risen. Learning who hunts Thea could be the key to unraveling what we need to know to defeat our enemy. The Half-Fae’s music stirs a passion within me that I’ve never known. For her, I will break my vow of silence. For her…I will risk everything.

London, 1888: Susannah rushes into marriage to a young and wealthy surgeon. After a passionate honeymoon, she returns home with her new husband wrapped around her little finger. But then everything changes. Thomas' behaviour becomes increasingly volatile and violent. He stays out all night, returning home bloodied and full of secrets. The gentle caresses she enjoyed on her wedding night are now just a honeyed memory.

Beneath Lausanne Cathedral, in Switzerland, there is a secret buried before time began.... Marc Rochat watches over the city at night from the belfry of the cathedral. He lives in a world of shadows and "beforetimes" and imaginary beings. Katherine Taylor, call girl and daydreamer, is about to discover that her real-life fairy tale is too good to be true. Jay Harper, private detective, wakes up in a crummy hotel room with no memory. Three lives, one purpose: save what's left of paradise before all hell breaks loose.

Thirty miles off the coast of San Francisco lie the Farallon Islands, known to sailors as the Devil’s Teeth. Despite their fearsome reputation, their remote nature appeals to young Lucy Riley, who in 1859 seeks a new start as a teacher to the lighthouse keepers’ children. But Lucy brings treacherous secrets with her, including a name that isn’t hers and a past she can’t escape. On the island, she meets Will Sisson, a mysterious man who seems to recognize her name—but not her face. Wary of Will at first, Lucy slowly starts to trust him.

Lisa needs to disappear. And her friend's rambling old home in the wilds of Yorkshire seems like the perfect place. It's miles away from the closest town, and no one there knows her or her little boy, Joe. But when Lisa meets some of the locals and hears some disturbing rumours about the house, she realises it might not be the sanctuary she thought. What secret has Rowan Isle House - and her friend - kept hidden all these years? And what will Lisa have to do to survive when her own past finally catches up with her?

The elite warriors of the Hereford-based SAS know all about pain and the enduring of it. Syd Spicer, ex-SAS trooper, has found himself back in the regiment - this time as its chaplain, responsible for the spiritual welfare of the hardest men in or out of uniform. Faced with a case which would normally be passed discreetly to Hereford diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins, Spicer is forced, for security reasons, to try and handle it himself - and is coming close to a breakdown.

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.

“Get it out of me.” It was the last message Holly received from her brother, Dane, before he was found cleaved open in the lavish Savannah townhouse of his girlfriend, Maura. Police ruled his death a suicide sparked by psychosis, but Holly can’t shake the idea that something else must have happened—something involving another message he sent earlier that night about a “game” Maura wanted to play.

Nicky just wants to save her brother. She showed up with an envelope full of cash and a smart mouth and found herself in a den of monsters. I wish I could say I was the best of them, I wish I could protect her - but I’m far from perfect.

Rosemary Chivers is haunted by the choices she made as a teenager—and by those made for her by a controlling mother. Now, in the Cold War era of conformity and suspicion, Rosemary is a modern new teacher at a school for troubled girls, where she challenges the narrow curriculum meant to tame restless young minds. She also keeps a devastating secret. She knows one of the students is the child she gave up. But which one?

After the tragic death of their eleven-year-old son, Adam and Ella are fighting to keep their family from falling apart. Then comes an opportunity that seems too good to be true. They win a competition to live for free in a breathtakingly beautiful mansion on the Cornish Lizard Peninsula. There’s just one catch: the house is supposedly haunted. Despite misgivings, the chance to start afresh is too tempting to pass up. Adam, Ella, and their surviving son, Henry, move into Fenton House. But as the house starts to reveal its secrets, they come to suspect that they may not be alone.

1786, Jerusalem College, Cambridge. The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumoured to be haunting Jerusalem, since disturbed fellow-commoner, Frank Oldershaw, claims to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds. Desperate to salvage her son’s reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion to investigate.

Seven years after the death of Edward Hyde, a stylish gentleman shows up in foggy London claiming to be Dr. Henry Jekyll. Only Mr. Utterson, Jekyll’s faithful lawyer and confidant, knows that he must be an impostor - because Jekyll was Hyde. But as the man goes about charming Jekyll’s friends and reclaiming the estate, and as the bodies of potential challengers start piling up, Utterson is left fearing for his life, and questioning his own sanity.

On a sunny August morning in 1935, 13-year-old Sophia Gray finds her friend Rosemary wandering in the woods. Rosemary’s yellow dress is tattered and her eyes are vacant and glassy. She beckons to Sophia, desperate to show her something. In an abandoned cabin, beneath a tattered blanket, Sophia discovers Rosemary’s body. It was not Rosemary who led her there, but Rosemary’s ghost. Twenty years later, Sophia finds herself trapped in the sprawling Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, in the hands of a malevolent doctor who preys on patients who exhibit paranormal abilities.