Horror Urban Fiction

A chilling collection of psychological suspense and literary horror from the multiple award-winning author of the national best seller The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts. A masterful anthology featuring 19 pieces of short fiction, Growing Things and Other Stories is an exciting glimpse into Paul Tremblay’s fantastically fertile imagination.

Yig, known as the Serpent God, is older than humanity, and Yig’s reptilian children once ruled the Earth. Now they are stirring in their caves, walking the Earth in forms not quite human, slowly and patiently preparing their plans. Those who stumble on their secrets are in deadly danger...but only they can prevent the return of our darkest fears.

Sarah Crowe left Atlanta, and the remnants of a tumultuous relationship, to live alone in an old house in rural Rhode Island. Within its walls she discovers an unfinished manuscript written by the house's former tenant - a parapsychologist obsessed with the ancient oak growing on a desolate corner of the property. And as the gnarled tree takes root in her imagination, Sarah risks her health and her sanity to unearth a revelation planted centuries ago.

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.

To the uninitiated, Savannah shows only her bright face and genteel manner. Those who know her well, though, can see beyond her colonial trappings and small-city charm to a world where witchcraft is respected, Hoodoo is feared, and spirits linger. Mercy Taylor is all too familiar with the supernatural side of Savannah, being a member of the most powerful family of witches in the South. Despite being powerless herself, of course. Having grown up without magic of her own, in the shadow of her talented and charismatic twin sister, Mercy has always thought herself content.

Escaping a horrible marriage, Carolyn Connor has no desire to think about men - a vow she's determined to keep while on vacation in St. Lucia. She'll take the Caribbean sun and sea and plenty of tropical drinks with those cute umbrellas poolside, thank you. She absolutely does not need male company, no matter how tan and rock-hard his body may be. Easy enough, but then Carolyn meets the charming Marguerite Argeneau, who is infamous among her family for her matchmaking prowess.

Meg's always thought that love and ghosts are fantasies for gullible people, but her skepticism is about to be tested. As her roommates Sol and Alexei move on with their lives, Meg remains stuck in her rut, unsure what to do about her future or about her best friend Athos. He wants more than friendship from her, but she isn't sure whether she's straight or gay, let alone in love with him. Not helping are the strange trances that show her the lives of two other young girls - one who wants to be a voodoo priestess, and the other who wants to escape a Christian cult.

Someone has been slipping the Sanctuary’s secure information to a pharmaceutical company. Now it’s up to Ria Rodriguez to pose as a clerk and uncover the leak. Yet she has no idea of the danger she’s about to encounter—or the passion she’s about to ignite in one of the greatest Breeds ever created.

The Fogg River Seminary, a girls’ school in a small Illinois town, is supposed to be just another stop on Maryse and Vasyl’s endless travels. They’ve made lucrative use of Maryse’s “foreign” looks in their melodramatic séance act—and an act is all it is. Then, during their performance, a blizzard sweeps in and cuts them off from town completely. In the freezing halls, there’s a voice speaking the secrets of the dead, and Maryse has no choice but to listen…because this time, the voice is real.

When heroin-addicted vampire and gang leader, RJ, reluctantly takes in a 12-year-old prostitute called Bait, humanity is introduced to his otherwise lifeless existence. An unforgiving, vicious, and realistic horror story, Knuckle Supper explores chemical dependency, inner-city brutality, religion, molestation, abortion, and the very nature of evil itself.

Eric Riordan was once a wealthy man leading a comfortable, easy life. Until one day Gabriel, his oldest friend, Marine Corps veteran, and a former mercenary, told him how the world was going to end. He did his best to prepare. He thought he was ready for anything. He was wrong. As the dead rise up to devour the living, one man finds himself struggling to survive in the ruins of a shattered world. Alone, isolated, and facing starvation, his only chance is to flee to the Appalachians and join forces with Gabriel.

Magiere has earned a reputation as the most formidable vampire slayer in the land. Villagers far and wide welcome her with both awe and disdain - grateful to her for ridding their towns of the undead menace, but finding themselves made poorer for their salvation. Magiere knows she's dealing with simple folk, who only wish to have their superstitions silenced, and sees nothing wrong with exploiting them for profit.

Harrison Harrison - H2 to his mom - is a lonely teenager who's been terrified of the water ever since he was a toddler in California, when a huge sea creature capsized their boat, and his father vanished. One of the "sensitives" who are attuned to the supernatural world, Harrison, along with his mother, has just moved to the worst possible place for a boy like him.

The parish of Manningtree and Mistley has a dark history. In 1644, Cromwell's Witchfinder General tortured scores of women there, including Liza the herbalist, whose cottage still stands. Some say the spirits of his victims still haunt the old shop on the High Street. Emma Dickson gave up her high-flying career to live in Liza’s cottage, but as Halloween approaches, visions of a terrible past are driving her to madness. In despair, Emma turns to the local rector for help, but he, too, is in the grip of something inexplicably dangerous.

How will you die? Dr. Atwell knows. He knows how everyone will die, even the ones he won't kill himself. He also knows about all your clones. You didn't really think you were the original, did you? He's even traveled back in time to bring his daughter back from the dead. Shadow on the Stairs is a collection of short thriller, horror, mystery, and suspense stories.

Ginger Stuyvesant, an American heiress living in London during World War I, is engaged to Captain Benjamin Hartshorne, an intelligence officer. Ginger is a medium for the Spirit Corps, a special Spiritualist force. Each soldier heading for the front is conditioned to report to the mediums of the Spirit Corps when they die so the corps can pass instant information about troop movements to military intelligence. Ginger and her fellow mediums contribute a great deal to the war efforts, so long as they pass the information through appropriate channels.

In Osgood as She Gets, the third installment of The Spectral Inspector series, a sinister phenomenon known as The Graveyard Game emerges, drawing in fearless teenagers who dare to confront their own mortality by gazing into the hooded statue's eyes. As suicides surge, a chilling question arises: Is this disturbing game to blame, or does it have a connection to the elusive North Side Slasher?

S. J. West presents audiobook four of the Vampire Conclave series.

Everyone’s favorite fifteen-year-old ghostalker, Ropa, arrives at the worldwide Society of Skeptical Enquirers’ biennial conference just in time to be tied into a mystery—a locked room mystery, if an entire creepy haunted castle on lockdown counts. One of the magical attendees has stolen a valuable magical scroll. Caught between Qozmos, the high wizard of Ethiopian magic; the larger-than-life Lord Sashvindu Samarasinghe; England’s Sorcerer Royal; and Scotland’s own Edmund MacLeod, it’s up to Ropa to sort through the dangerous secret politics and alliances to figure out what really happened.

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny are attending the re-opening of Tyrone’s Castle, an ancient Cornish inn originally built by smugglers. Over dinner that night, the guests entertain one another with ghost stories inspired by local legends and superstitions. But it would appear that the curse of Tyrone’s Castle has struck for real when one of their number disappears into thin air. And then another....