Horror Urban Fiction

Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his expense reports are still a mess. Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry's existence has become public.

On the frozen shores of Sweden, a freak lightning storm reveals the skeleton of a giant man, his bony fist gripped tight to the shaft of an ancient iron hammer. It's not every day that the remains of a Norse god and his war hammer appear on a beach, and the occult detective called Hellboy knows that whatever is coming next won't be pleasant.

When Emily Crane's car breaks down on a dark, lonely road at night, she is attacked and raped by a man she kills in self-defense. That night, the dead rapist walks out of the morgue. Later, Emily begins to experience strange cravings and her body undergoes terrifying changes. When brutal killings leave victims partially eaten in the northern California coastal town of Big Rock, Sheriff Arlin Hurley scoffs at the talk of werewolves...until a tuft of wolf's fur is found on a victim.

Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season. Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.

More than a decade after Kelley Armstrong first opened the doors to the Otherworld, fans are still clamoring for more. In response to their demands - and to coincide with the Syfy Network show based on the series - Plume has signed up three Otherworld anthologies, each of which revolves around a different theme. The second in the trilogy, Otherworld Secrets, features fan favorites such as Cassandra, Savannah, and Adam in rare and never-before-published short stories - plus a brand new novella.

As the daughter of Dracula, you would think I’d be born the perfect monster. You couldn’t be more wrong. As far as monsters go, I’m a screw up—if I’m not tripping over my own feet, I’m accidentally murdering someone (it’s a real issue, guys). Left with no choice, Dad decides to send me to Prodigium—otherwise known as Monster Academy—to train me on how to be a better monster. When bodies turn up on campus, I’m the prime suspect (not that I can blame them).

A few months after escaping the coven that drained my magic, life is golden. My little sister Maddie is safe and happy. I have my pack. I'm in love. But nothing gold can stay. Maddie's violent, dangerous birth pack wants her back. My four men and I face dozens of wolves, intent on taking my little sister by force. If we keep fighting, my pack will be destroyed all over again. There's only one sacrifice I can make to end this pack war. Myself. But you know me. I won't let that be the end of my story.

In 1994, Mike Mignola created one of the most unique and visually arresting comics series to ever see print: Hellboy. Tens of thousands have followed the exploits of the World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator in comics form and in prose. Now, fans of the comic can enjoy the world of Hellboy as seen through the eyes of some of the brightest creative lights in horror and mystery fiction.

The packed cruise ship is a terrific nesting ground for a lord and lady of the Wamphyri on the run from E-Branch and the new Necroscope, Jake Cutter. By the time the ship is reported missing, the few beings still living on board will no longer be human...and the Wamphyri will be long fled to their next conquest. Korath, the vampire who lurks in Jake Cutter's mind, is determined to gain control of Jake's life, and Jake is equally determined not to let him have it. But to win this struggle, Jake must confide in Ben Trask.

The twin sons of Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, have taken very different paths. Nathan as his father's powers - to talk to the dead, to travel instantly through space. Like Harry, this new Necroscope fights evil wherever he finds it. His twin, Nestor, has become the most horrifying evil imaginable: a shape-shifting, blood sucking Wamphyi Lord! Devoid of human feeling, Nestor and his companion, the beautiful, malevolent Wratha the Risen, hunt without mercy.

Michael Gallatin is a British spy with a peculiar talent: the ability to transform himself into a wolf. Although his work in North Africa helped the Allies win the continent in the early days of World War II, he quit the service when a German spy shot his lover in her bed. Now, three years later, the army asks him to end his retirement and parachute into occupied Paris. A mysterious German plan called the Iron Fist threatens the D-Day invasion, and the Nazi in charge is the spy who betrayed Michael’s lover. The werewolf goes to France for king and country, hoping for a chance at bloody vengeance.

Declan O'Carroll is ready to start his summer internship at the hottest new company on the planet, Demidova Incorporated. What will he be doing? What tasks could he possibly handle for the most famous couple on Earth? After all, what could a second-semester college freshman hope to add to a multinational conglomerate? As the strongest male witch in existence, it might just be much, much more than anyone could ever predict.

Twenty-something Harper Connelly has a gift. After being struck by lighting as a child, she discovered an eerie ability to locate the deceased. In Memphis, skeptical Professor Nunley wants her to demonstrate that skill at an ancient cemetery. There, Harper stands atop a grave and says there are two bodies entombed: one centuries old, but the other, a young girl named Tabitha.

James Stark has met his share of demons and angels, on Earth and beyond. Now he's come face to face with the one entity few care to meet: Death. Someone has tried to kill Death - ripping the heart right out of him - or rather the body he's inhabiting. Death needs Sandman Slim's help: He believes anyone who can beat Lucifer and the old gods at their own game is the only one who can solve his murder.

Supernatural creatures create chaos across an unforgiving Western landscape in the first book of a propulsive and cinematic fantasy adventure starring ever fearless Nettie Lonesome. Nettie Lonesome dreams of a greater life than toiling as a slave in the sandy desert. But when a stranger attacks her, Nettie wins more than the fight. Now she's got friends, a good horse, and a better gun. But if she can't kill the thing haunting her nightmares and stealing children across the prairie, she'll lose it all - and never find out what happened to her real family.

Months after the war with Borland and his vicious werebrood, Kirk and Morris are experiencing curious aftereffects. They’re stronger, faster, and no longer vulnerable to the sharp sting of silver. On the other hand, they're forever hungry, and nothing they eat provides the same nourishment as what they consumed on the island of Newfoundland.

With a name like Quinn Calahan, I sounded as Irish as a leprechaun dancing a jig on a four leafed clover, but the truth was, I’d never been closer to the emerald isle than drinking green beer at the St Patrick’s day street party in Boston until I messed up so badly I had to leave the US. I was offered a job in a tiny village in Ireland that no one’s ever heard of. And I think that was the point in sending me there.

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.

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker - and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children - leaving them husks, empty of joy and strength. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will rock her world.

In the house on Violin Road he found the bodies of his brother, his mother, and the man who killed them both-his father. From the house on Violin Road, in Missing Mile, North Carolina, Trevor McGee ran for his sanity and his soul, after his famous cartoonist father had exploded inexplicably into murder and suicide. Now Trevor is back. In the company of a New Orleans computer hacker on the run from the law, Trevor has returned to face the ghosts that still live on Violin Road, to find the demons that drove his father to murder his family-and worse, to spare one of his sons. But as Trevor begins to draw his own cartoon strip, he loses himself in a haze of lines and art and thoughts of the past, the haunting begins. Trevor and his lover plunge into a cyber-maze of cartoons, ghosts, and terror that will lead either to understanding-true understanding-or to a blood-raining repetition of the past.