Magic Horror

Get ready for a collection of thirteen short stories that will chill your bones, tingle your spine, and scare your pants off. Debut author Josh Allen masterfully concocts horror in the most innocent places, like R. L. Stine meets a modern Edgar Allan Poe. A stray kitten turns into a threatening follower. The street sign down the block starts taunting you. Even your own shadow is out to get you! Spooky things love hiding in plain sight. The everyday world is full of sinister secrets, and these stories show that there's darkness even where you least expect it.

Joss McMillan’s perfect life crashes down the night he witnesses his sister’s murder - at the hands of a vampire. He then finds out his family’s secret heritage: They are part of the Slayer Society, a group whose mission is to rid the world of vampires. Joss is their new recruit. As Joss trains, bent on seeking revenge for his sister, he discovers powers that could make him the youngest, strongest Slayer in history. But there is a traitor in the Society, one whose identity would shake Joss to the core... if the traitor doesn’t kill him first.

Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby is a teenage grim reaper with the bizarre ability to Damn souls. That makes her pretty scary, even to fellow Grims. But after inadvertently transferring her ability to Zara, a murderous outlaw, Lex is a pariah in Croak, the little town she calls home. To escape the townspeople’s wrath, she and her friends embark on a wild road trip to DeMyse. Though this sparkling desert oasis is full of luxuries and amusements, it feels like a prison to Lex.

It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on. His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live - not walk around half dead, pining for her. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare with the dead girl he fell in love with. Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong....

Welcome to another kind of terror as Peter Straub leads us into the outer reaches of the psyche. Here the master of the macabre is at his absolute best in seven exquisite tales of living, dying, and the terror that lies in between.

Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the 16-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers.

On the outside, luxury real estate agent Sarah Nelson looks like every other mom in the suburb. But she has an edge that others don’t: She’s a witch. And no one knows . . . except her estranged ex-coven and college friends, Katrina and Alicia. One terrible night during their freshman year, the trio accidentally burned down their dorm, and soon after they scattered. Their secret had been safe, until Sarah learns they’ve been invited back to commemorate the anniversary of the fire.

A town is overrun by road weenies - a.k.a. joggers - who never smile. A girl thinks she's too old for Halloween...until she finds a special pair of gloves. A boy takes a shortcut to an unexpected place. A mummy takes his revenge, one little piece at a time.... These 35 tales ranging from the silly and offbeat to flat-out horrifying are just right for listening alone in the dark.

Amy is pretty happy living the quiet life at home. She can mine ore, read up on oceanography, hang out with her pet cat. What’s not to love? Her brother, on the other hand . . . Marc is always leaving their village to look for excitement. But when a couple of weeks go by without any word from him, Amy can’t help but worry. Digging around, she discovers Marc has gone off alone in search of someplace called Glory’s Haven, a house deep in the forests where (supposedly) the greatest adventurer their town has ever seen stashed a ton of loot.

With all the ghosts that haunt her at this time of year, Carly doesn't exactly rush to celebrate Halloween. Even a costume ball organized by her boyfriend Dylan's mother, Patricia Davis Jackson, holds little allure. But to please Dylan, who wants peace between the two women, Carly reluctantly agrees to go.

Mackie is a Replacement — left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is slowly dying in the human world. Mackie would give anything to live among us. He just wants to play bass guitar and find out more about an oddly intriguing girl named Tate. But when Tate’s baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem....

For goth-girl Raven, dating her dream boyfriend is complicated, especially because Alexander’s secret means that they can see each other only at night. And now the pair must be extra wary in the dark with Alexander’s archrival, Jagger, appearing around town. As if Jagger isn’t enough cause for worry, Luna, his strikingly pale sister, has also surfaced and seems to have her sights set on Raven’s longtime nemesis, Trevor.

There’s a new vampire in town. His name is Valentine Maxwell. Goth-girl Raven knows this latest intruder can only mean trouble—he’s the younger sibling of two vampires she fought to drive out of Dullsville. But when her brother, Billy, befriends this dangerous tween night prowler, the stakes are suddenly higher. Though torn by the excitement of every teen girl’s fantasy—attending the prom with her boyfriend—Raven must do everything she can to protect Billy.

Things seem to be going well for Liv Silver: She's adjusting to her new home (and her new family) in London; she has a burgeoning romance with Henry Harper, one of the cutest boys in school; and the girl who's been turning her dreams into nightmares, Anabel, is now locked up. But serenity doesn't last for long. It seems that Liv's troubles are far from over - in fact, suddenly they're piling up.

Georgia Exler has always been the odd witch out. In a family of accomplished witches, she’s the only one who never uncovered her magical abilities.... Until she moved to Keating Hollow. Heartbroken after her husband of two years is killed, the writer moves to the enchanted town to start over. All she wants to do is write her next book. But when the events in her life start to mimic the newest paranormal romance she’s writing, she starts to wonder if she’s found her magic after all. Only how is she going to give her characters their endings? Everything she writes comes true.

I used to hunt witches. Now I live with one. To further complicate things, my past as a supernatural bounty hunter doesn’t exactly make me popular in these new circles I’m running in. Shocker, I know. Someone wants me dead. He wants me to stay in Nathalie’s apartment and be safe while he handles the threat, all while holding Bree’s future over my head. Not gonna happen. To say I’m f--ked is an understatement. But I’ve been in worse spots before. Lucifer may be gone, but the corruption of magic isn’t.

A black cloud of remorse and regret haunts Ari and the Roses, shrouding the house at the end of the road in darkness. With the help of the witch Ophelia has become, Ari decides to make one final push - the push to save them all. But nothing ever goes the way she plans. Instead she resets everything, sending them scattering across the continent.

Sixteen-year-old Sunshine is reluctantly gaining control over her powers as a Luiseach. But while she explores her mystical lineage, she discovers a dangerous discordance - one only she can heal.

Marshall Seaver and Cooper Foley have been friends through life - and death. Now the ethereal pathway between realms, known as the Morpheus Road, is in danger of being destroyed by the vengeful spirit who has become their nemesis: the ancient warrior called Damon. The worlds of the living and the dead are about to collide, forcing Marshall to make a brave and shocking decision as the two friends navigate a perilous trail that leads to a frightening realization: Damon isn’t their only enemy.

"You here for the Midnight Coven?" Icy words, whispered upon her lips in the night, used to scare Lorelei Huntington. But that was before. Before her mother tried to have her killed, before her world went back 50 years, before the magic of the swamp found its way into Lorelei's blood. Now she finds the whispers and the cold breath of the dead a comfort. That is until she's warned, by a small ghost haunting Whit's family's castle, about the secrets of the bloodthirsty family she resides with.