Magic Horror

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.

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.

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.

As a mortal girl dating a vampire, Raven knows that love isn't always easy. Now that Alexander's parents have returned to Romania, Raven and her dreamy vampire boyfriend are happy to resume their cryptic romance. But soon another visitor comes knocking: Sebastian, Alexander's best friend, arrives for a stay at the mansion.

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.

One of the best ways to turn an average camping trip or sleepover with friends into an all-out adventure is to spark your kid’s curiosity with a nail-biting and edge-of-your-seat tale of terror. Whatever the case may be, these captivating and mind-bending stories are sure to capture their attention and leave them begging for more. On top of that, all of the characters are easily relatable and will even empower your children toward a deeper understanding of some powerful moral life lessons.

Seventeen-year-old Vanessa Sands is afraid of everything - the dark, heights, the ocean - but her fearless older sister, Justine, has always been there to coach her through every challenge. That is, until Justine goes cliff diving one night near the family's vacation house in Winter Harbor, Maine, and her lifeless body washes up on shore the next day.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the final book of The Slayer Chronicles trilogy, Slayer Joss McMillan is home in Santa Clara when he’s assigned to track down and take out a murderous vampire. But vampires aren’t Joss’s only trouble this summer: His girl-crazy cousin Henry is staying with him, and still holding a grudge against Joss for trying to kill his best friend, Vladimir Tod. Joss’s former mentor and supposedly dead vampire, Sirus, is casting a shadow on Joss’s every move. And Kat, Joss’s old friend, has come back to exact revenge for past wrongs.