Occult Horror Fiction

Ghost stories became hugely popular during the 19th century, and the Victorians became the masters of the genre. This deliciously chilling collection of Classic Hallowe'en Stories includes authors such as Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Edgar Allen Poe, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James, Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, M. R. James and Vernon Lee.

In Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner tells of an aging spinster's struggle to break away from her controlling family - a classic story that she treats with cool feminist intelligence, while adding a dimension of the supernatural and strange. Warner is one of the outstanding and indispensable mavericks of 20th-century literature, a writer to set beside Djuna Barnes and Jane Bowles, with a subversive genius that anticipates the fantastic flights of such contemporaries as Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson.

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.

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.

This is volume one of a two-volume omnibus set comprising the complete fictional works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Every story written for publication under his own name is included in this set, from 1917 through 1935. (Poems, ghostwritten material, and stories written in collaboration with other writers are not included.)

In Midcoast Maine, Jamie Flint and her K-9 team search for the cognitively challenged son of a local animal hoarder, while recently licensed private investigator Jack Juarez looks into a murder related to the case. Unfortunately, each new clue Jack finds in the investigation seems to lead him back to a suspect police already have in their sights: Jamie's son. Meanwhile, Jamie fights to save a critically ill pit bull pulled from the hoarder's home who could hold the key to the woman's dark secrets.

Three months ago, amber tuner and independent prospector Lyra Dore made the find of the decade in an underground rain forest: amethyst ruins. But the very man she was dating stole her claim - and her heart. At least she has her artistically talented dust bunny, Vincent, to comfort her. Amber Inc. CEO Cruz Sweetwater never meant to hurt Lyra. His affinity for obsidian amber gives him the ability to sense that she is his true love. But the ruins have mysterious powers, putting everyone involved with the project in danger.

When Lucas Smoke learns the Ojibway art of carving from his grandfather, he proves to be a natural. He can literally make people come to life in wood. Then Lucas’s growing reputation attracts a mysterious stranger, who offers him a large advance to carve a spirit mask. This mask is to represent the master, but Lucas must find its face in his dreams. As his dreams become more and more disturbing, he feels himself changing. And the mask takes control of his life. Then an encounter with an old woman introduces him to the identity of the master: an ancient sorcerer named Him Standing.

If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr. and Mrs. Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest. It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water.

The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula's true origins but Bram Stoker's - and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them. It is 1868, and a 21-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here....

When Alice's husband disappears while investigating a series of strange and terrible incidents in the bustling seaport of Salem, she is forced to bring her young daughter, Abigail, along from Boston while she takes up the search. But she soon learns of a terrible curse that has the entire town bracing for nightfall: One hundred years after the infamous witch trials, the vengeful spirit of a woman hanged for witchcraft will rise from hell to claim the souls of Salem's children.

Beatrice Bird is plagued by ghosts. It’s a gift she’s had since she was a small child. Unfortunately, it’s a gift that has grown more intense, shifting from flashes and feelings to physical manifestations she can’t escape. In a desperate attempt for relief, Beatrice flees her home, her partner, and a psychology practice in San Francisco for a remote island with only nuns and a few cows for company. She sees as few people as she possibly can. She doesn’t call home. Then she meets Anne Iredale, a timid woman who has lost everything that matters to her.

Named Author of the Year at the 2003 British BookAwards, Sarah Waters is the author of Tipping the Velvet, a New York Times Notable Book. Once inside the concrete walls of Millbank Prison, Margaret Prior, hired to speak with the female inmates, becomes all too aware that what she perceives to be reality may not be so. Bringing new ideas to her mind is the beautiful, but dangerous criminal Selina Dawes.

Erika est une étudiante ordinaire, enfin presque ! Invivable, puérile et pleine d'humour sarcastique, c'est avec surprise qu'un homme la connaissant vient la voir un soir. Rapidement elle apprend qu'elle est une sorcière ! Mais les bonnes nouvelles ne s'arrêtent pas là ! À peine a-t-elle pu se faire à l'idée qu'elle meure. Transformée en vampire par un proche, elle va désormais devoir dompter ses pouvoirs incontrôlables. Si seulement personne ne cherchait à la tuer... Rapidement Erika perd pied.

Ever since their on-again, off-again college romance, Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with charismatic but reckless Silas, who has been chasing the next big high since graduation. When he texts her to spring him out of rehab, she knows enough is enough. She is ready to start a career, make new friends, and meet a great guy—even if that means cutting Silas off. But when Silas turns up dead from an overdose, Erin’s world falls apart.

At the heart of these stories, as with all the best of Lovecraft’s work, is the belief that the Earth was once inhabited by powerful and evil gods, just waiting for the chance to recolonise their planet. Cthulhu is one such god, lurking deep beneath the sea until called into being by cult followers who – like all humans – know not what they do.

One headstrong fey, seven Nephilim, and an American occult collector make for an action-packed ride! When the team break fey magic that seals an old tomb, they find it contains more than they bargained for. Now they’re hunting for a rogue spirit, but he always seems one step ahead. Later, join Shadow, Gabe, and Harlan as they search for the Temple of the Trinity. The Nephilim find it has unsettling links to their past. In the last story, when an arcane artefact is stolen from the Order of the Midnight Sun, Shadow and Gabe are hired to track it down, pitting them against a new enemy.

Detlef Sierck, the self-proclaimed greatest playwright in the world, has declared that his next production will be a recreation of the end of the Great Enchanter Drachenfels - to be staged at the very site of his death, the Fortress of Drachenfels itself. But the castle's dark walls still hide a terrible secret which may make the opening night an evening to remember!

As the witches roast chestnuts and melt lead to see their fate, a series of odd messengers land on their doorstep bearing invitations for a New Year's Eve masquerade hosted by a woman they've never met. Gossip, dreams and portents follow, leading the witches to question the woman's motives. Is she as benevolent as she seems or is she laying a trap? And so, as Gilded-Age New York prepares to ring in the new year, the witches don their finery and head for the ball, on the hunt for answers that might well be the end of them.

Aspiring supervillains (and super nerds) Jonathan and Andrew attempt to hold their own in a town full of monsters, while eleven-hundred-year-old vengeance demon Anya is just looking for something to give her life purpose again, spending her days working at an evil juice bar. But soon word gets out that there's a new Big Bad on the scene, one more powerful and more destructive than anyone who has come before. She, of course, is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And she's hell-bent on rooting out all of this reality's evil by any means necessary.