Paranormal Horror Fiction

Though she's the vampire queen, Betsy Taylor is much more like a princess. In MaryJanice Davidson's novels, this high-maintenance monarch is finally coming to terms with her new status.

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.

The post-Katrina New Orleans of The City of Lost Fortunes is a place haunted by its history and by the hurricane's destruction, a place that is hoping to survive the rebuilding of its present long enough to ensure that it has a future. Street magician Jude Dubuisson is likewise burdened by his past and by the consequences of the storm, because he has a secret: the magical ability to find lost things, a gift passed down to him by the father he has never known - a father who just happens to be more than human.

After years managing a haunted hotel and estate, I thought things were good. Sure, the ghosts can be a handful—nosy, opinionated, interfering—but they’re also friendly and fun. We have a system. Everything was under control. Cue hysterical laughter. But after a minor blip with a demon in the basement and a vortex to the spirit world, the ghosts swear they have no more secrets. The danger is gone, and we’ve done everything we can to make the vortex safe. It should be fine. Nothing’s come through it for 50 years. It’s never that easy at Mannix Estate.

It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there. Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black. Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.

He was born an outsider, like the rest of his family. Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixed blood, neither this nor that. The boy at the center of Mongrels must decide if he belongs on the road with his aunt and uncle or if he fits with the people on the other side of the tracks.

Wild Invitation is an exciting collection of Psy/Changeling stories from New York Times best-selling author Nalini Singh. In "Beat of Temptation", innocent Tamsyn has always had a place in her heart for Nathan, a blooded DarkRiver sentinel. But is she ready for the fierce demands of the mating bond? In "Stroke of Enticement", a wary young teacher, skeptical about love, arouses the man - and the animal - in an aggressive leopard changeling who must prove his affections are true.

Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different....

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.

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.

When a chance invitation to a magical ball revives Lina’s spirit, but none of her memories, she’s left with more questions than answers. Lucky for her, she was also left with someone determined to help her uncover them. With her Guardian, Nord, at her side Lina begins her search, but neither of them expected that the dangers of her past would resurface and threaten her future. A future she finds herself hoping will include the Viking-like man who makes her heart race.

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.

When 15-year-old Oscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in Barcelona, no one knows his whereabouts for seven days and seven nights. His story begins when he meets the strange Marina while he's exploring an old quarter of the city. She leads Oscar to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly 10 o'clock in the morning, a woman shrouded in a black velvet cloak descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave.

Phil Hastings was a lucky man - he had money, a growing reputation as a screenwriter, a happy, loving family with three kids, and he'd just moved into the house of his dreams in rural of magic - and about to be altered irrevocably by a magic more real than any he dared imagine. For with the Magic came the Bad Thing, and the Faerie, and then the Fool...and the resurrection of a primordial war with a forgotten People - a war that not only the Hastings but the whole human race could lose.

Harry Keogh's Necroscope powers are gone, just as a new evil rears its head in the Balkan Mountains. Janos Ferenczy, master vampire and black magician, has risen from an ages-long sleep. He prepares an army of undead warriors to conquer the world. The dead try desperately to attract the Necroscope's attention, but Harry Keogh is deaf to their pleas and their screams. As Harry searches for a cure, he learns that to save mankind he must ally himself with the crafty father of vampires, the infamous Faethor Ferenczy. And Faethor's price will be very high indeed!

Alexia Maccon, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the midafternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears, leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria.

You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, my life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama. Among my own, I have confronted horrendous enemies, endured my noble kins treachery and malevolence, and honored my duty to conceive a royal heirall for the right to claim the throne.

Emily Croy Barker’s riveting debut novel is a must-read for fans of Lev Grossman and Deborah Harkness. The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic follows grad student Nora Fischer as she stumbles through a portal into a magical world. Having been transformed from drab to beautiful, Nora finds herself surrounded by glamorous friends. Life seems perfect. But then things take a terrible turn, and Nora must learn magic from a reclusive ally if she is to have any hope of survival...

There's a maniacal murderer on the loose, brutally slaughtering young women with a ferocity that rivals that of vampires Harry Koegh has spent his life combatting. The Necroscope's been asked to solve the crimes...asked by the dead spirits of the madman's victims. Harry cannot turn down a request from the dead...even if it costs him his soul. In the climactic battle with the vampires, mankind prevailed and purged the vampires from earth - thanks to Harry, his team of psychically-gifted spies, and Faethor Ferenczy, long-dead "father" of the world's vampires, who betrayed his own kind.

The Vampire Archives is the biggest, hungriest, undeadliest collection of vampire stories, as well as the most comprehensive bibliography of vampire fiction ever assembled. Dark, stormy, and delicious, once it sinks its teeth into you there’s no escape.