Psychological Horror

There’s a dress in Daisy’s closet. Silver. Low-backed. Tiny spaghetti straps. She’ll wear it to prom on the arm of Harris Zandari, the most gorgeous senior at her school. How did quiet, barely-there Daisy, land Harris Zandari? She watched him. She watched him so closely, and for so long, that she saw things no one else did. She saw through his charm, his bright, smiling face, to the sad, broken person underneath just waiting for the perfect sad, broken girl to complete him. Daisy was that girl.

A provocative collection of literary horror stories by one of America’s most acclaimed and inventive writers whose unique prose “can be soul-shaking” (New Yorker).

Curator of paleontology Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch, and the guilt has haunted Simon ever since. After a recent breakup and the death of the aunt who raised him, Simon feels drawn back to the place where Morgan vanished, in search of the bones they never found.

Just your average father-son story. But with abduction, torture, and murder. Out of nowhere, a retired 60-year old handyman goes on a murder-spree, abducting healthy young people and torturing them with hand-tools. After he's caught, a media fascination in The Handyman swells. People want to know why he snapped. They want to hear all the grisly details. But he'll only tell his gruesome story to one person - his estranged son.

Jutting from sparkling turquoise waters off the Italian coast, Isle Isola is an idyllic setting for a wedding. In the majestic cliff-top villa owned by the wealthy Compton family, up-and-coming artist Claire Hunter will marry handsome, charming Jack Compton, surrounded by close family, intimate friends…and a host of dark secrets.

The identity of Elizabeth Cage has always been a mystery. Even she doesn't know who, or what, she is. But she's learned to live with it. Until now, when what should have been a peaceful holiday turns into anything but, and Elizabeth is forced to recognise that she isn't what she seems. But neither is anyone else. Has her whole life been a lie? Someone very badly wants to know the truth about Elizabeth Cage. And they'll do anything to find out. But who will live to regret it?

Christian Windsor's odd genius brought him and his FBI unit fame when he stopped the sadistic murderer called The Surgeon. Christian's genius couldn't reveal the sociopath working right next to him, though: the world-renowned psychiatrist, Luke Titan. Dead bodies begin showing up again, but this time, Christian knows them. The killer doesn't want other people: He wants Christian. A delusional psychopath thinks Christian can bring God's return, which gives Luke Titan the perfect opportunity to continue his own sick purpose.

Tom Pasmore, ten years old, survives a near-fatal accident. During his long recovery, he becomes obsessed with an unsolved murder and finds he has clues to solving it that he shouldn’t. Lamont von Heilitz has spent his life dealing with mysteries, until he wanted to know nothing more of the terror of life and the horror of death. When a new murder disrupts their world of wealth, power, and pleasure, the two must form an unlikely partnership to confront demons from the past and the dark secrets that still haunt the present.

Eve has a fake ID, a .38, and a violent lover receding in the rearview mirror. He’ll never find her at the isolated motel, and its kindly manager is happy to ease her fears. But if Eve is the only guest, whom does she keep hearing on the other side of the wall? Eve won’t get a good night’s rest until she finds out.

Stanley Maddox lives a mundane life in a nondescript town. His wife is cheating on him, his colleagues at work don’t recognize him, and he has recently noticed a mysterious creature darting its way through his house. When he notices a flap of skin on his face, he begins pulling. Beneath his skin lies another person, an evil person, with the power to change his life forever.

The neighbors all whisper about the two sisters who live on the hill: It's Blanche Hudson who lives in that house, you know. The Blanche Hudson, who starred in big Hollywood films all those years ago. Such a shame her career ended so early, all because of that accident. They say it was her sister, Jane, who did it - that she crashed the car because she was drunk. They say that's why she looks after Blanche now, because of the guilt. That's what they say, at least.

With one unexpected email from her estranged best friend, Lucy, Mina Murray’s carefully curated life is turned upside down. Leaving behind her psychiatric practice in London, along with her routine and the calm it brings, she returns to the windswept shores of Wales. Faced with everything she’s left behind, she soon discovers that Lucy’s symptoms mirror those of her mysterious patient with amnesia hundreds of miles away.

You haven't heard of William Colton Hughes. Or, if you have, then you're not telling anybody. Not telling them anything, ever. He's not the serial killer on the news, in the textbooks. He's the one out there still punching his card, and a few other people's too. He is a nightmare come to life, waiting in his apartment for you to knock on his door. William Colton Hughes is living his fantasy: his victims are delivered to his apartment every few days. But when he's suddenly alone, no visitors, nobody to talk to but himself, he begins to lose what little of his mind he has left.

Centuries ago, beautiful young Ilsbeth Clark was accused of witchcraft after several children disappeared. Her acquittal did nothing to stop her fellow townsfolk from drowning her in the well where the missing children were last seen. When author and social media influencer Elena returns to the summer paradise of her youth to get her family's manor house ready to sell, the last thing she expected was connecting with—and feeling inspired to write about—Ilsbeth’s infamous spirit. The very historical figure that her ex-childhood friend, Cathy, has been diligently researching.

The Himalayas, 1935. Kangchenjunga. Third-highest peak on earth. Greatest killer of them all. Five Englishmen set off from Darjeeling, determined to conquer the sacred summit. But courage can only take them so far - and the mountain is not their only foe. As the wind dies, the dread grows. Mountain sickness. The horrors of extreme altitude. A past that will not stay buried. And sometimes, the truth does not set you free.

A therapist and self-help writer with all the answers, Sarah has just bought a gorgeous Victorian in the community of her dreams. Turns out you can get a killer deal on a house where someone was murdered. Plus, renovating Black Wood House makes for great blog content and a potent distraction from her failing marriage. Good thing nobody knows that her past is as tainted as the bloodstain on her bedroom floor.

Growing up in Louisiana, Gabriel’s young life is a happy one, despite the growing rift between her mother and her conniving, whiskey-drinking daddy. Her dreams for a bright future as an artist are cut short, however, when her innocence is shattered by the rich cannery owner Octavious Tate. Pregnant and desperate to spare her mother the scandal, Gabriel agrees to a shocking plan that will allow Octavious’ wife, Gladys, to claim the baby as her own and will net Gabriel’s father a huge payoff.

None of us ever agreed on the exact beginning. Was it when we started drawing the chalk figures, or when they started to appear on their own? Was it the terrible accident? Or when they found the first body?

Cat lives in Los Angeles, far from 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing gothic house in Edinburgh where she and her estranged twin sister, El, grew up. As kids, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs, full of pirates, witches, and clowns. These days, Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the fact that El now lives there with her husband, Ross. But when El mysteriously disappears after going out on her sailboat, Cat is forced to return to 36 Westeryk Road, which hasn’t changed in twenty years.

Frank Cotton's insatiable appetite for the dark pleasures of pain led him to the puzzle of Lemarchand's box, and from there, to a death only a sick-minded soul could invent. But his brother's love-crazed wife, Julia, has discovered a way to bring Frank back - though the price will be bloody and terrible...and there will certainly be hell to pay.