Scary Fantasy

In the title story, set five minutes in the future where you not only have a credit score but also a dating score, a woman who’s been banished from all dating apps attends a weekly help group with others who have been “banned for life,” and finds herself falling in love. In “Backwards,” a twist on Benjamin Button, a woman reconnects with her estranged father as he de-ages ten years each day they spend together. In “Welcome to Oxhead,” all the parents in a gated community “shut off” when the power goes out.

Frank tends the garbage heap in the monster realm, just on the other side of the human world. In his spare time, he builds inventions out of garbage scraps. One of his inventions is of a human-inspired robot, with a stained T-shirt as the body. But Frank can’t seem to get the robot to work. One strange night, a bolt of lightning transforms the invention into a real human child!

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Beast Awakens by Joseph Delaney, read by Lee Ingleby. They heard shouting and cries of fear. Crafty looked down the slope and realised what had happened to cause so much panic. Without warning, the dark wall of the Shole had advanced. Crafty can't remember a time before the Shole - the terrifying mist that has engulfed most of Britain, leaving those trapped in it to either die or be transformed into horrifying monsters: the aberrations.

It's a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths - for good and evil - of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies.

A group of mercenaries on an unsanctioned mission survives a plane crash in whiteout conditions in the Tian Shan mountains. The men are accustomed to danger. Now they’re growing accustomed to fear. Team leader Liev and his band of survivors are stranded in the bitter winds with little hope of rescue—or outlasting the wolves that have scented blood. In the distance is the apparent sanctuary of an abandoned stone fortress. That an ancient bulwark even exists on this forsaken summit is beyond comprehension. So is what lies on the other side of its walls.

Poppy, Dash, Azumi, and Dylan may have made it out of Shadow House - but the grounds are a whole new nightmare. Someone they thought was a friend is hunting them, and there's no place that's safe now that they've woken the shadow creature. If they want to survive, they'll have to figure out once and for all what the house wants from them, and what - or who - they'll need to leave behind in order to escape...or risk being trapped within Shadow House forever.

The third book in Landy's fantastically imaginative and illustrious series about our favourite dead detective, Skulduggery Pleasant and his wonderfully cheeky and inquisitive side kick Valkyrie take us through another journey which promises to be filled with adventure, dark mysterious meetings, and classically funny moments. With all the characters read once again by Rupert Degas 'The Faceless Ones' will enchant, enthral and keep you gripped as they take you through another adventure in this brilliant series.

Gretas neues Schuljahr schreit danach, großartig zu werden – oder auch nicht! Denn ihre ziemlich verrückte Hippie-Oma Gigi hat sich das Bein gebrochen und reist kurzerhand mit ihrem Glitzerfunkel-Wohnwagen zu ihr und ihren beiden Vätern. Statt coolen Mädelstreffen steht nun Omasitten auf dem Plan. Doch als Greta zufällig entdeckt, dass ihre Oma durch die Mikrowelle mit Geistern sprechen kann, ist der Sommer gleich gar nicht mehr so doof.

Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It's true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of 19th-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a 16-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey's life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school. Everything changes when Joey's mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known....

Nightmares. They come in all shapes and sizes - from gargantuan lizards to teensy creepy-crawlies. No matter their form, we know all too well they are truly terrifying. The good news is that every nightmare, no matter how ferocious, mysterious, or hairy, can be defeated. And this book will tell you how.

Adam says he can’t remember where he was for the two months he went missing in a Florida swamp. That’s not true. He does remember. The truth: He was driving with his parents, and the car crashed when his father swerved to avoid colliding with a giant Sasquatch-like creature standing in the highway. Haunted by his parents’ disappearance and hounded for claiming to have seen Bigfoot, Adam sets off into the deadly wilderness on a hunt for answers as to what really happened that night.

It's Halloween night when strangers come to Linden Street...and something dear to Olive goes missing. To what lengths will she go to get it back? Can she trust the strangers? Will she turn to a new and dangerous magic within the paintings of Elsewhere? Or will she put her faith in her own worst enemies to save the people and home she loves? The stakes grow higher, the secrets more dangerous, and mystery and magic abound as Olive, the boys, and the cats uncover the true nature of the house on Linden Street.

Richard Hsieh's life is about to become a total nightmare. His dad studies dreams and they hook his new Slappy doll up to the dream machine as a joke. All of a sudden, Richard's dreams are becoming scarier and scarier. Each time, seeing Slappy, his birthday present, come to life and wreak havoc. But they're only dreams, right?

In this universe, many different realities exist simultaneously. You have to be careful when it comes to what you think about, wish for, and especially what you say. Thoughts and words have more power than you know, and you can turn your sense of reality into one you may not like. We were given the ability to create... so make sure your creation is as positive as you know how to be. If it is not, then be very mindful of what needs to change, because eventually, your own creation could end up being your own worst nightmare. This is The Scary.

In a town surrounded by deadly mist, and filled with oddities, two young siblings become orphans. And that's the best thing that's happened to them all day. Howard Howard was a Wrecker (a brute and bully by profession) who was brutal and bullish to his children - Aubrey and Aubrey's sister. Howard Howard deserved to be turned into mince, and thanks to a mysterious duo called The Grinders, that's exactly what happened to Howard Howard.

The last thing Tasha Washington wants is to move from her home in Savannah to a trailer park in Middle-of-Nowhere, Georgia. But when her mother dies and Tasha is taken in by her father—a man she’s never met, who abandoned her mom when Tasha was just a baby—she doesn’t have much of a choice. At least, she thinks, she won’t have to spend much time with him—something that becomes clear when he dumps Tasha with her grandmother and disappears to be with his new girlfriend.

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.

While developing a new system to maintain Morganville's defenses, student Claire Danvers discovers a way to amplify vampire mental powers. Through this, she's able to reestablish the field around this vampire-infested Texas college town that protects it from outsiders. But the new upgrades have an unexpected consequence: people inside the town begin to slowly forget who they are - even the vampires.

Twig lives in Sidwell, where people whisper that fairy tales are real. After all, her town is rumored to hide a monster. And 200 years ago, a witch placed a curse on Twig's family that was meant to last forever. But this summer, everything will change when the red moon rises. It's time to break the spell.

On an isolated mountain, a stone labyrinth provides rough shelter for a band of mercenaries. At its core lies a centuries-old mystery. But in chapter two of The Boy in the Iron Box, no secret is safe. A concealed pit; an iron box, wrapped in chains; a statue of a boy. What unknowns await the anxious, disoriented team in this strange ruin? Night will tell.