52 Best 「slasher」 Books of 2024| Books Explorer
- How to Sell a Haunted House
- Bird Box: A Novel
- They Lurk
- The House of Last Resort
- Black River Orchard
- This Wretched Valley
- Beloved: Pulitzer Prize Winner (Vintage International)
- Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
- Among the Living
- The Exorcist: 40th Anniversary Edition
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Wildly entertaining."-The New York Times"Ingenious."-The Washington PostNew York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…Like his novels The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group, How to Sell a Haunted House is classic Hendrix: equal parts heartfelt and terrifying—a gripping new read from “the horror master” (USA Today).
“A book that demands to be read in a single sitting, and through the cracks between one’s fingers. There has never been a horror story quite like this. Josh Malerman truly delivers.” — Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of WoolWritten with the narrative tension of The Road and the exquisite terror of classic Stephen King, Bird Box is a propulsive, edge-of-your-seat horror thriller, set in an apocalyptic near-future world—a masterpiece of suspense from the brilliantly imaginative Josh Malerman.Something is out there . . .Something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remain, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now, that the boy and girl are four, it is time to go. But the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them. But is it man, animal, or monster?Engulfed in darkness, surrounded by sounds both familiar and frightening, Malorie embarks on a harrowing odyssey—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Under the guidance of the stalwart Tom, a motely group of strangers banded together against the unseen terror, creating order from the chaos. But when supplies ran low, they were forced to venture outside—and confront the ultimate question: in a world gone mad, who can really be trusted?Interweaving past and present, Malerman’s breathtaking debut is a horrific and gripping snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.
From the bestselling author of Come with Me, five collected novellas from the master of terror, featuring possession, parasites and something monstrous lurking outside... COME CLOSER... Five terrifying collected horror novellas newly reissued from the "modern-day Algernon Blackwood". Skullbelly After three teenagers disappear in a forest, a private detective is hired and uncovers a terrible local secret. The Separation Marcus arrives in Germany to find his friend up-and-coming prizefighter Charlie in a deep depression. But soon Charlie's behavior grows increasingly bizarre. Is he suffering from a nervous breakdown, or are otherworldly forces at work? The Stranger Set a rural Florida parking lot, David returns to his car to find a stranger sat behind the wheel. The doors are locked and there's a gun on the dashboard. And that was when then the insanity started... After the Fade A girl walked into a small Annapolis tavern, collapsed and died. Something had latched itself to the base of her skull. And it didn't arrive alone. Now, the patrons of The Fulcrum are trapped, held prisoner within the tavern's walls by monstrous things, trying to find their way in. And one more novella to be revealed!
The next high concept horror novel from New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden.Across Italy there are many half-empty towns, nearly abandoned by those who migrate to the coast or to cities. The beautiful, crumbling hilltop town of Becchina is among them, but its mayor has taken drastic measures to rebuild―selling abandoned homes to anyone in the world for a single Euro, as long as the buyer promises to live there for at least five years.It’s a no-brainer for American couple Tommy and Kate Puglisi. Both work remotely, and Becchina is the home of Tommy’s grandparents, his closest living relatives. It feels like a romantic adventure, an opportunity the young couple would be crazy not to seize. But from the moment they move in, they both feel a shadow has fallen on them. Tommy’s grandmother is furious, even a little frightened, when she realizes which house they’ve bought.There are rooms in an annex at the back of the house that they didn’t know were there. The place makes strange noises at night, locked doors are suddenly open, and when they go to a family gathering, they’re certain people are whispering about them, and about their house, which one neighbor refers to as The House of Last Resort. Soon, they learn that the home was owned for generations by the Church, but the real secret, and the true dread, is unlocked when they finally learn what the priests were doing in this house for all those long years…and how many people died in the strange chapel inside. While down in the catacombs beneath Becchina…something stirs.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A small town is transformed when seven strange trees begin bearing magical apples in this masterpiece of horror from the author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents.“This masterful outing should continue to earn Wendig comparisons to Stephen King.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEARIt’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.This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. It’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.
“A hallucinatory nightmare of a novel that blends adventure, horror and historical fiction, and isn’t shy about violence or strangeness.”—New York Times“If you love wilderness horror, This Wretched Valley is a must-read.”—Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger and The FervorTake only pictures. Leave only bones.This trip is going to be Dylan’s big break. Her geologist friend Clay has discovered an untouched cliff face in the Kentucky wilderness, and she is going to be the first person to climb it. Together with Clay, his research assistant Sylvia, and Dylan’s boyfriend Luke, Dylan is going to document her achievement on Instagram and finally cement her place as the next rising star in rock climbing.Seven months later, three bodies are discovered in the trees just off the highway. All are in various states of decay: one a stark, white skeleton; the second emptied of its organs; and the third a mutilated corpse with the tongue, eyes, ears, and fingers removed.But Dylan is still missing—and no trace of her, dead or alive, has been discovered.Were the climbers murdered? Did they succumb to cannibalism? Or are their impossible bodies the work of an even more sinister force?This dread-inducing debut builds to a bloodcurdling climax, and will leave you shocked by the final twist.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author.This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner.Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.“A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our nation.“Every piece is strong and memorable, making this not only likely to be the best anthology of the year, but one for the ages.”—The GuardianWINNER OF THE BRAM STOKER AWARD • LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Esquire, Chicago Public Library, CrimeReadsA cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele’s anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.Featuring stories by: Erin E. Adams, Violet Allen, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Maurice Broaddus, Chesya Burke, P. Djèlí Clark, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Justin C. Key, L. D. Lewis, Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nicole D. Sconiers, Rion Amilcar Scott, Terence Taylor, and Cadwell Turnbull.
From the New York Times bestseller and author of Netflix’s The Silence comes a terrifying horror novel set in a melting Arctic landscape. Something deadly has lain dormant for thousands of years, but now the permafrost is giving up its secrets…"At once a thrilling novel and a call to action against climate change..." - New York TimesEstranged friends Dean and Bethan meet after five years apart when they are drawn to a network of caves on a remote Arctic island. Bethan and her friends are environmental activists, determined to protect the land. But Dean’s group's exploitation of rare earth minerals deep in the caves unleashes an horrific contagion that has rested frozen and undisturbed for many millennia. Fleeing the terrors emerging from the caves, Dean and Bethan and their rival teams undertake a perilous journey on foot across an unpredictable and volatile landscape. The ex-friends must learn to work together again if they’re to survive... and more importantly, stop the horror from spreading to the wider world.A propulsive horror thriller––fast-moving, frightening, and shockingly relevant—this adventure will grip you until the final terrifying page.
Originally published in 1971, The Exorcist is now a major television series on FOX. It remains one of the most controversial novels ever written and went on to become a literary phenomenon: It spent fifty-seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, seventeen consecutively at number one. Inspired by a true story of a childs demonic possession in the 1940s, William Peter Blatty created an iconic novel that focuses on Regan, the eleven-year-old daughter of a movie actress residing in Washington, D.C. A small group of overwhelmed yet determined individuals must rescue Regan from her unspeakable fate, and the drama that ensues is gripping and unfailingly terrifying.Two years after its publication, The Exorcist was, of course, turned into a wildly popular motion picture, garnering ten Academy Award nominations. On opening day of the film, lines of the novels fans stretched around city blocks. In Chicago, frustrated moviegoers used a battering ram to gain entry through the double side doors of a theater. In Kansas City, police used tear gas to disperse an impatient crowd who tried to force their way into a cinema. The three major television networks carried footage of these events; CBSs Walter Cronkite devoted almost ten minutes to the story. The Exorcist was, and is, more than just a novel and a film: it is a true landmark.Purposefully raw and profane, The Exorcist still has the extraordinary ability to disturb readers and cause them to forget that it is just a story. Published here in this beautiful fortieth anniversary edition, it remains an unforgettable reading experience and will continue to shock and frighten a new generation of readers.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYNPR • Cosmopolitan • Kirkus Reviews • BookPageA page-turning thriller for readers of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Stieg Larsson, Night Film tells the haunting story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with the mysterious death of a troubled prodigy—the daughter of an iconic, reclusive filmmaker.On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page.Praise for Night Film“Night Film has been precision-engineered to be read at high velocity, and its energy would be the envy of any summer blockbuster. Your average writer of thrillers should lust for Pessl’s deft touch with character.”—Joe Hill, The New York Times Book Review“Mysterious and even a little head-spinning, an amazing act of imagination.”—Dean Baquet, The New York Times Book Review“Maniacally clever . . . Cordova is a monomaniacal genius who creeps into the darkest crevices of the human psyche. . . . As a study of a great mythmaker, Night Film is an absorbing act of myth-making itself. . . . Dastardly fun . . . The plot feels like an M. C. Escher nightmare about Edgar Allan Poe. . . . You’ll miss your subway stop, let dinner burn and start sleeping with the lights on.”—The Washington Post“Haunting . . . a suspenseful, sprawling page-turner.”—USA Today“Entrancing and delightful . . . [a] whipsmart humdinger of a thriller . . . It feels, above all things, new.”—The Boston Globe“Gripping . . . a masterful puzzle . . . Pessl builds up real suspense.”—Entertainment Weekly“A very deeply imagined book . . . sprints to an ending that’s equal parts nagging and haunting: What lingers, beyond all the page-turning, is a density of possible clues that leaves you leafing backward, scanning fictional blog comments and newspaper clippings, positive there’s some secret detail that will snap everything into focus.”—New York“Hypnotic . . . The real and the imaginary, life and art, are dizzyingly distorted not only in a Cordova night film . . . but in Pessl’s own Night Film as well.”—Vanity Fair
A New York Times Best Horror Book of the YearA cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.
From Bram Stoker Award–winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a chilling novel about three childhood friends who miraculously survive the night everyone in their suburban hometown turned into ghosts—perfect for fans of Yellowjackets.The Velkwood Vicinity was the topic of occult theorists, tabloid one-hour documentaries, and even some pseudo-scientific investigations as the block of homes disappeared behind a near-impenetrable veil that only three survivors could enter—and only one has in the past twenty years, until now.Talitha Velkwood has avoided anything to do with the tragedy that took her mother and eight-year-old sister, drifting from one job to another, never settling anywhere or with anyone, feeling as trapped by her past as if she was still there in the small town she so desperately wanted to escape from. When a new researcher tracks her down and offers to pay her to come back to enter the vicinity, Talitha claims she’s just doing it for the money. Of all the crackpot theories over the years, no one has discovered what happened the night Talitha, her estranged, former best friend Brett, and Grace, escaped their homes twenty years ago. Will she finally get the answers she’s been looking for all these years, or is this just another dead end?Award-winning author Gwendolyn Kiste has created a suburban ghost story about a small town that trapped three young women who must confront the past if they’re going to have a future.
The Exorcist meets Lord of the Flies, by way of Midnight Mass, in Boys in the Valley, a brilliant coming-of-age tale from award-winning author Philip Fracassi. St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys. Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania. Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future...a family. Then, late one stormy night, a group of men arrive at their door, one of whom is badly wounded, occult symbols carved into his flesh. His death releases an ancient evil that spreads like sickness, infecting St. Vincent's and the children within. Soon, boys begin acting differently, forming groups. Taking sides. Others turn up dead. Now Peter and those dear to him must choose sides of their own, each of them knowing their lives -- and perhaps their eternal souls -- are at risk.
In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.
Screenwriter Joshua Hull (Glorious)makes his longform prose debut!After a stranger leaves him a secluded property, drifter Rusty finds himself the caretaker of a massive, tooth-filled mouth in the ground…and it’s hungry.His situation is complicated by Abigail, a wannabe filmmaker who stumbles on the secret. Together, the odd pair set out to discover the origins of Mouth and the hidden history of its former owner, setting in motion an outlandish scheme that could endanger them all.Cover art by Halil Karasu.Interior illustrations by Kristofor Harris.“One of the wildest and strangest stories I’ve read in years. Harrowing, unpredictable, and breathtakingly cinematic, MOUTH is a delicious macabre gem.” Jonathan Janz, author of Marla and Children of the Dark“A fun yet beautifully haunting piece with layers of darkness and light.” Michael J. Seidlinger, author of Anybody Home?“Absolutely disturbing and hilariously funny. This is Joshua Hull at his finest. A must for lovers of surreal and weird horror." Rebekah McKendry, director of Glorious
A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM ALEX GARLAND, STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAACThe Southern Reach Trilogy begins with Annihilation, the Nebula Award-winning novel that "reads as if Verne or Wellsian adventurers exploring a mysterious island had warped through into a Kafkaesque nightmare world" (Kim Stanley Robinson).Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide; the third expedition in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers―they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding―but it's the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.
Shirley Jackson's beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family's dark secretTaking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A haunting mystery about lost girls and the woman driven to find them, from the author of the contemporary classic Lives of the Monster Dogs. Anna Fort wants to be a supportive wife, even if that means accompanying her husband for the winter of 1918 to a remote, frozen island estate so he can finish his book as the guest of an eccentric millionaire. When she learns three girls are missing from a school run by their host, Anna realizes finding them is up to her―even if that means risking her husband’s career, and possibly her life.Her husband’s masterpiece-in-progress features strange meteorological anomalies along with wild speculations about “facts” he believes scientists hide from the public. Most people think Charles Fort is a crackpot. That’s about to change now that wealthy Claude Arkel is his patron.Yet Anna is sure something’s not right on Prosper Island, though the alarming return of her “troubles” makes her question her own sanity. Is the figure in the woods really the ghost of her long-lost friend Mary, or a product of her disturbed imagination? Accompanied reluctantly by a fellow guest, the elegant and troubled Stella Bixby, Anna embarks on a dangerous quest to find the missing girls before Arkel finds her―or her own mind unravels.A contemporary feminist tale with a dreamlike, gothic setting, King Nyx reintroduces readers, twenty-five years after her acclaimed debut, to one of our most astonishingly imaginative storytellers.
A Haunted Paleontologist Returns To The Museum Where His Sister Was Abducted Years Earlier And Is Faced With A Terrifying And Murderous Spirit In This Chilling Novel From The Author Of A History Of Fear-perfect For Fans Of Simone St. James And Katy Hays. 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 Break-up 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. But From The Moment He Arrives, Things Aren't What He Expected. The Hawthorne Is A Crumbling Ruin, Still Closed Amid The Ongoing Pandemic, And Plummeting Toward Financial Catastrophe. Worse, Simon Begins Seeing And Hearing Things He Can't Explain. Strange Animal Sounds. Bloody Footprints That No Living Creature Could Have Left. A Prehistoric Killer Looming In The Shadows Of The Museum. Terrified He's Losing His Grasp On Reality, Simon Turns To The Handwritten Research Diaries Of His Predecessor And Uncovers A Blood-soaked Mystery 150 Million Years In The Making That Could Be The Answer To Everything. Are These The Ravings Of A Madman? Or Is There Something Supernatural At Play? And What Does This Have To Do With Morgan's Disappearance? Another Atmospheric Mystery From Luke Dumas, The Paleontologist Is A Ghost Story Unlike Any Other That Will Haunt You Long After You Turn The Final Page-- Provided By Publisher.
A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he's sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead. Gracetown, Florida June 1950 Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie's journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it's too late. The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award-winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.
A National BestsellerThe final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror novels picks up four years after Don’t Fear the Reaper as Jade returns to Proofrock, Idaho, to build a life after the years of sacrifice—only to find the Lake Witch is waiting for her in New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones’s finale.It’s been four years in prison since Jade Daniels last saw her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, the day she took the fall, protecting her friend Letha and her family from incrimination. Since then, her reputation, and the town, have changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business in Proofrock, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s one aspect of Proofrock no one wants to confront…until Jade comes back to town. The curse of the Lake Witch is waiting, and now is the time for the final stand.New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones has crafted an epic horror trilogy of generational trauma from the Indigenous to the townies rooted in the mountains of Idaho. It is a story of the American west written in blood.
An eerie, atmospheric Polar Gothic following a Victorian explorer in search of his lost shipmate and his own redemption--from the author of the "vivid, immersive" (The Guardian) horror novel All the White Spaces. William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace. Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day's chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens--the man who's haunted his whole life--back home. But when the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, Day must face up to the things he's done. Abandonment. Betrayal. Cannibalism. Aboard ship, Day must also contend with unwanted passengers: a reporter obsessively digging up the truth about the first expedition, as well as Stevens's wife, a spirit-medium whose séances both fascinate and frighten. Following a trail of cryptic messages, gaunt bodies, and old bones, their search becomes more and more unnerving, as it becomes clear that the restless dead are never far behind. Something is coming through.
INSTANT INDIE BESTSELLER“This anthology makes a statement: Black women belong in horror…Projects like this ― brave, necessary ― celebrate Black women, and will hopefully inspire the future of the genre.” ―The New York Times Book ReviewA YA anthology of horror stories centering Black girls who battle monsters, both human and supernatural, and who survive to the endBe warned, dear reader: The Black girls survive in this one.Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death. Prepare to be terrified and left breathless by the pieces in this anthology.The bestselling and acclaimed authors include Erin E. Adams, Monica Brashears, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Desiree S. Evans, Saraciea J. Fennell, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Daka Hermon, Justina Ireland, L.L. McKinney, Brittney Morris, Maika & Maritza Moulite, Eden Royce, and Vincent Tirado. The foreword is by Tananarive Due.
John Ajvide Lindqvist’s international bestseller Let the Right One In is “a brilliant take on the vampire myth, and a roaring good story” (New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong), the basis for the multi-film festival award-winning Swedish film, the U.S. adaptation Let Me In directed by Matt Reeves (The Batman), and the Showtime TV series.It is autumn 1981 when inconceivable horror comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenager is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last―revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day.But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door―a girl who has never seen a Rubik’s Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night. . .
"With nimble pacing, genuine scares, and a riveting central mystery, Graveyard of Lost Children is a bonafide page-tuner." ―Rachel Harrison, author of Cackle and Such Sharp Teeth\nONCE SHE HAS HER GRIP ON YOU, SHE'LL NEVER LET YOU GO.\nAt four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the "dead women" living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own…and for the first time, she hears the women whispering.\nEveryone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread. As Olivia's body starts giving out, slowly deteriorating as the baby eats and eats and eats, she begins to fear that the baby isn't her daughter at all and, despite her best efforts, history is repeating itself.\nSoon images of a black-haired woman plague Olivia's nightmares, drawing her back to the well that almost claimed her life―tying mother and daughter together in a desperate cycle of fear and violence that must be broken if Olivia has any hope of saving her child…or herself.\nBaby Teeth meets The Invited in a haunting horror novel about the sometimes-fragile connection between a woman's sense of self and what it means to be a "good" mother.
A crackling mystery-horror novel with big-hearted characters and Southern charm with a bite, Bless Your Heart is a gasp-worthy delight from start to finish from debut author Lindy Ryan.Rise and shine. The Evans women have some undead to kill.It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny―Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy’s body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it’s clear that the Strigoi―the original vampire―are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town.As more folks in town turn up dead and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi’s return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes, the dead aren’t the only things you want to keep buried."A gloriously gruesome, compulsively readable debut that is as grizzly as it is clever and heartfelt." - Rachel Harrison
In a dystopian future Japan, forty-two junior high school students are outfitted with weapons and bid to kill one another until there is only one left standing.Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller envisions a nightmare scenario: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan—where it became a runaway best seller—Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world.
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival. In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.
"This is gory and brutal and beautiful and painful and terrifying and a pure delight." --Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author A provocative debut that is both a blood-soaked love letter to Los Angeles and a gleeful send-up to iconic horror villains, Maeve Fly will thrill fans of My Heart is a Chainsaw and Caroline Kepnes' You series. By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child's favorite ice princess. By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes. But when Gideon Green - her best friend's brother - moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet. Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho. Step aside Patrick Bateman, it's Maeve's turn with the knife. "An apocalyptic Anaheim Psycho." --Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House
A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.THIS SKIN WAS ONCE MINEWhen her father dies under mysterious circumstances, Jillian Finch finds herself grieving the man she idolized while struggling to feel comfortable in the childhood home she was sent away from nearly twenty years ago. Then Jillian discovers a dark secret that will threaten to undo everything she has ever known about her father.SEEDLINGA young man’s father calls him early in the morning to say that his mother has passed away. He arrives home to find his mother’s body still in the house. Struggling to process what has happened he notices a small black wound appear on his wrist. Then he discovers his father is cursed with the same affliction.ALL THE PARTS OF YOU THAT WON’T EASILY BURNEnoch Leadbetter goes to buy a knife for his husband to use at a forthcoming dinner party. He encounters a strange shopkeeper who draws him into an intoxicating new obsession and sets him on a path towards mutilation and destruction...PRICKLETwo old men revive a cruel game with devastating consequences...
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • USA Today Bestseller • Washington Post’s The Twelve Best Thrillers of the Year • TIME’s 100 Must Read Books of the Year • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee • USA Today’s Best Reviewed Books of the Year • BookPage's Best Mystery of the Year • Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year • New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Cover of the New York Times Book Review • Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List • The Financial Times’s Best Crime Books of the Year • ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Longlist • SIBA’s 2024 Southern Book Prize Finalist • Starred Publishers Weekly • Starred Library Journal • Starred BookPage • Starred Booklist“Fresh and exhilarating. . . Cosby keeps his eye on the story and the pedal to the metal.” ―Stephen King, TheNew York Times Book ReviewA Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust.The new novel from New York Times bestselling and Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author S. A. Cosby, "one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction.” ―Washington Post.“An atmospheric pressure cooker.” ―PeopleTitus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction” (The Washington Post).
Jennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic. Beautifully unhinged and deeply satisfying, Diavola is a sharp twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring loneliness, belonging, and the seemingly inescapable bonds of family mythology.USA Today BestsellerMost Anticipated Books of 2024―GoodreadsAnna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive.It isn’t easy when she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone―including her blandly docile husband and two kids―falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question. Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet.The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails―the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself.(Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.)
From beloved internet icon Chuck Tingle, Camp Damascus is a searing and earnest horror debut about the demons the queer community faces in America, the price of keeping secrets, and finding the courage to burn it all down. They'll scare you straight to hell. Welcome to Neverton, Montana: home to a God-fearing community with a heart of gold. Nestled high up in the mountains is Camp Damascus, the self-proclaimed "most effective" gay conversion camp in the country. Here, a life free from sin awaits. But the secret behind that success is anything but holy.
'Hauntingly creepy' - ERIN KELLY'A unique jewel of a book' - LIZZY BARBER'A heartfelt and chilling gothic tragedy' - CHRIS WHITAKERPeople come to visit my home and I love to show them around. It's not the original house of course. That was destroyed the day my entire family died. But I don't think their ghosts know the difference.Pera Sinclair was nine the day the pilot intentionally crashed his plane into her family's grand home, killing everyone inside. She was the girl who survived the tragedy, a sympathetic oddity, growing stranger by the day. Over the decades she rebuilt the huge and rambling building on the original site, recreating what she had lost, each room telling a piece of the story of her life and that of the many people who died there, both before and after the disaster. Her sister, murdered a hundred miles away. The soldier, broken by war. Death follows Pera, and she welcomes it in as an old friend. And while she doesn't believe in ghosts, she's not above telling a ghost story or two to those who come to visit Sinclair House.As Pera shows a young family around her home on the last haunted house tour of the season, an unexpected group of men arrive. One she recognises, but the others are strangers. But she knows their type all too well. Dangerous men, who will hurt the family without a second thought, and who will keep an old woman alive only so long as she is useful. But as she begins to show them around her home and reveal its secrets, the dangerous men will learn that she is far from helpless. After all, death seems to follow her wherever she goes...Sinister and lyrical, The Underhistory is a haunting tale of loss, self-preservation and the darkness beneath.
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A Best Book of 2023(Vulture) • A Best Horror Book of All Time (Cosmopolitan) • A Best Horror Book of 2023 (Esquire) • An Indie Next Pick • A LibraryReads Hall of Fame Pick!The author of The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward, delivers a masterful story about friendship and betrayal, dark obsessions, and the impossibility of escaping your own story. "Here's your next obsession." (Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble)In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write.It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in the cabin, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does.“An origami puzzle of a book, the mystery so beautifully crafted you don’t see the folds, with edges sharp as a paper cut.”―Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls
A chilling horror novel about a haunting, told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity she calls “Other Mommy,” from the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box“This book isthe monster that lives inside your closet.”—Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted HouseTo eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.But Other Mommy needs an answer.Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror about a family as haunted as their home.
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Award Finalist! • An Indie Next Pick! • An October LibraryReads Pick! • 2022 RUSA Reading List: Horror Winner!Cassandra Khaw's Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a gorgeously creepy haunted house tale, steeped in Japanese folklore and full of devastating twists.A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundations resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company.It’s the perfect venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends, brought back together to celebrate a wedding.A night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare as secrets get dragged out and relationships are tested.But the house has secrets too. Lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.And she gets lonely down there in the dirt.Effortlessly turning the classic haunted house story on its head, Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a sharp and devastating exploration of grief, the parasitic nature of relationships, and the consequences of our actions.Also by Cassandra Khaw:The Salt Grows HeavyA Song for QuietHammers on BoneThe Dead Take the A Train (co-written with Richard Kadrey)
An Esquire Best of Horror 2023 pick\\n"Without question, one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read this year."―The Wall Street Journal\\n"Can a horror story be beautiful? Wild Spaces tells a terrible truth in the most achingly beautiful way."―Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor\\nRobert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life meets Lovecraftian horror in this foreboding, sensual coming-of-age debut in which the corrosive nature of family secrets and toxic relatives assume eldritch proportions.\\nAn eleven-year-old boy lives an idyllic childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and his dog Teach. But when the boy’s eerie and estranged grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain.\\nThe longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the more the boy feels something within him changing ―physically―into something his grandfather welcomes and his mother fears. Something abyssal. Something monstrous.
Haunted is a novel made up of twenty-three horrifying, hilarious, and stomach-churning stories. They’re told by people who have answered an ad for a writer’s retreat and unwittingly joined a “Survivor”-like scenario where the host withholds heat, power, and food. As the storytellers grow more desperate, their tales become more extreme, and they ruthlessly plot to make themselves the hero of the reality show that will surely be made from their plight. This is one of the most disturbing and outrageous books you’ll ever read, one that could only come from the mind of Chuck Palahniuk.
Five harrowing novellas of horror and speculative fiction from the singular mind of the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box Josh Malerman is a master weaver of stories--and in this spine-chilling collection he spins five twisted tales from the shadows of the human soul: A sister insists to her little brother that "Half the House Is Haunted" by a strange presence. But is it the house that's haunted--or their childhoods? In "Argyle," a dying man confesses to homicides he never committed, and he reveals long-kept secrets far more sinister than murder. A tourist takes the ultimate trip to outer space in "The Jupiter Drop," but the real journey is into his own dark past. In "Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer(tm)," a trendy married couple buys the latest home gadget only to find themselves trapped by their possessions, their history . . . and each other. And in "Egorov," a wealthy old cretin murders a young man, not knowing the victim was a triplet. The two surviving brothers stage a savage faux-haunting--playing the ghost of their slain brother--with the aim of driving the old murderer mad.
THE MIND-BENDING CULT CLASSIC ABOUT A HOUSE THAT’S LARGER ON THE INSIDE THAN ON THE OUTSIDE • A masterpiece of horror and an astonishingly immersive, maze-like reading experience that redefines the boundaries of a novel.''Simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times"Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent—it renders most other fiction meaningless." —Bret Easton Ellis, bestselling author of American Psycho“This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore.” —Jonathan Lethem, award-winning author of Motherless BrooklynOne of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsYears ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth—musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies—the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.Now made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices, the story remains unchanged. Similarly, the cultural fascination with House of Leaves remains as fervent and as imaginative as ever. The novel has gone on to inspire doctorate-level courses and masters theses, cultural phenomena like the online urban legend of “the backrooms,” and incredible works of art in entirely unrealted mediums from music to video games.Neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of the impossibility of their new home, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
A New York Times Book Review Best Horror of 2023 selection.“Packed with profoundly unsettling scenes that’ll slither under your skin and stay there long after you turn the last page.”—Gabino Iglesias, author of The Devil Takes You HomeAfter striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market.It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth—and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear.Combining supernatural horror with domestic suspense into a visceral exploration of parental grief, What Kind of Mother cements Clay McLeod Chapman's reputation as a “star” (Vulture) and “the twenty-first century’s Richard Matheson” (Richard Chizmar, Chasing the Boogeyman.)
The long-awaited translation of the novel behind the cult classic Japanese movie.In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don’t intend to produce. As the résumés pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama’s attention―Yamasaki Asami―a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. Blinded by his instant and total infatuation, Aoyama is too late in discovering that she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be. The novel’s fast-paced, thriller conclusion doesn’t spare the reader as Yamasaki takes off her angelic mask and reveals what lies beneath.
Now a major motion picture! Stephen King’s #1 New York Times bestseller is a “wild, powerful, disturbing” (The Washington Post Book World) classic about evil that exists far beyond the grave—among King’s most iconic and frightening novels.When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Despite Ludlow’s tranquility, an undercurrent of danger exists here. Those trucks on the road outside the Creed’s beautiful old home travel by just a little too quickly, for one thing…as is evidenced by the makeshift graveyard in the nearby woods where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. Then there are the warnings to Louis both real and from the depths of his nightmares that he should not venture beyond the borders of this little graveyard where another burial ground lures with seductive promises and ungodly temptations. A blood-chilling truth is hidden there—one more terrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. As Louis is about to discover for himself sometimes, dead is better…
Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless is a dark, unflinching haunted house story that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors through the lens of the modern-day trans experience.“Alison is like the twisted daughter of Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson. Tell Me I’m Worthless is an intense read full of shocks and buckets of gore. It’s brilliant.” ―Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling authorA Best Horror Book of the Year (Esquire, Book Riot, ) • A Most Anticipated Book of the Year (CrimeReads, Vulture, Goodreads, Paste)“A triumph of transgressive queer horror.” ―Publishers Weekly, STARRED reviewThree years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice’s life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep.Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go.Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own.Cutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I’m Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that examines the devastating effects of trauma and how fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other.“Easily one of the strongest horror debuts in recent memory.” ―Booklist, STARRED reviewAlso by Alison Rumfitt:Brainwyrms
After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama's Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait. Something that has terrified Dauphin Savage and Luker McCray since they were boys and which still haunts their nightmares. Something horrific that may be responsible for several terrible and unexplained deaths years earlier - and is now ready to kill again ...A haunted house story unlike any other, Michael McDowell's The Elementals (1981) was one of the finest novels to come out of the horror publishing explosion of the 1970s and '80s. Though best known for his screenplays for Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, McDowell is now being rediscovered as one of the best modern horror writers and a master of Southern Gothic literature. This edition of McDowell's masterpiece of terror features a new introduction by award-winning horror author Michael Rowe. Seven other horror classics by Michael McDowell are available from Valancourt Books."The finest writer of paperback originals in America." - Stephen King "Surely one of the most terrifying novels ever written." - Poppy Z. Brite"Beyond any trace of doubt, one of the best writers of horror in this or any other country." - Peter Straub"Readers of weak constitution should beware!" - Publishers Weekly"McDowell has a flair for the gruesome." - Washington Post
One of Vanity Fair's Books That Will Get You Through This Winter“One of the most uniquely fun and campily gory books in my recent memory... A Certain Hunger has the voice of a hard-boiled detective novel, as if metaphor-happy Raymond Chandler handed the reins over to the sexed-up femme fatale and really let her fly." ―The New York TimesFood critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy’s clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about. Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling from Manhattan to Italy for a taste of both.But there is something within Dorothy that’s different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.A satire of early foodieism, a critique of how gender is defined, and a showcase of virtuoso storytelling, Chelsea G. Summers’ A Certain Hunger introduces us to the food world’s most charming psychopath and an exciting new voice in fiction.
A chilling new collection of Henry James's short stories exploring the uncanny, including "The Turn of the Screw," the basis for the new Netflix series The Haunting of Bly ManorIn "The Turn of the Screw," one of the most famous ghost stories of all time, agoverness becomes obsessed with the belief that malevolent forces are stalkingthe children in her care. It is accompanied here by several more of the very best ofHenry James's short stories, all exploring ghosts and the uncanny.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Middle-aged, jaded and divorced, TV scriptwriter Harada is forced to set up home in his office, situated in a high-rise apartment block overlooking Tokyo's busy Route 8. One night, nostalgic for his lost childhood, he decides to visit the entertainment district of Asakusa, the city's dilapidated old downtown area, and there, at the theatre, he meets a man who looks exactly like his long-dead father. So begins Harada's ordeal, as he's thrust into a reality where his parents appear to be alive at the exact age they had been when they died so many years before. Although they may be apparitions, he takes solace in seeing them, in spite of the damage it seems to do to his health. Can Kei, the mysteriously fragile neighbour with whom Harada begins a tentative relationship, save him from the ghosts of his past?