| Bird box by Josh Malerman Most people ignored the outrageous reports on the news. But they became too frequent, they became too real. And soon, they began happening down the street. Then the Internet died. The television and radio went silent. The phones stopped ringing. And we couldn't look outside anymore. |
| High crime area by Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates is an unparalleled investigator of human flaws. In these eight stories, she deftly tests the bonds between damaged individuals--a brother and sister, a teacher and student, two strangers on a subway--in the fearless prose for which she's become so celebrated. In the title story "High Crime Area," a white, aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic, she has a handgun stowed away in her purse--just in case. But when she turns to confront her black, male shadow, the situation isn't what she expects. In "The Rescuer," a promising graduate student detours to inner city Trenton, New Jersey to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers. And in "The Last Man of Letters," the world-renowned author X embarks on a final grand tour of Europe. He has money, fame, but not a whole lot of manners. A little thing like etiquette couldn't bring a man like X down, could it? In these biting and beautiful stories, Oates confronts, one by one, the demons within us. Sometimes it's the human who wins, and sometimes it's the demon. |
| The Vanishing by Wendy Webb Recently widowed and rendered penniless by her Ponzi-scheming husband, Julia Bishop is eager to start anew. So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired . . . and who the world believes is dead. When she arrives at the Sinclairs' enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her "too-good-to-be-true" position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls. |
| Snow blind by Christopher Golden Twelve years ago the small town of Coventry, Massachusetts was in the grasp of a particularly brutal winter. And then came the Great Storm. It hit hard. Not everyone saw the spring. Today the families, friends and lovers of the victims are still haunted by the ghosts of those they lost so suddenly. If only they could see them one more time, hold them close, tell them they love them. It was the deadliest winter in living memory. Until now. When a new storm strikes, it doesn't just bring snow and ice, it brings the people of Coventry exactly what they've been wishing for. And the realisation their nightmare is only beginning. |
| Starter house by Sonja Condit From the moment Lacey sees the house with the beautiful wood staircase, she knows she's found her dream home. Growing up rootless with her flighty mother, Ella Dane, a self-proclaimed psychic, Lacey is determined to give her unborn baby the stability she never had. But shortly after she and her husband, Eric, move in, the warm and welcoming house becomes cold and dark. There is something malevolent within these walls that wants to hurt her unborn child - a terrifying presence that only she can sense. And there is Drew, a demanding and temperamental little boy who mysteriously appears when Lacey is alone. To protect her unborn child and save her family, Lacy must discover the truth about her dream house and the troubled Drew - a decades-old mystery involving secrets, violence, and guilt - and confront an evil that has lingered in wait for years. |
| The Whispering by Sarah Rayne Fosse House, home of the reclusive Luisa Gilmore, harbours curious secrets - secrets that stretch back almost a century, to the ill-fated Palestrina Choir in its remote Belgian convent. When Oxford don Michael Flint travels to the house to trace the origins of the long-dead Choir, he is at once aware of the house's eerie menace. Who is the shadowy young man who lurks in the grounds, and why does his exact likeness appear in a sketch from 1917? What is the strange whispering that echoes through the corridors? And why is Luisa so afraid when a storm makes it necessary for Michael to spend the night inside the house? Back in Oxford, when Nell West uncovers the story of the infamous 1917 'Holzminden sketch' - the lost, legendary drawing from World War I - a dark fragment of the past begins to stir. A fragment that Michael, in the lonely old house, may not be able to resist. |
| By blood we live by Glen Duncan I looked down to see seven or eight inches of a precision-pointed wooden javelin protrudingnbsp;from my gut. Lignum vitae. Second in hardness only to Australian buloke. In the moment it tooknbsp;me to turn around, I thought: This fucker isn't taking any chances.Remshi is used to people trying to drive a stake through his heart. He's been alive for twentynbsp;thousand years; it's going to happen. But other things are changing.These new assailants, for example, are quicker. and for the first time ever Remshi's sleep hasnbsp;brought dreams. and there's an aching gap in his memory that turns out to contain a werewolf (anbsp;werewolf?) to whom he is irresistibly drawn.This is not just any werewolf, though. It's Talulla Demetriou. |
| The silence by Sarah Rayne Antiques dealer Nell West is valuing the contents of her late husband Brad's childhood home, Stilter House. Set on the remote Derbyshire Peaks, there was once a much older property there, in which the notorious Isobel Acton committed a vicious crime. Warned against visiting the house by an elderly aunt of Brad's, Nell hears mysterious piano music soon after her arrival. It becomes clear that the music is tangled with Isobel Acton's macabre fate more than a hundred years earlier. A fate whose consequences still menace the present. |
| Flowers in the attic by V.C. Andrews (republished) At the top of the stairs there are four secrets hidden. Blond, beautiful, innocent, and struggling to stay alive… They were a perfect family, golden and carefree—until a heartbreaking tragedy shattered their happiness. Now, for the sake of an inheritance that will ensure their future, the children must be hidden away out of sight, as if they never existed. Kept on the top floor of their grandmother’s vast mansion, their loving mother assures them it will be just for a little while. But as brutal days swell into agonizing months and years, Cathy, Chris, and twins Cory and Carrie realize their survival is at the mercy of their cruel and superstitious grandmother…and this cramped and helpless world may be the only one they ever know. |
| Ghost beyond earth by G.M. Hague One of the modules is the Cryogenic Module, where the bodies of wealthy and famous people lie deeply frozen, preserved until the medical science of the future can revive and heal them. The Cryogenics Module has been a successful, secret source of funding for NASA. In space and shadowed from the sun, the extremely cold temperatures make low Earth orbit the perfect place to keep corpses in hibernation. Now it's time to try and revive the first patient, a man possessed by an evil that doesn't expect to be awakened in the cold depths of space. In the middle of outback Australia on an isolated cattle property, the ghost of a couple's dead child begins to appear in the house. Young Ellen was an angel when she was alive. As a spirit returning from the dead she is a terrifying demon with a dreadful connection to the horror in the sky two hundred miles above them. |
