Dark Comedy Horror Fiction

Lorrie Moore’s first novel since A Gate at the Stairs—a daring, meditative exploration of love and death, passion and grief, and what it means to be haunted by the past, both by history and the human heart. A teacher visiting his dying brother in the Bronx. A mysterious journal from the nineteenth century stolen from a boarding house. A therapy clown and an assassin, both presumed dead, but perhaps not dead at all...

When her daughter Lotte was born, Dani had welcomed the chance to be a stay-at-home mother. To be good at something, for once. But now Dani can’t stop thinking about her seemingly healthy husband, Clark, dropping dead. Not because she hates him (not right now, anyway) but because it’s become abundantly clear to Dani that if he dies, she and Lotte will be left destitute. And then Dani discovers The Temple.

Gabriel Delling might call himself a professional con artist, but when walking superstitions start trying to bite his face off, his charm is shockingly unhelpful. It turns out living nightmares almost never appreciate a good joke. Together with a succubus who insists on constantly saving his life, Gabe desperately tries to survive a new reality that suddenly features demons, legends, and a giant locust named Dale - all of whom pretty much hate his guts. And when an ancient horror comes hunting for a spirit locked in his head, Gabe finds himself faced with the excruciating choice between death...or becoming some kind of freaking hero.

Life is hard. Change is difficult. But adjusting to being a ghost? Well, that is just darn near impossible. And Bridget Sway is struggling. It's not just the job, the uniform, the housemates, the rules, the community service. It's everything. And now she's facing a week-long group assessment to evaluate her adjustment.As if that isn't bad enough, some inconsiderate soul has shoved another dead ghost in her locker. Things are looking bleak for Bridget. If she fails the assessment, she'll be "re-educated."

Meet Andy Warner, a recently deceased everyman and newly minted zombie. Resented by his parents, abandoned by his friends, and reviled by a society that no longer considers him human, Andy is having a bit of trouble adjusting to his new existence. But all that changes when he goes to an Undead Anonymous meeting and finds a kindred soul in Rita, an impossibly sexy recent suicide with a taste for the formaldehyde in cosmetic products.

Nobody likes getting bullied, and Donny has had enough. Deciding to take matters into his own hands, he solicits the help of the old Asian man at the end of his street to teach him Karate. During a grueling two days of training, Donny earns belt after belt, until he finally becomes a Karate Master.

The deathly silence is about to be broken. She disliked the company of others and death did little to warm her spirit. She had led an independent life and she faced death in much the same way. She was finally alone, finally free from the mindless babble of others, at least that's what she thought. May Elizabeth Trump was the rarest of spirits and she was none too happy about it either. She was a dead medium, a ghost who can speak with the living, and her services were to become in great demand.

The cornerstone of private investigation—insurance fraud. Doing it, obviously. And then there’s the taxi job. Run someone to the airport while being chased by who knows what? Mix that in with drugs, party boats, and the Virgin Mary, and you’ve got a pretty standard day for one Mr. Cole. All for a lousy paycheck. Full of infanticide, evisceration, sadists, and snuff, Alex Cole is part private detective, part mercenary...all sick f--k. Cole Investigations is open—once more—for business.

It doesn't take long for DeeDee, Lloyd, and Kevin to figure out that living with the angel of death isn't easy. Lost souls. Angry exes. Ancient curses. Will the grim reaper ever get his afterlife together? The outlook is not so good. The reaper isn't the only angel who's out of sorts. Lloyd's devilish boss Faust hasn't been the same since a tentacle monster spit him out of an alternate dimension, and his ex-girlfriend tried to start the zombie apocalypse. And Angel eight ball? He's having a hell of a time juggling a terrible new boss and saving Lloyd from eternal damnation.

Bubba’s back from Fairyland, and sometimes it feels like they shoulda just stayed there! Man, coming back to the real world sucks. Bubba and his whole team have been fired on account of going MIA for a year and a half (yeah, time moves differently in Fairyland - yay), and now they’ve got to…get jobs? Oh, this is going to go well.

Alex hates missing person’s cases. Unless they’re easy money. Anything is good when there’s easy money. Then there’s the delivery job. Get a box and hand deliver it to some rich jerk-off. Deal with another private investigator almost as skeezy as himself. And after all that there’s the Event. That’s sure to have a really, really, bad ending.

Chuck Gross would like nothing more than to prune himself from his family tree. He’s already clipped his name, turning Charles Grossheart, Jr.—son of a billionaire labor exploiter, weapons manufacturer, and climate change denier—into ordinary good-guy Chuck, the “self-made” proprietor of an up-and-coming punk label. But when Daddy threatens to cut him off, Chuck is forced to get a “real job”—and conveniently, an old college friend has just swept back into his life with the perfect opportunity.

A swirling, psychedelic, bleakly funny fugue by the Booker-shortlisted author of The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto. Una Fogarty, suffering from dementia in a seaside nursing home, would be all alone without her brother Dan, whose epic free-verse monologue tells their family story. Exile from Ireland and immigrant life in England. Their mother’s trials as a call girl. Young Una’s search for love in a seemingly haunted hippie squat, and the two-timing Scottish stoner poet she’ll never get over.

In the fourth installment of The Black Knight Chronicles, Jimmy Black is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and a darned fine pity party, serving the finest alcohol, when a call from his not-quite-girlfriend-cop forces him to sober up and stare at jawbones. "Cold case" takes on a whole new meaning when vampire detectives risk life and limbs (literally) to connect a series of decades-old kidnappings in Charlotte with current missing persons cases. All clues lead through the veil of Faerieland to the legendary Goblin's Market, a magical bazaar where anything is available--for a price. The boys can barely stay out of trouble in Charlotte. As fresh meat at The Market, they'll be lucky to survive the day.

Dustin Graves has three days to live. The darkling mage has found himself in the company of scoundrels. Maybe that’s what Dustin deserves: a werewolf, a vampire, and a talking sword for teammates, and a rogue sorcerer as his mentor and master. But a doomsday cult has surfaced. Twelve mutilated bodies are found drowned in blood and in wine. The massacre stinks of both the divine and the supernatural. Worst of all, an ancient god sends Dust on a lethal mission, one he must complete in three days. The reward? He gets to live. Well...maybe.

Road Kills is a collection of short tales of dark comic horror from the mind of Isaac Thorne. These stories are all connected to travel, to the road. After all, it is always lurking there, quiet and dark, just waiting for you to come out for a drive or a walk or a jog.

Between her regular job in Afterlife Arrivals, training for her second job with IA, her community service on The Bus of Death, GA meetings, taking care of her housemates, and every other ghostly commitment in between, Bridget Sway is already stretched pretty thin. Then, her best friend, Sabrina, drops a bombshell. Sabrina thinks she was murdered. And, in the afterlife, murdered dead people usually turn into homicidal maniac dead people. Despite that, Sabrina thinks if they can work out who killed her, then she might be able to get the closure she needs.

On June 1, 2017, six people were killed at a Burger City franchise off I-80 near Jonny, Iowa. It was the bizarre and gruesome conclusion to nine months of alleged paranormal activity at the fast-food joint—events popularly known as “the Burger City Poltergeist.” The story inspired Facebook memes, Twitter hashtags, Buzzfeed listicles, Saturday Night Live sketches, and more. But the case was never much more than a punchline…until bestselling writer Daniel Kraus (The Shape of Water, The Living Dead) decided to head to Iowa to dig up what really happened.

A novelization of the hit horror-comedy spoof of slow-moving Gothic soap operas of the 1970s, Grave Mood Rings.

"Stranger's Thing" by Robert Bevan: Four friends get more than they bargained for when they break into a seemingly abandoned research lab. "The Shingling" by Steve Wetherell: Johnny Terry, a recovering meth addict, is excited to start his new life as the caretaker at the Underpass Motel. Unfortunately, the Underpass is haunted by the ghosts of dead porn stars. "The Haunting of Whore House" by Robert Bevan: Lucy and her brother, Junkie, find out that moving was only the beginning of their troubles when they encounter the ghost of a little boy in the woods. Plus three more!