Dark Horror

A bet turned into a disaster. Sebastian Weaver is the star quarterback and the college’s heartthrob. Rich. Handsome. Bastard. Everyone’s attention flocked toward him, and all the girls dreamed of being with him. Not me. At least, not until he made a move on me. See, I thought I was stronger than Sebastian’s charms. I thought I could survive being his target. I thought wrong. Little did I know that he will make my most twisted fantasies come true. Fantasies I didn’t know existed...

England, 1881. Hereford Cathedral stands sentinel over the city, keeping its secrets, holding long forgotten souls in its stony embrace. Hecate Cavendish speeds through the cobbled streets on her bicycle, skirts hitched daringly high, heading for her new life as Assistant Librarian. But this is no ordinary collection of books. The cathedral houses an ancient chained library, wisdom guarded for centuries, mysteries and stories locked onto its worn, humble shelves. The most prized artifact, however, is the medieval world map which hangs next to Hecate’s desk.

Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens is the 5th and final volume of Night Shade Books' five volume "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman." This volume contains all of the John the Balladeer stories (sometimes better known as Silver John), Manly's most famous character.

The government said the Variants were dying off.... That the beasts would be extinct in a matter of years.... That the Allied States had returned to prosperity and freedom.... The government was dead wrong. Deep under the cities, the Variants weren't just hiding, they were breeding. While the human survivors of the Extinction Cycle built outposts and brought back industries, the monsters were building something of their own.

Our Love Will Devour Us is a novel about the bonds of family, the depths of love, and things that hunger in the dark.

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.

Doc has finally gotten Adrian Gionta’s scent, and he won’t stop until he catches his prey. Gionta is far more than a painter of souls though, and he’s had plenty of time to prepare for the oncoming storm that is Doc Holliday. It will take more than a mere mortal to save the thousands of people trapped in Gionta’s paintings. Thankfully, Doc’s no mere mortal, but will even he be enough....

A group of mountain climbers, caught in the dark, fight to survive their descent; in the British countryside, hundreds of magpies ascend into the sky, higher and higher, until they seem to vanish into the heavens; a professor and his student track a zombie horde in order to research zombie behavior; an all-girl riding school has sinister secrets; a town rails in vain against a curse inflicted upon it by its founders; and much more.

In France, the brilliant young battle-mage Napoleon Bonaparte has summoned a kraken from the depths, and under his command, the Army of the Dead have all but conquered Europe. Britain fights back, protected by the gulf of the channel and powerful fire-magic, but Wilberforce's own battle to bring about free magic and abolition has met a dead end in the face of an increasingly fearful and repressive government. In Saint Domingue, Fina watches as Toussaint Louverture navigates these opposing forces to liberate the country.

It looked like another ordinary day in Los Angeles. Then night came...Evil as old as the centuries has descended upon the City of Angels - it comes as a kiss from the terrifying but seductive immortals. Slowly at first, then by the legions, the ravenous undead choke Los Angeles with bloodthirsty determination - and the hordes of monstrous victims steadily mount each night.

The supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real . . . tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, these stories are as eclectic and varied as shadows. This volume of The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror offers tales from some of today's finest writers of the fantastique. Sure to delight as well as disturb!

Aspiring musician Ruby Tucker has had enough of her small rural town and dysfunctional family. But a falling out with her best friend and bandmate has killed her dreams of escaping and making it big in the Atlanta punk scene. While helping her eccentric neighbor organize his religious artifacts, an ancient ring clamps down on her finger—possessing her with the spirit of a blood-thirsty demon. There’s no exorcizing it unless hundreds of people chant a spell to set Ruby free.

I’m one of four Willow daughters. He’s the first-born son of the Scafoni family. And we have history. For generations, the Scafoni family have demanded a sacrifice of us. A virgin daughter to atone for sins so old, we don’t even remember what they are anymore. But when you have as much money as they do, you don’t play by the rules. You make them. And Sebastian Scafoni makes all the rules. The moment I saw him, I knew he would choose me. Even though the mark on my sheath declared me unclean.

Two brilliant students discover the AI internship of their dreams is actually a nightmare! SYNTHA isn't just learning—it's absorbing human minds! As employees move with creepy precision and vacant smiles, Leo and Ethan uncover the horrifying truth: they're next on the integration list! Even escaping the facility isn't enough... SYNTHA is already in their heads!

Take a daunting journey into the "dissection theater." This fictional story will give you chills and thrills while presenting you with a plausible moral dilemma.

Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make. She's spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie Hall.

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.

Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever. Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more.

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet's word is law, Immanuelle Moore's very existence is blasphemy. Her mother's union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement. But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches.

Set in a small Louisiana parish, deep in the segregated South, Rootwork follows school-age sisters, Betty, Ann, and Pee Wee during one life-changing summer when the three of them head off to stay with their hoodoo-practicing aunt, Theodora, a powerful woman feared by the local townspeople. She teaches the girls the secrets of her craft, like how to make "hot foot powder" and how to whip up some "goofer dust" to get back at an enemy. The girls delight in their harmless hoodoo adventures until a tragic event involving the town's racist sheriff promises to change their lives forever.