English Horror

Across the world, the United States recalls troops to combat civil unrest after the biggest economic meltdown in history. Marine Sergeant Ronaldo Salvatore’s platoon comes home to a powder keg that could ignite a civil war. While some see the coming collapse as the end, others see opportunity. Fleeing Naples after rival crime lords decimated his family, Don Antonio Moretti settles in Los Angeles to rebuild his criminal empire. But he is far from alone in his ambitions.

Here are 16 chilling, never-before-published tales that explore every aspect of our darkest holiday, Halloween, coedited by Ellen Datlow, one of the most successful and respected genre editors, and Lisa Morton, a leading authority on Halloween. Included are stories about scheming jack-o'-lanterns, vengeful ghosts, otherworldly changelings, disturbingly realistic haunted attractions, masks that cover terrifying faces, murderous urban legends, parties gone bad, cult Halloween movies, and trick-or-treating in the future.

The viral TikTok stalker dark romance, burning with high heat, hilarious banter, and a love story like you've never seen before. Can you handle the ride? I want someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it...

Eight years ago, Brynn Donovan watched her father kill her mother. He’s supposed to be in prison—but he’s escaped. And he’s coming for her. What should be an ordinary evening after work turns deadly when Brynn’s estranged father, Alan, ambushes her and forces her into his car. It’s the start of the road trip from hell: a cross-country trek to the Rocky Mountains and the remote shelter Alan built years ago to protect his family from the monsters living in his head—the ones he swears will erupt from the earth at any moment.

Fleeing from a traumatic break-in, Londoners Paul and Tricia Feenan sell up to escape to the isolated Holiwell village where Tricia has inherited a property. Scattered throughout the settlement are centuries-old stones used during the Great Plague as boundary markers. No plague-sufferer was permitted to pass them and enter the village. The plague diminished, and the village survived unscathed, but since then each year the village trustees have insisted on an ancient ceremony to renew the village boundaries.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of...

Still grieving the death of her husband, Lauren leaves the hubbub of Boston for the peaceful shores of Cape Cod, where she hopes to come to terms with her loss and devote herself to her writing. Historic Holland House, isolated on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, seems like the perfect refuge, until Lauren discovers that she’s not alone, and her ghostly roommate might be none other than Sophie Holland, the mysterious first mistress of the house.

In the secluded Dutch territory of Sleepy Hollow, nebbish schoolmaster Ichabod Crane competes with the town hero for the hand of Katrina Van Tassel, the 18-year-old daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer. As Crane leaves a party at the Van Tassel's farm one autumn evening, he is pursued by the Headless Horseman, an apparition said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper snuffed out by a stray cannonball.

On winter solstice, the birds disappeared, and the mist arrived. The inhabitants of Nebulah quickly learn not to venture out after dark. But it is hard to stay indoors: Cabin fever sets in, and the mist can be beguiling too. Eventually only six remain. Like the rest of the townspeople, Pete has nowhere else to go. After he rescues a stranded psychic from a terrible fate, he’s given a warning: He will be dead by solstice unless he leaves town - soon.

Connie can't deny she's nervous about meeting her boyfriend's family. Spending the weekend at their ritzy woodland summer home, Evan's already given her fair warning that his parents are cold, snobbish, and especially unpleasant toward those outside their usual social circles. So when Evan's mother warmly greets them with open arms, Connie is as confused as he is. They're so friendly, in fact, Evan himself can hardly believe they're real. Then, while helping Evan's mother with dinner, Connie overhears strange noises coming from the basement—what almost sounds like voices calling out for help.

You may know Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat from Paranormal Activity, the 2007 found-footage horror film that launched a blockbuster franchise. Now, inspired by the fictional haunting that brought them together, the friends and former co-stars are examining real-life stories of demonic possession, tracing the phenomenon from its earliest known accounts to its modern-day headlines.

Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Emmy winner Emma Thompson lends her immense talent and experienced voice to Henry James' Gothic ghost tale, The Turn of the Screw. When a governess is hired to care for two children at a British country estate, she begins to sense an otherworldly presence around the grounds. Are they really ghosts she's seeing? Or is something far more sinister at work?

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

Without so much as a warning, humanity in its entirety was suddenly moved to another dimension. Every person, without exception. But this new world, with all its opportunities and gifts of wondrous abilities, was a stadium. A deadly arena of an unimaginable scale. And humanity was to be its latest gladiators. Every man, woman, and child was given a weapon and ordered to fight. Stuck in this dimension without a way out, only two options existed for the would-be hunters: Fight with monsters to complete the many trials ahead, or perish.

In the icy darkness of the Arctic Ocean, a violent showdown between ruthless whale hunters and fervent environmentalists ends in explosive catastrophe: both ships sinking into the frigid abyss. Marooned on a desolate island, the survivors, now bitter enemies, are forced into an uneasy truce to withstand the merciless cold. Enter Jane Harper: undercover agent, razor-sharp and unflinching, wielding her wit as deftly as her fists. As she rallies the fractured group, they stumble upon ancient Viking ruins and awaken something primal and terrifying.

In the soft glow of the Scottish summer of 1900, Lucy James and Sherlock Holmes find themselves in the heart of Inverness, in the home of Scotland's famed whiskey trade. Yet, their purpose is far from leisurely. They are on the hunt for the culprits behind a nefarious plot that threatens to shatter the very foundations of the British government.

An instant #1 New York Times bestseller! The first thrilling mystery in the new North Falls series from Karin Slaughter, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls and the Will Trent Series. Welcome to North Falls—a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think. Until...

31 Brand-New Dark Fantasy Horror Stories. Bloody corridors of ancient rock. A castle surrounded by poisonous thorns. A lost temple of traps and corpses. A subaqueous cave at the bottom of a cursed lake. These are the places where secrets are buried, where ancient evils are summoned, where beasts are imprisoned, where the insane lie in wait. These are tombs of darkness and nightmare, where if you stare into the abyss, the abyss will stare back. Heed the warnings of your elders and return from whence you came. Ahead lie monster lairs.

24/7 Demon Mart: Publisher's Pack features two books from the 24/7 Demon Mart series: The Graveyard Shift, book one, and Monster Burger, book two. It also includes the bonus Hell for the Holidays, a 24/7 Demon Mart Christmas special. Lloyd Wallace is the most clueless crossing guard the intersection of hell and earth has ever seen. So clueless, that he doesn't even realize the beer cave in the corner store where he works is the gateway to hell.

They say there’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there in the light… but have they ever been alone in a big house during a thunderstorm when the power goes out? Have they ever tried to figure out what that strange noise was just then? Author Scott W. Cook has compiled for you a collection of short stories lovingly crafted to help you while away the evening hours… and put a few goose pimples on your skin, too.