Ghost Fiction

Juliet Bianchi was once just another working drone, struggling to survive in a world where megacorporations reigned, information was power, and that power was worth killing for. Then she stumbled upon a kidnapping gone wrong and ended up with a stolen AI chip that took her from the bottom of the barrel to a top-tier realm of mercs, freelancers, and assorted unsavory folk.

Long lost to the public in out-of-print pulp magazines, dusty Victorian anthologies, and the pages of now defunct newspapers, these vintage vampire stories have truly proved immortal. Resurrected now for the year 2011, this is a stunning collection of nineteenth-century vampire stories by heavyweights such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Bram Stoker. These rare stories are arranged in chronological order from 1846 to 1913 and are compiled by two of the world's leading vampire anthologists and experts.

Doc may have made a terrible mistake toying with one of the most powerful witches in existence, and it’s not Abigail Jury! Edgar Achaean and his remaining Acolytes are far from finished, and if Doc can’t derail their plans ASAP, all his efforts thus far won’t mean a damn thing. In the face of annihilation, playing by the rules is not an option. Fortunately, Doc has never been one for playing by the rules. Unfortunately, some rules were never meant to be broken...

Linx Maxwell is on the verge of greatness. She's finally graduated from street fairs and hopping chain link to making art that pays the bills. Her family life is...not dull. And it looks like her van might just be able to exist on hope and duct tape. If only she could get rid of the ghost who's plagued her since the eighth grade.

Martha can tell things about a person just by touching their clothes, as if their emotions and memories have been absorbed into the material. It started the day she fell from the tree at her grandma's cabin and became blind in one eye. Determined to understand her strange ability, Martha sets off to visit her grandmother, Mormor-only to discover Mormor is dead, a peculiar boy is in her cabin and a terrifying creature is on the loose. Then the spinning wheel starts creaking, books move around and terror creeps in.

Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan, run off the road by a man named Bobby Cross - a man who had sold his soul to live forever, and intended to use her death to pay the price of his immortality. Trouble was, he didn't ask Rose what she thought of the idea. It's been more than sixty years since that night, and she's still sixteen, and she's still running. It's been more than sixty years since that night, and she's still sixteen, and she's still running.

The Cadwel incident did not go unnoticed, and as a result the Graves gals and Curtis Nash may be up a creek without a paddle. Old clientele are seeking to insure they don’t end up like the Cadwels by removing Graves, Graves, and Graves from the picture, permanently. And the only way to keep the Hidden government off their case is by solving one for the Tetrarch. (Never mind that it’s an unsolvable cold case from before Tessa could tie her own shoes.)

Who would suspect that the same mind that created the most famous literary detective of all time also took on the eternally popular genre of vampires? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a contemporary of Bram Stoker, gave us some fascinating works of vampire fiction. From the bloodsucking plant in "The American's Tale" to the bloodsucking wife in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," he reveled in the horror created by creatures who survived on the blood of men and women.

Rampton Farm, Northumberland, has always been a gloomy, godforsaken place. Now it’s earmarked for demolition—to make way for just another tawdry amusement park. It will be progress, and nothing can stand in the way—except perhaps Arnold Landon, the Planning Officer who must glean the lie of the land.

The ghost story is perhaps the oldest of all the supernatural literary genres and has captured the imagination of almost every writer to put pen to the page. Here, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler has followed his keen sense of the supernatural to collect the most chilling and uncanny tales in the canon.

Harlow can't live with herself after the traumatic events of a fateful Halloween night two years ago. Half-broken then, she's shattered now. The only way forward is to go back to the abandoned house where it all happened and pay the ultimate price for her sins. But the house isn't empty. Three vengeful spirits lie in wait, vowing to destroy the woman who sent them to hell. Given just one night of freedom, they will bleed every second dry, taking all their rage, suffering, and hatred out on her.

An infertile couple escape to Italy for a short break but soon understand they are not alone, and that an ancient evil has awoken.

"Brother, do not try to follow me once you have read this. No good can come of it..." When Clifford Fox QC receives a desperate letter from his estranged younger brother, Simon, he departs his comfortable Yorkshire home to locate him. The letter outlines the harrowing events that have led Simon to the very edge of sanity.

Everything burns...The twisted magic that merged Andrew Rufus and Pecos Bill isn’t finished with them yet, not by a long shot. Andrew believed he was ready to be a part of this fight but nothing could have prepared him for this. The dark force that awakened Septimis still hungers for Pecos’s power, and if she can’t have it, the entire world will burn...

Thomas Jury is still mad at Doc for disappearing when he was fae; and according to Andrew’s rules, that entitles Jury to beat on Doc until he feels better. But since Doc is Doc and Jury doesn't really stand a chance, Jury devises a solution that will kick Doc’s ass even more than Jervis could. Leprechaun gold, water from the Fountain of Youth, etc...

The discovery of lost letters between Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, describing historical events that never happened, sends shockwaves through the academic world. Meanwhile, a citywide surveillance program is coming to New York, on a groundswell of dirty money and dead bodies. To hard-nosed Brooklyn reporter Nell Bluth, the two mysteries couldn't be more different - until she finds the missing link. A secret war is raging on the streets of New York. It's a battle to control the narrative of history itself, and the winner rewrites the world.

Three years ago in a large Victorian house on the Jersey Shore in the town of Harbor Haven, fledgling private investigator Paul and his client, Maxie Malone, were murdered. Since then, recent divorcée and reluctant ghost whisperer Alison Kerby and her 10-year-old daughter, Melissa, have moved in and converted the place to a guesthouse, where Maxie and Paul are now checked in for an eternity and ready to solve any case that comes their way - or at least spook the guests (who love it). Alison’s got a lot on her plate at the moment, however, so when Paul discovers the 300-year-old ghost of a small boy in the house, he decides not to involve her in the case.

Or so its citizens believe. Sixteen-year-old Nelly is skeptical of the stories until one night she spots a strange light sneaking through the abandoned house on her family’s farm. When she investigates, she finds … fairies. Within hours of this discovery, Nelly's grandmother is catatonic, and the otherworldly trespassers are offering up a cure. But only at a terrible price. It turns out that Nelly is a rare find for the fae. And the shocking reason why is buried in a past only the dead can remember.

It's the end of the 19th century in San Francisco's Chinatown, and ghost hunters from the Maoshan traditions of Daoism keep malevolent spiritual forces at bay. Li-lin, the daughter of a renowned Daoshi exorcist, is a young widow burdened with yin eyes - the unique ability to see the spirit world. Her spiritual visions and the death of her husband bring shame to Li-lin and her father - and shame is not something this immigrant family can afford.

The Commonwealth is teetering on its last legs. But will it go down gently or dissolve into a civil war as brutal as any in human history? That is the dilemma Colonel Zack Decker and Ghost Squadron face as they're tapped to protect a last-ditch effort to salvage a possibility of peace. And that last ditch effort is being held on Decker's home planet, a place he left long ago to put as many light years as possible between himself and a family who disapproved of his becoming a Marine.