Historical Horror Fiction

Lucy Braithwhite lives a privileged existence as heir to the fortune of Braithwhite & Company - the most successful purveyor of English luxury wallpapers the world over. The company's formulas have been respected for nearly a century, but have always remained cloaked in mystery. No one has been able to explain the originality of design, or the brilliance of their colours, leaving many to wonder if the mysterious spell-like effect of their wallpapers is due simply to artistry, or something more sinister.

Inspired by medieval legends about the poet Vergil, who was revered not only as the author of the Aeneid but also as a powerful necromancer, Davidson embarked on his Vergil Magus series in the '60s with the intriguing novel The Phoenix and the Mirror. In this sequel, Vergil answers a magical summons from Averno, both the wealthiest and the filthiest of cities. The magnates there are worried about the waning and shifting of the natural fires that have fueled their industries and fouled their air.

Amid the chaos of the sinking Titanic, a young Eleanor Annenberg meets the eyes of a stranger and is immediately captivated. As the ship buckles around them, she follows him down into the hold and finds him leaning over an open sarcophagus, surrounded by mutilated bodies. She catches but a glimpse of what lies within. Elle is pulled out of the water, but the stranger is lost. Unintentionally, he leaves her a gift; one so compelling that Elle embarks on a journey that pulls her into a world of ancient evils, vicious hunters, and human prey to find the man who saved her that night.

In the winter of 1943, a train from Warsaw bound for the Treblinka death camp went missing. Now, in modern-day Poland, the train still haunts the countryside, luring people to leave their homes and step aboard. A group of American travelers with a penchant for ghost hunting decide to look into the disappearances, only to discover a plot that could change the world, and that the Ghost Train's origins reach much further back than the Holocaust.

Forced to flee his home and his mother’s murderous rage when he removes his mask, his greatest desire is to be loved for himself. At the tender age of seven, he must fight for survival in a hostile world where the threat of starvation is the least of the abuses he suffers. Yet, time and again, in his naivety, he extends trust to someone he believes can fill his need for affection and acceptance. Betrayed in every instance, his anger grows.

Virginia Reed survived the Donner Party Werewolves only to find herself in a life and death struggle with a creature out of nightmares. When gold is discovered, California becomes flooded with miners who push Indian tribes from their lands, or kill them if they refuse to leave. But there is a creature in the mountains that won't be so easily removed, who reacts to the invasion of his territory by slaying everyone who trespasses.

Portugal, 1750s. Cecilia Lamb knew being a sea captain’s wife would mean a life of waiting and watching the horizon for her husband’s ship. But John has been gone longer than any voyage should last. Everyone else has given up hope of his return. But she knows in her bones that he is not lost. Gone, but not lost. Barely able to tear her eyes from the shimmering sea, she feels drawn to the sun-baked shoreline, and amid the bustle of the docks she feels certain that her husband will come back to her. Though along with that feeling is another sense – that something darker is coming.

Spring 1921. The Great War is over, Prohibition is in full swing, the Depression still years away, and Newport, Rhode Island's glittering summer cottages are inhabited by the gloriously rich families who built them.

In 1917, East Side Grade School in Eureka, Kansas, burned to the ground. In 1918, a carpenter died in a fall during construction of Mulberry School. It was said he haunted the school ever since. Teachers, students, and staff encountered apparitions after the school's dedication. One teacher knew the victim and welcomed any sign of his existence. Others, however, did not. She coped with the loss of her friend and managed to go on with unusual help from the universe.

When David stumbles upon a tragic young woman in a sordid Limehouse pub, he has no idea she’d recognize him as the last vampyre alive, nor that she’d be the one to pull out his story. Yet as he recalls his life from the sweltering vineyards of ancient Rome to the cold horrors of medieval Romania—as well as his tumultuous past with the mad and mysterious Lucius—he realizes she is much more than what she seems. Gothic horror and mythological fantasy blend seamlessly together in this thrilling adventure, breathing new life into vampire lore as it reveals its true origins.

The Lovely Bones meets the wild, Wild West in this haunting tale inspired by a true story. Pregnant out of wedlock, 16-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and after failing to find a respectable job, she resorts to prostitution in order to survive.

In the autumn of 1879, an intelligent, artificially-created being - outwardly a young woman called Maria - arrives in London under the protection of biologist Professor George Hobson. Hobson gathers a few close friends and reveals her existence, explaining that she is the final result of a research program undertaken by a dynasty of unethical scientists, the von Frakkens - all now dead. Unknown to Hobson, one of his friends is linked to an underground scientific organization, the Promethean Society. Set up in the early 1800s, its aim is to conquer death by whatever means possible.

When Francis House enlists in the British Army in 1907, at the tender age of 15 years and three months, he is not thinking about war. But he soon discovers that simply becoming a soldier is not enough and, against the advice of his sergeant, he seeks out a real fight. Wading ashore at Gallipoli seven years later, Francis thinks he might just have found his greatest opportunity. Here, he thinks, he might finally prove himself a man. First, though, he must find his missing friend Berto. He needs to say he's sorry. He cannot yet imagine the ghosts that might stand in his way.

Of supposed unsound mind without a penny to her name, Blanche Magruder lies alone in a home for the aged and infirm. Meanwhile, her house, a crumbled ruin in the heart of Georgetown, Washington, DC, is pillaged nightly by thieves looking for treasure rumored to be hidden there. A distant niece, Margaret O’Keefe, is tapped as executor and soon becomes embroiled in the hunt for recovering monies, taking it on as a welcome escape from her financial and marital woes. As Margaret discovers caches in unlikely spots throughout the house, family mysteries begin to unravel.

Although the Council has been unmasked, and the Faceless Man identified, the danger that they pose is far from over. A great wedding is being planned between the innocent Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia and Ernst Augustus, heir to the Kingdom of Hanover. Its guests will include royalty from all over Europe, and it is is the perfect opportunity for peace. But this gathering is also threatened with the possibility of chaos and death. It will be up to Sir Thomas Blackthorn, Adelaide DeMarcy, her students, and their friends, to stave off disaster and foil the Council's evil designs.

Cut-Throat Gulliver was a real pirate plundering ships and settlements in and along Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy in the late 1600 and early 1700s.

Rebecca West, fatherless and husbandless, chafes against the drudgery of her days, livened only occasionally by her infatuation with the handsome young clerk John Edes. But then a newcomer, who identifies himself as the Witchfinder General, arrives. A mysterious, pious figure dressed from head to toe in black, Matthew Hopkins takes over the Thorn Inn and begins to ask questions about what the women on the margins of this diminished community are up to.

On a hot June day in 1965, two six-year-old boys, Gareth and Jack, compete to see who can climb higher up a tree. When Jack falls and loses his eye on a thorn bush, the accident sets off a series of events that will bind the boys together for the rest of their lives. When the best friends meet albino twins Clara and Blanca, a shared fate unfolds. With Gareth and Jack's help, the twins are able to reclaim their lives and leave their nightmarish past behind them.

Through three different timelines, this paranormal historical novel weaves a story of Galveston’s past, underscoring its danger and isolation, as well as its remarkable resilience, its capacity for both nostalgia and reinvention. Full of contradictions, at once insular and open to the world, magical but stifling, stuck in the past yet determined to overcome, Galveston Island is as much a character of the novel as Suzanne, Betty, Katie, their lovers, and their confidantes.

Phantom of the Opera meets Beauty and the Beast in this gothic-inspired dark fantasy romance. A haunted tower, a mysterious instructor, and the lure of the music of the night...After the death of her father, Aria is left penniless and destitute. To avoid working the streets, she becomes the ward of a Count and moves to a remote town called High Tower. High Tower is a gloomy place with one vivid attraction: The theater. Lords and ladies come from afar to be seduced by a night of unforgettable entertainment.