Historical Horror Fiction

Amid crusades and inquisitions, a medieval Spanish priest makes a devil's bargain to save his niece's life and unleashes a horror into the world. This short story is just one of 10 tales of extreme horror contained within the forthcoming Shadows And Teeth, Volume Three, a unique collection featuring a range of international talent.

A Mirror for Witches, published in 1928 by award-winning author Esther Forbes, is an enthralling tale of power, fear, trauma, and superstition set in New England in the 1660s. Caught up in the horrific witch hunts in Europe and the Americas, Doll Bilby, as a small child, witnesses her parents being burned for witchcraft in Brittany. She would have burned with them, were it not for Jared Bilby, an English captain, who takes her away as his adopted daughter.

En el París del siglo XV, con sus sombrías callejuelas pobladas por desheredados de la fortuna y espíritus atormentados, la gitana Esmeralda, que predice el porvenir y atrae fatalmente a los hombres, es acusada injustamente de la muerte de su amado y condenada al patíbulo. Agradecido por el apoyo que en otro tiempo recibió de ella, Quasimodo, campanero de Nuestra Señora, de fuerza hercúlea y cuya horrible fealdad esconde un corazón sensible, la salva y le da asilo en la catedral." Nuestra Señora de París" ha dado lugar a numerosos libretos de ópera y a varias versiones cinematográficas.

Notre-Dame de París cuenta la historia de la gitana Esmeralda, quien en compañía de su cabra Djali toca la pandereta y baila en las calles de París para subsistir, hasta que se la acusa de haber asesinado al capitán Phoebus, su amado, y se la condena a la horca. Sin embargo, el jorobado Quasimodo, campanero de Notre-Dame, quien tras su deformidad esconde un corazón sensible y sediento de amor, luchará para salvar a la gitana. Recreación del mito de la bella y la bestia y uno de los monumentos de la literatura francesa, Notre-Dame de París es una historia verdaderamente inmortal.

On a cold January morning in 1856, Evelyn Atherton's husband is found murdered after attending an exclusive seance. Having "married up" into New York society, Evie herself is the immediate suspect. Ostracized and vulnerable, she knows that to clear her name she must retrace her husband's last steps. And so, joining forces with her husband's best friend—and the only Manhattan lawyer who will accept her case—Evie dives into the mysterious underworld of the occult. Before long, the trail brings them to a charismatic medium, Michel Jourdain.

It’s business as usual on the set of another cheap sword-and-sandal production by Pharos Pictures—until the lead actress suddenly falls into a deep, mysterious sleep. Jordan Harper can talk down high-strung starlets and knock sense into stuntmen, but this…this is the kind of uncanny problem that he’d usually bring to Mrs. Hope. Unfortunately, the preternaturally capable secretary is on a business trip with the studio head. Harper must get to the bottom of the mystery on his own before another cast member succumbs—or worse, they blow the budget.

After the death of her husband, Simon, in an accident which rendered her unconscious for a time, Katherine Greene inherits Moorwood Manor. She also becomes a prisoner there. Katherine is accused of murdering her husband during the accident. His cousin, Richard Greene, demands that in exchange for his silence about the murder, Katherine marry him and turn over the estate. If she refuses, he will turn her over to the police. Katherine is completely under Richard's power.

Thirty miles off the coast of San Francisco lie the Farallon Islands, known to sailors as the Devil’s Teeth. Despite their fearsome reputation, their remote nature appeals to young Lucy Riley, who in 1859 seeks a new start as a teacher to the lighthouse keepers’ children. But Lucy brings treacherous secrets with her, including a name that isn’t hers and a past she can’t escape. On the island, she meets Will Sisson, a mysterious man who seems to recognize her name—but not her face. Wary of Will at first, Lucy slowly starts to trust him.

It’s 1962, and Violet Romero, a young woman searching for peace after a horrible tragedy, finds herself in an unexpected place—managing funerals at Berwick, an antebellum mansion-turned-mortuary in Lexington, Kentucky. Her employer, Henry Pendleton, a botany-obsessed mortician, seems harmless, but Violet believes that he is hiding something. Following her instincts, Violet discovers a hidden room in Berwick that offers a glimpse into the mansion’s dark past. Violet soon understands that a reckoning is coming to Henry’s life, and she is caught in the rising tide of revenge.

For the first time, the untold story of the three women closest to Victor Frankenstein is revealed in a dark and sweeping reimagining of Frankenstein by the acclaimed author of The Lost History of Dreams and Doomed Queens. Stunningly written and exquisitely atmospheric, Unnatural Creatures shocks new life into Mary Shelley's beloved gothic classic by revealing the feminine side of the tale.

In 19th-century America, making sense of mysterious events often perplexed citizens of the small Southern town of Juniper, South Carolina. Especially the three Chadwick households. Brothers Laurence, Brodie, and Angus Chadwick lost their parents shortly after sailing from England to the New World. Each young man, in turn, would meet the woman of his dreams. Lacey. Fiona. Guinevere. Beautiful, intelligent, sensitive creatures all. And yet, despite their noble virtues, the three Chadwick women are cursed, it seems, for reasons only the occult can provide.

England 1904. Mirror twins Adelaide and Victoria have spent their lives in orbit of each other–doomed to be in the other’s shadow, their lives are intertwined and inextricable as each other’s identical inverse. Adelaide is dutiful and reserved, happy to remain in her childhood home, Harewood Hall, forever. Victoria wishes for a thrilling life, exploring the world and finding a great romance–but the twins cannot live apart. Visiting Lord Stanley bewitches Victoria with his talk of a life of luxury in New York, but it is obedient Adelaide whom he marries against her will and to Victoria’s fury

1875. With their father missing and their mother suddenly passing, Esme and Gabriel are forced to track down their estranged grandfather in Lincolnshire. Cold and unwelcoming, he is reluctant to take them in, but aware of his standing as the village vicar, he knows must protect his reputation, and allow the children to stay with him. Esme's relief at finding refuge soon turns to despair when Gabriel is sent to boarding school, leaving her alone in their grandfather's unhappy home. But the house isn't as empty as it first appeared.

A fearless fortune teller in 1920s Paris must use her powers to divine who she can trust when an exiled Romanov princess and her brother come to her seeking answers about a decades-old mystery… Spirited Zina and her secretive grandmother, Baba Valya, own a tearoom on rue Daru in Paris, where...

The isolated cottage on the remote Hebridean island of Moila seemed like an ideal away-from-it-all retreat for writer Rose Fenemore, a place where she could work in peace, and where her brother Crispin could walk, fish, and photograph the birds and wildlife. But it is not easy to escape the world and its troubles. Crispin's arrival is delayed, and Rose, on her own in the lonely cottage, has to cope with two very different men who come in from the sea on a night of summer storm.

You can’t kill someone who’s already dead. That’s what Lavinia keeps telling her jailer after—allegedly—killing her mistress, Simone Arceneau. But how could Simone be dead when she was taking callers just a few minutes before? And why was her house always so dark? Lavinia, a recently freed slave, met Simone, a recently undead vampire, by chance on a plantation in post–Civil War Georgia. With nothing remaining for either woman in the South, the two form a fast friendship and head north.

Through heavens intervention everyone is brought forward to face evil of the past. George and Chris have no choice but to discuss conspiracies that occurred in the twentieth century. One of the saddest times in our world’s history was the twentieth century. George compares patriotism with political deviancy from what he knows had happened and why. George will talk about specific times of history that he was involved with.

The Evil ... It was an obscene evil that could not be quenched with blood or sated with the flesh of its defiled victims. The Terror ... It wormed its way into the human brain, devouring the mind, controlling the body and turning its prey into savage creatures lusting for destruction. The Metamorphosis ... Its only outward sign was the grotesque metamorphosis of its victim's hand into a gnarled four-fingered claw -- a claw whose razor-sharp nails dealt death with the precision of a stiletto.

December 1874. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are looking forward to a traditional Christmas with plenty of food, alcohol, and the odd duel. But then Death meets Elizabeth, a young girl with unusual gifts, who needs their protection. When other children start going missing throughout London and the Prime Minister himself asks for their help, they have to put down the brandy and mince pies to solve the mystery while—as usual—saving the world from an unspeakable horror.

When word spreads that three bodies have been found mutilated, Donald offers to help authorities seek the killer. He coaxes Harold into assisting and winds up leading the naive young man and the dutiful Alice into a labyrinth of deceit, madness, and murder. Lingering in the periphery is the shadowy figure of a local legend commonly known as the Slingerman, who some believe is behind the heinous crimes. Harold, who has heard stories of the creature since his cradle days, has his doubts — until the ominous figure begins manifesting itself to him.