Historical Horror Fiction

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.

Available for the first time in 125 years, the Lost Novels of Nellie Bly! Pioneering undercover journalist Nellie Bly is rightly famous for exposing society's ills. From brutal insane asylums to corrupt politicians, she exposed all manner of frauds and charlatans. She was also a skilled interviewer and reporter. What no one has known was that she was also a novelist. This is because, of the twelve novels Bly wrote between 1889 and 1895, eleven have been lost. Until now.

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.

Finally available as an audiobook, Joyce Carol Oates' lost classic: a satirical, often surreal, and beautifully plotted Gothic romance that follows the exploits of the audacious Zinn sisters, whose 19th-century pursuit of adventurous lives turns a lens on contemporary American culture.

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.

Angelique is forced to wed a monster in exchange for a noble title. The Duke of Annecy is cold and cruelly sadistic, making the young duchess's life a living hell. On a fateful summer night in the lavish palace of Versailles, she meets an exotic courtier whose glittering dark eyes promise more than mere temporary relief from a loveless marriage. Angelique is offered the gift of immortality by the ancient vampire prince, and she accepts it with open arms.

Boston, 1870. Photographer Edward Moody runs a booming business capturing the images of the spirits of the departed in his portraits. He lures grieving widows and mourning mothers into his studio with promises of catching the ghosts of their deceased loved ones with his camera. Despite the whispers around town that Moody is a fraud of the basest kind, no one has been able to expose him, and word of his gift has spread, earning him money, fame, and a growing list of illustrious clients.