Horror Anthology

2019. The year certainly made its mark on the world. It also made for a bounty of good horror stories of the extreme kind, the best of which the tales herein serve to illustrate. 2019 was the year Year's Best Hardcore Horror went global. Not by design but because the stories inside just happened to have been written by authors hailing from various parts of the globe. From Australia by way of South Africa, to Italy, Scotland, Norway, Taiwan, North America and India - the common denominator being that their tales come from darkest regions of imagination.

Beneath the brilliance that was behind The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome was a dark side. A dark side which produced magnificent tales of the unseen influences in our lives, such as "Mr. Jones", "The Eyes", "Kerfol", "The Ladie's Maid's Bell", and "The Looking Glass".

At first blush, Widdershins is a conventional haunted house story involving an unsuccessful writer who moves into an empty house in hope that isolation will help his failing creativity. His sensitivity and imagination are enhanced by his seclusion, but his art, his only friend, and his sanity are all destroyed in the process. It can be interpreted as narrating the gradual possession of the protagonist by a mysterious, possessive feminine spirit, or as a realistic description of a psychotic outbreak culminating in catatonia and murder, told from the psychotic subject’s view.

From the secret reels of a notoriously cursed cinematic masterpiece to the debauched livestreams of modern movie junkies who will do anything for clicks, Final Cuts brings together new and terrifying stories inspired by the many screens we can't peel our eyes away from. Inspired by the rich golden age of the film and television industries as well as the new media present, this new anthology reveals what evils hide behind the scenes and between the frames of our favorite medium.

Welcome to Anoka, Minnesota, a small city just outside of the Twin Cities dubbed “The Halloween Capital of the World” since 1937. Here before you lie several tales involving bone collectors, pagan witches, werewolves, skeletal bison, and cloned children. It is up to you to decipher between fact and fiction as the author has woven historical facts into his narratives.

#1 New York Times best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anthony Doerr brings his“stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) to selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. Doerr and the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, winnow down twenty...

It's Christmas Eve - a time of wonder, magic, anticipation....And terror. A father who will go to any lengths to feed his hungry children. An unsuspecting woman who inherits a house with a deadly secret. A murderous widow who shares a train carriage with Jack the Ripper. Two burglars who bite off more than they can chew, during a late-night raid. These, and many more bedtime stories, come hideously to life, in Mark L'Estrange's 19 tales of terror - each set on the most festive night of the year.

John Updike reads six stories he has selected from the hundred-odd he has published. "A&P", recounting a moral crisis on the checkout counter, is his most anthologized story. "Pigeon Feathers," the longest story included, tells of a fourteen-year-old boy's fear of death and the answer he finds...

At sixteen, Sadie Young had a brush with death, and as a result she became more sensitive to the supernatural. Rather than embrace this gift, she spent years running from it, and from the darkness that once preyed upon her. Now twenty-five and working as a librarian, Sadie is called upon by a desperate family friend to look into a strange series of events. A teenaged girl has entered a reputedly haunted house in town and has gone mad. Committed, the girl attempts suicide and claims to be terrorized at all hours by a horrific specter known as "Mother Maggot."

American Book Award-winning author Tananarive Due's second collection of stories ranges from horror to science fiction to suspense. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pandemic to the reaches of the far future, Due's stories all share a sense of dread and fear balanced with heart and hope. In some of these stories, the monster is racism itself; others address the monster within, or other universal struggles set against the supernatural or surreal. All of them are written with Due's trademark attention to detail and deep characterization.

In Queer Little Nightmares, creatures of myth and folklore seek belonging and intimate connection, cryptids challenge their outcast status, and classic movie monsters explore the experience of coming into queerness. The characters in these stories and poems—the Minotaur camouflaged in a crowd of cosplayers, a pubescent werewolf, a Hindu revenant waiting to reunite with her lover, a tender-hearted kaiju, a lagoon creature aching for the swimmers above him, a ghost of Pride past—relish their new sparkle in the spotlight.

"Includes something for every kind of King fan.” —People From #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King, the iconic, spine-tingling story collection that includes winners of an O. Henry Prize and other awards, and “Riding the Bullet,” which attracted over half a million online...

Yog-Sothoth, known as the Key and the Gate and a host of other names, is H.P. Lovecraft's most enduring creation after the Necromnomicon and Great Cthulhu itself. An eldritch god that occupies all time and space, Yog-Sothoth is most known for his role as the antagonist in The Dunwich Horror but has played a role in many other Cthulhu Mythos stories. Tales of Yog-Sothoth features several stories centered around the creepy deity and its monstrous intelligence.

The Ancient Ones are coming to consume our world, and only the bold investigators of Arkham Horror stand in their way in this chilling collection of eldritch novellas.

Laird Barron’s fourth collection gathers a dozen stories set against the backdrops of the Alaskan wilderness, far-future dystopias, and giallo-fueled nightmare vistas. Combining hard-boiled noir, psychological horror, and the occult, Swift to Chase continues three-time Shirley Jackson Award winner Barron’s harrowing inquiry into the darkness of the human heart.

The Doll Collection is exactly what it sounds like: a treasured toy box of all-original dark stories about dolls of all types, including everything from puppets and poppets to mannequins and baby dolls. Featuring everything from life-sized clockwork dolls to all-too-human Betsy Wetsy-type baby dolls, these stories play into the true creepiness of the doll trope but avoid the clichés that often show up in stories of this type.

Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic Tales blends the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; Lois the Witch, a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in 'The Old Nurse's Story' a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors.

Step into the shadows where the line between flesh and nightmare blurs, where the body becomes both canvas and cage. In this chilling anthology, darkness reigns supreme as twisted minds explore the depths of human agony and transformation. From the grotesque to the surreal, each story delves deeper into the macabre, weaving tales of torment that will leave you breathless and disturbed.

Cassandra Khaw's dynamic and vibrant debut collection, Breakable Things, explores the fragile and nebulous bonds that weave love and grief into our existence. This exquisite and cutting collection of stories showcases a bloody fusion of horrors from cosmic to psychological to body traumas.

Something monstrous has come to Arkham, Massachusetts. There have always been shadows here, but now a new hunger has risen from the depths and threatens those who dwell here. But there are heroes too—people who stand up and fight to stem the tide, even when it costs them everything. Explore eight shocking new tales of occult horror, captivating mystery, and existential fear—from a zealous new heroine to conniving cultists, bootleg whiskey to night terrors, and fiends that crawl from open graves. A nightmare has fallen across Arkham, and it will devour all.