Horror Literature History

Shoggoths attack in this adrenaline-pumping novel set in the world of H. P. Lovecraft, where the horrors of the cosmos know no limits… It was in a way humanoid, as it stood on two legs and possessed two arms that ended in delicate digits that I would dare to call hands. Its skin was a pale blue, like the eggs of a robin, and curiously dry looking. The head was massive with a huge bulbous cranium, a large lipless mouth, and three blood red eyes that stared out at the world with nothing but hate.

Dracula. A name of horror, depravity and the darkest sensuality. Yet the real Dracula was just as alluring, just as terrifying, his story not of a monster but of a man - and a contradiction. For the one they called 'The Devil's Son' was both tyrant and lawgiver, crusader and mass slaughterer, torturer and hero, lover and murderer. His tale is told by those who knew him best. The only woman he ever loved, who he must sacrifice. His closest comrade and traitor.

A trolley car pulls into the station. Four minutes before, the inhabitants were seen boarding at the previous station. All are dead. And all of them are union. The year is 1919. The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built airships that cross the seas. Guns that won the Great War. And above all, the city of Evesden. But something is rotten at the heart of Evesden. Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must find the truth behind the city before it kills him.

There’s something in the lake at Wren Hall. At least, that’s what the locals say. Not that Meg cares much about the rumors. When she’s asked to spend Halloween weekend at the Ireland retreat of the wealthy Wren twins, she recognizes the invitation for exactly what it is: her last, and only, chance to save her spot at Greyscott’s, the exclusive British art school she attended on scholarship until last summer. Clever, beautiful, and talented, the twins are the pride of Greyscott’s, and kindhearted Lottie Wren was once Meg’s closest friend. But not anymore.

For fans of the oral history genre phenomenon World War Z, a worldwide plague of insomnia creates a devastating new apocalypse. Sleep Over is collection of waking nightmares, a scrapbook of the haunting and poignant stories from those trapped in a world where the pillars of society are crumbling, and madness is slowly descending on a planet without rest.

Visions have always been...my pasture. I almost think there is no wisdom comparable to that of exchanging the realities of life for dreams. Old castles, old pictures, old histories take one back into centuries that cannot disappoint. I waked one morning from a dream of which all I could recover was that I had thought myself in an ancient castle and that on the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate.

Riptide, Oregon, 1983. A sleepy coastal town, where crime usually consists of underage drinking down at a Wolf Point bonfire. But then, strange things start happening. A human skeleton is unearthed in a local park, and mutilated animals begin appearing, seemingly sacrificed, on the town's beaches. The Mercy of the Tide follows four people drawn irrevocably together by a recent tragedy as they do their best to reclaim their lives - leading them all to a discovery that will change them and their town forever.

Laura Caxton vowed never to face them again. The horror of what the vampires did is too close, the wounds too fresh. But when Jameson Arkeley, broken and barely recognizable, comes to her with an unfathomable, unholy discovery, her resolve crumbles.

Australian history teacher Thea Rust arrives at an exclusive boarding school in the British countryside only to find that she is to look after the first intake of girls in its 150-year history. She is to stay with them in Silk House, a building with a long and troubled past, where the shadows hide more mysteries than she could ever imagine.

On the night of July 15, 1903, Nikola Tesla powered up his 190-foot tower in Wardenclyffe on Long Island's North shore. The bolts of energy radiating from the apical dome were visible as far away as New Haven, Connecticut. This was the first and last time anyone would witness such a display. Three years later, broke and unable to secure further funding, Tesla abandoned the Wardenclyffe tower and his dream of worldwide wireless power. He returned to Manhattan where he promptly suffered a nervous breakdown. So say the history books.

As the Blue Jays edge closer to their first World Series win since 1993, the pressure on Toronto feels like it's about to explode. Between the separatist bombings and violent protests at castration clinics, you'd think Toronto had enough to deal with. But when a doomsday cult promising freedom for everyone sweeps the city, high strangeness reigns, and it gets even weirder. Grassfinch is a psychedelic fever dream filled with alien abduction, psychics, organ theft, and, of course, raccoons.

When Michael Crawford discovers his bride brutally murdered in their wedding bed, he is forced to flee not only to prove his innocence but to avoid the deadly embrace of a vampire who has claimed him as her true bridegroom. Joining forces with Byron, Keats, and Shelley in a desperate journey that crisscrosses Europe, Crawford desperately seeks his freedom from this vengeful lover who haunts his dreams and will not rest until she destroys all that he cherishes.

Grayson Hale, the most infamous murderer in Scotland, is better known by a different name: the Devil’s Advocate. The twenty-five-year-old American grad student rose to instant notoriety when he confessed to the slaughter of his classmate Liam Stewart, claiming the Devil made him do it. When Hale is found hanged in his prison cell, officers uncover a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question that’s haunted the nation for years: was Hale a lunatic, or had he been telling the truth all along?

The Magnificent Century, the second volume of Costain's "A History of the Plantagenets", covers Henry III's long and turbulent reign, from 1216 to 1272.

During his lifetime, Henry was frequently unpopular, unreliable, and inconsistent. Yet his reign saw spectacular advancement in the arts, sciences, and theology, as well as in government. Despite all, it was truly a magnificent century.

Bram Stoker kept secret a tale even more terrifying than Dracula. It begins among the Carpathian peaks, when an intrepid explorer discovers a mysterious golden box. She brings it back with her to the foggy streets of Victorian London, unaware of its dangerous power…or that an evil beyond imagining has already taken root in the city. Stoker, a successful theater manager but frustrated writer, is drawn into a deadly web spun by the wealthy founders of a mission house for the poor. Far from a safe haven, the mission harbors a dark and terrifying secret.

When the US Army Air Corps came calling in 1943, looking for psychic women to help their beleaguered bomber force, Evelyn answered, hoping to use her powers to integrate the bomber crews and save American lives. She was extremely successful at it...until her aircraft got shot down. Now, Evelyn is on the run in occupied Europe, with a special unit of German Fallschirmjager and an enemy psychic on her heels. Worse, Evelyn learns that using her psychic powers functions as a strobe that highlights her to the enemy.

It is 1944. A message from Paris warns Allied Intelligence of something big in the works - something which might have serious implications for D-Day. The only way to get more information from the agent in Paris - now closely watched by the Gestapo - is to send in a personal courier. Russian émigré Michael Gallatin is picked for the job. In retirement as a secret agent since a grisly episode in North Africa, Gallatin is parachuted into occupied France, on a mission which will take him to the festering heart of the Third Reich on the scent of doomsday.

The origins of the outbreak were never in dispute, although at first almost no one believed the dead were actually rising. When the island nation of Haiti was struck by wave after wave of violent earthquakes killing thousands, the Z-virus lurched spectacularly to life. Early reports of cannibalism from inside the country were disregarded until shocking live video splashed across the world's television and computer screens. Suddenly everyone was a believer.

Under the shadow of gray clouds, three children venture into the woods, where they spot the corpse of an old man on a scaffold. Suddenly a wild figure emerges, with long fingernails and tangled hair. It is the Hattak fullih nipi foni, the bone picker, who comes to tear off rotting flesh with his fingernails. Only the Choctaws who adhere to the old ways will speak of him. The frightening bone picker is just one of many entities, scary and mysterious, who lurk behind every moment of this spine-tingling collection of Native fiction, written by award-winning Choctaw author Devon A. Mihesuah.

Maria Dahvana Headley blends history, romance, and the supernatural for a fantastic tale set in ancient Egypt. Upon hearing news of her husband Antony’s death, Cleopatra is distraught. In an effort to resurrect him, she summons the fearsome warrior goddess Sekhmet. Striking a deal with the deity, Cleopatra pays a terrible price in the bargain and is transformed into a terrifying vampire-like creature whose lust for blood is only matched by her desire to exact vengeance upon those who have wronged her.