Occult Thriller

In Metsan Valo, her family home on Lake Superior, Anni Halla’s beloved grandmother has died. Among her fond memories, what Anni remembers most vividly is her grandmother’s eerie yet enchanting storytelling. By firelight she spun tall tales of spirits in the nearby forest and waters who could heal - or harm - on a whim. But of course those were only stories.

Life is hard. Change is difficult. But adjusting to being a ghost? Well, that is just darn near impossible. And Bridget Sway is struggling. It's not just the job, the uniform, the housemates, the rules, the community service. It's everything. And now she's facing a week-long group assessment to evaluate her adjustment.As if that isn't bad enough, some inconsiderate soul has shoved another dead ghost in her locker. Things are looking bleak for Bridget. If she fails the assessment, she'll be "re-educated."

Amid the sweet sounds of a music box, their darkest fears will haunt them.... In Black River, Tennessee, everyone knows the legend of the Bell Witch...and the alleged curse that hangs like a dark shroud over the town. To some, it is just a local tall tale. But to others, it is terrifyingly real. For centuries, four families have been forced into the ritualistic tradition of sacrifice and terror. Every year, a member of each family stumbles upon an antique music box they need to lock before the time is up. And a horrible fate awaits them once the boxes open.

Wild rabies runs rampant through the woods. The foxes are gaining ground, boldly making their way into the village. In Dichtersruhe, an insular yet charming haven stifled by the Swiss mountains, these omens go unnoticed by all but the new parish priest. The residents have other things on their mind: literature. Everyone’s a writer - the nights are alive with reworked manuscripts. So when the devil turns up in a black car claiming to be a hot-shot publisher, unsatisfied authorial desires are unleashed and the village’s former harmony is shattered.

When pop megastar Zach Crystal dies in a fire at his remote mansion, his mysterious demise rips open the bitter divide between those who adored his music and his endless charity work, and those who viewed him as a despicable predator who manipulated and abused young and vulnerable girls. Online journalist Scott King, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the accusations of sexual abuse and murder that were levelled at Crystal before he died. But as Scott begins to ask questions and rake over old graves, some startling inconsistencies emerge.

Lieutenant Asher Benson left Iraq with a traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and a Purple Heart. His doctors warned that the symptoms would be life altering. They had no idea. As his body healed, the thoughts of those around him began to echo through Ash's mind, stretching the boundaries of his sanity.

As soon as Lily opens her recently purchased trunk of old clothes, she feels strange vibrations emanating from a mysterious velvet cloak. When she tries it on, Lily sees awful visions from the past. And when the antiques dealer who sold her the cape is killed, Lily suspects a supernatural force might be behind his death. Then Lily's familiar, Oscar the potbellied pig, disappears. Lily will do anything to get him back - including battling the spirit of a powerful witch reaching out from the past.

For fans of legendary pulp author H. P. Lovecraft, there is nothing bigger than the annual Providence-based convention called the Summer Tentacular. Horror writer Colleen Danzig doesn't know what to expect when she arrives, but is unsettled to find that among the hob-knobbing between scholars and literary critics are a group of real freaks: book collectors looking for volumes bound in human skin, and true believers claiming the power to summon the Elder God Cthulhu.

Vincent Donnelly has faced pain, death, and madness. His past is a haze of fractured memories. A host of restless spirits inhabited his tortured psyche once. He has inherited their powers, their magic. But all he wants is to be free of the nightmares that plague him. Fleeing from the confines of a demonic asylum, Vincent and his allies take refuge in a remote mountain cabin. Lost, wounded, unable to access his supernatural abilities, Vincent struggles to sever the link between himself and the personification of Chaos itself. But it is not so easy to destroy.

I foolishly believed this day would never come, that life in charming Chipping Cheddar would always be pleasant and somewhat predictable—but all good things must come to an end. And it seems the dormant portal is no exception.

Mass killer Cara Lindstrom is in the wind after a deadly encounter which leaves FBI Special Agent Antara Singh questioning her own sanity and fitness to serve. ASAC Matthew Roarke exiles Singh to Portland to work as an assistant to his old mentor, retiring profiler Chuck Snyder - but a mysterious break-in alerts Singh and Snyder to an active threat revolving around an old case: a series of brutal murders of homeless teenagers on the streets of Portland and Seattle.

Aiden Anderson got off to a tough start in life. He had a small family to begin with, and they were all gone by the time he turned 16. He did his best to shake off his grief and go on to a successful life as a musician. He was talented, but just missed the big time. When Aiden dies in a car crash, he couldn't be more surprised to open his eyes in his grandmother's kitchen in 1961. He has a second chance at everything: family, friends, and fame. Even in Middle Falls, second chances don't always turn out right.

FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke is closing in on a bust of a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street, an accident Roarke can't believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who appears to have been present at each scene of a years-long string of accidents and murders, and who may well be that most rare of killers: a female serial.

Dan Shamble, zombie PI, is on the case, trying to stop an all-out gang war between full-time and full-moon werewolves. As he combs through the tangled clues to hunt down the bald facts, things get hairy fast. Shamble lurches through a loony landscape of voodoo tattoo artists, illicit cockatrice fights, body builders assembling make-your-own human kits, and perhaps scariest of all, crazed fans in town for the Worldwide Horror Convention. Yet the reign of hair-raising terror grows longer. If Shamble can't snip this off at the roots, the whole world could end up howling mad.

I've always had a weak spot for strange ladies. One very beautiful girl had even warned me that she was, get this, a vampire. But did I listen? No.

Asher Benson has once again fled to a secluded cabin in the mountains outside of the sleepy town of Arthur's Creek, West Virginia. Government agents surround him day and night, blanketing his entire life in constant surveillance under the guise of keeping him safe. That facade is shattered when every cell phone in Arthur's Creek rings simultaneously. Anyone who answers the call is driven into a violent, psychotic madness that turns the entire town into a slaughterhouse. And Ash is caught in the middle of it all.

The Enchanted Village is abuzz when the old Tavistock house finally goes up for sale. Darcy's friend, Curecrafter Cherise Goodwin, is hoping she will have the winning bid on the home, but Darcy can't shake the feeling that something bad is about to happen - and her magical instincts are usually right.

Taking a night off from running her successful San Francisco clothing store, Lily attends a local art deco ball where vintage fashions steal the show. But when a young woman at the event falls under a mysterious sleeping sickness, Lily senses that a curse was placed on the woman's corsage. Before Lily can solve the woman's magical ailment, she's asked to assist in investigating a string of poisonings in the Bay Area witchcraft community.

When a childhood friend of Abby's from Denver, Colorado, finds herself short one bridesmaid, it doesn't take a professional psychic to see the opportunity for a much-needed getaway. But one bridesmaid after the next is mysteriously flying the coop, and Abby's intuition tells her their final destination isn't pretty. With the wedding party falling apart and her gift of sight never quite so foggy, Abby has to save the date - and herself - from becoming the next taffeta-clad target.

On a scale from zero to dumpster fire, I tend to hang out at the far, trash-burning end. But lately, things have been going eerily well. So when Festus showed up with a birthday cake and less blood on his suit than usual, I was a little more than skeptical. Add to that a scythe-wielding accountant that is wearing the carpet thin, a demonic soiree in Missouri, a murderous gang of Red Caps in cheese country, a lie-detecting seven-year-old, and a snooty corporate cult, and I can smell the gas fumes on the trash heap at 40 paces.