Small Horrors

When her life as a New York City attorney becomes an unbearable moral burden, Lois Golden packs up her teenage daughter Janet and heads to rural Vermont to fulfill her childhood dream of owning a small-town inn. However, this inn holds a wealth of dark secrets, full of deceit, death, and horrifying experiments that have left an undeniable mark of evil. When a vengeful spirit emerges, forcing all within the inn to experience their greatest fears, will Lois be able to fight back and salvage her dream from the nightmare it has become?

It's time for Blue Plum's annual historical festival, and everyone-including Kath and her spunky fiber and needlework group, TGIF-is getting in on the action. Expert spinners are being gathered, and a businessman has approached Kath about using the second-floor windows of her store for part of a reenactment. But the reenactment ends in real-life bloodshed when local baker Reva Louise Snapp is shot-with a bullet from a modern-day gun.

A reminder from Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy that one might take great caution when pursuing hidden treasure.

Natalie and Rose are transported in their imaginations to the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, where one of their ancestors survived in a lifeboat for 50 days. Natalie struggles when her daughter, Rose, is diagnosed with type-1 diabetes, but the researching and retelling of Grandad Colin's story provides them both with a way to fight through. Louise Beech has always been haunted by the sea, and regularly writes travel pieces for the Hull Daily Mail, where she was a columnist for ten years.

Things still linger in the creeks, swamps, and low places of our childhoods. They never venture into the road, nor rise to stand in open fields. They crawl about in the spider corners of aging barns, moan from mist-choked river banks, and stand hunched and patient in the shadows as we age and die. These beings neither heaven nor hell can claim.

Kingston is a secluded East Texas town surrounded by a lake and giant pine trees. Except for Friday night football, there is not one thing worth getting excited about. Until Ronnie Javorsky runs onto the field after the national anthem and is shot to death by an unseen assailant. But Ronnie is just the first victim. A macabre game of murder has begun in the quaint town, a challenge to see which sadistic killer can rack up the most kills and do the most destruction before the sun rises. All at the invitation of a mysterious figure known as the Host.

Emily Sinclair is a teacher in seclusion, reeling from the loss of several of her third-grade students by the hands of a shooter that opened fire on several classrooms within Marie-Glen Elementary. While dealing with the anxiety of leaving her home and facing the people of the town, Emily is terrified by what is waiting for her outside that takes the shape of shadowy figures resembling her deceased students and the ghostly kids that she refers to as “the pales” that get closer to her with every step she takes.

When sisters Lily and Della Pedley are persecuted for the shocking murder of their parents, they flee from their home in Cornwall to a remote and unnamed island in Scotland - an island known for its strange happenings, but far away from the whispers and prying eyes of strangers. Lily is terrified of what her sister might do next, and she soon realises that they have arrived at a place where nothing is as it seems.

Mayhem explodes when monsters mix with guns, rednecks and beer. Craig Nybo's second novel, Small Town Monsters, visits the town of DePalma Beach, Montana, a peaceful lake community with a five-star rating in any tour travel guide. Monster hunter isn't in the job description when Kurt McCammus, a Los Angeles homicide detective, leaves the big city and all its violence behind to take a job as chief of police in DePalma Beach. He falls in love with the clean air and peaceful community. That is until a local rancher finds 50 head of sheep mutilated on his spread.

It was a simpler time. Widower Jacob Ernst struggles to raise his young sons, Nathan and Mead, on their modest farm in the small town of Painted Post. Listening to the songs of their hounds while pursuing the wily raccoon through the nighttime forests, Jacob teaches his children a deep respect for all woodland creatures and the many legends abounding in these tall hills. For Painted Post is a storied place where the lessons of life, love, and death play out beneath its mighty oaks. And Nathan and Mead grow loyal to each other and their coonhounds till the end.

Ben Weaver relocated to a small desert town to escape his past failures. But not everyone is happy with Ben’s arrival. When a young girl vanishes from her bedroom the morning of the town’s famous Harvest Moon Festival, Ben uncovers an unsettling legend dating back to the town’s inception. With the local’s distrust of outsiders, Ben will discover how dangerous this sleepy desert town can be.

The elite warriors of the Hereford-based SAS know all about pain and the enduring of it. Syd Spicer, ex-SAS trooper, has found himself back in the regiment - this time as its chaplain, responsible for the spiritual welfare of the hardest men in or out of uniform. Faced with a case which would normally be passed discreetly to Hereford diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins, Spicer is forced, for security reasons, to try and handle it himself - and is coming close to a breakdown.

Amos Lee has never played well with others. He prefers to live his life alone. When the mother he’s never known dies and leaves him a remote trailer house on a few country acres, he jumps at the chance to live life as a hermit. But there seems to be more to this property than he bargained for. Memories he thought were gone return, bringing feelings he didn’t know he had. A couple of people from the area seem way too interested in him. He’s hearing and seeing things that can’t be real. What has gotten into him? Can he survive it?

Five years ago, the demon Azazel tricked Ben Spencer into giving him possession of his body. After countless frustrating and heartbreaking dead ends, Ben’s family and his girlfriend Katy Ruskin have finally located him. Will their daring rescue attempt work, and will they be able to free Ben from the demon? And with Ben free, is everything truly over…or is it only just beginning? A Pattern of Shadows brings the Small Things trilogy to a stunning conclusion that pits Ben and Katy and their families against the very forces of heaven and hell itself.

Bram Stoker Award finalist Tananarive Due crafts chilling tales of suspense.

In Joplin's Ghost, 24-year-old R&B phenomenon Phoenix Smalls is on the cusp of fame and fortune. But she is haunted by the spirit of Jazz legend Scott Joplin. After a series of sultry, erotic encounters with the ghost, and with the pressures of stardom closing in on her, Phoenix begins to fear for her life and career.

For Evie St. Claire, life in Honeysuckle Springs isn't anything like she'd imagined. Sure, the old house is charming, and the smalltown lakeside community is picture perfect. But her kitty roommate Birdie is unpredictable, snarky, and demanding. When a ransom note shows up at Evie's backdoor, she must come clean about her aunt's stolen ashes. She'll also need to decide if she's willing to meet the ransom demands and give up her aunt's spell book, or if she'll search for the culprit herself.

Doctor James Mason was looking for a peaceful place to retire. The little town of Bradville was like a walk in the past. People were friendly, life was slow, and the atmosphere serene. It was perfect! When he bought the old Victorian style country home, he didn’t believe in the supernatural. But it didn’t take him long to realize that he was not alone in the house!

Ben lost his father some months back and is doing his best at being a boy amidst the new tragedies in town when he is confronted by an unseen threat. With nowhere to hide, no one to help, and his mother worried that she is losing him to mental illness, Ben teams up with an unlikely ally who has a horrible secret. Dan Leeds takes the boy under his wing. Each having their own demons to battle, they are confronted by an ageless power unlike anything they could have imagined. Prophecy, the past, and a boy's need become entwined with Leeds, his secret, and saving the world.

A glimpse of eight-year-old Ivor in a pretty market town inspires young artist Gemma Palmer to write and illustrate a children’s book. Gemma next meets Ivor when she is 29 and he 16. They become lovers, to the consternation of Gemma’s friends…for the real Ivor is quite different from the sunny character she turned him into in her much-loved books. Lurking in the secret places of his heart are impulses that are dangerous and malign. It can only be a matter of time before they are released, ready to strike. But when? Where? At whom?

Welcome to Hayfork, Iowa, a peaceful farming community nestled in the heart of a tranquil valley, a town that looks after its own. It’s a place where gossip is king, but secrets are kept from outsiders, and those who are born there live and die at the mercy of the weather, or the forgiveness of the land. Now a strange terror roams the sky at night, a dread horror lurks among the corn, and a troubled widow gives birth to a boy who glows in the dark. Death on the streets and blood in the fields seed suspicion and division deep in the valley’s fertile soil.