Small Horrors

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!

It's been two weeks since Evie escaped the mines after solving the mystery of Holly's disappearance only to discover that Desmond followed her but never came back. Evie knows he’s alive, lost wherever the Patchwork Girl resides. When Evie tries to reach out to Holly again for help, she realizes that her connection to the Lost Girl—and the shadow world itself—has been severed. Desmond is gone, and it’s all her fault.

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?

It's 1825, four generations after Berggrund Island's women stood accused of witchcraft under the eye of their priest, now long dead. In his place is Pastor Silas, a widower with two wild young daughters, Beata and Ulrika. The sisters are outcasts: imaginative, oppositional, increasingly obsessed with the lore and legend of the island's dark past and their absent mother, whom their father refuses to speak of. As the girls come of age, and the strictures of the community shift but never wane, their rebellions twist and sharpen

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.

On a 10-year mission to avenge the brutal sacrifice of her man by Stargut, the local sheriff, himself on a mission to create the perfect man-beast, Lovey, abandoned by her spellbound friend Patty, is joined by a stranger. Tom is a preacher of sorts who has followed the scent of evil for a hundred years. He mysteriously appears in the village of Wrong, a rural Midwestern town, its mutant inhabitants mere creations of the devil lawman. Together, the three converge under the moon into the wood down by the river at the doorsteps of hell.

When Sandra Meyer's violent ex-boyfriend returns to sleepy Edgarville, Illinois, she turns to the man who stood up to Nick Benedetto years ago. Sandra adores Garth, but she doesn't want any more ties to Edgarville. Now finished with a decade of dedicated service as her mother's caregiver, Sandra is planning her exit from this one-stoplight town. Garth is firmly rooted in Edgarville, with the family monument business and a trophy shop that will need a "mom" to his "pop". Garth has wanted Sandra ever since he slugged Nick more than 10 years ago.

Kait Brecker can't remember the last time she didn't feel like busted glass. Her volcanic temper's already scared most of her friends away, and a bad breakup with her college boyfriend Lutz left her crippled by guilt and painful memories. So when she learns that her best friend Alice is planning a three-day sabbatical in a secluded mountain cabin, Kait jumps at the chance to tag along, convinced that rekindling their fractured friendship is the key to fixing whatever’s breaking down inside of her. She should have known.

Darrick MacBrehon, a government auditor, wakes among the dead. Bloodied and disoriented from a gaping head wound, the man who staggers out of the mine crack in Redbird, West Virginia, is much more powerful — and dangerous — than the one thrown in. An orphan with an unknown past, he must now figure out how to have a future.

A relentless evil possessing an already depraved man...gruesome and perverse acts of brutality... Will anyone survive? Centuries ago the natives captured and imprisoned a life force of pure evil and unending hunger. Thirteen years ago, an eight-year-old boy woke the darkness. It grows in strength every day and now the boy is a man. A man skilled in terror and violence, the very things the darkness needs to finally break free.

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.

Every spring in small town Ohio, kids get a touch more daylight, wander a little farther from the front porch, and spend a bit more time off on their own, exploring. One such spring, the Murphy twins were considered an Easter miracle. And now, almost 18 years later—Easter week, 1988—the girls approach their birthday, and busybodies around town get a little anxious. Every time their birthday falls on Easter Sunday, bad things seem to happen, and the neighbors have noticed.

Haunted by the loss of his wife and his best hunting dog, hunter Jari tries to stem the flow of alcohol and grief that threatens to destroy his life. As the darkness and isolation of winter settles around his small hunting community in remote Finland, it brings with it another threat. The encroachment and growing boldness of a pack of wolves endangers the villagers’ way of life. The presence of the wolves opens old feuds and cracks within the community’s makeup. As Jari tries to lead the villagers through their toughest season, it soon becomes clear that not everyone will survive the winter.

The Lost Country centers on Edgewater, who's recently been discharged from the navy, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish who takes him under his wing as they both search desperately for a forgotten past and a future that may never come. The Lost Country cements Gay as one of the strongest voices in Southern literature, alongside Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner.

Ken and Bennett Johnson own Fearless Brewery, a place where you can come in for a bite to eat and sample their newest beers in a relaxing atmosphere...until the undead rose and began to destroy humanity. The big cities are falling—or have fallen—and Ken decides to spearhead an operation that will help keep not just a handful of survivors alive, but as many of the town's citizens as possible. It will be no small feat as he faces not only the walking dead, but also small town squabbles and worse...outsiders.

An isolated Welsh island seemed like the perfect escape for a convict on the run, a jilted woman, and a policeman seeking a quiet life. When the surly locals turn to murderous violence, the three visitors are forced to flee together, trying to stay one step ahead of their increasingly insane pursuers. The bad news keeps coming. There are too many to fight. There is no escape from the island. And the worst storm in years has just begun. They can only run and hide as they face a night of horror and madness. If they don't work together, then none of them will live to see the light of day.

Welcome to Julep, Mississippi, right on the Gulf Coast. Where neighbors have known each other for generations. Where the local hair salon has more information about what’s going on in town than either the local paper or the local sheriff’s department. The owner of the bakery knows you by name. The minister of the biggest church in town has more clout than the mayor. And people say “bless your heart” for all kinds of reasons, the least of which is when they’re ready to insult you.

The foothills of upstate New York are alive with something terrifying. It hunts, it tempts, it traps, and there’s no escape. Thomas R Clark reinvents Irish mythology and takes you on a bloody, emotional, and horrific journey back through time with the tale of the McEntire clan, and the devastating secrets they hold. The author of the Splatterpunk Awards-nominated Bella’s Boys: A Tale of Cosmic Horror has crafted a story that’s part The Wicker Man and part Cycle of the Werewolf, but at the same time like nothing you’ve heard before.