Supernatural Ghost

For more than 30 years, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror fans crave. Now, with the 11th volume of the series, Daltow's back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. This light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows.

Retired Marine, Shane Ryan, knows all about war. He’s fought in the toughest hellholes on the planet, and he has the scars, both physical and mental, to prove it. As the world’s foremost ghost hunter, Shane has defeated supernatural evil beyond imagination. But this time, the fight is personal.

Shane Ryan is no stranger to violence. He still carries the scars left by his battles against supernatural evil. But when a new enemy targets the people Shane served with in the Corps, the retired Marine finds himself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse. With only his young friend Tom Daniels to watch his back, Shane travels across America. Every move he makes is monitored. Everything he says or does is watched. And if he fails to follow this mysterious villain’s instructions, his fellow Marines will die.

Retired Marine Corps sergeant Shane Ryan has seen his share of death and violence. And as far as he’s concerned, the best defense is a good offense. So, when he and his friends manage to head off a supernatural attack at a nearby orphanage, he is determined to hunt down whoever is responsible for the carnage. There’s just one problem. The evil behind all this is a hopelessly deranged young boy who has developed the ability to command the restless spirits of the dead.

Ever since she was a child, Stacey Hanson has had strange dreams - and sometimes they come true. Her skills and experience led her straight to the FBI's Krewe of Hunters. Now a serial killer is stalking Washington, DC, and people are scared. And it will be Stacey's first case. Special Agent Keenan Wallace isn't exactly thrilled to be teamed up with a rookie, but they're going to have to get past their mutual friction if they want to stop a brutal killer.

Halloween - with its tricks and treats - is a dust bunny's dream come true. Just ask Lyle, Sedona Snow's faithful sidekick. But for Sedona, it's a nightmare. Though her new job managing a small hotel and tavern on Rainshadow is helping her move on from her tragic past, a bizarre disaster down in the catacombs has brought a pack of rowdy ghost hunters to her inn. And now, Sedona's ex has arrived on the island, claiming he wants to get back together, just as a newcomer appears to have a strong interest in her.

Beautiful, charming Victoria is world renowned for its seaside attractions, flourishing gardens, and breathtaking ocean views. But looming behind its picture-perfect façade is a city shrouded in mystery, with restless, disembodied beings that whisper ghastly tales of mystery, violence, and horror.

When I was three years old, I was found homeless in the woods, alone and feral. When asked how I survived all of those years by myself, I had one answer: the Shadow Man. I have no memory of that time. No memory of anything, really, before the accident. I rely on stories from my fathers about this supposed imaginary friend. Got into a fight at school? The Shadow Man made me. Stole from a store? He forced me to. Snuck out of the house? He came with me.

Past and present collide when a secret from the 1920s wreaks havoc on Marlow House. Walt struggles to remember what he may have forgotten before it's too late.

After finding herself the subject of a powerful psychic attack in the 1930s, famed British occultist Dion Fortune wrote this detailed instruction manual on protecting oneself from paranormal attack. This classic psychic self-defense guide explains how to understand the signs of a psychic attack, vampirism, hauntings, and methods of defense.

Retired Marine Shane Ryan has been waging a one-man war against evil for as long as he can remember. But when an old comrade is killed under mysterious circumstances, Shane's investigation leads him to Vakovia, a country teeming with restless spirits and dangerous secrets. In a war-torn city of the dead, Shane crosses paths with Reaper Company, an elite mercenary unit who fight with ghostly partners known as Spectral Assets. But can these supernatural soldiers be trusted? Or are they pawns in a darker conspiracy?

Keri Wolf has joined the crew of The Seekers, a show that searches for paranormal phenomena, as they explore a supposedly haunted old inn on the road between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. The place is famous for its warm welcome - and infamous for being the site of an ax murder rampage in the 1920s. They’ve barely begun when a very real dead body is discovered in the basement. As a nonfiction author, Keri is supposed to be the rational one, but she can’t explain a terrifying apparition that seems to be both a threat and a warning.

It was supposed to be a fun girls’ weekend in Salem, but when a past-life regression session instead sends a terrifying vision of murder to Kylie Connelly, she’s shaken and not sure what to think. Worse, later she identifies the attacker from her vision: He’s a prominent local politician. Special Agent Jon Dickson of the FBI’s Krewe of Hunters is on the trail of a suspected serial killer based on the scantest of clues and unreliable witness testimony. When he realizes Kylie’s vision might be his best lead, he must gain her trust and get close enough to guide her new talent.

The late - as in dearly departed - Bailey Ruth Raeburn is delighted when she's assigned a new mission by Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, even if she is no good at following the rules for Earthly Visitations. This time she's determined to be the perfect unseen emissary, no matter what it takes. Arriving late in the evening in her old hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma, to find a woman drowning in a pond, Bailey Ruth carries out a daring rescue with textbook invisible effort. But she soon realizes there's more to the woman’s accident than a late-night walk gone wrong.

Little girls are vanishing from Deadwood, South Dakota. Fearing her daughter might be next, single mom Violet Parker is desperate to find the monster behind the abductions. With her savings dwindling and just three weeks left to sell her first house or lose her realtor job, Violet is ecstatic when a handsome jeweler hires her to sell his century-old Victorian masterpiece - until she sees the dilapidated dwelling. Now if she could just convince her only buyer to stop rejecting vintage homes as if they're haunted.

In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father. When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened. Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen - and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past.

Ghost hunter Shane Ryan has returned to 125 Berkley Street, his home in Nashua, New Hampshire. Working with old friends and new allies, he continues his investigation of the robberies and deaths involving haunted items, hell-bent on discovering who’s responsible for these sinister crimes. But his investigation turns up more than he bargained for when he discovers a sinister presence lurking near a crime scene.

After 20-plus years in the land of the not-so-living, I didn't think a ghost could surprise me. Consider that winning streak over. While looking for the perfect piece of Seattle real estate, leave it to me to find the world's first ghost detective. Yeah, you heard that right. A ghost detective. The Supernatural Protection Agency has written her off as the ghost who cries murder, but this time she swears she's onto something big. Something real. Like a moth to a bonfire, I dive in headfirst, just in time for the trouble she's been following to take a U-turn.

In a new and major novel, the creator of fantastic universes of vampires and witches takes us now into the world of Isaiah and Jeremiah and the destruction of Solomon's Temple, to tell the story of Azriel, Servant of the Bones. He is ghost, genii, demon, angel - pure spirit made visible. He pours his heart out to us as he journeys from an ancient Babylon of royal plottings and religious upheavals to Europe of the Black Death and on to the modern world. There he finds himself, amidst the towers of Manhattan, in confrontation with his own human origins.

Twelve years after the grisly murder of her parents, Kaitlyn Delaney has finally found peace. She has friends, a good job, a place to call home and a new life to live. But then a shadow creeps in from Katie's past, reminding her that she will never completely escape its terrifying grip. When private investigator Dan Oliver is called to the scene of a gruesome crime in New Orleans, he can't help but hear echoes of the Delaney case, the unsolved murder that made him leave law enforcement. As he digs deeper, he unearths more chilling similarities.