C. Binggeli

Thirty-three-year-old Anne Towry is a woman who knows little about herself and even less about her family. Sent away from Whitehall Manor when she was only ten years old, Anne struggles to make sense of her life. When she receives an urgent phone call from a Dr. Cornish informing her that her mother, Seraphine, has gone missing, Anne returns to her childhood home in an attempt to figure out what went wrong.

When the healer Snake was summoned, she traveled the blasted landscape with her three serpents. From the venom of two of them, she distilled her medicines. But most valued of all was the alien dreamsnake, whose bite could ease the fear and pain of death.

There's something wrong with Ashburn House. The ancient building has been the subject of rumours for close to a century. Its owner, Edith, refused to let guests inside and rarely visited the nearby town. Following Edith's death, her sole surviving relative, Adrienne, inherits the property. Adrienne's only possessions are a suitcase of luggage, 20 dollars, and her pet cat. Ashburn House is a lifeline she can't afford to refuse. Adrienne doesn't believe in ghosts, but it's hard to ignore the unease that grows as she explores her new home.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: 23 of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter, sometimes all at once. They are told by people who have answered an ad headlined "Writers' Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months", and who are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of "real life" that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them.