From the depths of grief and the thirst for revenge to the terror of supernatural forces and the fight for survival, these stories and others delve into the darkest corners of our world where the lines between reality and nightmare blur, and the only certainty is that nothing is quite as it seems.

Rumors spread and townspeople claim there are rational explanations. But the seemingly normal village has a haunted past: missing children and whispers about a strange creature in the woods. The one person who tries to find an explanation discovers that he may be the next to disappear.

Brian Dubisar is an ordinary math teacher, but he’s hiding a monster within. As reformed serial killer, his past is a shadow that never fades. When a man-eating spider, a spinner, threatens his students, he makes it a devil’s bargain: it will only eat the humans Brian provides and leave all others alone. As the body count rises, he struggles with protecting his students while fulfilling his darkest desires. On the verge of killing innocent people, Brian must choose to shed his past or relapse completely.

This enchanting and atmospheric fantasy brings listeners to a Paris breathless with excitement at the dawn of the twentieth century. But for a select few there is a second, secret Paris where the magic of the City of Light is very real.

Walking through his own house at night, a young boy thinks he sees another person stepping through a doorway. The figure reminds him of his long-dead father, who drowned mysteriously before his family left the reservation. When he follows, it he discovers his house is bigger and deeper than he ever knew. The house is the kind of wrong place where you can lose yourself and find things you'd rather not have.

After a small coastal town is devastated by a hurricane, the survivors gravitate toward a long out-of-service payphone in hopes of talking out their grief and saying goodbye to loved ones, only for it to begin ringing on its own. As more townspeople answer the call, friends and family believed to have been lost to the storm begin searching for a way back home.

Midsommar meets The Shadows Between Us in this alluring mash-up of horror and fairy tale from New York Times bestselling author Madeleine Roux, where a girl must embark on a harrowing journey through a deadly forest filled with otherworldly creatures, supernatural forces, and one maniacal villain who will stop at nothing to bring her down.

Demeter just wants to do her job: shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans. To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team of monsters. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula.

The house does not have electricity, and the eccentric nature of the family is displayed through the grotesque artwork that lines the walls of the manor. As Noelle wrestles with her own struggles with understanding her connection to death, she is also plunged headfirst into the dark mysteries surrounding the August family. The dying patriarch who she is strangely never able to see. The head of the household who is incapable of giving a straight answer. And a boy unable to speak but clearly terrified of something.

It’s 2067 and Florida is partially underwater, but even that can’t bring down the residents of Palm Meridian Retirement Resort, a utopian home for women who want to revel in their twilight years. Inside, Hula-Hoopers shimmy across the grass, fiercely competitive book clubs nearly come to blows, and the roller-ski team races up and down the winding paths. Injuries can occur, hips and backs not being what they were, but everywhere you look, these women are living large.

Audrey Mae Scott has felt the sting of her mother's whipping stick far too many times. Unlike her little brother, Harry, she must do whatever she's told without question . . . or else. Her only solace from her fear and loneliness comes from writing about her plight. Though outwardly obedient, Audrey refuses to give up on her dreams, and she is determined to never become like her mother, Edith.

Ever since she was a teenager, Tessa Nilsson has been consumed by the story of four friends who disappeared. As her true crime fervor turned into a wildly popular podcast, Tessa covered Sweden’s most gruesome cases, but could never find the answers behind what happened to these women who disappeared. Now Tessa’s podcast has crashed and burned, any chance she had at uncovering the truth vanishing with it.

Sad Tiger is built on the facts of a series of devastating events. Neige Sinno was seven years old when her stepfather started sexually abusing her. At nineteen, she decided to break the silence that is so common in all cultures around sexual violence. This led to a public trial and prison for her stepfather, and Sinno started a new life in Mexico.

Camilla’s childhood was immersed in love and chaos, and steeped in perfection. As an adult she hasn’t looked back, refusing to acknowledge the people and places that scarred her so many years ago. But a cancer diagnosis forces Camilla to turn to the past, and all its pain, to save her daughter. As Camilla discovers the bittersweet limitations of motherhood and reconciliation, she also awakens an inspiring message about the mortality issues we all must face.

Walter Simmering is searching for love and purpose in a city he doesn’t realize is fading away—San Francisco in 1993, at the height of the AIDS epidemic and the dawn of the tech revolution. Out of college, out of the closet, and transplanted from the Midwest, Walter is irresistibly drawn from his shell when he meets Cary Menuhin and Sasha Stravinsky, a dynamic couple who live blithely beyond the boundaries of gender and sexuality.