Gothic Short Stories

Four ghost stories from England’s historic shires present a heady brew of the Gothic, folk horror, historical fiction and satire. The Ghost of Scarside Beck A newly-wed Cumbrian vicar and his wife experience a night like none they could ever have foreseen. He may have answered his calling, but who, or what, is calling her? At Fall of Night A ghostly excursion into the Victorian Gothic; a tale of obsession, terror, and vengeance. Welcome to Wiltshire in the autumn of 1843. Monsieur Benoit Lavarnier, toast of the Parisian art world and a man of cultured accomplishments, finds himself ...

Theodora Goss's first major short story collection showcases such stories as "The Rose in Twelve Petals," "The Rapid Advance of Sorrow," "Lily, With Clouds," "In the Forest of Forgetting," "Sleeping With Bears," and many more.

Some witches heal. Some witches curse. Some never die. Step into the shadowed corners of magic with Whispers of the Coven, a haunting collection of witch stories where the line between power and peril is razor-thin. Inside, you’ll discover: 🕯️ A hidden village where every woman is born with a secret spell—one that can only be used once. 🌙 A forgotten grimoire that writes new spells in human blood. 🔥 A witch trial where the accused is more dangerous than the executioners. 📖 A bookshop that appears only to those with unfinished business with the dead. 💀 A curse that keeps...

In a plague-stricken medieval convent, a nun works on a forbidden mystic manuscript. In rural South Carolina, an alligator named Dragon becomes a beloved pet for a precocious, tough-talking twelve-year-old. During a long, muggy July, an adolescent girl finds unexpected power as her family obsesses over the horror film The Exorcist. On the outskirts of a Southern college town, a young woman resists the tyranny of a shape-shifting older professor as she develops her own sorceress skills.

After the publication of her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides listeners with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People”.

Beneath the brilliance that was behind The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome was a dark side. A dark side which produced magnificent tales of the unseen influences in our lives, such as "Mr. Jones", "The Eyes", "Kerfol", "The Ladie's Maid's Bell", and "The Looking Glass".

The Vampire’s Fertile Valentine — A Paranormal Romance Short Story A deadly curse. A forbidden love. One chance to save them all. In the village of Lupercalia, Valentine's Day is more than a celebration—it's a sacred ritual for love, lust, and fertility. Each year, maidens draw the names of eligible bachelors from a ceremonial urn, forging a bond meant to bring life and prosperity to the land. But everything changes when the villagers shun a vampire's descendant from the draw—and their punishment is swift: a barren year, and a deadly curse upon their future. Now, the only way to ...

Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges’s most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight he takes us inside the minds of an unrepentant Nazi, an imprisoned Mayan priest, fanatical Christian theologians, a woman plotting vengeance on her father’s “killer,” and a man awaiting his assassin in a Buenos Aires guest house.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that are difficult to achieve elsewhere. The Gothic short story is one of the most enduring of genres. In this volume we explore works by classic authors from all corners of Europe as they explore and exploit narratives with their undeniable talents.

A ghostly presence in “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” desires revenge against a tyrannical husband. In “Mr. Jones”, Lady Jane Lynke inherits an estate unexpectedly, and can’t make sense of how to manage the servants - especially since the caretaker has been dead for decades, but keeps giving orders. Meanwhile, in “Afterward”, a newly wealthy American couple moves into a large, isolated house in southern England complete with a ghost...and the mysteries surrounding the husband’s business are slowly uncovered.

In a forgotten corner of the Slavic lands, where the trees grow thick with secrets and the rivers whisper ancient tales, a grim tradition lives on. Once a generation, the villagers of Ternok offers a sacrifice to the creature that stalks the night—the vampire who has haunted their hills for centuries. This time, the lot has fallen upon Nadia. She must resist the sexual temptations of the vampire throughout the night, hoping to slay him with sunlight. Will her betrothed, Branek, make it to the sacrificial altar in time to save Nadia, or will she fall victim to a vampire who will stop at ...

John Langan, author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel The Fisherman, returns with ten new tales of cosmic horror in Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies. In these stories, he continues to chart the course of twenty-first century weird fiction, from the unfamiliar to the familial, the unfathomably distant to the intimate.

Is it a gift if it’s taken by force? Treat yourself to this steamy anthology all centered around love, dominant men and their (mostly) willing Valentines. This set includes six brand new, scorching novellas by USA Today and other bestselling authors… Mr. Imperfect by Carolyn Faulkner Nina is a curvy girl who is wary of men who seem too perfect. She always seems to lose her heart to them when they want nothing to do with her. Then along comes Clete. He's entirely too perfect, although the first thing he does is treat her the way she's always wanted to be treated by a man. But is he just ...

She inherited a house, but discovered something far more valuable within the haunted walls... When Lyra inherits Fairlane Manor from her late great-uncle, she never imagined the secrets it held within its timeworn walls. The legacy of a once-renowned artist lingers like a specter, his eerie and lifelike animal paintings haunting the minds of those who dare to behold them. In a whispered legend, a traveler sought refuge at Fairlane Manor, only to become ensnared in the painter's mysterious masterpiece. Trapped within the canvas, he was cursed to roam as a fearsome werewolf, his fate forever ...

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

What if the real horror isn’t what you see—but what you remember? From debut author Scott Oscar comes Neural Static, a collection of six unsettling stories that dig deep into the fault lines of memory, perception, and the creeping sense that something isn’t quite right. These aren’t your typical ghosts. These are the echoes that follow you home, the whispers caught in broken recordings, the distortions that grow louder the more you try to ignore them. In these chilling tales: A grieving son is drawn into a decades-old list of haunted mirrors with deadly, shifting reflections. A ...

Echoes of the Forgotten: A Short Story Collection In Echoes of the Forgotten, five gripping tales unfold, each exploring the fragility of memory, the unspoken darkness lurking in everyday lives, and the harrowing choices that define us. The collection opens with "Echoes of the Forgotten," where Avery wakes in a sterile room with a family she doesn’t remember. As she unraveled the truth behind her accident, she discovered a terrifying conspiracy that threatens to erase her past and her future. In "The Golem’s Heart," Grim, a golem brought to life to protect a village from monstrous raids...

In every locked room, there's a secret waiting to be found—and a body left behind. From elite rehearsal spaces to package vaults, from forgotten hotel bathrooms to séance parlors sealed tight, this chilling collection of original locked-room thrillers explores what happens when the walls close in and the truth can't escape. Inside you'll find: A detective trapped in his own interrogation. A woman who wakes in a bath with her wrists taped—and no memory of why. A séance interrupted by someone who was never invited. A delivery crate that holds a body—and your name. An acting class ...

This omnibus brings together seven of H.E. Bulstrode’s ghost stories originally published between 2016 and 2018. These are: The Ghost of Scarside Beck A newly-wed Cumbrian vicar and his wife experience a night like none they could ever have foreseen. He may have answered his calling, but who, or what, is calling her? Old Crotchet The year is 1920, and it's Twelfth Night by the old reckoning. Festivities are about to commence at Hinton St Cuthbert Manor when something sinister stirs from its protracted dormancy, awakened, it would seem, by the arrival of two young guests. The old ways, ...

Hot Sleep Sex Stories Bundle. Taken Deep While She Sleeps, Age Gap & More! The Complete Sleepy ~ While She Sleeps series: Sleepy for the Man of the House Sleepy for My Best Friend’s Brother Sleepy for the Country Doctor Includes intimacy, surprises and unexpected twists.