Horror Literature History

Sixteen-year-old photography enthusiast Zoey has been fascinated by the haunted, burnt-out ruins of Medwyn Mill House for as long as she can remember - so she and her best friend, Poulton, run away from home to explore them. In 1851, 17-year-old Roan arrives at the Mill House as a ward - one of three, all with something to hide from their new guardian. 1583. Hermione, a new young bride, accompanies her husband to the wilds of North Wales where he plans to build the largest water mill and mansion in the area.

1918. A First World War battlefield becomes the cosmic battleground for two vampires, as Karl von Wultendorf struggles to free himself from his domineering maker, Kristian.1923. Charlotte Neville watches as her father, a Cambridge professor, fills Parkland Hall with guests for her sister Madeleine's 18th birthday party.

This panoramic fictional oral history begins with one small mystery: the body of a young woman found in an Arizona border town, presumed to be an illegal immigrant, disappears from the town morgue. Soon, the US government - and eventually biomedical researchers, disgruntled lawmakers, and even an insurgent faction of the Catholic Church - must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep first the United States, and then the world. With heightened strength and beauty and a steady diet of fresh blood, these changed people, or "Gloamings", rapidly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society.

On the night of July 15, 1903, Nikola Tesla powered up his 190-foot tower in Wardenclyffe on Long Island's North shore. The bolts of energy radiating from the apical dome were visible as far away as New Haven, Connecticut. This was the first and last time anyone would witness such a display. Three years later, broke and unable to secure further funding, Tesla abandoned the Wardenclyffe tower and his dream of worldwide wireless power. He returned to Manhattan where he promptly suffered a nervous breakdown. So say the history books.

In the shocking finale to the best-selling series that began with Stalking Jack the Ripper, Audrey Rose and Thomas are on the hunt for the depraved, elusive killer known as the White City Devil. A deadly game of cat-and-mouse has them fighting to stay one step ahead of the brilliant serial killer - or see their fateful romance cut short by unspeakable tragedy.

Shoggoths attack in this adrenaline-pumping novel set in the world of H. P. Lovecraft, where the horrors of the cosmos know no limits… It was in a way humanoid, as it stood on two legs and possessed two arms that ended in delicate digits that I would dare to call hands. Its skin was a pale blue, like the eggs of a robin, and curiously dry looking. The head was massive with a huge bulbous cranium, a large lipless mouth, and three blood red eyes that stared out at the world with nothing but hate.

Laura Caxton vowed never to face them again. The horror of what the vampires did is too close, the wounds too fresh. But when Jameson Arkeley, broken and barely recognizable, comes to her with an unfathomable, unholy discovery, her resolve crumbles.

It is 1944. A message from Paris warns Allied Intelligence of something big in the works - something which might have serious implications for D-Day. The only way to get more information from the agent in Paris - now closely watched by the Gestapo - is to send in a personal courier. Russian émigré Michael Gallatin is picked for the job. In retirement as a secret agent since a grisly episode in North Africa, Gallatin is parachuted into occupied France, on a mission which will take him to the festering heart of the Third Reich on the scent of doomsday.

For fans of the oral history genre phenomenon World War Z, a worldwide plague of insomnia creates a devastating new apocalypse. Sleep Over is collection of waking nightmares, a scrapbook of the haunting and poignant stories from those trapped in a world where the pillars of society are crumbling, and madness is slowly descending on a planet without rest.

The real monsters are men. London 1888, and Jack the Ripper is terrorizing the people of the city. Evelyn, a young woman disfigured by her dangerous work in a matchstick factory, with nowhere to go, does not know what to make of her new position as a maid to the Elephant Man in London Hospital. Evelyn wanted to be locked away from the world like he is, shut away from the filth and dangers of the streets. But in Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, she finds a gentle kindred who does not recoil from her and who understands her pain.

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In 17th-century Hungary, Anna Darvulia has just begun working as a scullery maid for the young and glamorous Countess Elizabeth Báthory. When Elizabeth takes a liking to Anna, she’s vaulted to the dream role of chambermaid, a far cry from the filthy servants’ quarters below. She receives wages generous enough to provide for her family, and the Countess begins to groom Anna as her friend and confidante. It’s not long before Anna falls completely under the Countess’s spell - and the Countess takes full advantage.

Professor Johan Eschbach had hoped for a quiet life in retirement from the intelligence service, teaching environmental science and living with his new wife, but an unusual invitation from the Mormon nation of Deseret inexorably drags him back into the spy business, though he isn't quite sure why or for whom. It quickly becomes apparent that he is being used as a pawn in a deadly game of international maneuverings that are leading the world closer to war.

Colonel W.B. Townsend has fallen on rough times establishing the Little River Lumber Company due to strange occurrences preventing the construction of his railroad. Detectives William Rue and Johnny Walking-Stick from the Pinkerton Detective Agency are called to find the unknown saboteurs and bring them to justice. A new threat descends on this small, developing town, with nefarious plans that may one day threaten the entire world. Will the citizens of Townsend and the Foresters of Stillwater set aside their differences and join forces against the nightmare known as the Rougarou?

After vowing never to return, Kara Wade is back in New York City. She’s come to claim the body of her twin sister, Kelly, and to find out how she died. No secret as to the cause of death - a nearly nude, 12-story plunge from a room in the Plaza Hotel - but Kara is determined to learn what led to that plunge. Enlisting the help of an old lover, now an NYPD detective, Kara delves into her sister’s life. Startling and bizarre facts begin to surface. Instead of answers, Kara finds more questions. Who was the stranger Kelly became during the months prior to her death?

Under the shadow of gray clouds, three children venture into the woods, where they spot the corpse of an old man on a scaffold. Suddenly a wild figure emerges, with long fingernails and tangled hair. It is the Hattak fullih nipi foni, the bone picker, who comes to tear off rotting flesh with his fingernails. Only the Choctaws who adhere to the old ways will speak of him. The frightening bone picker is just one of many entities, scary and mysterious, who lurk behind every moment of this spine-tingling collection of Native fiction, written by award-winning Choctaw author Devon A. Mihesuah.

1954: In South East Asia, Cade Martin, hero of the Midnight Front during World War II, chases ghosts and flees his past. In the United States, Briet Segfrunsdóttir heads the Pentagon’s top-secret magickal warfare program. And in South America, Anja Kernova hunts fugitive Nazi sorcerers with the help of a powerful magickal tome known as the Iron Codex. In an ever-more dangerous world, a chance encounter sparks an international race to find Anja and steal the Iron Codex.

Scholars and book collectors across the country have long pondered the intended fate of the infamous collection of rare occult books left to rot in the Church of Starry Wisdom in Providence, Rhode Island, after the Starry Wisdom cult dispersed to parts unknown in the late 19th century. The recent shocking discovery of a previously unknown book auction catalogue issued in 1877 offers insight into the myriad mysteries of the cult.

"Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" (1931) is the title of M. R. James' first collection of ghost stories. He wrote many of his ghost stories to be read aloud in the long tradition of spooky Christmas Eve tales. By contrast to the gothic tales of his predecessors, James' stories often use rural settings, with a quiet, scholarly protagonist getting caught up in the activities of supernatural forces. The details of horror are almost never explicit, the stories relying on a gentle, bucolic background to emphasize the awfulness of the otherworldly intrusions.

Many creatures lurk in the dark, weaving on top of one another, roiling together like waves on the night sea. The darkness forms in layers to encompass the land, fill the corners, and obscure angles. Untold mysteries lie just beyond reach told in many tongues, many inflections, many rhythms. The stories are many. Innumerable. Legion.