Horror Suspense

The Movie Town Theater is holding its first ever Film Noir Festival, with Pen handling book sales for the guest speakers, including screen actress Hedda Geist. The legendary femme fatale has been out of the spotlight for decades. Unfortunately, the moment she steps back into it, she's nearly killed. Then other guests start to die, and Penelope wants to know why her little town's Film Noir weekend has taken a truly dark turn.

On a warm summer's day by the English seaside, 23-year-old Freya spies a pale, pillared house: Byrne Hall. Before she can think twice, she's stepped inside to an ornate foyer featuring a striking portrait that evokes her late sister, Stella, whose untimely fall from a cliff years before still haunts Freya and her father. When an inexplicable longing leads her back to Byrne Hall several weeks later, she meets Cory, a handsome and enigmatic young artist who remains in the house to care for his ailing mother.

They said she needed help. But the real help she needed was escaping this place with her life. Niyah Smith thought her biggest problem was her parents’ crumbling marriage. But when she’s framed by a crooked cop and sentenced to Bordeaux Behavioral Hospital, she finds herself trapped in a living nightmare. At first, the hospital seems like a place of healing. But Niyah soon discovers the horrific truth: it’s an underground chamber of torture, experimentation and death, all concealed behind a gleaming facade. Ruled with sinister precision by the corrupt Dr. Jackyl and her sister Officer...

A desolate young girl finds herself trapped in rising floodwaters after her little brother is tragically killed in a hit and run accident during a catastrophic hurricane. As she and her mother fight to overcome their grief and the wrath of the storm, her faceless assailant sits out of harm's way with callous disregard for their struggles.

A novel of memory, revenge, and the cost of silence. When a woman returns to the house where everything happened, she doesn’t come for closure—she comes with a box of matches. In the wake of a man’s death by fire, a woman begins to unravel the truth she buried years ago, one journal entry at a time. But memory is never linear, and truth doesn’t come clean. As voices from her past rise through the smoke—some hers, some not—she begins to understand that what she did can’t be undone. And worse: that she might not want to. For Her Anger is the first novel in a haunting companion ...

When the body of a famous television academic is discovered in Greenwich Park, carefully positioned beside a megalithic stone fountain and missing a hand, DI Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon find themselves not only involved in a case that connects to the supernatural, but one that also involves seventeenth-century architects, ley lines, nuclear reactors, and a secret, black market organization that specializes in particular occult items; some that date all the way back to Aleister Crowley, Dr. John Dee himself, and connected to a missing treasure.

In the shadows of Area 51's clandestine labs, the unthinkable has been unleashed: creatures engineered to decimate armies now roam free. Driven by a scientist's ambition, these beasts defy the bounds of nature, but at what cost? When ethical lines blur into oblivion, one scientist's desperate flight for survival awakens the beasts' taste for freedom. As they veer toward Alamo, Nevada, carving a swathe of carnage, the military scrambles to contain an error too fatal to admit. Created to be unstoppable on the battlefield, these creatures are unbound by human constraints, sowing fear with ...

This second novel in the acclaimed Greywalker series finds PI Blaine Harper investigating a chilling case as Halloween approaches. After university researchers create an artificial poltergeist, the team leader suspects someone is faking the phenomena. When a student is murdered, Blaine is asked to investigate. Stepping into the spirit world, she realizes the haunting may be very real. But that doesn't necessarily mean a ghost did the killing.

Black Hollow is a town with a dark secret. For centuries, residents have foretold the return of the Dreamwalker - an ominous figure from local folklore said to lure young women into the woods and possess them. Yet the boundary between fact and fable is blurred by a troubling statistic: Occasionally, women do go missing. And after they return, they almost always end up dead.

It can be dangerous to hide Her husband has hurt her for the last time. Battered and bloodied, Wendy flees for her life into the night. She finds refuge at the beautiful Magnolia House bed and breakfast where she lets twins Millie and Maude hide her to keep her safe. She’s given a job and a room and even a new friend, Griffin. She tries to build a new life, but soon finds her idyllic escape isn’t what it seems. Danger lurks in the corners of the old house. She must face the darkness inside herself or die trying. Thriller readers, like you, say, “This book rocked me. I had to keep ...

When Arkham Advertiser reporter Andy van Nortwick receives a mysterious film reel in the mail, with a simple note: "Maude Brion is very much alive!", he steps onto a path which will lead him to the brink of madness. Brion, the famous actress and film director, vanished a year ago on an ill-fated expedition into the Amazon rainforest, delving into the legend of the Spider Queen. Thrilled by the prospect of his big break, Nortwick swings the funds to launch a rescue mission. He gathers a team of explorers and a keen folklorist to bring back Brion and cement his reputation.

Newly widowed, Victoria Blanc built an empire in Louisiana, transforming “The Magnolia” from a struggling plantation to one envied throughout the South. Her wealth and privilege protected her from scorn and ridicule. Victoria operated her southern empire proudly and in defiance of the social mores and norms men in Louisiana tried to impose upon her. One night, her reign would come to an end in violence and bloodshed at the hands of her rivals, bothered by Victoria’s presence and desire for change. Her murder marked not the end, but the beginning of a new chapter in her legacy. For ...

As Mara Reeves continues unraveling the truth behind the mysterious Spiral, she uncovers something more terrifying than murder—replication. When her own memories begin to misalign and encrypted messages surface from deep within the Echo compound, Mara must confront the possibility that the person she is now may not be the one who began this investigation. As the tone spreads and sleepers begin to wake, the Spiral isn’t just speaking through her. It’s becoming her. Listener Code is the gripping third installment in the darkly immersive Listener series by breakout author Ava Rowens. ...

X is trapped living in the slums of the last remaining city on Earth. He can only venture out beyond the towering walls to scavenge relics of the old world when the sun is up. At night, like everybody else, he hides inside from the monsters of the shadows...until an unexpected death occurs a little too close to home. With the blame on his shoulders, and trigger-happy guards on his trail, X has no choice but to run. But the city was never a safe place to begin with, not really, and his only slim chance of survival lies outside the walls, in a landscape empty of humanity.

Burdened by debt after her husband's death, Lucy Muir insists on moving into the very cheap Gull Cottage in the quaint seaside village of Whitecliff, despite multiple warnings that the house is haunted. Upon discovering the rumors to be true, the young widow ends up forming a special companionship with the ghost of handsome former sea captain Daniel Gregg. Lucy finds in her secret relationship with Captain Gregg a comfort and blossoming love she never could have predicted.

A family reunion turns fatal as sisters delve into a haunted past within eerie manor walls. Dive into a riveting gothic thriller where two sisters confront their long-lost mother's sinister past in a haunted manor.

Unlock the Secrets of Fear. Master the Mechanics of Dread. Whether you’re crafting a pulse-pounding thriller or slow-burning supernatural horror, Writing Suspense and Horror is your complete guide to gripping your reader—and never letting go. This comprehensive handbook takes you deep into the psychology of fear and the structure of tension. Learn how to create unforgettable characters, build dread scene by scene, and design plots that twist, tighten, and terrify. From atmospheric worldbuilding to heart-stopping finales, this book covers everything from genre history to hands-on craft. ...

Their Collapse is the fourth haunting installment in the critically acclaimed The Weight of Your Shadow series by dark fiction author Ava Rowens. Told in chilling second-person perspective, the series follows you, an intelligent, unsettling presence living two lives—one curated, one compelled. After orchestrating the “cleansing” of a toxic factory owner in a small town that would rather forget, you return home unchanged on the surface—but deeper fractures have started to show. The women of the last kill still echo in your head. The blank hours, the absence of control, the ...

Five haunting tales from Benedict Ashforth, the best-selling author of Abbot's Keep.

Three years ago in a large Victorian house on the Jersey Shore in the town of Harbor Haven, fledgling private investigator Paul and his client, Maxie Malone, were murdered. Since then, recent divorcée and reluctant ghost whisperer Alison Kerby and her 10-year-old daughter, Melissa, have moved in and converted the place to a guesthouse, where Maxie and Paul are now checked in for an eternity and ready to solve any case that comes their way - or at least spook the guests (who love it). Alison’s got a lot on her plate at the moment, however, so when Paul discovers the 300-year-old ghost of a small boy in the house, he decides not to involve her in the case.