Raised in a household so filthy it was stomach-spilling, Vera involuntarily evolved into a neat freak. Upon discovering she and her disabled husband, Daniel, are expecting, she needs fast cash. Her obsession with cleanliness sprouts the concept that her skills can be put to use in a unique way. She takes a stab at the booming door-to-door vacuum sales business of 1988. All is going well until she arrives at the steps of a house that will change her forever. The steps of an evil that resurrects the ghastly memories she so desperately tried to wash away.

Nicholas, a would-be poet, and Nakota, his feral lover, discover a strange hole in the storage room floor down the hall - "Black. Pure black and the sense of pulsation, especially when you look at it too closely, the sense of something not living but alive." It begins with curiosity, a joke - the Funhole down the hall. But then the experiments begin. "Wouldn't it be wild to go down there?" says Nakota. Nicholas says "We're not." But they're not in control, not from the first moment, as those experiments lead to obsession, violence, and a very final transformation.

"They're just kids.... It's only a game." That's what Barbara, a lovely 20-year-old babysitter told herself when she awoke bound and gagged. But the knots were tight and painful and the children would not let her go.

Welcome to Derry, Maine. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real. They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made 28 years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children.

On a brisk autumn day, a 13-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: His father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America - and into another realm. One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery.

Since his wife died, Ralph Roberts has been having trouble sleeping. Each night he wakes up a bit earlier until he's barely sleeping at all. During his late-night walks, he observes some strange things going on in Derry, Maine. He sees colored ribbons streaming from people's heads, two strange little men wandering around town after dark, and more. He begins to suspect that these visions are something more than hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep.

Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, a thing so terrible-strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet. For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost. It's the real thing.

Located off a desolate stretch of Interstate 50, Desperation, Nevada, has few connections with the rest of the world. It is a place, though, where the seams between worlds are thin. And it is a place where several travelers are abducted by Collie Entragian, the maniacal police officer of Desperation. Entragian uses various ploys for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to "rescuing" a family from a nonexistent gunman.

Rosie Daniels leaves her husband, Norman, after 14 years in an abusive marriage. She is determined to lose herself in a place where he won't find her. She'll worry about all the rest later. Alone in a strange city, she begins to make a new life, and good things finally start to happen. Meeting Bill is one, and getting an apartment is another. Still, it's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason. Norman is a cop, with the instincts of a predator.

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache, and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances.

Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.

Spider Season is the debut collection by Billy Hanson. Deeply haunting and immensely enjoyable, these stories are sure to leave you wide-eyed and breathing heavily.

Alan, Tommy, Rick, Donald and Bernard were inseparable best friends living in the small, coastal Massachusetts town of Potter's Cove. A circle of five, their world was simple and happy until the day Tommy was struck by a car and killed. Nothing was ever the same. They were never the same. Years later, as the four survivors - all unhappy, unsuccessful and marking time - approach their 40th birthdays, Bernard suddenly commits suicide....

They're watching. They've wiretapped the apartment. They've got their daughter. They told them they'd hurt her if they spoke about it. They told them, "Don't say a word...." Or else....

In a future world under attack from the undead, the powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Consequently, there are many false claims of hauntings from those hoping to profit. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully-tattooed witch and freewheeling ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for nailing human liars and banishing the wicked dead.

They're watching. They've wiretapped the apartment. They've got their daughter. They told them they'd hurt her if they spoke about it. They told them, "Don't say a word...." Or else....

On a brisk autumn day, a 13-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: His father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America - and into another realm. One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery.

Sarai was only fourteen when her mother uprooted her to live in Mexico with a notorious drug lord. Over time she forgot what it was like to live a normal life, but she never let go of her hope to escape the compound where she has been held for the past nine years. Victor is a cold-blooded assassin who, like Sarai, has known only death and violence since he was a young boy. When Victor arrives at the compound to collect details and payment for a hit, Sarai sees him as her only opportunity for escape.

The $400,000 would take care of the mortgage payments that are starting to back up on Tom and Anna Reed. It would cover the credit-card debt they can't get out from under. It would help them find a way to have the child they desperately want but can't seem to conceive. It is more money than either of them has ever seen in one place. But they have no idea what it's doing in their house.

Margo is not like other girls. She lives in a derelict neighborhood called the Bone, in a cursed house, with her cursed mother, who hasn't spoken to her in over two years. She lives her days feeling invisible. It's not until she develops a friendship with her wheelchair-bound neighbor, Judah Grant, that things begin to change. When a neighborhood girl, seven-year-old Neveah Anthony, goes missing, Judah sets out to help Margo uncover what happened to her. What Margo finds changes her, and with a new perspective on life she's determined to find evil and punish it.

Remember how many lies we told, Molly? It’s enough to make my head spin. You were wild when I met you, and I was mad for you. But then something happened. And now you’re gone. But don’t worry. I’ll find you. I just need to sift through the story of us to get to where you might be. I’ve got places to look and a list of names. The police have a list of names, too. See now? There’s another lie. There is only one person they’re really looking at, Molly. And that’s yours truly.

Unbeknownst to most of humankind, a powerful network of witches thrives within the shadows of society, using their magic to keep the world in balance. But they are being eliminated - and we will all pay if their power falls... When Elyse MacAllister's great-aunt Eleanora, the woman who raised her, becomes deathly ill, Lyse puts her comfortable life in Georgia on hold to rush back to Los Angeles. And once she returns to Echo Park, Lyse discovers her great-aunt has been keeping secrets.

Sometimes you don't mean to become another person. Sometimes the choice is made for you, and pretending is the only thing that keeps you going. When Alexis Romera is taken and her kidnappers find her fake ID in her purse, she must become Sophia in order to keep her family safe. Revealing her real identity to the man she's sold to would be easy enough, but can she trust him? Hell-bent on avenging the murder of his uncle, Rebel doesn't seem all that interested in playing things safe.

Born into a family of modest means and respectability, Danny Fisher was gradually driven downward into the world of crime, racketeering and poverty. His bitterness, his homesickness over the loss of the house in Brooklyn that was given to him for his eighth birthday, and his feud with his harsh father, pulled him one way; his natural decency and his love for a sweet Italian girl, Nellie Petito, pulled him another.

With novels like Mystic River and Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane has dramatically altered the landscape of the crime thriller—while boldly overstepping the boundaries that have long separated mystery from literature. Now two of his sensational early novels have been combined in a single volume—two gritty and mesmerizing masterworks of suspense featuring the private eye duo of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro.

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the 21st century: They are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves - and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival - as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction.

In Kenya, when a young American man falls in love with the sophisticated daughter of an African chief, their marriage is strong. But tradition will soon put their union to the supreme test. Gripping and soulful, A Woman's Worth is a tale of cultural divisions, emotional wounds, and a love that struggles to transcend them.

Alex was Ian's five-year-old son: brilliant, earnest, and compassionate. He is dead now, but Ian can't let him go. When his wife urges him to move on, he drives her away. His performance at work collapses; his friends leave him. Six months later, alone in an empty house, Ian starts to see his son again.

One woman's story as she blogs about - and fights back against - the zombie apocalypse.

Allison Hewitt and her five colleagues at the Brooks and Peabody Bookstore are trapped together when the zombie outbreak hits. Allison reaches out for help through her blog, writing on her laptop. It may also be her only chance to reach her mother. But as the reality of their situation sinks in, Allison's blog becomes a harrowing account of her edge-of-the-seat adventures.

Awakening in a bleak landscape as scarred as her body, Cass Dollar vaguely recalls surviving something terrible. Having no idea how many weeks have passed, she slowly realizes the horrifying truth: Ruthie has vanished. And with her, nearly all of civilization. Where once-lush hills carried cars and commerce, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters - people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong.