Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called “Devil Boy” or Sam “Hell” by his classmates; “God’s will” is what his mother called his ocular albinism. Her words were of little comfort, but Sam persevered. Sam believed it was God who sent Ernie Cantwell, the only African American kid in his class, to be the friend he so desperately needed. And that it was God’s idea for Mickie Kennedy to storm into Our Lady of Mercy like a tornado, uprooting every rule Sam had been taught about boys and girls. Forty years later, Sam, a small-town eye doctor, is no longer certain anything was by design.

Callis Rose is a girl blessed with a gift from above or cursed with a ruthless power she barely understands; it's really just a matter of degrees. As her family life is turned asunder she is thrown into an indifferent Social Services program where she defends herself the only way she knows how. Callis is moved from home to home until she finally settles at the Lowries. As she starts her first day of high school she meets both her favorite and least favorite person. Both happen to be part of the same household.

Escaping from a madman should have been the end of her nightmare. Instead it was only the beginning...Lizzy Gardner was just seventeen when she was kidnapped by the psychopath known as Spiderman, a serial killer terrorizing her California hometown. Imprisoned and tormented for months, Lizzy narrowly escaped with her life and Spiderman vanished without a trace. But if she thought he would forget her, she was dead wrong.

Ten years ago, PI Jessie Cole and reporter Ben Morrison each suffered a tragedy that changed their lives - and now these two strangers are about to share a nightmare. For Jessie, who makes her living finding missing persons, no case has consumed her more than the disappearance of her younger sister, Sophie. But left alone to raise Sophie's daughter, she realizes that solving the case has become an unhealthy obsession.

Thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, witnessed only by her younger sister. Her family was shattered, but managed to stick together, hoping against hope that Julie is still alive. And then one night: the doorbell rings. A young woman who appears to be Julie is finally, miraculously, home safe. The family is ecstatic - but Anna, Julie's mother, has whispers of doubts. She hates to face them.

In Mayfield, Delaware, the carnival is in town. Seventeen-year-old Lexi Cartwright, daughter of the local deputy sheriff and leading lady of her high school drama club, expects nothing more from her weekend than a few hours of fun, and perhaps a kiss from Eddie Ross. But for Lexi - and for the rest of the 11th Hour Players - the real monsters aren't in the Pavilion of the Unusuals, and the real terror isn't on the Ferris wheel. It's lurking in the Funhouse.

It’s been almost a year since Makani Young came to live with her grandmother and she’s still adjusting to her new life in rural Nebraska. Then, one by one, students at her high school begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair. As the body count rises and the terror grows closer, can Makani survive the killer’s twisted plan?

Frederick is a demon. Born in Maryland in the early 1980's, he hasn't a clue where he came from or why, but feels an irresistible desire to occupy a human body. Once inside, he finds the previous occupants' consciousness and memories forever erased, an inevitable side effect that gives Frederick pause when switching bodies, but not so much as to truly halt his ongoing enjoyment of human lives. In various bodies, he travels the world for decades - aimless - sampling cultures and experiencing life from the points of view of males, females, young, old, rich, poor.

Less than a year after the horrific Masonville High shooting, Owen is determined to uncover why the Creepers have converged on his land and the school—a necessary step in his mission to drive evil forces out of his town. A supernatural visitor tests Owen’s ability to discern between truth and lies as the community is rocked by abductions and disappearances. While the town comes together to find those who are missing, Owen must fight to discover what is real and what is part of a strategy to distract him from his true purpose.

It was more than a break-in. More than a stalking. It was personal. When a stalker targets his family, journalist Jack Crittendon must uncover who the person is and what his motives are - if he is to protect the ones he loves. It will lead Crittendon into a world of behind-closed-door secrets and faith gone awry, as does his investigation of a missing pastor, whose apparent suicide is more than it appears.

Danny Orchard wrote a best-selling memoir about his near-death experience in a fire that claimed the life of his twin sister, Ashleigh, but despite the resulting fame and fortune he's never been able to enjoy his second chance at life. Ash won't let him.

In 1978, Laurie Strode survived an encounter with Michael Myers, a masked figure who killed her friends and terrorized the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, on Halloween night. Myers was later gunned down, apprehended, and committed to Smith's Grove State Hospital. For forty years, memories of that nightmarish ordeal have haunted Laurie and now Myers is back once again on Halloween, having escaped a routine transfer, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

A piercingly raw debut story collection from a young writer with an explosive voice; a treacherously surreal and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it's like to be young and black in America.

While his successful wife goes off to her law office each day, Simon Connolly takes care of their kids, Jake and Laney. Now that they are in high school, the angst-ridden father should feel more relaxed, but he doesn't. He's seen the statistics, read the headlines. And now, his darkest fear is coming true. There has been a shooting at school.

I named myself. I took the word animal out of their mouths, wore it like a badge of honor, then shoved it down their throats. I've fought for what I have. I see you coming before you even know you want a piece of me. In a city riddled with warring families, I'll rise up between them. My people, the broken souls I gather, will have power by the time I'm done with them.

While his successful wife goes off to her law office each day, Simon Connolly takes care of their kids, Jake and Laney. Now that they are in high school, the angst-ridden father should feel more relaxed, but he doesn't. He's seen the statistics, read the headlines. And now, his darkest fear is coming true. There has been a shooting at school.

When a local girl falls prey to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves in a joint investigation pursuing a vicious murderer. The Southern Strangler is slaughtering his way through the Southeast, leaving a gruesome memento at each crime scene – the prior victim’s severed hand.

FBI analyst Kassidy Bishop is assigned to the "'For You' Killer" task force after a series of sadistic murders bearing the same signature arise in different parts of the country. The homicides are both calculated and savage, occurring in different states, but bearing the same signature: the words "for you" scribbled at each crime scene. The case chills Kassidy, bringing back memories of her own encounter with a violent criminal five years earlier.

Women are missing and dying in the Triangle area of North Carolina. One woman holds the key to why. With the conclusion of the Y-Man murders nine months ago and her resignation from the FBI, former Special Agent and Behavioral Analyst Rainey Bell has finally found peace and contentment she never thought possible - even if she remains a bit paranoid. Her wariness is justified when a monster from her past rears his demonic head. Rainey has faced death and evil before - alone. Now it’s different - she has a family to protect, her own. Only Rainey can keep them alive. Or can she?

Following the death of his 10-year-old son, physician Peter Croft embarks on a desperate, seemingly random search for a missing child, risking his sanity, even his life in a grief-induced quest. His journey propels him into the darkest reaches of human suffering and pits him squarely against an adversary whose own obsession defies all reason.

For years Chuck Palahniuk has reserved his best storytelling for his readings, often choosing to read a new short story instead of whatever novel he is supposed to be promoting. Make Something Up compiles these previously unpublished tales for the very first time, plus the Byliner social media insta-classic "Phoenix" and Palahniuk's most notable pieces from Playboy.

Alexis, Nick, and Ruby have very different backgrounds: Alexis has spent her life covering for her mom's mental illness, Nick's bravado hides his fear of not being good enough, and Ruby just wants to pursue her eccentric interests in a world that doesn't understand her. When the three teens join Portland County Sheriff's Search and Rescue, they are teamed up to search for a autistic man lost in the woods. What they find instead is a dead body. In a friendship that will be forged in danger, fear, and courage, the three team up to find the girl's killer.

The Kaufmans have always considered themselves a normal, happy family. Curtis is a physics teacher at a local high school. His wife, Kathleen, restores furniture for upscale boutiques. Daniel is away at college on a prestigious music scholarship, and 12-year-old Olivia is a happy-go-lucky kid whose biggest concern is passing her next math test. And then comes the middle-of-the-night phone call that changes everything.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a 10-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising.

When Hope Prescott's parents disappeared, her carefree teenage life vanished forever. She and her three siblings were separated and sent to different foster homes around the country. Now, seven years later, Hope is still searching for them. To support herself, she works for an answering service, and cares for her clients as if they were family. When wealthy businessman Zachariah Givens hires Hope's service, Hope initially mistakes Zack for his butler....

What does it really mean to be a man? In Man Alive, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer that question by focusing on two of the men who most impacted his life - one, his otherwise ordinary father who abused him as a child, and the other, a mugger who almost killed him. Standing at the brink of the life-changing decision to transition from female to male, McBee seeks to understand these examples of flawed manhood and tells us how a brush with violence sent him on the quest to untangle a sinister past and freed him to become the man he was meant to be.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

Sports agent Myron Bolitar is poised on the edge of the big-time. So is Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback and Myron's prized client. But when Christian gets a phone call from a former girlfriend, a woman who everyone, including the police, believes is dead, the deal starts to go sour. Suddenly Myron is plunged into a baffling mystery of sex and blackmail.

Sloane Munster had the perfect life - until she didn't. Now 17-year-old Sloane is trying to reboot her life after a serious accident left her badly scarred and emotionally traumatized. Starting her senior year at a different school, she recognizes Luke Naughton, a swimmer whom she once had a crush on, in her new class. But when she smiles at him, he glares back with revulsion, and she's sure he's disgusted by her ugly scar.

Mara Dyer believes life can't get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can. She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is. She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong.