As Val searches for her brother in nineteenth-century London and Scotland, she encounters danger, terror, and tragedy beyond anything she had expected.

     ABOUT THE SHORT STORY’S PRICE: Hello, you lovely people. Odd to talk about money straight up, but I know that some of you might be thinking, £1.99 is a lot for a short story. Let me explain how it works. A rate of 20% VAT (Value Added Tax) applies to eBooks in the UK. This doesn’t apply to ‘real’ paper books. That means 33p of the £1.99 goes straight to the British government. Amazon takes around 2p to deliver the story to your Kindle, then takes another 48p as its cut. The remainder, £1.16, goes to me. That's not a great deal, I hope you agree. In these times of falling sales, and authors losing their contracts, and only one in seven traditionally published authors being able to write fulltime, stories like this are a vital way of YOU supporting the authors whose books you enjoy. So THANK YOU for your support! Think of it in terms of a pint of beer or a cup of coffee: they cost £2-4, depending on where you live. This story will give you more enjoyment (I think!) than either of those things, and last for a longer time, and cost you less money. This is only the second time I have self-published a short story. (Massive thanks here to Pete Simpson, who designed the cover for me!) It’s been an exciting project since the day I did the poll on Facebook, asking you lovely people which of my characters you wanted me to write about. Centurion Tullus won out, narrowly, and this is the result. The one hundred and something people who backed the Kickstarter campaign got to read this story almost 7 months ago, but now you can too. Enjoy the story, and please email me if you have any questions about it or anything else – ben@benkane.net Ben

    From perverse acts of cannibalism and dark sexual fantasies to vicious acts motivated by greed and a simple lust for blood, this book reveals the methods and motivations of some of the world's most notorious serial killers, including Juan Corona, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Pee Wee Gaskins, and Ivan Milat.

    Some of the stories are inspired by true events. Find out which ones inside this scary collection. "The Girl I Married" Jonathan noticed that after marrying Jeanette, she starts acting strange. As if she is not the same girl he dated. Why is she so different and what secrets is she hiding? "I`m Sorry Daddy" After an accident at work, Mr. Williams starts developing unusual symptoms. He is turning into a monster and there is nothing to stop this. "The House Next Door part 2" Jessica decides to find out what happened to her friend Sarah. What new discoveries will she make and will the same fate befall her?

    The most bizarre and frightening stories of the paranormal from the five boroughs are compiled in this volume, including the phantom searching for lost gold in the Parrish House in the Bronx, the demonic flying Coney Island Monster in Brooklyn, the haunted St. Paul's Chapel in Manhattan, the raving ghost of Mount Olivet Cemetery in Queens, the restless spirits that peer from the windows of the Kreischer Mansion in Staten Island, and many others.

    The Killer Book of Infamous Murders takes you behind the crime scene tape and into the heart of notorious and remorseless massacres. Uncover fascinating facts about killers’ dark pasts, pent-up rage, and what finally caused them to snap—leading them to commit some of the world’s most shocking crimes, including: Leopold and Loeb’s “perfect crime”: the kidnapping and slaying of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks The bloody shootings of Alan and Diane Johnson, killed by their sixteen-year-old daughter The cold-blooded murder of the Clutter family The puzzling and controversial murder of Marilyn Sheppard And much more… Bury yourself in these edge-of-your-seat tales, read chilling quotes and courtroom transcripts, and test your crime IQ with trivia. You’ll shudder in horrified delight—and you just might need to sleep with the lights on.

    From the editors of MentalFloss.com and mental_floss magazine—with its tagline: “Feel smart again”—comes an American History text packed with hilarious (but true!) trivia written in the smart-aleck tradition of The Mental Floss History of the World, Mental Floss Presents In the Beginning, and the first mental_floss book, Condensed Knowledge. Perfect for trivia buffs, history lovers, college students, and anyone who likes to laugh and learn. United States history has never been so fun.

    It is a region rich in stark beauty--and supernatural lore. The harsh landscape, with its rocky seaside cliffs and thundering surf and miles of dark, mysterious forest farther inland, lends itself to the ghost story. Overlaying the ghost tales gathered in this book is a sense of unspeakable horror and malice.

    Bringing to life stories like that of Eunice Cole, tried for attacking a teenage girl with a rock and buried with a stake through her heart; Jane Jacobs, a Bostonian so often accused of witchcraft that she took her tormentors to court on charges of slander; and Increase Mather, an exorcism-performing minister famed for his knowledge of witches, this volume provides a unique tour through the darkest history of English and North American witchcraft, never failing to horrify, intrigue, and delight.

    This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides readers with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the "The Possibility of Evil" and "The Summer People." In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There's something sinister in suburbia.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    Christie burst onto the literary scene in 1920, with The Mysterious Affair at Styles; her last novel was published in 1976, a career longer than even Conan Doyle’s forty-year span.The truth is that it was due to the success of writers like Anna Katherine Green in America; L. T. Meade, C. L. Pirkis, the Baroness Orczy, and Elizabeth Corbett in England; and Mary Fortune in Australia that the doors were finally opened for women crime-writers. Authors who followed them, such as Patricia Wentworth, Dorothy Sayers, and, of course, Agatha Christie would not have thrived without the bold, fearless work of their predecessors—and the genre would be much poorer for their absence. So while Agatha Christie may still reign supreme, it is important to remember that she did not ascend that throne except on the shoulders of the women who came before her—and inspired her—and who are now removed from her shadow once and for all by this superb new anthology by Leslie S. Klinger.Featuring: Mary Fortune, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Ellen Wood, Elizabeth Corbett, C. L. Pirkis, Geraldine Bonner, Ellen Glasgow, L. T. Meade, Baroness Orczy, Augusta Großer, M. E. Braddon, Anna Katherine Green, Carolyn Wells, Susan Glaspell

    A malevolent spirit roams the cold and gloomy streets of Victorian London, the vampiric ghost of John Polidori, the onetime physician of the mad, bad and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron. Polidori is also the supernatural muse to his niece and nephew, poet Christina Rossetti and her artist brother Dante Gabriel.But Polidori's taste for debauchery has grown excessive. He is determined to possess the life and soul of an innocent young girl, the daughter of a veterinarian and a reformed prostitute he once haunted. And he has resurrected Dante's dead wife, transforming her into a horrifying vampire. The Rossettis know the time has come – Polidori must be stopped. Joining forces with the girl's unlikely parents, they are plunged into a supernatural London underworld whose existence they never suspected.These wildly mismatched allies – a strait-laced animal doctor, and ex-prostitute, a poet, a painter, and even the Artful Dodger-like young daughter – must ultimately choose between the banality and constraints of human life and the unholy immortality that Polidori offers. Sweeping from high society to grimy slums, elegant West End salons to pre-Roman catacombs beneath St. Paul's cathedral, Hide Me Among The Graves blends the historical and the supernatural in a dazzling, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride.

    A twenty-eight year old — and not widely famous — Christopher Wren was giving a lecture on astronomy. As his audience listened to him speak, they decided that it would be a good idea to create a Society to promote the accumulation of useful knowledge.With that, the Royal Society was born. Since its birth, the Royal Society has pioneered scientific exploration and discovery. Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, John Locke, Alexander Fleming — all were fellows.Bill Bryson’s favourite fellow was Reverend Thomas Bayes, a brilliant mathematician who devised Bayes’ theorem. Its complexity meant that it had little practical use in Bayes’ own lifetime, but today his theorem is used for weather forecasting, astrophysics and stock market analysis. A milestone in mathematical history, it only exists because the Royal Society decided to preserve it — just in case. The Royal Society continues to do today what it set out to do all those years ago. Its members have split the atom, discovered the double helix, the electron, the computer and the World Wide Web. Truly international in its outlook, it has created modern science.Seeing Further celebrates its momentous history and achievements, bringing together the very best of science writing. Filled with illustrations of treasures from the Society’s archives, this is a unique, ground-breaking and beautiful volume, and a suitable reflection of the immense achievements of science.

    He quickly realizes he’s made a mistake when it becomes clear that he's replacing another actor who quit after seeing the script—a script the director now claims doesn’t exist. The movie is over budget. The production team seems headed for a breakdown. The air is so wet that the celluloid film disintegrates.But what the actor doesn’t realize is that the greatest threat might be the town itself, and the mysterious shadow economy that powers this remote jungle outpost. Entrepreneurial Americans, international drug traffickers, and M-19 guerrillas are all fighting for South America’s future—and the groups aren’t as distinct as one might think. The actor thought this would be a role that would change his life. Now he’s worried he won't survive it.Inspired by a true story from the annals of 1970's Italian horror film, We Eat Our Own is a journey behind the scenes of a shocking film and a thoughtful commentary on violence and its repercussions.

    A city of old women, black marketeers and sleazy cabarets in ruined cellars. In the British sector was Squadron Leader Michael Harrison, a war hero who had helped to bomb Berlin into fragments. He hated the Nazis who had killed his sister and her children. But here he was, doing his best to ensure that food and fuel was somehow brought in to save the surviving Berliners. In the Russian sector was young Lili Leicht, German, middle-class daughter of a university professor and now living in the ruins of her former home, trying to prevent her grandfather and two younger brothers from dying of malnutrition. Her mother had been killed by British bombers. As the tensions in the smouldering city grew worse, so Michael and Lili slowly fell in love. It was a love that surmounted all the prejudices and hatreds of war and offered a hope of understanding for the future.