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The Secret of Crickley Hall


James Herbert - 2006
    Gabe has brought his wife, Eve, and daughters, Loren and Cally, down to Devon, to the peaceful seaside village of Hollow Bay. He can work and Eve and the kids can have some peace and quiet and perhaps they can try, as a family, to come to terms with what's happened to them...Crickley Hall is an unusually large house on the outskirts of the village at the bottom of Devil's Cleave, a massive tree-lined gorge - the stuff of local legend. A river flows past the front garden. It's perfect for them...if it a bit gloomy. And Chester, their dog, seems really spooked at being away from home. And old houses do make sounds. And it's constantly cold. And even though they shut the cellar door every night, it's always open again in morning The Secret of Crickley Hall is James Herbert's finest novel to date. It explores the darker, more obtuse territories of evil and the supernatural. With brooding menace and rising tension, he masterfully and relentlessly draws the reader through to the ultimate revelation one that will stay to chill the mind long after the book has been laid aside.

A Penny For Your Thoughts


Robert Ford - 2019
    He has let go of old habits, especially the ones that turned him into an addict and helped land him in prison.On a hike along the Lowback Trail, Joe stumbles on one of the town's oldest secrets--buried long ago, if not forgotten.It's an unusual but safe enough treasure--a jar of old pennies. What interests Joe isn't the pennies themselves, but the pieces of paper taped to every coin--a child's handwritten wish on each one.When the first few wishes come true, they are simple things. Fun. Harmless.Except as time goes on, Joe realizes they aren't really wishes at all...they're exchanges, and the bill was racking up.Nothing is free in life. Sooner or later, you always pay.

The House of a Hundred Whispers


Graham Masterton - 2020
    It's not a place many would choose to live - yet the Governor of Dartmoor Prison did just that. When Herbert Russell retired, he bought All Hallow's Hall - a rambling Tudor mansion on the edge of the moor, and lived there all his life.Now he's dead, and his estranged family are set to inherit his estate. But when the dead man's family come to stay, the atmosphere of the moors seems to drift into every room. Floorboards creak, secret passageways echo, and wind whistles in the house's famous priest hole. And then, on the morning the family decide to leave All Hallow's Hall once and for all, their young son Timmy goes missing.

A History of Wild Places


Shea Ernshaw - 2021
    Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend. Called "Pastoral," this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it… he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James. Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease—rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms. Hauntingly beautiful, hypnotic, and bewitching, A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind.

Everything That's Underneath


Kristi DeMeester - 2017
    Feel it. Tearing at your nails, gritty between your teeth, filling your nostrils. Consume it until it has consumed you. For there you will find the voices that have called from the shadows, the ones that promise to cherish you only to rip your body to shreds.In Everything That’s Underneath, Kristi DeMeester explores the dark places most people avoid. A hole in an abandoned lot, an illness twisting your loved one into someone you don’t recognize, lust that pushes you farther and farther until no one can hear yours cry for help. In these 18 stories the characters cannot escape the evil that is haunting them. They must make a choice: accept it and become part of what terrifies them the most or allow it to consume them and live in fear forever.

The Luminous Dead


Caitlin Starling - 2019
    She also thought that the fat paycheck—enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother—meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane.Instead, she got Em.Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre’s falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash—and a lash. And Em has secrets, too . . .As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies—missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em’s motivations—drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, Gyre finds her sense of control giving way to paranoia and anger. On her own in this mysterious, deadly place, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, Gyre must overcome more than just the dangerous terrain and the Tunneler which calls underground its home if she wants to make it out alive—she must confront the ghosts in her own head.But how come she can't shake the feeling she’s being followed?

Grad Night


Carver Pike - 2019
     The teachers at DS High know something’s not right. It’s the reason they don’t stay late to grade papers, they leave school in packs so nobody’s alone, and they stay away from the one boy with the cult-like following. Evil walks the high school hallways and everyone knows its name: James Bender. They’ve made it through the school year unscathed. Well, almost. Now, the graduating class is planning something special for their favorite teachers. It’s by personal invite only. Teachers are dying for an invitation. Here’s yours. Join us at this year’s Grad Night party. It’ll be one you’ll never forget. Carver Pike takes ordinary circumstances, cinches them tight with razor wire, and then saws back and forth. Gasp for air, holler for help, and pray for an end to the madness.

Let It Be Me


Toni Aleo - 2013
    Do you see that woman there?The one with long, wavy blond hair and blue eyes that used to sparkle?That’s me, Violet Moore.Do you see those men over there?One is my husband, Rob.A man who claimed he loved me, but proved his fist loved me more.The other is Tucker McCloud, my savior and confidant.I'm torn between what's right and my own fear.But not anymore.I’m taking my life back now.I will fight back.I will be happy.

Summer Sons


Lee Mandelo - 2021
    Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom with bleeding wrists that mutters of revenge.As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble, letting in the phantom that hungers for him.

It Will Just Be Us


Jo Kaplan - 2020
    Its labyrinthine halls, built by her mad ancestors, are filled with echoes of the past: ghosts and memories knotted together as one. In the presence of phantoms, it's all Sam can do to disentangle past from present in her daily life. But when her pregnant sister Elizabeth moves in after a fight with her husband, something in the house shifts. Already navigating her tumultuous relationship with Elizabeth, Sam is even more unsettled by the appearance of a new ghost: a faceless boy who commits disturbing acts—threatening animals, terrorizing other children, and following Sam into the depths of the house wielding a knife. When it becomes clear the boy is connected to a locked, forgotten room, one which is never entered, Sam realizes this ghost is not like the others. This boy brings doom. As Elizabeth's due date approaches, Sam must unravel the mysteries of Wakefield before her sister brings new life into a house marked by death. But as the faceless boy grows stronger, Sam will learn that some doors should stay closed—and some secrets are safer locked away forever.

Psychosis


Tony Marturano - 2021
    I know that. And I was fine with it until it cost me my family. Now, I’ll do anything to get them back – even see a therapist. Which is a joke, because I am a therapist. At least I was before I was fired. Now, with nowhere else to go, I’ve had to move out of the city and into the house I inherited, here, in the idyllic fishing village of Porthcove, but only for as long as it takes to sell it. Because something isn’t right about this place. You see, I need the money, so I’ve started seeing some of the locals, you know, as patients, but I tell you, there’s something really disturbing about charming neighbours sharing chilling secrets. And it isn’t just that. It’s the other things. Strange, inexplicable things. It started with odd smells, creepy sounds, and then the intruders… oh God, the intruders. Now, a child has gone missing, the police are asking questions, and I’m starting to wonder if they’re right. Maybe I can’t be trusted, but you should come and see for yourself; there’s something seriously wrong with this place. It is something hideous, terrifying, and it’s been here the whole time, just waiting to devour my hope, my sanity and maybe even my life.”PSYCHOSIS IS THE PREQUEL TO TONY MARTURANO'S NO1 BESTSELLING SUPERNATURAL THRILLER, HAUNTED.

Kill Hill Carnage


Tim Meyer - 2018
    The killers left behind piles of bodies and rivers of blood. Some say a family of inbred cannibals was responsible. A masked psychopath with a butcher's knife is another popular theory. Some still believe a camp counselor lost his mind and went crazy on everyone with an axe. But there’s also the mysterious, derelict factory that sits nearby, atop Kill Hill. A place where urban legends are manufactured, the grotesque and bizarre.Twenty-five years later, the factory on Kill Hill is still said to be operational, but no one can get near it. It’s safely guarded along with the secrets within. But there are a few loose strings and hitman Frank Harmon has been sent to tie them up. His kill list is short, but the night is long and full of unspeakable horrors. With the help of a few college students on an impromptu camping adventure, Frank must contain the mess at Kill Hill before it spreads to the neighboring towns. Before it infects the entire country. Before it invades the entire world.From the fantastical, high-octane mind of Tim Meyer, author of Sharkwater Beach and In the House of Mirrors, comes his most frightening tale yet! Summer camp this year is at your own risk.

Come Closer


Sara Gran - 2003
    A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane? Described as “a new kind of psychological thriller” by George Pelecanos and “this year's scariest novel” by Time Out New York, Come Closer has become a modern classic “with a kick that will stay with the reader for days afterward” (The Dallas Morning News).

The Violence


Delilah S. Dawson - 2022
    Now three generations of women must navigate their chilling new reality in this moving exploration of identity, cycles of abuse, and hope. Chelsea Martin appears to be the perfect housewife: married to her high school sweetheart, the mother of two daughters, keeper of an immaculate home. But Chelsea's husband has turned their house into a prison; he has been abusing her for years, cutting off her independence, autonomy, and support. She has nowhere to turn, not even to her narcissistic mother, Patricia, who is more concerned with maintaining the appearance of an ideal family than she is with her daughter's actual well-being. And Chelsea is worried that her daughters will be trapped just as she is--then a mysterious illness sweeps the nation. Known as The Violence, this illness causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bouts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. But for Chelsea, the chaos and confusion the virus causes is an opportunity--and inspires a plan to liberate herself from her abuser.

Our Lady of Darkness


Fritz Leiber - 1977
    Then one day, peering at his apartment window from atop a nearby hill, he sees a pale brown thing lean out his window…and wave.This encounter sends Westen on a quest through ancient books and modern streets, for the dark forces and paramental entities that thrive amidst the towering skyscrapers of modern urban life…and meanwhile, the entities are also looking for him.A pioneering work of modern urban fantasy, Our Lady of Darkness is perhaps Fritz Leiber’s greatest novel.