Empire of the Vampire


Jay Kristoff - 2021
    For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness.Gabriel de León is a silversaint: a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending realm and church from the creatures of the night. But even the Silver Order could not stem the tide once daylight failed us, and now, only Gabriel remains.Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the Wars of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope: The Holy Grail.Fromauthor Jay Kristoff comes Empire of the Vampire, the first illustrated volume of an astonishing new dark fantasy saga.

The Ouroboros Cycle, Book Two: A Cautionary Tale for Young Vampires


G.D. Falksen - 2014
    But Doctor Varanus Shashavani has far more pressing concerns to worry about than a lunatic in Whitechapel. Her charitable hospital is under siege by gang lords, her English cousins are threatening to steal her inheritance, and her best friend has become obsessed with Gothic novels. To make matters worse, her son Friedrich is associating with an American who talks endlessly of wellness and yoghurt, while her bodyguard is pestering her to return home to Georgia, half a world away. It seems that everyone--friends, enemies, and "Saucy Jack" alike--have conspired to interrupt her work. But Varanus did not obtain immortality just to have mad killers and distant relations get in the way of scientific progress. Though supernatural conspiracies and all-too-human monsters confront her at every turn, Varanus will stand firm against all odds. After all, she is accustomed to fighting for what is rightfully hers.

True Blood: All Together Now


Alan Ball - 2011
    People die and dirty secrets are revealed as Sookie, Bill, Eric, Sam, Tara, Jason, and Lafayette and are all coerced to dig deep and tell painful memories from their past....those things we all have locked within us that we never tell another living soul! Bon Temps, Louisiana has never been stranger, or more twisted, in a story co-plotted by True Blood series creator Alan Ball, with a script by David Tischman (Bite Club) and Mariah Huehner, and lush art by David Messina (Star Trek: Countdown).

The Society of S


Susan Hubbard - 2007
    The Society of S traces her journey south, to Asheville and Savannah, and on to Florida, as she learns that everything she knows about her family is a lie.When she finds her mother, she learns the truth: Ariella is a fledgling member of the Society of S.S stands for Sanguinists: a sect of environmentalists concerned with ethics and human rights -- although they happen to be vampires. S also stands for synesthete: a person able to see words and letters in colors. The letter S is lucky for Sara, Ariella's mother, who gravitates to cities such as Savannah and Sarasota. But will it be lucky for Ariella?Susan Hubbard's novel is an intricate literary mystery that raises provocative questions about the way we live now. Ariella's voice will lure you into a world where you'll meet the others among us: vampires who cope with their special nature and need for blood in a variety of ways, ranging from the savage to the mundane to the scientific.

Pretty Dead


Francesca Lia Block - 2008
    I have all the luxury and freedom a girl my age could want. Something is happening to Charlotte Emerson. Like the fires that are ravaging the hills of Los Angeles, it consumes her from the inside out. But whether it is her eternal loneliness, the memory of her brother, the return of her first love, or the brooding, magnetic Jared—she cannot say. What if it's something more . . . Something to do with the sudden tear in her perfect nails. The heat she feels when she's with Jared. The blood rushing once again to her cheeks and throughout her veins. For Charlotte is a vampire, witness to almost a century's worth of death and destruction. But not since she was a human girl has mortality touched her. In what way will you be transformed? Until now.

Undead and Unwed


MaryJanice Davidson - 2004
    First Betsy Taylor loses her job, then she's killed in a car accident.  But what really bites is that she can't seem to stay dead.  And now her new friends have the ridiculous idea that Betsy is the prophesied vampire queen, and they want her help in overthrowing the most obnoxious power-hungry vampire in five centuries.

Wicked Game


Jeri Smith-Ready - 2008
    She takes an internship at a local radio station, whose late-night time-warp format features 1940s blues, '60s psychedelia, '80s goth, and more, all with an uncannily authentic flair. Ciara soon discovers just how the DJs maintain their cred: they're vampires, stuck forever in the eras in which they were turned.Ciara's first instinct, as always, is to cut and run. But communications giant Skywave wants to buy WVMP and turn it into just another hit-playing clone. Without the station — and the link it provides to their original Life Times — the vampires would "fade," becoming little more than mindless ghosts of the past. Suddenly a routine corporate takeover is a matter of life and undeath.To boost ratings and save the lives of her strange new friends, Ciara rebrands the station as "WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock 'n' Roll." In the ultimate con, she hides the DJs' vampire nature in plain sight, disguising the bloody truth as a marketing gimmick. WVMP becomes the hottest thing around — next to Ciara's complicated affair with grunge vamp Shane McAllister. But the "gimmick" enrages a posse of ancient and powerful vampires who aren't so eager to be brought into the light. Soon the stakes are higher — and the perils graver — than any con game Ciara's ever played...

Tales of H.P. Lovecraft


H.P. Lovecraft - 1935
    P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the 20th century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”—Stephen KingThe most important tales of the godfather of the modern horror genre—a master who influenced the works of a generation of writers including Stephen King and Anne Rice—are gathered in one volume by National Book Award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates.Combining the 19th-century gothic sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe with a daring internal vision, Lovecraft’s tales foretold a psychically troubled world to come. Set in a meticulously wrought, historically grounded New England landscape, his harrowing stories explore the collapse of sanity beneath the weight of chaotic events. Lovecraft’s universe is a frightening shadow world were reality and nightmare intertwine, and redemption can come only from below. For aficionados and a new generation of 21st-century readers , Tales of H. P. Lovecraft is a classic not to be missed.

Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural


Herbert A. WiseWalter de la Mare - 1944
    Represented in the anthology are such distinguished spell weavers as Edgar Allen Poe ("The Black Cat"), Wilkie Collins ("A Terribly Strange Bed"), Henry James ("Sir Edmund Orme"), Guy de Maupassant ("Was It a Dream?"), O. Henry ("The Furnished Room"), Rudyard Kipling ("They"), and H.G. Wells ("Pollock and the Porroh Man"). Included as well are such modern masters as Algernon Blackwood ("Ancient Sorceries"), Walter de la Mare ("Out of the Deep"), E.M. Forster ("The Celestial Omnibus"), Isak Dinesen ("The Sailor-Boys Tale"), H.P. Lovecraft ("The Dunwich Horror"), Dorothy L. Sayers ("Suspicion"), and Ernest Hemingway ("The Killers"). "There is not a story in this collection that does not have the breath of life, achieve the full suspension of disbelief that is so particularly important in [this] type of fiction," wrote the Saturday Review. With an introduction and notes by Phyllis Cerf Wagner and Herbert Wise.

Vampire Hunter D


Hideyuki Kikuchi - 1983
    It is a dark time for the world. Humanity is just crawling out from under three hundred years of domination by the race of vampires known as the Nobility. The war against the vampires has taken its toll; cities lie in ruin, the countryside is fragmented into small villages and fiefdoms that still struggle against nightly raids by the fallen vampires-and the remnants of their genetically manufactured demons and werewolves.Every village wants a Hunter-one of the warriors who have pledged their laser guns and their swords to the eradication of the Nobility. But some Hunters are better than others, and some bring their own kind of danger with them...From creator Hideyuki Kikuchi, one of Japan's leading horror authors with illustrations by renowned Japanese artist, Yoshitaka Amano, best known for his illustrations in Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters and the Final Fantasy games.

Lost Gods


Brom - 2016
    But an ancient evil is looming, and what seems like a safe haven may not be all it appears . . . Snared and murdered by a vile, arcane horror, Chet quickly learns that pain and death are not unique to the living. Now the lives and very souls of his wife and unborn child are at stake. To save them, he must journey into the bowels of purgatory in search of a sacred key promised to restore the natural order of life and death. Alone, confused, and damned, Chet steels himself against the unfathomable terrors awaiting him as he descends into death’s stygian blackness.With Lost Gods, Brom’s gritty and visceral prose takes us on a haunting, harrowing journey into the depths of the underworld. Thrust into a realm of madness and chaos, where ancient gods and demons battle over the dead, and where cabals of souls conspire to overthrow their masters, Chet plays a dangerous game, risking eternal damnation to save his family.

The Blood Books, Volume I


Tanya Huff - 2006
    As death follows unspeakable death, Vicki is forced to renew her tempestuous relationship with her former partner, Mike Celluci, to stop these forces of dark magic—along with another, unexpected ally…Henry Fitzroy, the illegitimate son of King Henry VIII, has learned over the course of his long life how to blend with humans, how to deny the call for blood in his veins. Without him, Vicki and Mike would not survive the ancient force of chaos that has been unleashed upon the world—but in doing so, his identity may be exposed, and his life forfeit.Blood TrailSecond in the “scary and sexy” (Judith and Garfield Reeve-Stevens, authors of The Chronicles of Galen Sword) Blood series. For centuries, the werewolves of Toronto have managed to live in peace and tranquility, hidden quietly away on their London, Ontario farm. But now, someone has learned their secret—and is systematically massacring this ancient race.The only one they can turn to is Henry Fitzroy, Toronto-based vampire and writer of bodice rippers. Forced to hide from the light of day, Henry can’t hunt the killer alone, so he turns to Vicki Nelson for help. As they race against time to stop the murderer, they begin to fear that their combined talents may not be enough to prevent him from completing his deadly plan.

Ghostlight


Marion Zimmer Bradley - 1995
    Thorne Blackburn and his followers settled at Shadow's Gate, a magnificent old house in upstate New York, and sought the Truth about life through ritual and magic. One night, something went badly wrong during Thorne’s most powerful ceremony. When the chaos had passed, Thorne had vanished, and Katherine, mother of Thorne’s young daughter Truth, was dead. Thirty years later, Truth Blackburn searches for smaller truths: what really happened that night at Shadow's Gate? Did Thorne truly have magical powers? And what happened to her half-siblings, a boy and girl Truth last saw that horrible night when her mother died?

Pale Immortal


Anne Frasier - 2006
    And when the drained corpse of a young girl is found, the citizens fear their past has risen from the grave--and point their fingers at one man....Evan Stroud can never see the light of day. The prisoner of a strange and terrible disease, he lives in tragic solitude, taunted for being a "vampire"--until the son he never knew he had shows up in Tuonela and is drawn into its depraved, vampire-obsessed underworld. Then Evan must rely on coroner Rachel Burton, his childhood friend, for help. But the evil that they face is powerful and elusive and about to take them to the very brink of madness.

The Blood Countess


Andrei Codrescu - 1995
    Codrescu expertly weaves together two stories in this neo-gothic work: that of the 16th-century Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a beautiful and terrifying woman who bathes in the blood of virgin girls; and of her distant descendent, a contemporary journalist who must return to his native Hungary and come to terms with his bloody and disturbing past. Drake Bathory-Kereshtur, a Hungarian-born journalist who has lived in the United States, returns to his native Hungary, only to be the target for recruitment among a patriotic group that wants to restore the glory--and the horror--of the Hungarian aristocracy. As a descendent of the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, he is heir to all that is wonderful and terrible about his country and his family's past. Codrescu brilliantly explores Drake's anguish, as he realizes the truth behind his gruesome family history. But more importantly, Codrescu also creates a convincing and historically accurate picture of a sadistic woman obsessed with youth, vigor, beauty, and blood--a woman with enough power to order the deaths of 650 virgins so that she could bathe in their blood.The Blood Countess is a bizarre and compelling book about the horrors of the past, shown so effectively in the monstrous yet attractive personality of Elizabeth, and what pull these horrors have on those who live now.