Darkness Brutal


Rachel A. Marks - 2015
    Since then, every three years the demons have returned to try to claim her. Living in the gritty, forgotten corners of Los Angeles, Aidan has managed to protect his sister, but he knows that even his powers to fight demons and speak dead languages won’t keep her safe for much longer.In desperation, Aidan seeks out the help of Sid, the enigmatic leader of a group of teens who run LA Paranormal, an Internet reality show that fights demons and ghosts. In their company, Aidan believes he’s finally found a haven for Ava. But when he meets Kara, a broken girl who can spin a hypnotic web of passionate energy, he awakens powers he didn’t know he had―and unleashes a new era of war between the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness.With the fate of humanity in his hands, can Aidan keep the Darkness at bay and accept his brilliant, terrifying destiny?

Last Day


Luanne Rice - 2020
    The detective assigned to the case, Conor Reid, swore to protect the sisters from then on.Beth moved on, throwing herself fully into the art world, running the family gallery, and raising a beautiful daughter with her husband Pete. Kate, instead, retreated into herself and took to the skies as a pilot, always on the run. When Beth is found strangled in her home, and Moonlight goes missing again, Detective Reid can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu.Reid immediately suspects Beth’s husband, whose affair is a poorly kept secret. He has an airtight alibi—but he also has a motive, and the evidence seems to point to him. Kate and Reid, along with the sisters’ closest childhood friends, struggle to make sense of Beth’s death, but they only find more questions: Who else would have wanted Beth dead? What’s the significance of Moonlight?Twenty years ago, Reid vowed to protect Beth and Kate—and he’s failed. Now solving the case is turning into an obsession . . .

Innate Magic


Shannon Fay - 2021
    But in a world where magic is commonplace, sewing enchanted clothes is seen as little more than a frivolous distraction. Paul is hiding a secret, however: he possesses a powerful--and illegal--innate magic that could help him achieve his wildest dreams.Unfortunately, Paul confides in the wrong person--his latest crush, Captain Hector Hollister--and is drawn into a sinister plot that risks reigniting the machinery of war. To make matters worse, the pretty American gossip reporter Paul just met reveals her personal quest to expose a government cover-up may be related to Hollister's magical goals. When Hollister threatens the life of Paul's dearest friend, he realizes that his poor judgement has put not only his family and friends in danger, but also the whole world.The only way to set things right may be for Paul to undergo the dangerous ritual to become Court Magician--the most powerful magician in the country. But is becoming part of the institution the best way to enact change in a terribly unjust society?

Suicide Forest


Jeremy Bates - 2014
    Legend has it that the spirits of those many suicides are still roaming, haunting deep in the ancient woods.When bad weather prevents a group of friends from climbing neighboring Mt. Fuji, they decide to spend the night camping in Aokigahara. But they get more than they bargained for when one of them is found hanged in the morning--and they realize there might be some truth to the legends after all.

Disappearance at Devil's Rock


Paul Tremblay - 2016
    Feeling helpless and alone, their sorrow is compounded by anger and frustration. The local and state police haven’t uncovered any leads. Josh and Luis, the friends who were with Tommy last, may not be telling the whole truth about that night in Borderland State Park, when they were supposedly hanging out at a landmark the local teens have renamed Devil’s Rock— rumored to be cursed. Living in an all-too-real nightmare, riddled with worry, pain, and guilt, Elizabeth is wholly unprepared for the strange series of events that follow. She believes a ghostly shadow of Tommy materializes in her bedroom, while Kate and other local residents claim to see a shadow peering through their own windows in the dead of night. Then, random pages torn from Tommy’s journal begin to mysteriously appear—entries that reveal an introverted teenager obsessed with the phantasmagoric; the loss of his father, killed in a drunk-driving accident a decade earlier; a folktale involving the devil and the woods of Borderland; and a horrific incident that Tommy believed connected them all and changes everything. As the search grows more desperate, and the implications of what happened becomes more haunting and sinister, no one is prepared for the shocking truth about that night and Tommy’s disappearance at Devil’s Rock.

Anthem's Fall


S.L. Dunn - 2014
    In the streets below, a brilliant young scientist has discovered a technology that can defeat them both, yet might be more terrible than either.Set both in modern New York City and in the technologically sophisticated yet politically savage world of Anthem, Anthem’s Fall unfurls into a plot where larger than life characters born with the prowess of gods are pitted against the shrewd brilliance of a familiar and unlikely heroine.

Crane


Stacey Rourke - 2014
    Centuries later, a Crane returns to Sleepy Hollow awakening macabre secrets once believed to be buried deep. What if the monster that spawned the legend lived within you?Now, Ireland Crane, reeling from a break-up and seeking a fresh start, must rely on the newly awakened Rip Van Winkle to discover the key to channeling the darkness swirling within her. Bodies are piling high and Ireland is the only one that can save Sleepy Hollow by embracing her own damning curse. But is anyone truly safe when the Horseman rides?

Boo


Neil Smith - 2015
    But soon after arriving in this hereafter reserved for dead thirteen-year-olds, Boo discovers he’s a 'gommer', a kid who was murdered. What’s more, his killer may also be in heaven. With help from the volatile Johnny, a classmate killed at the same school, Boo sets out to track down the mysterious Gunboy who cut short both their lives.In a heartrending story written to his beloved parents, the odd but endearing Boo relates his astonishing heavenly adventures as he tests the limits of friendship, learns about forgiveness and, finally, makes peace with the boy he once was and the boy he can now be.

The Waking Fire


Anthony Ryan - 2016
    R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire novels.”* Now, Anthony Ryan begins a new saga, The Draconis Memoria...Throughout the vast lands controlled by the Ironship Syndicate, nothing is more prized than the blood of drakes. Harvested from the veins of captive or hunted Reds, Green, Blues and Blacks, it can be distilled into elixirs that give fearsome powers to the rare men and women who have the ability harness them—known as the blood-blessed. But not many know the truth: that the lines of drakes are weakening. If they fail, war with the neighboring Corvantine Empire will follow swiftly. The Syndicate's last hope resides in whispers of the existence of another breed of drake, far more powerful than the rest, and the few who have been chosen by fate to seek it. Claydon Torcreek is a petty thief and an unregistered blood-blessed, who finds himself pressed into service by the protectorate and sent to wild, uncharted territories in search of a creature he believes is little more than legend. Lizanne Lethridge is a formidable spy and assassin, facing gravest danger on an espionage mission deep into the heart of enemy territory. And Corrick Hilemore is the second lieutenant of an ironship, whose pursuit of ruthless brigands leads him to a far greater threat at the edge of the world. As lives and empires clash and intertwine, as the unknown and the known collide, all three must fight to turn the tide of a coming war, or drown in its wake. *Library Journal

Hush


Dylan Farrow - 2020
    Who will break the hush? Seventeen-year-old Shae has led a seemingly quiet life, joking with her best friend Fiona, and chatting with Mads, the neighborhood boy who always knows how to make her smile. All while secretly keeping her fears at bay… Of the disease that took her brother’s life. Of how her dreams seem to bleed into reality around her. Of a group of justice seekers called the Bards who claim to use the magic of Telling to keep her community safe.When her mother is murdered, she can no longer pretend.Not knowing who to trust, Shae journeys to unlock the truth, instead finding a new enemy keen to destroy her, a brooding boy with dark secrets, and an untold power she never thought possible.

MINDER


Jennifer Kabay - 2012
    If you knew what resided in that security blanket, you'd never throw it away. Childhood is governed from a sacred place between the trees, lit by fireflies, and overseen by ancient souls dedicated to the sanctity of youth. MINDER is a dark fairy tale about young siblings who inherit an old trunk from their grandfather. But not everyone sees the same thing inside. They experience joy and terror in equal measure learning the truth about security blankets, the tooth fairy, invisible friends, and terrible things that befall children who go poking in places uninvited.

Poe


J. Lincoln Fenn - 2013
    It’s the one-year anniversary of his parents’ deaths, he’s stuck on page one thousand of his Rasputin zombie novel, and he makes his living writing obituaries.But things turn from bleak to terrifying when Dimitri gets a last-minute assignment to cover a séance at the reputedly haunted Aspinwall Mansion.There, Dimitri meets Lisa, a punk-rock drummer he falls hard for. But just as he’s about to ask her out, he unwittingly unleashes malevolent forces, throwing him into a deadly mystery. When Dimitri wakes up, he is in the morgue—icy cold and haunted by a cryptic warning given by a tantalizing female spirit.As town residents begin to turn up gruesomely murdered, Dimitri must play detective in his own story and unravel the connections among his family, the Aspinwall Mansion, the female spirit, and the secrets held in a pair of crumbling antiquarian books. If he doesn’t, it’s quite possible Lisa will be the next victim.

Night Terrors III


Theresa DillonPaul Tremblay - 2014
    A wave of sinkholes appears on the anniversary of a rural tragedy, and local residents begin to hear the voices of the dead. A woman encounters a predator from her youth—and a chance to turn the tables. A child’s inner beast takes on a sinister life of its own. An undetectable serial killer raises tensions on a college campus. Experimental physics reveals another world, and it might mean the end of ours. Shrouded in darkness, lurking in the shadows, NIGHT TERRORS III awaits you. The third installment of the chilling Night Terrors anthology series includes stories from Jack Ketchum, Steve Rasnic Tem, Dennis Etchison, Taylor Grant, Eric J. Guignard, Aric Sundquist, Jennifer Brozek, John McNee, Simon McCaffery, Patty Templeton, and many more!

The Legend of the Firewalker


Steve Bevil - 2013
    She gasped and her brown eyes grew wide. Nathan watched helplessly as a small trickle of blood fell from her mouth. Other hooded figures appeared; their silver swords clutched upright against their chests. Nathan held tight to her lifeless body while trying to fight back the tears that swelled in his eyes. “No,” he cried. “No!” Nineteen-year-old Nathan Urye is supposed to be having a relaxing summer as a camp counselor but ever since he started having nightmares about a beautiful girl being hunted by flesh-clawing monsters, his life has been anything but normal. Soon, Nathan discovers that the sleepy college town of Cahokia Falls is far from ordinary when two unexplained deaths rock the town and campus. Who or what is behind the murders? Does it have anything to do with the newly-discovered cave symbol? And what about the spine-chilling campfire stories about ancient tribal beliefs and mystical legends? For Nathan Urye, things just keep getting creepier and creepier, and now it appears that everyone at camp is in danger…

Eventide


Sarah Goodman - 2020
    In Wheeler, eleven-year-old Lilah is quickly adopted, but seventeen-year-old Verity is not. Desperate to stay close to her sister, Verity indentures herself as a farmhand. But even charming farm boy Abel Atchley can’t completely distract her from the sense that something is not quite right in this little town. Strange local superstitions abound, especially about the eerie old well at the center of the forest. The woods are play tricks, unleashing heavy fog and bone-chilling cold…and sometimes visions of things that aren’t there. But for Verity, perhaps most unsettling of all is the revelation that her own parents have a scandalous history in this very town. And as she tries to unearth the past, sinister secrets come with it—secrets that someone will go to violent lengths to protect….