The Conception of Terror: Tales Inspired by M.R. James, Volume 1


M.R. JamesAlice Lowe - 2019
    R. James.Casting the Runes, adapted by Stephen GallagherWhen academic Jo Harrington (Anna Maxwell Martin) is sent a paper—The Truth of Alchemy, by Anton Karswell—for peer review, she pulls no punches. Jo writes that the paper has no place in a serious academic publication and that Karswell is a half-bright fool. When the editor writes a rejection note to Karswell, he inadvertently includes Jo’s entire email. Occultist Karswell (Reece Shearsmith) doesn’t take kindly to criticism.On the tube home with her partner Edward Dunning (Tom Burke), Jo spots a poster with her name on it. It reads: "In memory of Joanne Harrington, MLitt, PhD, died September eighteenth, three days were allowed." Is there anything that Edward can do to save Jo from this curse?Lost Hearts, adapted by A. K. BenedictTeenager Stephanie Elliot (Rosa Coduri) is taken to Aswarby House to be fostered by Mrs. Bunch (Susan Jameson). Stephanie strikes up a friendship with Ben (Bill Milner), the adopted son of charismatic community leader Mr. Abney (Jeff Rawle). He tells her that Mr. Abney is a good man—he even took in a child refugee last year, but she stole from him and ran away. Stephanie is troubled by voices and visions of a dead girl clutching at her chest, and when Ben disappears she begins to suspect that all is not right in Aswarby House.The Treasure of Abbot-Thomas, adapted by Jonathan BarnesWhen former Somerton school pupil Greg Parsbury (Robert Bathurst) meets history teacher Mika Chantry (Pearl Mackie) at a memorial service for schoolmaster Sam Abbot-Thomas, he begs for her help. Greg has been sent a postcard by the estate of the mysterious and charismatic Abbot-Thomas. On it is a strange inscription in Latin, which he believes to be an inaugural clue in a treasure hunt much like the elaborate treasure hunts Abbot-Thomas used to set back in the 1970s. There were rumors that Abbot-Thomas possessed a hidden fortune, and Parsbury and Chantry set out to find it.A View from a Hill, adapted by Mark MorrisComedian and podcaster Paul Fanshawe (Andy Nyman) and his wife, Sarah (Alice Lowe), visit the Cotswolds on holiday, trying to rebuild their lives after the death of their young son, Archie. While out walking, they spot a beautiful abbey across the valley on Gallows Hill, but when they reach it, they find the building is little more than rubble. While Sarah explores, Paul records commentary for his podcast. Sarah thinks she hears children’s laughter, but there’s no one there. Later that night, she listens to the recording and hears a child’s voice whisper, "Mummy." Sarah is convinced that Archie is trying to reach them and wants to return to the ruins. But something far worse is waiting for them on Gallows Hill.

Nyctophobia


Christopher Fowler - 2014
    One, there's never been an actual authenticated haunted house. Two, it's not the house that's haunted, but the person.Callie is a young architectural student who marries Mateo, a wine importer, and moves to a grand old house in Southern Spain. Hyperion House is flooded with light, it also has a mute gardener, a sinister housekeeper and a sealed, dark servants' quarters that nobody has the keys for. And although initially happy, and taking care of Mateo's daughter, Callie can't help being drawn to the dark empty rooms at the back of the house, and becomes convinced that someone is living in there.Uncovering the house's history, she discovers the shocking truth. As Callie's fear of the darkness returns, she comes to understand the true nature of evil.

Kitty's Greatest Hits


Carrie Vaughn - 2011
    Over the course of eight books she’s fought evil vampires, were-creatures, and some serious black magic. She’s done it all with a sharp wit and the help of a memorable cast of werewolf hunters, psychics, and if-notgood- then-neutral vampires by her side. Kitty’s Greatest Hits not only gives readers some of Kitty’s further adventures, it offers longtime fans a window into the origins of some of their favorite characters. In “Conquistador de la Noche,” we learn the origin story of Denver’s Master vampire, Rick; with “Wild Ride,” we find out how Kitty’s friend T.J. became a werewolf; and in “Life is the Teacher,” we revisit Emma, the human-turned-unwilling-vampire who serves the aloof vampire Master of Washington, D.C. This entertaining collection includes two brand-new works: “You’re On the Air,” about one of Kitty’s callers after he hangs up the phone; and the eagerly awaited “Long Time Waiting,” the novella that finally reveals just what happened to Cormac in prison, something every Kitty fan wants to know.Contents:Il Est NeA Princess of SpainConquistador de la NocheThe Book of DanielThe Temptation of Robin Green Looking After FamilyGod's CreaturesWild RideWinnowing the HerdKitty and the Mosh Pit of the Damned Kitty's Zombie New YearLife is the TeacherYou're on the AirLong Time Waiting

The Devil and the Deep


Ellen DatlowAlyssa Wong - 2018
    Whether its tales of murderous pirates who stalk the waters in search of treasure and blood, creatures that haunt the depths below―ones we’ve only seen in our nightmares, or storms that can swallow you whole, the open water can be a dangerous and terrifying place.With new stories from New York Times-bestsellers and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Christopher Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, and more, Devil and the Deep guarantees you’ll think twice before going back into the water.

Rawblood


Catriona Ward - 2015
    She dares to fall in love.And only then do they discover the true horror of the Vallarca curse.

Through the Woods


Emily Carroll - 2014
    Most strange things do.'Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss.These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll.Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there...

Texas Gothic


Rosemary Clement-Moore - 2011
    But she also understands that "normal" doesn't mix with magic, and she's worked hard to build a wall between the two worlds. Not only to protect any hope of ever having a normal life.Ranch-sitting for her aunt in Texas should be exactly that. Good old ordinary, uneventful hard work. Only, Amy and her sister, Phin, aren't alone. There's someone in the house with them—and it's not the living, breathing, amazingly hot cowboy from the ranch next door.It's a ghost, and it's more powerful than the Goodnights and all their protective spells combined. It wants something from Amy, and none of her carefully built defenses can hold it back.This is the summer when the wall between Amy's worlds is going to come crashing down.

The Siren and the Specter


Jonathan Janz - 2018
    But the Alexander House is different. Built by a 1700s land baron to contain the madness and depravity of his eldest son, the house is plagued by shadows of the past and the lingering taint of bloodshed. David is haunted, as well. For twenty-two years ago, he turned away the woman he loved, and she took her life in sorrow. And David suspects she’s followed him to the Alexander House.

One Foot in the Grave


C.C. Hunter - 2017
    and he’s bringing his work home with him. Once again, seventeen-year-old Riley Smith is the new kid in school and her dad’s career has her back to being dubbed a freak. Truth is, she’s a much bigger freak than her classmates think. The only company she keeps these days is the dead who follow Dad home from work. She can see them. She can speak to them. And Fate seems to think she can help them solve their last problems so that they can move on to the other side. Which is odd, because with the loss of her mother and her father’s alcoholism, she’s got enough problems of her own. But nothing could prepare her for the next tormented young spirit who darkens Riley’s door. The young woman’s death wasn’t the accident everyone believes. Soon Riley finds herself face-to-face with the killer and her only protection comes in the form of another spirit, Hayden, a boy her age with a heart-melting smile and understanding eyes that make her feel safe. If she can escape becoming the killer’s next victim, Riley knows she’ll have to help Hayden move on too, but what if she can’t let him go?

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton


Edith Wharton - 1937
    Fine line-drawings by Laszlo Kubinyi enhance the mysterious and sometimes chilling mood.The lady's maid's bell (1904)The eyes (1910)Afterward (1910)Kerfol (1916)The triumph of night (1914)Miss Mary Pask (1925)Bewitched (1925)Mr Jones (1928)Pomegranate seed (1931)The looking glass (1935)All souls' (1937)

Naomi's Room


Jonathan Aycliffe - 1991
    Brimming with excitement, Charles sets off with his daughter Naomi on a Christmas Eve shopping trip to London. But, by the end of the day, all Charles and his wife have left are cups of tea and police sympathy. For Naomi, their beautiful, angelic only child, has disappeared. Days later her murdered body is discovered.But is she dead?In a howling, bumping story of past and present day hell, Jonathan Aycliffe's haunting psychological masterpiece is guaranteed to make you sink to untold depths of teeth-shaking terror.

Poe's Children: The New Horror


Peter StraubM. Rickert - 2008
    Showcasing this cutting-edge talent, Poe’s Children now brings the best of the genre’s stories to a wider audience. Featuring tales from such writers as Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Carroll, Poe’s Children is Peter Straub’s tribute to the imaginative power of storytelling. Each previously published story has been selected by Straub to represent what he thinks is the most interesting development in our literature during the last two decades.Selections range from the early Stephen King psychological thriller “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” in which an editor confronts an author’s belief that his typewriter is inhabited by supernatural creatures, to “The Man on the Ceiling,” Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem’s award-winning surreal tale of night terrors, woven with daylight fears that haunt a family. Other selections include National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon’s “The Bees”; Peter Straub’s “Little Red’s Tango,” the legend of a music aficionado whose past is as mysterious as the ghostly visitors to his Manhattan apartment; Elizabeth Hand’s visionary and shocking “Cleopatra Brimstone”; Thomas Ligotti’s brilliant, mind-stretching “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”; and “Body,” Brian Evenson’s disturbing twist on correctional facilities.Crossing boundaries and packed with imaginative chills, Poe’s Children bears all the telltale signs of fearless, addictive fiction.

Plain Bad Heroines


Emily M. Danforth - 2020
    Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.

The Crowlands


T.M. Creedy - 2019
    Sara Robinson – gambling addict, liar, thief – lived a hand-to-mouth existence in a dingy flat in London. Now she's running for her life after the chance to make some easy money goes horribly wrong. She has three things which might save her - a passport in someone else’s name, a ticket to Australia and a suitcase full of cash. Sara finds herself the custodian of a crumbling Victorian mansion known as Crowlands House, once a children’s home in the rural town of Ararat. At first, the airy property seems cool and welcoming in the harsh Australian sunlight. It’s a private haven where Sara can forget about what happened in London, and a place to escape the hostile local townsfolk. But there are things in the house that aren't quite right. And Sara can't ignore them forever. The doors that won't stay open, the scratching sounds in the walls at night, the objects that disappear only to reappear in a room she has never even been in. And then the children come out to play - one by shadowy one..... Sara begins to delve into the mysteries of the mansion and uncovers a secret so gruesome it refuses to stay buried. But the evils of the past will do anything to keep the dead silent, and Sara must find a way to survive the horror that still resides at Crowlands House. The crows in the gum tree wait patiently for the souls of the dead to leave the house, but he will never set them free.

The Evening Spider


Emily Arsenault - 2016
    I know Matthew saw that spider. I know it was na product of my imagination.”In this compelling mix of psychological suspense and historic true crime, two young mothers—130 years apart—are haunted by the same house.1885: From inside a New England mental hospital, Frances Barnett recounts the months that led to her hospitalization. She believes that her pregnancy, the birth of her child, and the first days of motherhood may have impaired her sanity, and she has come to distrust her own memories. She escaped the monotony and isolation of her daughter’s early months by following a local murder trial, and as her story unfolds, Frances must admit that her obsession with the details of the murder was not entirely innocent.Present day: Abby Bernacki has been adjusting to motherhood smoothly—until odd sensations and dreams began to unsettle her while home alone with her baby. When she stumbles onto the timeworn diary of Frances Barnett, Abby is surprised to see how similar their situations are. But as she reaches the diary’s disturbing final pages, she becomes obsessed with the idea that a supernatural influence might be inhabiting her home.With each passing day, Abby feels her own grip on reality slipping—and most troubling of all, she fears for her baby’s safety.