The X-Files: Cold Cases


Joe HarrisDean Haglund - 2017
    Featuring a mind-blowing and otherworldly soundscape of liquefying aliens, hissing creatures, and humming spacecraft, listeners get to experience the duo's investigations like never before.Set after the events of The X-Files: I Want to Believe and providing additional backstory to the incidents that pulled Mulder and Scully out of reclusion prior to 2016's miniseries revival, a database breach at FBI headquarters allows an unknown group to access and capitalize on those investigations left unsolved - dubbed cold cases - by the secret department once known as The X-Files. As friends and foes of the agency long thought gone begin to inexplicably reappear, former agents Mulder and Scully come out of anonymity to face a growing conspiracy that involves not only their former department but the US government and forces not of this world.Here, fans are treated once again to Mulder and Scully's irreplicable chemistry as only the series' leads could deliver, Duchovny's deadpan and cynical aloofness finding its natural counterpoint in Anderson's unwavering intelligence and rigidity. Appearances from series regulars and the actors who made them fan favorites round out this must-listen arc: the gruff, no-BS righteousness of Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi); the distinctive click-puff of the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis); and the stooge-like hijinks of three beloved conspiracy theorists called the Lone Gunmen (Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, and Bruce Harwood).Whether you're a believer or a skeptic, find your "I Want to Believe" poster. Break out that makeshift alien stiletto. Grab a pack of Morley cigarettes.The truth is out there. You just have to listen.Join the conversation: #istillwanttobelieve© The X-Files ™ & © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved. (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet


Richard Matheson - 2002
    "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is just one of many classic horror stories by Richard Matheson that have insinuated themselves into our collective imagination.Here are more than twenty of Matheson's most memorable tales of fear and paranoia, including:"Duel," the nail-biting tale of man versus machines that inspired Steven Spielberg's first film;"Prey," in which a terrified woman is stalked by a malevolent Tiki doll, as chillingly captured in yet another legendary TV moment;"Blood Son," a disturbing portrait of a strange little boy who dreams of being a vampire;"Dress of White Silk," a seductively sinister tale of evil and innocence.Personally selected by Richard Matheson, the bestselling author of I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come, these and many other stories, more than demonstrate why he is rightfully regarded as one of the finest and most influential horror writers of our generation.

Dead Trees Give No Shelter


Wil Wheaton - 2017
    Now, after twenty years away, Jay has come back to his hometown of Garron, Ohio, to uncover the truth about his brother’s death.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw


Stephen Graham JonesStephen Graham Jones - 2021
    She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges… a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body.My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.

The Upstairs House


Julia Fine - 2021
    Physically exhausted and mentally drained, she’s also wracked with guilt over her unfinished dissertation—a thesis on mid-century children’s literature.Enter a new upstairs neighbor: the ghost of quixotic children’s book writer Margaret Wise Brown—author of the beloved classic Goodnight Moon—whose existence no one else will acknowledge. It seems Margaret has unfinished business with her former lover, the once-famous socialite and actress Michael Strange, and is determined to draw Megan into the fray. As Michael joins the haunting, Megan finds herself caught in the wake of a supernatural power struggle—and until she can find a way to quiet these spirits, she and her newborn daughter are in terrible danger.Using Megan’s postpartum haunting as a powerful metaphor for a woman’s fraught relationship with her body and mind, Julia Fine once again delivers an imaginative and “barely restrained, careful musing on female desire, loneliness, and hereditary inheritances” (Washington Post).

The Vines


Christopher Rice - 2014
    But something sinister lurks beneath the soil of the old estate.After heiress and current owner Caitlin Chaisson is witness to her husband’s stunning betrayal at her birthday party, she tries to take her own life in the mansion’s cherished gazebo. Instead, the blood she spills awakens dark forces in the ground below. Chaos ensues and by morning her husband has vanished without a trace and his mistress has gone mad.Nova, daughter to Spring House’s groundskeeper, has always suspected that something malevolent haunts the old place, and in the aftermath of the birthday party she enlists Caitlin’s estranged best friend, Blake, to help her get to the bottom of it. The pair soon realizes that the vengeance enacted by this sinister and otherworldly force comes at a terrible price.

Countdown


Jonathan Maberry - 2011
    I wasn't totally against the idea, either. Sometimes things just fall that way, and either you roll with it or it rolls over you. Letting the bad guys win isn't how I roll."Meet Joe Ledger, Baltimore PD, attached to a Homeland task force… who's about to get a serious promotion.

The Lesser Dead


Christopher Buehlman - 2014
    And die. Joey Peacock knows this as well as anybody—he has spent the last forty years as an adolescent vampire, perfecting the routine he now enjoys: womanizing in punk clubs and discotheques, feeding by night, and sleeping by day with others of his kind in the macabre labyrinth under the city’s sidewalks.The subways are his playground and his highway, shuttling him throughout Manhattan to bleed the unsuspecting in the Sheep Meadow of Central Park or in the backseats of Checker cabs, or even those in their own apartments who are too hypnotized by sitcoms to notice him opening their windows. It’s almost too easy.Until one night he sees them hunting on his beloved subway. The children with the merry eyes. Vampires, like him…or not like him. Whatever they are, whatever their appearance means, the undead in the tunnels of Manhattan are not as safe as they once were.And neither are the rest of us.

Dangerous Women


George R.R. MartinSharon Kay Penman - 2013
    Lansdale - “Neighbors” by Megan Lindholm - “I Know How to Pick ’Em” by Lawrence Block - “Shadows For Silence in the Forests of Hell” by Brandon Sanderson - A Cosmere story - “A Queen in Exile” by Sharon Kay Penman - “The Girl in the Mirror” by Lev Grossman - A Magicians story - “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” by Nancy Kress - “City Lazarus” by Diana Rowland - “Virgins” by Diana Gabaldon - An Outlander story - “Hell Hath No Fury” by Sherilynn Kenyon - “Pronouncing Doom” by S.M. Stirling - An Emberverse story - “Name the Beast” by Sam Sykes - “Caretakers” by Pat Cadigan - “Lies My Mother Told Me” by Caroline Spector - A Wild Cards story - “The Princess and the Queen” by George R.R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire story

Crimes by Moonlight: Mysteries from the Dark Side


Charlaine HarrisCarolyn G. Hart - 2010
    #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris edits and contributes an all-new story-set in her Sookie Stackhouse universe-to this anthology from the Mystery Writers of America. Other authors include: Steve Brewer Dana Cameron Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane Barbara D'Amato Brendan DuBois Terrie Farley Moran Jack Fredrickson Parnell Hall Carolyn Hart S. W. Hubbard Toni L. P. Kelner Lou Kemp William Kent Kreuger Harley Jane Kozak Margaret Mahon Martin Meyers Jeffrey Somers Elaine Viets Mike Wiecek

Eyes to See


Joseph Nassise - 2011
    Desperate to reclaim what he has lost, Hunt finally turns to the supernatural for justice.Abandoning all hope for a normal life, he enters the world of ghosts and even more dangerous entities from beyond the grave. Sacrificing his normal sight so that he can see the souls of the dead and the powers that stalk his worst nightmares, Hunt embarks upon a strange new career--a pariah among the living; a scourge among the dead; doomed to walk between the light of day and the deepest darkness beyond night.His love for his departed daughter sustains him when all is most hopeless, but Hunt is cursed by something more evil than he can possibly imagine. As he descends into the maelstrom of his terrifying quest, he discovers that even his deepest fears are but prelude to yet darker deeds by a powerful entity from beyond the grave...that will not let him go until it has used him for its own nefarious purposes.

Dead Lake


Darcy Coates - 2015
     A week's visit to the remote Harob Lake cabin couldn't have come at a better time for Sam. She's battling artist's block ahead of a major gallery exhibition. Staying at Harob Lake is her final, desperate attempt to paint the collection that could save her floundering career. It seems perfect: no neighbours, no phone, no distractions. But the dream retreat disintegrates into a nightmare when Sam discovers she's being stalked. A tall, strange man stands on the edge of her dock, staring intently into the swirling waters below. He starts to follow her. He disables her car. He destroys her only way to communicate with the outside world. And Sam is beginning to suspect he's responsible for the series of disappearances from a nearby hiking trail. Stranded at Harob Lake, Sam realises she’s become the prey in the hunter’s deadliest game…

Reckoning


Jeaniene Frost - 2009
    Can he avoid redhaired vampire mercenary in pursuit at the same time? From anthology Unbound.

Tethered


Amy MacKinnon - 2008
    She spends her solitary life among the dead, preparing their last baths and bidding them farewell with a bouquet from her own garden. Her carefully structured life shifts when she discovers a neglected little girl, Trecie, playing in the funeral parlor, desperate for a friend.It changes even more when Detective Mike Sullivan starts questioning her again about a body she prepared three years ago, an unidentified girl found murdered in a nearby strip of woods. Unclaimed by family, the community christened her Precious Doe. When Clara and Mike learn Trecie may be involved with the same people who killed Precious Doe, Clara must choose between the steadfast existence of loneliness and the perils of binding one’s life to another.

Such a Pretty Smile


Kristi DeMeester - 2022
    Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, on the verge of becoming women, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don’t know when to shut up.2019: Thirteen-year-old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she’s seeing. Not her father, who has a new wife, and a new baby. And not her mother—the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures, made from bent twigs and crimped leaves, have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorized by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice—until she is punished for using it.2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. Snarling, barking, teeth snapping that no one else seems to notice. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape—both in her waking hours, and in the violent, visceral sculptures she creates while in a trance-like state. Her fiancé is convinced she needs help. Her new psychiatrist waves her “problem” away with pills. But Caroline’s past is a dark cellar, filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand.As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Brilliantly paced, unsettling to the bone, and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a powerful allegory for what it can mean to be a woman, and an untamed rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.