Seven years later, a teenager has been found washed up on the beach.It’s Carrie’s son. And he’s alive.No longer the sweet boy she remembers, Cal is deeply troubled, wildly unpredictable, and a growing danger to everyone around him.Now, Carrie must unravel the mystery of what happened to her son before it’s too late. Because a serial killer is stalking the streets of Devil’s Cove.And another young child is missing...Set against the wild backdrop of Cornwall, The Cove is the first part of a nail-biting trilogy about a mother's fight to save her son from the grip of evil.

     After the loss of his parents, young Jack Thatch first met Stella as a child—this cryptic little girl of eight with dark hair and darker eyes, sitting alone on a bench in the cemetery clutching her favorite book. Gone moments later, the brief encounter would spark an obsession. She'd creep into his thoughts, his every waking moment, until he finally finds her again exactly one year later, sitting upon the same bench, only to disappear again soon after. The body of a man found in an alley, every inch of his flesh horribly burned, yet his clothing completely untouched. For Detective Faustino Brier, this wasn't the first, and he knew it wouldn't be the last. It was no different from the others. He'd find another just like it one year from today. August 9, to be exact. Isolated and locked away from the world in a shadowy lab, a little boy known only as Subject "D" waits, grows, learns. He's permitted to speak to no one. He has never known the touch of another. Harboring a power so horrific, those in control will never allow him beyond their walls. All of them linked in ways unimaginable.

    But as she forms an unlikely connection with her abductor, Luke, her adventure takes a strange turn.There is nothing magical about growing up in a mountainside castle, when it’s your prison. Kaya’s ruthless and powerful father keeps her under lock and key, watched every second of the day–and Kaya’s not really sure why. She’s just a normal girl…no one special. She doesn’t understand her father’s obsession with her safety – until she is kidnapped. Dragged through a brutal wilderness, Kaya’s captor shows her the devastating truth, and even though he has dark secrets of his own, she is inexplicably drawn to him–when the stars are in your eyes, sometimes the line between right and wrong is blurred. Passion obliterates common sense. Love... makes you reckless. As Kaya's father’s men and her devoted bodyguard scour the woods to find her, she wonders if staying in the arms of her abductor is the safer place to be. At least, that’s what her heart is saying—her head is saying run… Dangerously passionate and darkly romantic, SERENADE is a page-turning thriller and seductive love story.

    Before long, it was adapted into illustrations, audio recordings, and short films; and that was before it was revised and expanded into a novel!How much do you remember about your childhood?In Penpal, a man investigates the seemingly unrelated bizarre, tragic, and horrific occurrences of his childhood in an attempt to finally understand them. Beginning with only fragments of his earliest years, you'll follow the narrator as he discovers that these strange and horrible events are actually part of a single terrifying story that has shaped the entirety of his life and the lives of those around him. If you've ever stayed in the woods just a little too long after dark, if you've ever had the feeling that someone or something was trying to hurt you, if you remember the first friend you ever made and how strong that bond was, then Penpal is a story that you won't soon forget, despite how you might try.

    While its citizens have fallen on hard times, they’ve managed to survive decades of harsh, northern winters. But when drifter Sarah Pembrooke rolls into town looking for work, the frigid cold will be the least of their worries.

    In 1986, while Kate was a college student at Sweet Briar in western Virginia, she was raped and witnessed a murder. Kate’s eyewitness testimony convicts a man who’s released more than 20 years later based on DNA evidence. The development isn’t a complete surprise to Kate, who has lived with the knowledge that she perjured herself. Her life since the trial has been a disappointment, and her social life is limited by her possessive and creepy father, Pop, who keeps her on a tight leash. That constraint becomes even more difficult to bear when Kate, who works as a landscaper, falls for a gardener, Tony, and hopes she has found the love of her life. Things don’t go smoothly, and more blood is shed along the way to a jaw-dropping, but logical, climax that will make veteran mystery readers eager for more of Buhmann’s work. Big Al's Books & Pals 2014 Readers' Choice Awards: Mystery Nominee Twenty years ago, Kate Cranbrook’s eyewitness testimony sent the wrong man to prison for rape and murder. When new evidence exonerates him, Kate says that in the darkness and confusion, she must have mistaken her attacker’s identity. She is lying. Kate would like nothing better than to turn her back on the past, but she is trapped in a stand-off with the real killer. When a body turns up on her doorstep, she resorts to desperate measures to free herself once and for all from a secret that is ruining her life.

    It starts when he meets Ranna, a beautiful photographer with something to hide. Alex stopped believing in love a long time ago, yet here in the middle of East Africa, it’s found him again.Alex knows a thing or two about chaos—wherever he goes, it follows. When an IT billionaire washes up onshore after seasonal flooding, he finds himself at the center of an investigation with Ranna as the main suspect. It turns out she may have a good reason for hiding her past.Wherever she goes, murder follows.Alex should be used to these cat-and-mouse games, but this time it’s different. Should he listen to his heart and help Ranna hide the bloody trail leading to her? Or should he use his head and run for his life?

    Now many years later, the killer seems to be back. And this time he's after Matt. When Matt Ballard was starting out his career, three boys were murdered in the same area, the remote and bleak Gibbet Fen. When the main suspect was killed in a hit-and-run, the killings stopped. But Matt was not satisfied that the real murderer had been caught. Over twenty-five years later, Matt gets a photo in an unmarked envelope. It's of the Gibbet Fen crime scene. And the picture was taken before the murder took place. More photos arrive, relating to the historic murders, as well as intimate pictures of Matt's very secret private life. Then another murder happens, with some of the hallmarks of the old case. Has the killer returned, or is this just a sick copycat determined to ruin Matt's life and reputation?

    It’s been seventeen years, and though desperate to start a new life with her fiancé, Hannah is compelled to question the events of her last summer at Brackenhill.When a human bone is found near the estate, Hannah is convinced it belongs to her long-lost sister. She launches her own investigation into that magical summer that ended in a nightmare. As strange happenings plague the castle, Hannah uncovers disturbing details about the past and startling realizations about her own repressed childhood memories.Fueled by guilt over her sister’s vanishing, Hannah becomes obsessed with discovering what happened all those years ago, but by the time Hannah realizes some mysteries are best left buried, it’s too late to stop digging. Overwhelmed by what she has exposed, Hannah isn’t sure her new life can survive her old ghosts.

    Lauren Remley. Salty Manhattan homicide detective Joe Tenacce and his partner, Jen Salito, are assigned the investigation.Tenacce quickly realizes that, to solve the case, he will need to enlist the help of his son Danny, a theoretical physics-graduate-student-turned-religious-cryptologist whom he despises. Their quest for "the book" and its meaning takes the Tenacces and Salito on a harrowing journey over two continents, through layers of increasingly complex ciphers, all while being pursued by a clandestine cult who will stop at nothing to obtain the book for their own nefarious designs.Can Danny and the detective duo find and decode the book? If so, what does the book say and can they keep it out of the hands of their enemy. Finally, what is the significance of the narrative—woven throughout the novel— that describes the tragic life of physicist Michael Richards?These are the questions that arise as the plot winds and turns toward its surprising end.A Dan Brown-like thriller, but with a twist!

    At least, it feels that way until a serial killer starts dicing up women from the shelter where she volunteers. Despite the ever-present tingling at the nape of her neck, Hannah manages to convince herself that the killings have nothing to do with her brutal past—until her boyfriend is murdered in the same ruthless manner as the others. It doesn’t help that the police think she might have done it. But the cops are right about one thing: Hannah is responsible. Because she knows who the killer is. Now she must face the fact that she brought a monster with her to Ash Park—and his appetite for blood is insatiable. Everyone's hungry for something. Some are more famished than others.

    This terrific boxset brings together Wes Markin's first three bestselling novels in the terrifying and shocking DCI Yorke series. Book 1: One Last Prayer for the Rays. School should be the safest place in the world. Not this winter. Detective Michael Yorke faces his most harrowing case yet. When 12-year-old Paul disappears from school, Yorke’s only clue is a pool of animal blood. Fearing the worst, he turns toward the most obvious suspect, recently released local murderer, Thomas Ray.But as the snow in Salisbury worsens, Ray’s mutilated body is discovered, and Yorke is left with no choice but to journey into the sinister heart of a demented family that has plagued the community for generations. Can he save the boy? Or will the evil he discovers change him forever? Book 2: The Repenting Serpent A vicious serial killer slithers from the darkness, determined to resurrect the ways of a long-dead civilisation.When the ex-wife of one of DCI Michael Yorke’s closest allies is left mutilated and murdered, Yorke and his team embark on their greatest test yet. A  deeply personal case that will push them to their very limits. And as Yorke’s team are pulled further into the dark, the killer circles, preparing to strike again.  Book 3: The Silence of Severance Your wedding day should be the most unforgettable day of your life. And this is one wedding that will never be forgotten. When a police officer’s wedding day ends in brutality and chaos, DCI Michael Yorke is pulled away from his own wedding and into the bloodiest chain of events Wiltshire has ever seen.As a heatwave tightens its grip on Salisbury, Yorke and his team face a race against time to find the most sinister and intelligent adversary they have ever faced. Christian Severance. But as the team chase Severance into the shadows of a dark past, Yorke’s own history starts to drag itself into the present. Can they stop Christian Severance before he achieves the unthinkable? And will Yorke survive the revelations that claw at him from the darkness? Praise for One Last Prayer for the Rays: "An explosive and visceral debut with the most terrifying of killers. Wes Markin is a new name to watch out for in crime fiction, and I can't wait to see more of Detective Yorke."  – Bestselling Crime Author Stephen Booth ‘A pool of blood, an abduction, swirling blizzards, a haunting mystery, yes, Wes Markin’s One Last Prayer for the Rays has all the makings of an absorbing thriller. I recommend that you give it a go.’ – Bestselling Author Alan Gibbons  ‘Wes Markin has created a really high energy novel that I just want to rave about everywhere.

    She's just taking out the trash. Don’t call Lucy Kendall a serial killer. She’s fighting for the innocent, and she’ll do whatever it takes to bring justice. When a child disappears, Lucy quickly discovers the link to a predator she’s faced before–a man the state of Pennsylvania decided to turn loose on the streets. Determined to find the little girl and put a criminal behind bars for good, Lucy forces her way onto the case.As the search for the kidnapped child pulls Lucy into a web of evil beyond her darkest imagination, she’ll have to face her own dark truths to save the little girl–and herself.

    They have two daughters and a beautiful home, and Alex’s startup business is about to explode thanks to massive private funding from his compassionate and supportive father-in-law, Joe. With millions more to come, all is perfect—until Joe is abducted and murdered during a family trip in Mexico.Alex’s world is about to be turned upside down. He can’t bear to tell his grieving wife why. The man they’ve both idolized has been keeping secrets. The pledged millions are nowhere to be found. The source of the original investment is a mystery, even to Joe’s financial adviser. No one, it seems, has any idea who the man they knew, loved, and trusted really was.As Alex digs deeper into Joe’s shadowy life, the most shocking surprises are yet to come. Deadly ones, too, because every lie that Alex uncovers in Joe’s dark past puts his family in more danger.

    Some rend the veil of sleep with heart-stopping madness. Others defy sanity to leave a helpless corner of your mind twitching for release. Sometimes, hours after waking, a nightmare drifts across your memory, tainting your day with wisps of discomfort. NIGHTMARES UNHINGED reveals horror in all its mutable forms—abject to absurd—through twenty tales of terror.Contributors include Mario Acevedo, Edward Bryant, Dustin Carpenter, Sean Eads, Keith Ferrell, Warren Hammond, Jason Heller, Gary Jonas, Stephen Graham Jones, J.V. Kyle, Aaron Michael Ritchey, Jeanne C. Stein, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Dean Wyant. Foreword by New York Times bestseller Steve Alten. Edited by Joshua Viola. Illustrations by Aaron Lovett.A portion of the book's proceeds will be donated to Rocky Mountain Cancer Assistance in honor of Melanie Tem.Contents:Foreword “Terrors In The Night” by Steve AltenIntroduction “Reclaim Your Fears” by Joshua Viola“The Brollachan” by Steve Rasnic Tem“Fangs” by J.V. Kyle“Be Seated” by Keith Ferrell“The Man Who Killed Texas” by Stephen Graham Jones “Scarecrows” by Joshua Viola “Zou Gou” by Mario Acevedo “Needles” by Joshua Viola and Dean Wyant “The Projectionist” by Jason Heller “The Wolf’s Paw” by Jeanne C. Stein “Danniker’s Coffin” by Keith Ferrell “Deep Woods” by Aaron Michael Ritchey “Diamond Widow” by Dustin Carpenter “The Camera” by Joshua Viola “Lost Balls” by Sean Eads “Bathroom Break” by J.V. Kyle “Marginal Ha’nts” by Edward Bryant “Delicioso” by Warren Hammond “The Librarian” by Joshua Viola “Gurgle. Gurgle.” by Mario Acevedo “Taking The Dare” by Gary Jonas Afterword “Melanie Tem: Hubble’s Child” by Edward Bryant