The Back Stories feature NYPD Detective Stephanie Chalice in the days before you first met her. She’s righteous, rambunctious, and oh so ready . . . for anything. A woman is dead, a suspect is in custody, and the case seems ironclad, but all is not as it appears. Chalice soon finds herself embroiled in a deadly game of fraud, conspiracy, and deception. The body count is about to rise and the only thing standing between the murderer and his next victim is a headstrong rookie detective with a sixth sense for solving crime.

    

    They locate ghosts who are haunting places – or people. It’s a well-known fact that the Mill Street Theatre is haunted. And everyone knows the building closes for cleaning work during the first week in September every year. But this is a cover-up. The theatre closes because the hauntings escalate during that week, bringing a threat to human life. The owner decides these hauntings have to be investigated, and any ghosts dealt with. The Laurel sisters offer their help. Their investigations lead them to a heartbreaking story.

    After a decades-long investigation that featured an amazing array of twists and turns, including a sensational trial and a controversial verdict, the case remains unsolved. To this day Muriel's murder is considered "the most bizarre and confusing case in the annuals of Eastern Kentucky crime."

    Grisly murders on the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway are being blamed on a rogue bear. Only one man understands the true nature of the beast that haunts the parkway. And, he knows the only thing that can stop a werewolf is another werewolf.

    Some of the stories are inspired by true events. Find out which ones inside this scary collection. "The Girl I Married" Jonathan noticed that after marrying Jeanette, she starts acting strange. As if she is not the same girl he dated. Why is she so different and what secrets is she hiding? "I`m Sorry Daddy" After an accident at work, Mr. Williams starts developing unusual symptoms. He is turning into a monster and there is nothing to stop this. "The House Next Door part 2" Jessica decides to find out what happened to her friend Sarah. What new discoveries will she make and will the same fate befall her?

    A thriller that actually manages to thrill, and a very dark comedy that twists and spirals towards a completely unexpected ending. This is one play where seeing isn't quite believing and reading the text is the only way to uncover all the clues.

    When his father Montrose goes missing, twenty-two year old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned Atticus’s great grandmother—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of one black family, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.

    He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable. He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    When Frank, Shelley and their two young children move into the home of their dreams, they discover a problem with the cellar.It doesn't take them long to find out why the house was sold at a knock-down price.

    But she cannot rest. A strange sleeping sickness stalks the village, and a young woman has disappeared. Why won't the police investigate? As events unfold, Emma becomes embattled yet again, compelled to fight for her life, against a deadly curse linked to a past about which she had no knowledge. She is the only one able to vanquish the evil, but doing so will entail confronting an horrific and all-too-familiar enemy.The question is, after all she's been through, will she be strong enough?

    With a noir sensibility and complexity of character, the novella is a hybrid psychological thriller that's part suspense tale, part family saga, and part literate mystery.Praise for The Walls of the Castle & Tom Piccirilli"As the first entry of a planned ten in Dark Region’s Black Labyrinth imprint, it is worth noting the difference you get in these books. Namely, the cover and interior artwork by Santiago Caruso, which is to be the calling card of all of the Black Labyrinth books. I’m a nut for interior artwork anyways (just look at my ravings in the Hiram Grange reviews). It adds so much to the impact of the story when done right. But Santiago does something special here. His work is as concrete and as ethereal and the words on the page. Images that initially seem only slightly off but become more bizarre the more you consider them. Images that add to the story instead of simply replicating it. Hopefully the other books in the series are done this well." - Horror News"Kasteel is a classic Piccirilli character, a broken, grief-stricken man on a classic Piccirilli quest for redemption. In its own way, The Castle is a classic Piccirilli character as well, a mercurial entity with layers upon layers of secrets." - FEAR NET"[The Walls of the Castle] is a novella with the paramount importance of three Ls: love, life, and loss. The setting is unbelievably believable and the atmosphere is nearly tangible. The author manages to modernize the Gothic concept of a castle turning it into an outpost of death, life, desperation, help and hope." - Zulfiya Trotter"Piccirilli straddles genres with the boldness of the best writers today, blending suspense and crime fiction into tight, brutal masterpieces." - James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Colony"[A Choir of Ill Children is] A wonderfully wacked, disorienting, fully creepy book…The poetic nature of the prose and seriousness of intent carried the day in every scene." - Dean Koontz, New York Times bestselling author of the Odd Thomas series"Tom Piccirilli is a powerful, hard-hitting, fiercely original writer of suspense. I highly recommend him." - David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Creepers

    Now the bodies of five young men have been found by divers, locked in their car on the riverbed. A tragic accident? Or something more sinister? As the volunteer divers begin the macabre task of extracting the bodies, DCI Katie Maguire investigates a crime where all is not as it seems...

    The decaying industrial backdrop of England's midlands provides a working class context that is both uniquely English, but universally accessible.Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    There's something horrible in that storm over the ocean. What does "feed the pig" mean? What are those ropes in the sky? Why is Dad acting so funny? In these dark tales you will experience every type of horror imaginable. It is so gruesome, frightening, and demented that only the bravest of readers will make it through these pages.