Faceless creatures haunt an unwary traveler. A beautiful woman — the personification of winter at its cruelest — ruthlessly kills unsuspecting mortals. These and 17 other chilling supernatural tales — based on legends, myths, and beliefs of ancient Japan — represent the very best of Lafcadio Hearn's literary style. They are also a culmination of his lifelong interest in the endlessly fascinating customs and tales of the country where he spent the last fourteen years of his life, translating into English the atmospheric stories he so avidly collected.Teeming with undead samurais, man-eating goblins, and other terrifying demons, these 20 classic ghost stories inspired the Oscar®-nominated 1964 film of the same name.

    He has been commissioned to write a full account of the case, from its bizarre and grisly details to the nature of the man behind the crime. The suspect, while world-renowned as a photographer, has a deeply unsettling portfolio—lurking beneath the surface of each photograph is an acutely obsessive fascination with his subject.He stands accused of murdering two women—both burned alive—and will likely face the death penalty. But something isn't quite right, and as the young writer probes further, his doubts about this man as a killer intensify. He soon discovers the desperate, twisted nature of all who are connected to the case, struggling to maintain his sense of reason and justice. What could possibly have motivated this man to use fire as a torturous murder weapon? Is he truly guilty, or will he die to protect someone else?The suspect has a secret—it may involve his sister, who willfully leads men to their destruction, or the "puppeteer," an enigmatic figure who draws in those who have suffered the loss of someone close to them. As the madness at the heart of the case spins out of control, the confusion surrounding it only deepens. What terrifying secrets will this impromptu investigator unearth as he seeks the truth behind these murders?

    Reanimated ahead of schedule, Adam Hassler, former Delta Force officer and special agent, leads the first expedition out of David Pilcher's mountain superstructure. His mission is simple. Guide and protect a team of surveyors and scientists, while they study the landscape and collect data for the reconstruction of Wayward Pines. A few hours into the trek, Hassler suspects that the operation has been compromised--by the very people that ordered it.With daylight fading, Hassler's team faces an unknown threat, on unfamiliar ground--in front of an impatient audience.First Contact is Part One of The Genesis Series, a planned trilogy of novellas set in the early days of Blake Crouch's Wayward Pines. Part Two will be released during the summer of 2014, followed shortly by Part Three.

    She works for the huge toy company named PopCo, where she creates snooping kids' kits - KidSpy, KidTec and KidCracker. At the company conference Alice and her colleagues are brought into developing the ultimate product for the teenage girls.

    Other children go missing just as a strange man named Abram Harsich appears in town. He dazzles the townspeople with the promises of a rainmaking machine. Only Matthew’s older brother Robert seems to be able to resist Abram’s spell, and to discover what happened to Matthew and the others. A Governor General’s Award for Children’s LiteratureAn ALA Best Books for Young Adults From the Hardcover edition.

    The Crimson Labyrinth is a wicked satire on extremist reality TV in the tradition of The Running Man-if that indeed is what it is. Welcome to THE MARS LABYRINTH where things aren't what they seem. Welcome to the world of Kishi, where the plot is as gnarly as the humor is twisted.When an unemployed former math major wakes up one day, he wonders if he's somehow ended up on the red planet. The good-looking young woman with aid-she says her name is Ai and that she draws erotic comics for a living-seems to have no clue either as to their whereabouts. Their only leads are cryptic instructions beamed to a portable device. Has the game begun?There is no reset button, no saving and no continue-make the wrong move and it's really GAME OVER. In the cruel world of THE MARS LABYRINTH, mercy and compassion are only for the weak or the very, very strong. The stakes are nothing less than your life-and apparently a lot of money.If you're a fan of Lost or Battle Royale, don't miss this one.

    In outward form, number9dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister’s death and his mother’s breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses—through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck—a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father’s identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer. Why is the line between the world of his experiences and the world of his dreams so blurry? Why do so many horrible things keep happening to him? What is it about the number 9? To answer these questions, and ultimately to come to terms with his inheritance, Eiji must somehow acquire an insight into the workings of history and fate that would be rare in anyone, much less in a boy from out of town with a price on his head and less than the cost of a Beatles disc to his name.

    Retreating into the past, she finds herself reliving one particular hot summer in Nagasaki, when she and her friends struggled to rebuild their lives after the war. But then as she recalls her strange friendship with Sachiko - a wealthy woman reduced to vagrancy - the memories take on a disturbing cast.

     Corrine Dunning loves living by the ocean, and her life is getting even better now that she’s falling in love with Andy Johnson. When Corrine meets a blind old woman who insists the concrete ship in Monterey Bay is haunted, she doesn’t believe it. Although Mary Carmichael is blind now, she’s seen a lot of love affairs bloom and die near Seacliff Beach. She was a child when the concrete SS Palo Alto was pulled up to the pier at Seacliff — she’s always known it was haunted, and she knows the ghost will weave itself into Corrine’s life, taking over her thoughts. While Corrine and Mary begin a tentative friendship, Corrine’s relationship with Andy takes an unsettling turn. Is it possible Corrine’s mistrust began when she saw the ghostly woman on the ship? Now, Corrine must battle a spirit that’s made a home inside her mind.

    She wants to get out into the world, but she's held back by a lack of money, and by the fact that her parents constantly beg for her help. She needs a miracle.When Rosie discovers a strange set of bones on the moor, she realizes that her miracle might have arrived. The bones start talking to her, promising to help her achieve her dreams. Two archaeologists are searching for these bones, which belong to a long-dead warrior king whose ghostly presence prefers to stay hidden. If Rosie protects his body, this king will do anything she wants. But can Rosie stick to the terms of this deal, and what will happen if she doesn't?Rosie soon discovers that miracles come with strings attached. She thinks she's cursed to spend her entire life in the village, but the real curse might be something far worse, and far harder to escape.

    

    His fate is now tied to hers.Meet the S.O.S. Brigade—an after-school club organized by Haruhi with a mission to seek out the extraordinary. Oh, and their second mission? Keeping Haruhi happy—because even though she doesn't know it, Haruhi has the power to destroy the universe. Seriously.

    There seems to be no cure for it. Yet, Monmow Disease, a life-threatening condition that transforms a person into a dog-like beast, is not the only villain in this shocking triumph of a medical thriller by manga-god Osamu Tezuka. Said to have been the personal favorite of the artist, who held a degree in medicine, and surprisingly attentive to Christian themes and imagery, Ode to Kirihito demolishes naive notions about human nature and health and likely preconceptions about the comics master himself.From pregnant vistas of the Japanese countryside to closed rooms full of sin and redemption, Tezuka astounds for more than eight hundred continuous pages, his art in turn easefully concise and flamboyantly experimental, his inquiry into our most repugnant instincts and prospects for overcoming them unflinchingly serious. Incorporating elements of the often lurid and adult-oriented “gekiga” style for the first time, Tezuka entered into his fruitful late period with this work.A promising young doctor, Kirihito Osanai visits a remote Japanese mountain village to investigate the source of the latest medical mystery. While he ends up traveling the world to discover what it takes to be cured of such a disease, a conspiracy back home attempts to explain away his absence. Hinging upon his fate are those of his loved ones: an unstable childhood friend and colleague trapped between factions of the medical establishment that nurtured him; a fiancée emotionally transformed by Kirihito’s mysterious disappearance; and a stranger who becomes his guardian angel, a sensual circus-act performer with volatile psychological secrets. From plutocratic Taipei and racially divided South Africa to backwater Arabia and modern Osaka, ambition and desire beckon “normal men” to behave uglier than any beast. Riveting our attention on deformity and its acceptance like The Elephant Man by David Lynch, Ode to Kirihito examines the true worth of human beings through and beyond appearances.

    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.

    Upon inspecting the peephole, the wary teenager decides not to answer. The person standing on the porch is wearing a dark jacket with a hood. Something about the mysterious unexpected visitor doesn’t feel right. A minute later as Dylan tries to pretend that no one is home, he hears, in the backyard, his German shepherd Murray barking and growling fiercely. Then to the adolescent’s horror, he hears the sound of a loud boom, reminiscent of a firecracker exploding. Suddenly the dog squeals like a stuck pig. Oh no! What just happened? What was Dylan suppose to do now? Hide! Yes. Hide. That was about all he could do. Especially since Dylan had forgotten to lock the back door.