Book picks similar to
I Would Haunt You If I Could by Seán Padraic Birnie
horror
short-stories
fiction
weird-fiction
A Place for Sinners
Aaron Dries - 2014
That was the day the wild dogs attacked, fighting for her bones. The day her father died. This trip to Thailand is exactly what Amity and her brother, Caleb, need—freedom.As their boat slits through saltwater, Amity, Caleb and the other passengers are having the time of their lives. They watch the island emerge on the horizon. Its trees twitch, as though impatient or hungry. Within its shadows, secrets best kept hidden will be unearthed. Sacrifices will be made. Terror will reach out to grasp Amity, as real and frightening as what’s lurking in the dark.
Sing Your Sadness Deep
Laura Mauro - 2019
Human and humane tales of beauty, strangeness, and transformation told in prose as precise and sparing as a surgeon’s knife. A major new talent!Featuring "Looking for Laika," winner of the British Fantasy Award, and "Sun Dogs," a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award.
Ghost Summer
Tananarive Due - 2015
In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by Otherness. Featuring an award-winning novella and fifteen stories—one of which has never been published before—Ghost Summer: Stories is sure to both haunt and delight.With an Introduction by Nalo Hopkinson and an Afterword by Steven Barnes.
Hi I'm a Social Disease
Andersen Prunty - 2011
Also includes: "The Dust Season," "The Man With the Face Like a Bruise," "The Photographer," "The Night the Moon Made a Sound," and "The Funeralgoer."
Prosper's Demon
K.J. Parker - 2020
But they don’t die, and we do. Equilibrium.The unnamed and morally questionable narrator is an exorcist with great follow-through and few doubts. His methods aren’t delicate but they’re undeniably effective: he’ll get the demon out — he just doesn’t particularly care what happens to the person.Prosper of Schanz is a man of science, determined to raise the world’s first philosopher-king, reared according to the purest principles. Too bad he’s demonically possessed.
Body Shocks
Ellen DatlowTananarive Due - 2021
Discover—if you dare—shockingly twisted tales of the human body that make The Twilight Zone seem like a children's show. In Body Shocks, you will find twenty-nine chilling tales from storytelling masters including Carmen Maria Machado, Richard Kadrey, Seanan McGuire, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Tananarive Due, Cassandra Khaw, Christopher Fowler, and many more.The most terrifying thing that you can possibly imagine is your own body in the hands of a monster. Or worse, in the hands of another human being.In these 29 tales of body horror selected by World Horror Grandmaster Ellen Datlow, you'll find the unthinkable, the shocking, and more: a couture designer preparing for an exquisitely grotesque runway show; a vengeful son seeking the parent who bred him as plasma donor; a celebrity-kink brothel that inflicts plastic surgery on sex workers; and organ-harvesting doctors who dissect a living man without anesthetic.Table of Contents: The Travellers Stay by Ray CluleyToother by Terry DowlingPainlessness by Kirstyn McDermottYou Go Where It Takes You by Nathan BallingrudA Positive by Kaaron WarrenLa Beauté sans verte by Genevieve ValentineSubsumption by Lucy TaylorSpar by Kij JohnsonIt Was the Heat by Pat CadiganAtwater by Cody GoodfellowThe Transfer by Edward BryantWelcome to Mengele’s by Simon BestwickBlack Neurology: A Love Story by Richard KadreyCuckoo by Angela SlatterCinereous by Livia LlewellynThe Truth That Lies Under Skin and Meat by Cassandra KhawNatural Skin by Alyssa WongThe Lake by Tananarive DueI’m Always Here by Richard Christian MathesonThe Look by Christopher FowlerThe Old Women Who Were Skinned by Carmen Maria MachadoSpores by Seanan McGuireSweet Subtleties by Lisa L. HannettElegy For a Suicide by Caitlín R. KiernanSkin City by Gemma FilesA True Friend by Brian EvensonWhat I Found in the Shed by Tom JohnstoneFabulous Beasts by Priya SharmaTissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: A Case Report by Michael Blumlein
The Deep
Alma Katsu - 2020
Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner's illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers - including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher - are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not - could not - have survived the sinking of the Titanic . . .
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Neil Gaiman - 2015
Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction--stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013--as well "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion. In "Adventure Story"--a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane--Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience "A Calendar of Tales" are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year--stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother's Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale "The Case of Death and Honey". And "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we're all alone in the darkness.A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day.
The Drowning Kind
Jennifer McMahon - 2021
Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives deeper into the research herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined.In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.
Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories
Audrey Niffenegger - 2015
James to Neil Gaiman, H.H. Munro to Audrey Niffenegger herself, Ghostly reveals the evolution of the ghost story genre with tales going back to the eighteenth century and into the modern era, ranging across styles from Gothic Horror to Victorian, stories about haunting--haunted children, animals, houses. Every story is introduced by Audrey Niffenegger, an acclaimed master of the craft, with some words on its background and why she chose to include it. Audrey's own story is "A Secret Life With Cats." Perfect for the classic and contemporary ghost story aficionado, this is a delightful volume, beautifully illustrated by Audrey, who is a graphic artist with great vision. Ghostly showcases the best of the best in the field, including Edith Wharton, P.G. Wodehouse, A.S. Byatt, Ray Bradbury, and so many more.
Cthulhu 2000
Jim TurnerRamsey Campbell - 1995
P. Lovecraft--with eighteen chilling contemporary tales that would have made the master proud.- The Barrens by F. Paul Wilson: In a tangled wilderness, unearthly lights lead the way to a world no human was meant to see.- His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood by Poppy Z. Brite: Two dabblers in black magic encounter a maestro of evil enchantment.- On the Slab by Harlan Ellison: The corpse of a one-eyed giant brings untold fortune--and unspeakable fear--to whoever possesses it.- Pickman's Modem by Lawrence Watt-Evans: Horror is a keystroke away, when an ancient evil lurks in modern technology.PLUS FOURTEEN MORE BLOOD-CURDLING STORIES
Untold Mayhem
Mark Tullius - 2020
24 Tales of Madmen, Monsters, and Misery.A tantalizing blend of horror, suspense, and crime stories; each unique but all dark, disturbing, and violent.Between the covers lurk:A tarot card reader who makes house calls.A disabled man in a miserable marriage who is regaining the use of his arms.An ex-con who can’t resist carrying out one last home invasion.Bickering business partners that resort to unconventional mediation to solve their problems.An alcoholic pedophile forced to spend time in the desert.A troubled university student who goes on a bloody rampage.An alert detective who makes an unorthodox decision when he finds himself in the middle of an armed robbery.
The Last Wish
Andrzej Sapkowski - 1993
Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent. But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good... and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.Librarian's Note: Alternate cover edition of ASIN B0010SIPT4
Wendigo
Vaughn C. Hardacker - 2017
It can possess a person and turn them into a monstrous creature consumed by a need to eat human flesh. For John Bear the Wendigo was merely a scary story his grandfather used to tell him. That is, until a man is found dead in the deep northern woods of Maine, butchered like an animal and with his heart cut out. And the only tracks they can find are massive footprints that couldn’t possibly be human. Now, John is sure that what is stalking the inhabitants of their remote outpost is a Wendigo, even if no one else believes it. He must stop a monster he once thought was nothing more than a tale to warn children.From Vaughn C. Hardacker, acclaimed author of Sniper and The Fisherman and twice finalist for the Maine Literary Awards, comes a supernatural thriller from the winter depths of the Maine wilderness, where the line between myth and reality blurs and ancient horrors are never fully buried. All are in danger of the Wendigo’s endless hunger, but how do you find a creature that can look like anyone until it’s too late?