She's still reeling from the news when she's offered an unexpected solution: Mr Argenton, a wealthy stranger, asks for her hand in marriage.Marrying Mr Argenton will restore her family's fortunes and save them from scandal, but condemns Sophie to a life in Northwood, a vast and unnaturally dark mansion situated hours from civilisation.Sophie struggles to adjust to her new position as mistress over the desolate house. Mr Argenton's relatives are cold, and Mr Argenton himself is keeping secrets. Even worse, the house is more than it seems.Mr Argenton's young cousin, Elise, draws terrifying images. Doors slam. Inhuman figures slink through the forest surrounding the house. A piano plays in the middle of the night. Blood drips from the ceilings.Sophie is inevitably pulled towards the terrifying truth: Northwood's ancient halls are haunted by the family's long-dead ancestors. The malevolent spirits--produced by grisly deaths--resent her intrusion into their home.Trapped in Northwood and desperate for an escape, Sophie's fate is further complicated as she finds herself irrevocably drawn to the tall, dark-eyed man she married. She suspects her feelings are returned, but Mr Argenton is hiding the truth about the house--and his secrets are so dangerous that they might just be unforgivable.

    On the surface, the setup was perfect: cheap rent, a great location, and total anonymity.Beneath the surface, however, Corona Heights was something else entirely.Cursed with paper thin walls, the building kept few of its tenants' secrets. But one secret had remained safely buried for years until Fiona's strange encounter with her neighbor - a ten-year-old named Olivia - threatened to unearth it, and all of the unimaginable consequences inherent in its being.As she wages a personal crusade to regain the love and trust of her estranged son, Fiona must also confront the ever-tightening grip of an addiction that she has yet to overcome, a neighbor whose erratic behavior grows more dangerous by the hour, and a seemingly innocent little girl whose dark connection to Corona Heights threatens not only the child's life, but the life that Fiona is trying so desperately to reclaim.And it all begins with a foreboding message from the girl whose face Fiona cannot see, but whose voice is hauntingly clear."Don't ignore the knocking..."

    Thirsting for vengeance against the enemy who made him something less than human, Sam returns to England and crosses paths with Cassandra Fielding. His best friend’s little sister has become a fearless woman on a dangerous mission of her own. And against all odds, she sees past what he’s become, and stirs a desire he thought he’d lost forever…“Simon Says” by Bianca D’ArcSpecial Forces soldier Simon Blackwell ended his affair with Mariana Daniels three years ago, but he hasn’t stopped protecting her. Mariana has no knowledge of the dark, deadly creatures that lurk in the forest surrounding her clinic, or of the mysterious powers that make Simon the only one who can defeat them. But soon he’ll have no choice but to reveal the truth, and urge her to trust in an explosive passion that never faded…

    Johnstone, Best-selling western author, John Spiars has created a timeless hero of the old west. The first novel in the Heck Carson Series, Riders of the Lone Star brings the wild and lawless Texas frontier to life. When the Law ain’t enough… He brings Justice. The year is 1852. Settlers on the Texas frontier are at the mercy of hostile Comanche and vicious outlaws, and the only ones holding the line between life and death are a few brave men, known as Texas Rangers. Outnumbered and outgunned, they bring law and order to the untamed land. They face impossible odds with nothing more than grit, determination, and a fast gun. It is this adventure and excitement that lures sixteen-year-old Jesse “Heck” Carson to leave his families ranch to join the fight. Heck quickly learns that this life comes at a price, the cost of which is hardship, danger, and possibly his own life. The bonds of friendship, loyalty, and duty lead him into epic battles that test his courage and resolve, and along the way he learns what it means to wear the star of the Texas Rangers. Excerpts: As fast as he could, he pulled the hammer back and fired, the first Comanche jerked once and hit the ground. The other warrior was no more than two feet away now. Heck wondered if he had another bullet left. Had he fired five or six shots? He couldn’t remember. Saying a silent prayer, Heck pulled the hammer back and looked at his approaching enemy. The point of the warrior’s lance was inches away from his chest when heck pulled the trigger. The barrel of the Walker was almost touching the chest of the charging Indian. Heck heard no sound, but saw the smoke pour out of the barrel and the big warrior dropped to his knees, and fell on top of the young Ranger. Lieutenant Sutter and Corporal Anderson approached the men on horseback, ready to do what had to be done. Looking at the group of riders, however, Sutter immediately recognized he had made a terrible mistake. These men were not military, not even by Southern standards. They were unkempt, filthy, and armed to the teeth. His heart sank as he noticed that most of the detachment were Mexican and their guns were not in their holsters. “What is going on here?” he said, unable to believe what he was seeing. The lead rider smiled and said, “This was even easier than Senor Cortina said it would be. Thank you.” Without saying another word, the man raised his pistol and fired two quick shots, hitting both Lieutenant Sutter and Corporal Anderson between the eyes. The man wheeled around with his rifle as Heck landed on his back, but it was a fruitless gesture. There was a look of pained surprise on the man’s face as Heck covered his mouth and pulled him to the floor. Heck plunged his knife into the man’s chest several times, as he kept his hand over the man’s mouth. After several seconds his muffled cries were silent. John Spiars is the author of the Heck Carson Series. He is a writer and amateur historian with a passion for the history and myths of the "Old West". His hope is to keep alive the western genre for this generation and all of those to come, while both entertaining and educating readers of all ages. He is a native Texan and lives in North Texas with his wife and four children. When not writing western novels, he maintains a blog and Facebook page about Texas history and travel entitled Under the Lone Star.

    But soon after her arrival at Coldthistle House, Louisa begins to realize that the house’s mysterious owner, Mr. Morningside, is providing much more than lodging for his guests. Far from a place of rest, the house is a place of judgment, and Mr. Morningside and his unusual staff are meant to execute their own justice on those who are past being saved.Louisa begins to fear for a young man named Lee who is not like the other guests. He is charismatic and kind, and Louisa knows that it may be up to her to save him from an untimely judgment. But in this house of distortions and lies, how can Louisa be sure whom to trust?

     No good comes from this book. The story has magic, mayhem, theft, murder, sass talk, demons, animals committing felonies, gleeful revenge, and bad things happening to good people for no particular reason. It won’t encourage good habits and probably fine tune bad ones. The only lesson learned is don’t lie unless you know the rules. Teenager Peter Whistler lives at the Little Angels Home for Orphan Boys. Life in New Jersey is harsh in the Great Depression, but Peter has an exceptional ability to lie. He hones his talent, convinced it’s the ticket to easy fortune. He certainly doesn’t foresee the arrival of a murderous conjurer with mysterious designs on a little blind girl named Esther. Drawn into a nefarious plot to unleash a demon, Peter leads Esther and an enchanted terrier on a desperate escape to New Orleans and meets Amelie Marchand. Like all well-bred southern girls she’s trained in deadly martial arts, but with a murderous stepmother, Amelie has troubles of her own. Peter and Amelie’s one chance for survival is to head deep into the bayou and seek help from a mad shaman known as the Frog King. Welcome to an alternate 1930s where both jazz and magic fill New Orleans’ air. Can a little luck, mystical lies, and a dash of Cajun crazy help Peter harness the power to kill an immortal demon? If not, the Depression will be a picnic by comparison when hell arrives on Earth.

    She hoped that she could disappear into the northern most reaches of the mountains and wait until people had forgotten her name. However, Bell had other plans. The Haunting of Quenby Mansion A shut-in vanishes ten years ago. A massive plantation house on par with that from Gone with the Wind is passed down to a hardened female P.I. Hundreds of secrets await to be discovered, and with them, a sinister evil. The Haunting of Winchester Mansion In the small town of Black Bay, a vacant, forgotten house sits atop an overlooking bluff. When Bailey and Bodhi Taylor move in and begin renovations, the house seems perfect. But things move on their own, screams echo from the basement, and Bailey sees a shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye. Is the house haunted? And if it is, what does the ghost want with Bailey?

    Not because she’s never seen one, but because she saw one too many. Refusing to believe is the only way to protect herself from the ghost that tried to steal her life. Kat’s disbelief keeps her safe until her junior year at McTernan Academy, when a research project for an eccentric teacher takes her to a tiny, private island off the coast of Connecticut. The site of a grisly mystery, the Isle of Acacia is no place for a girl who ignores ghosts, but the ghosts leave Kat little choice. Accompanied by her research partner, Evan Kingsley, she investigates the disappearance of Cassie Mallory and Sebastian Radcliffe on their wedding night in 1886. Evan’s scientific approach to everything leaves Kat on her own to confront a host of unbelievables: ancestral curses, powerful spells, and her strange connection to the ghosts that haunt Castle Creighton. But that’s all before Kat’s yanked through a magic portal and Evan follows her. When the two of them awaken 129 years in the past with their souls trapped inside the bodies of two wedding guests, everything changes. Together, Kat and Evan race to stop the wedding-night murders and find a way back to their own time—and their own bodies—before their souls slip away forever.

    A pack of ravenous wolves is loose in the city, feasting on human flesh. Lorenzo Boccaccio is summoned by a Dominican inquisitor who claims that Lorenzo's business agent is tied to the sorcery behind the wolf attacks. He demands that Lorenzo and his brother Marco help him root out the evil.Rivals in business and love, the brothers make for a reluctant partnership. Even so, they are confident the wolves are a natural phenomenon, not men or demons traveling in wolf form.But events soon prove that the monks and peasants are right. These are no ordinary wolves. And if they are not defeated, the city's filthy alleys will be awash in blood.

    Adrienne is spirited, passionate, and impulsive... all of the things Oz is not. Oz is drawn to her in a way that is inexplicable to him, and deeply concerning to those who know him. Amidst her father’s threats, Adrienne makes secret plans to run away with Oz. Before they can act on them, Adrienne and her family are involved in a tragic accident that takes the lives of the entire family. Adrienne’s body, however, is not found in the wreckage. Oz is devastated and unable to move on when an extensive investigation fails to solve the mystery of Adrienne’s vanishing. Three years later Oz has made a life for himself as an attorney at his family’s law firm. However, the predictability and peace of his quiet life is shattered when Adrienne is discovered, alive and well…but with no memory of anything before the accident. Oz is conflicted: grateful that she is alive but still damaged from her disappearance and hesitant to get involved and re-open a wound that never fully closed. Yet, Oz finds himself unable to resist helping when Adrienne’s desperate attempt to flee the confusing and dark influences in her life instinctively finds her on Oz’s doorstep. Unable to turn her away, but equally unable to get too involved, Oz keeps from her the truth of who he was and what they meant to each other before she disappeared. Against his better judgment he finds himself enmeshed in the mystery of what happened to her when she was sixteen. The more he learns, the less he understands, and as the story unfolds and Adrienne’s memory slowly returns, everything they thought they both knew gets called into question.

    Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not "soul" . . . He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever. To make the bet even more interesting, Satan throws in that diabolical engine of deceit, seduction, and corruption known as a "traveling circus" to aid in the evil bidding. What better place exists to rob poor sad saps of their souls than the traveling carnivals historically run by hucksters and legendary con men? With little time to lose, Johannes raises a motley crew from the dead and enlists his brother, Horst, a charismatic vampire (an unfortunate side effect of Johannes's early experiments with necromancy), to be the carnival's barker. On the road through the pastoral English countryside, this team of reprobates wields their black magic with masterful ease, resulting in mayhem at every turn. Johannes may have the moral conscience of anthrax, but are his tricks sinful enough to beat the Devil at his own game? You'll never guess, and that's a promise! Brilliantly written and wickedly funny, "Johannes Cabal the Necromancer" combines the chills and thrills of old-fashioned gothic tales like "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," the mischievous humor of "Wicked," and the sophisticated charms of" Jonathan Strange &Mr. Norrell "and spins the Faustian legend into a fresh, irreverent, and irresistible new adventure.

    Some of the stories are inspired by true events. Find out which ones inside this scary collection. “Night Visitors” Once or twice a year, dark creatures show up at the foot of Annie`s bed and take her with them and conduct grisly experiments on her. This is happening for years now. She doesn’t understand who they are and why they do this. But this, last time, it's different. This time she gets the answers, and nothing on Earth will be the same afterward. “Agatha” A man falls in love with a mysterious timid red-haired girl. As he begins to know more about her, he finds out that her secrets are more complicated than he fathoms. A series of abnormal accidents begin to happen in her presence. Who is she and why does she have these paranormal powers? "Grandpa Jesse" Three months have passed since the death of their grandfather, and sisters Jen and Kim are struggling to cope with the loss. As Jen and Kim spend more time at their grandmother’s house, they slowly begin to realize some specter is visiting her on a daily basis and he means no good.

    Wracked by plague and war, the majestic Aztec empire begins to crumble. As their beloved capital city falls to the ruthless Spaniards and hordes of vengeful tribes, the Aztecs make a last-ditch attempt to secretly save their heritage before it’s lost to the sands of time forever.Meanwhile in the modern day, a string of high-profile robberies lays waste to archaeological sites and museums across Mesoamerica, overshadowed by a brewing nationalistic fervor which threatens to topple already fragile countries. Rumors say the artifacts hold the secret to a legendary myth—The Seven Cities of Cibola—which has concealed countless treasures for centuries.Faced with unraveling the mysteries of both the present and the past, aspiring archaeologist Nick LaBounty embarks on a dangerous mission to solve a long-held family mystery and discover the truth behind the stolen artifacts.He soon finds his fate irreversibly entangled with a civilization from over five hundred years ago. But time is running out, and the future of both a fabulous treasure—and all Central America—teeters precariously in the balance.

     Dark Secrets by AM Hudson What would you really give up to be a vampire? Ara and David fell in love under tragic circumstances, the emotions magnified by grief until one could no longer live without the other. But after David confesses that he’s a vampire, Ara’s recent brush with death leaves her wondering if she ever wants to see him again. In just two weeks she is expected to either leave her life behind for an eternity of murder in a cult-like society, or say goodbye to David. But when a decades-old feud between brothers erupts, Ara becomes the pawn in a sick, twisted game of life and death—one that forces her to face the reality of the choice she made. Will David learn what’s happened in time to save her, or did he plan this in the hopes that the brutalised girl would beg him to turn her? Token Huntress by Kia Carrington-Russell The sun’s light dimmed many centuries before; now in the year of 2,341 rampant vampires now stalk their victims in a half-lit world. Humanity has been overtaken by a new society: one comprised of vampires, the supernatural beings that hunt them, and the remaining humans they fight over. The laws and rules that once bound our world have long since been lost. Now, the Hunter Guild struggle to stay one step ahead of the Vampire Council. Esmore, Token Huntress, has exceeded all expectations at only 18 years of age. She is fearless leader to her team, and she is relentless in her pursuit of the enemy. There is only one problem: Esmore is struggling to repress the growing darkness that seduces her from within. Esmore takes another step into the darkness when she encounters a teasing, tantalizing -- utterly unignorable -- vampire. The lines between right and wrong are blurred further as Esmore gives into her temptation, and her reality becomes deliciously tainted both with evil and with lust. This Blood (The Grace Allen Series) by Alisha Basso When Grace Allen discovers a valuable ring in a gutter, she thinks it’s her lucky day, but, fate has other ideas. Now, Grace finds herself not only the keeper of tremendous power, but the only person in the world able to wield it. Seth McPhee is a monster on the hunt and his prey has never been more seductive. While Grace's powers will ensure his leadership in the underworld, her beauty will make her captivity a pleasure. Rushing to the rescue is Lucian, a man who is more than he seems. Will he prove to be the white knight that he claims, or is he just another beautiful monster? Battling fantastic creatures as well as her raging libido, Grace’s resolve is tested. Will she succumb to a life of lavish entrapment, or escape for an uncertain freedom? Laura's Locket by Tima Maria Lacoba What would you do if you met the man of your dreams, who came to you only at night and promised you love everlasting? Eighteen-year-old Laura Dantonville meets handsome and mysterious Philippe in while on holiday in Italy, completely unaware of her own destiny and the part Philippe will play in it.

    WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT? Grace Gray is sent to Falcondell High to finish High School with her cousin Gabe as her protector. She has moved around all of her life and longs for a normal life. Unfortunately for her she is far from normal and has to join the "Invisibles" in order to pass through the year unnoticed. Nobody must discover her secret. The hottest, meanest, most evil bad boy that you could ever wish to meet in the school though has other ideas and is used to getting his own way. Ash Knight lives with his uncle who controls the Town through fear. He is the leader of the most feared gang in the area and nobody gets in their way. Ash lives with his uncle but spends his holidays with his father. When Grace comes to Falcondell Ash finds himself in unknown territory. They say that opposites attract but this relationship is the stuff of nightmares for everyone involved. They will have to not only battle their own feelings but those of their families and friends. Will Grace's guardians allow them to be together or will she once again be moved away for her own protection? Ash also discovers something that turns his world upside down and they both end up fighting for a lot more than each other. If you like a good High school romance with a bad boy to die for then this is for you. Can somebody who is so good ever be with somebody who is completely evil? Ash and Grace are at opposite sides of the spectrum and this year changes them both forever.