Project 17


Laurie Faria Stolarz - 2007
    Built in 1878 and closed in 1992, this abandoned mental institution is rumored to be the birthplace of the lobotomy. Locals have long believed the place to be haunted. They tell stories about the unmarked graves in the back, of the cold spots felt throughout the underground tunnels, and of the treasures found inside: patients' personal items like journals, hair combs, and bars of soap, or even their old medical records, left behind by the state for trespassers to view. On the eve of the hospital's demolition, six teens break in to spend the night and film a movie about their adventures. For Derik, it's an opportunity to win a filmmaking contest and save himself from a future of flipping burgers at his parents' diner. For the others, it's a chance to be on TV, or a night with no parents. But what starts as a playful dare quickly escalates into a frenzy of nightmarish action. Behind the crumbling walls, down every dark passageway, and in each deserted room, they will unravel the mysteries of those who once lived there and the spirits who still might.

Soul Identity


Dennis Batchelder - 2007
    but what if you could? Most people believe their souls outlive their bodies. Most people would find an organization that tracks their souls into the future and passes on their banked money and memories compelling. Scott Waverly isn't like most people. He spends his days finding and fixing computer security holes. And Scott is skeptical of his new client's claim that they have been calculating and tracking soul identities for almost twenty-six hundred years. Are they running a freaky cult? Or a sophisticated con job? Scott needs to save Soul Identity from an insider attack. Along the way, he discovers the importance of the bridges connecting people's lives.

Under the Lake


Stuart Woods - 1986
    This placid body of water has brought prosperity to an isolated community, and with it, two strangers who intermingle with the insular local folk, strangers probing into crimes against nature from generations past that cannot remain submerged beneath the waters’ surface.Under the Lake marks the eagerly awaited return to the South of Stuart's Edgar Award winning novel, Chiefs. John Howell, once a top investigative journalist, comes to this backcountry town on the run from a once promising personal and professional life that has somehow gone sour. What he finds is a mystery so deep, so complex, so bizarre, that he cannot concentrate on the book he has come here to write.The story begins with his entanglement in a subtle, but relentless battle waged by the autocratic town father and the local sheriff against an outcast family, ravaged by its origins. Howell is further drawn in by his involvement with two women – an ambitious young reporter on the prowl for corruption, and a shy backwoods beauty, forsaken by the world because of her family’s ill kept secret. Then, without warning, visits from an otherworldly young girl haunt Howell as his rustic cabin becomes a spectral theater offering strange and frightening images of a hideous event of long ago.

The Uninvited


Cat Winters - 2015
    For she sees the uninvited ones—ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked, unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death. On that October evening in 1918 she sees the spirit of her grandmother, rocking in her mother’s chair. An hour later, she learns her younger brother and father have killed a young German out of retaliation for the death of Ivy’s older brother Billy in the Great War.Horrified, she leaves home, to discover the flu has caused utter panic and the rules governing society have broken down. Ivy is drawn into this new world of jazz, passion, and freedom, where people live for the day, because they could be stricken by nightfall. But as her ‘uninvited guests’ begin to appear to her more often, she knows her life will be torn apart once more, but Ivy has no inkling of the other-worldly revelations about to unfold.

The Mill River Recluse


Darcie Chan - 2011
    An arsonist, a covetous nurse, and the endearing village idiot are among the few who have ever seen Mary.Newcomers to Mill River -- a police officer and his daughter and a new fourth grade teacher -- are also curious about the reclusive old woman. But only Father Michael O’Brien knows Mary and the secret she keeps -- one that, once revealed, will change all of their lives forever.

After Dark


Jayne Castle - 2000
    Seriously stressed-out from a nasty incident in an alien tomb, she is obliged to work part-time in Shrimpton’s House of Ancient Horrors, a very low-budget museum. She has a plan to get her career back on track, but it isn’t going well. Stuff keeps happening.Take the dead body that she discovered in one of the sarcophagus exhibits. Who needed that? Finding out that her new client, Emmett London, is one of the most dangerous men in the city isn’t helping matters either. And that’s just today’s list of setbacks. Here in the shadows of the Dead City of Old Cadence, things don’t really heat up until After Dark.

Seven Sisters


M.L. Bullock - 2014
    The handsome and wealthy Ashland Stuart has hired her to uncover the history and the secrets of Seven Sisters, an aging antebellum mansion in sultry downtown Mobile, Alabama. A series of dreams, an untimely death and the betrayal of someone she loves lead her back in time to uncover the truth about a missing young heiress and a web of secrets.Will Carrie Jo slip into the shadows of Seven Sisters, following in the ghostly footsteps of the lost young woman, or can she solve this tragic mystery and find her own happiness?

Midnight Haul


Max Allan Collins - 1986
    The tiny New Jersey town she lived in has seen a rash of suicides lately, with the unlikely coincidence that everyone who has died worked for Kemco, the chemical factory company that fuels the town’s economy.As Crane digs deeper, he encounters Boone, a local woman writing a book about the environmental destruction that has come at the hands of the local chemical giant. The two team up to unravel the conspiracies surrounding the factory—which soon makes them the next targets for those aiming to keep Kemco’s shady dealings under wraps.The pair races to expose the illegal operations poisoning the town and bring Kemco to justice—before either of them becomes the latest in the growing list of “suicides.”

Will


Christine Bernard - 2021
    However, nothing good comes without a price. Will learns that with the good, comes the bad. How much is Will prepared to pay for the answers that he seeks?

Nine Lives


Bernice Rubens - 2002
    And though the murders are taking place up and down country, there is one other similarity that Inspector Wilkins can't help noticing. Each and every victim is a psychotherapist.

The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel


Amy Cross - 2016
    What she finds, however, is a crumbling old ruin that has clearly been left abandoned for many years. She wants to turn around and leave immediately, but her boyfriend has other ideas. Lakeforth Hotel has a dark history. Almost a century earlier, two young girls were orphaned in a horrific fire, and they were quickly taken in by the hotel's owner Jobard Nash. They soon discovered that Nash was a cruel and sadistic man, and now it's said that the ghosts of those two girls haunt the hotel. But what do they want, and how far will they go in their hunt for revenge? The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel is a horror novel about a girl who wants revenge for her murder, and about a woman who discovers years later that the living can never escape the clutches of the dead.

314


A.R. Wise - 2012
    She has a good life as a music teacher now, and might rekindle her relationship with her one true love. However, the number 314 haunts her, and threatens to bring her back to the day that her brother disappeared. When a reporter shows up, just days before March 14th, Alma realizes that her past is coming back to haunt her. What happened on March 14th, at 3:14, 16 years ago? No one but The Skeleton Man can remember.

Saving Grace


Pamela Fagan Hutchins - 2012
    When she flees Texas for the Caribbean, Katie escapes professional humiliation, a broken heart, and a wicked Bloody Mary habit, but she trades one set of problems for another when she begins to investigate the suspicious deaths of her parents on the island of St. Marcos. She’s bewitched by the voodoo spirit of an abandoned house in the rainforest and discovers that she’s as much a danger to herself as the island’s bad guys are. As the worst of her worlds collide, Katie drags herself back to the courthouse to defend her new friend Ava, an island local accused of stabbing the senator she’s been sleeping with.

Head Games


Kevin Alex Baker - 2011
    Desperate to prove his talents have value, he agrees to work for Dr. Foster, a psychologist who secretly hires performers to infiltrate the everyday lives of his patients, and then stage situations which advance their therapy. This part-time job becomes Jordan's toughest role yet as he's assigned to follow an eccentric patient named Julie, lie his way into her life, and help Foster rebuild her trust in men. White Oleander author Janet Fitch raved, “Kevin Alex Baker is a rare find, and Head Games is a sweet discovery, a ripping page-turner.”

Cognition


Jacques St-Malo - 2019
    When research suggests how to harness brain evolution, a hunt ensues for a missing link―one that allows to design humans with skills that prodigies of old would have envied.As germline engineering and biological enhancement have become routine, ancient doubts have emerged under new guises: Who are we? Is there a purpose to life? Why is there so much suffering? When faith and science fail to answer these questions, personal greed and national interest quickly fill the void. But gene selection is expensive, and many are excluded from its benefits. The stage is set for tribalism and social discontent on a scale without precedent, and those caught in the fray, whether by choice or by chance, must play roles not always to their liking in the struggle of all creatures against the arbitrariness of existence.