Eight Tales of Terror


Edgar Allan Poe - 1961
    Found in a BottleLigeiaThe Fall of the House of UsherWilliam WilsonThe Mask of the Red DeathThe Imp of the Perverse

The Bone Knife


Intisar Khanani - 2012
    Born with a deformed foot, she feigns indifference to the pity and insults that come her way. Wary of all things beautiful, Rae instantly distrusts their latest visitor: an appallingly attractive faerie. Further, his presence imperils the secret her sister guards. But when the local townspeople show up demanding his blood, Rae must find a way to protect both her sister’s secret and their guest. Even if that means risking herself.The Bone Knife introduces Rae, the heroine of The Theft Of Sunlight (March 2021). Look for The Bone Knife at the back of your copy of Thorn (HarperTeen/Hot Key 2020).

Under the Sea


Mark Leidner - 2017
    There is also a story about insects that is more human than most D.H. Lawrence. Leidner's fiction is deeply-infused with poetry but never turns purple.

Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō


Yoshida Kenkō
    As Emperor Go-Daigo fended off a challenge from the usurping Hojo family, and Japan stood at the brink of a dark political era, Kenkō held fast to his Buddhist beliefs and took refuge in the pleasures of solitude. Written between 1330 and 1332, Essays in Idleness reflects the congenial priest's thoughts on a variety of subjects. His brief writings, some no more than a few sentences long and ranging in focus from politics and ethics to nature and mythology, mark the crystallization of a distinct Japanese principle: that beauty is to be celebrated, though it will ultimately perish. Through his appreciation of the world around him and his keen understanding of historical events, Kenkō conveys the essence of Buddhist philosophy and its subtle teachings for all readers. Insisting on the uncertainty of this world, Kenkō asks that we waste no time in following the way of Buddha.In this fresh edition, Donald Keene's critically acclaimed translation is joined by a new preface, in which Keene himself looks back at the ripples created by Kenkō's musings, especially for modern readers.

Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes


Mollie Panter-Downes - 1999
    In the Daily Mail Angela Huth called "Good Evening, Mrs Craven" 'my especial find' and Ruth Gorb in the "Ham & High" contrasted the humour of some of the stories with the desolation of others: 'The mistress, unlike the wife, has to worry and mourn in secret for her man; a middle-aged spinster finds herself alone again when the camaraderie of the air-raids is over ...'

The Devil's Hand


Amy Cross - 2015
    Beacon's Ash is a private, remote school in the North of England, and all its pupils are fallen girls. Pregnant and unmarried, they have been sent away by their families. For Ivy Jones, a young girl who arrived at the school several months earlier, Beacon's Ash is a nightmare, and her fears are strengthened when one of her classmates is killed in mysterious circumstances. Has the ghost of Abigail Cartwright returned to the school? Who or what is responsible for the hand that touches the girls' shoulders in the dead of night? And is the school's headmaster Jeremiah Kane just a madman who seeks to cause misery, or is he in fact on the trail of the Devil himself? Soon ghosts are stalking the dark corridors, and Ivy realizes she has to face the evil that lurks in the school's shadows. The Devil's Hand is a horror novel about a girl who seeks the truth about her friend's death, and about a madman who believes the Devil stalks the school's corridors in the run-up to Christmas.

Carmen's New York Climax


Nikki Sex - 2012
    . .Young and rich, Kurt Nielsen is New York's most eligible bachelor. Except now he can't even bring himself to talk to a woman. How could he, after his last girlfriend took him to court? Kurt is still smarting from the injustice of it all. Sick of his anger, his friends have bought Kurt a call girl. What could be better than a high-class hooker to cheer him up? The working girl will arrive dressed as a hotel maid, with an entire scene arranged.Kurt has never paid for sex before and is uncomfortable with the idea, yet he agrees to meet her at the Hilton. But things don't go as planned when he arrives at the hotel two hours early.Unknown to Kurt, when the maid walks into his suite, she isn’t his call girl. Carmen is an actual hotel maid, with a host of secrets and problems of her own. Sex-starved, Carmen simply cannot resist the carnal magnetic allure of Kurt. Although they are complete strangers, sexual need and animal chemistry overwhelms them both. They quickly discover ecstasy together, again and again and again.But what will happen when they discover their mistake?

Hunted by the Sky


Tanaz Bhathena - 2020
    She has a star-shaped birthmark on her arm, and in the kingdom of Ambar, girls with such birthmarks have been disappearing for years. Gul's mark is what caused her parents' murder at the hand of King Lohar's ruthless soldiers and forced her into hiding to protect her own life. So when a group of rebel women called the Sisters of the Golden Lotus rescue her, take her in, and train her in warrior magic, Gul wants only one thing: revenge.Cavas lives in the tenements, and he's just about ready to sign his life over to the king's army. His father is terminally ill, and Cavas will do anything to save him. But sparks fly when he meets a mysterious girl--Gul--in the capital's bazaar, and as the chemistry between them undeniably grows, he becomes entangled in a mission of vengeance--and discovers a magic he never expected to find.Dangerous circumstances have brought Gul and Cavas together at the king's domain in Ambar Fort . . . a world with secrets deadlier than their own. Exploring identity, class struggles, and high-stakes romance, Hunted by the Sky is a gripping adventure set in a world inspired by medieval India.

Diwali in Muzaffarnagar


Tanuj Solanki - 2018
    This is a place where teenage love and friendships are tested by the violence that threatens to erupt at the slightest provocation. A town that always pulls you back into its ways, no matter how cosmopolitan the city has made you.In 'Diwali in Muzaffarnagar' - Tanuj Solanki's new book of short stories after 'Neon Noon' - young men and women straddle the past and the present, the metropolis and the small town, and also the parallel needs of life: solitude and family.

American Supernatural Tales


S.T. JoshiHenry James - 2007
    American Supernatural Tales celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation’s brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and—of course— Stephen King. By turns phantasmagoric, spectral, and demonic, this is a frighteningly good addition to Penguin Classics.