Haunted Castles


Ray Russell - 1985
    Included here are some of del Toro's favorites, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ray Russell's short story 'Sardonicus', considered by Stephen King to be 'perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written', to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Ted Klein, and Robert E. Howard. These stunningly creepy deluxe hardcovers will be perfect additions to the shelves of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal aficionados everywhere.Haunted CastlesHaunted Castles is the definitive, complete collection of Ray Russell's masterful Gothic horror stories, including the famously terrifying novella trio of 'Sardonicus', 'Sanguinarius', and 'Sagittarius'. The characters that sprawl through Haunted Castles are frightful to the core: the heartless monster holding two lovers in limbo; the beautiful dame journeying down a damned road toward depravity (with the help of an evil gypsy); the man who must wear his fatal crimes on his face in the form of an awful smile. Engrossing, grotesque, perverted, and completely entrancing, Russell's Gothic tales are the best kind of dreadful.RAY RUSSELL was born in 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, and served in the United States Air Force during World War II in the South Pacific. After the war, he attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music and eventually joined the editorial staff at Playboy, where he published such writers as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Matheson, Jack Finney, Robert Bloch, and Charles Beaumont. His best-known work, 'Sardonicus', was called by Stephen King 'perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written'. He died in Los Angeles in 1999.GUILLERMO DEL TORO is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and designer, most famous for his Academy Award-winning film,Pan's Labyrinth, and the Hellboy film franchise. He has received the Nebula, Hugo, and Bram Stoker awards and is an avid collector and student of arcane memorabilia and weird fiction.

The Hospital


Keith C. Blackmore - 2012
    He scavenges what he can from what's left over. He is very careful in what he does and where he goes, taking no chances, no unnecessary risks, and weighing every choice... until he decides to visit the hospital at the edge of town, and experiences terror the likes he's never encountered before. A short story of approximately 9500 words, or 29 pages. The first story of the "Mountain Man" series. Contains language and graphic violence. This short story also appears in the horror fiction novella "Cauldron Gristle."If you enjoy this, check out the novels "Mountain Man" and "Safari," the next books in the series.Series order:The Hospital (short story)Mountain ManSafari (Coming in time for Christmas) Hellifax

The Amityville Horror


Jay Anson - 1977
    28 Days of Terror in a House Possessed by Evil SpiritsIn December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their dream home, the same home where Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers and sisters just one year earlier.the psychic phenomena that followed created the most terrifying experience the Lutz family had ever encountered, forcing them to flee the house in 28 days, convinced that it was possessed by evil spirits.Their fantastic story, never before disclosed in full detail, makes for an unforgettable book with all the shocks and gripping suspense of The Exorcist, The Omen or Rosemary's Baby, but with one vital difference...the story is true--back cover

And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories & Other Revenges


Amber Sparks - 2020
    Now, she reaches new, uncanny heights with And I Do Not Forgive You. In “Mildly Happy, With Moments of Joy,” a friend is ghosted by a simple text message; in “Everyone’s a Winner at Meadow Park,” a teen precariously coming of age in a trailer park befriends an actual ghost. At once humorous and unapologetically fierce, these stories shine an interrogating light on the adage that “history likes to lie about women”— as the subjects of “A Short and Speculative History of Lavoisier’s Wife” and “You Won’t Believe What Really Happened to the Sabine Women” (it’s true, you won’t) will attest. Blending fairy tales and myths with apocalyptic technologies, all tethered intricately by shades of rage, And I Do Not Forgive You offers a mosaic of an all-too-real world that fails to listen to its silenced goddesses.Mildly unhappy, with moments of joy --You won't believe what really happened to the Sabine women --A place for hiding precious things --Everyone's a winner in Meadow Park --A short and slightly speculative history of Lavoisier's wife --We destroy the Moon --In which Athena designs a video game with the express purpose of trolling her father --Is the future a nice place for girls --Our mutual (theater) friend --The dry cleaner from Des Moines --The eyes of Saint Lucy --We were a storybook back then --Rabbit by rabbit --Through the looking-glass --The noises from the neighbors upstairs --Our geographic history --Death deserves all caps --A wholly new and novel act, with monsters --When the husband grew wings --The language of the stars --Mildly joyful, with moments of extraordinary unhappiness --Tour of the cities we have lost

A Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror


John Hornor Jacobs - 2019
    P. Lovecraft, The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky examines life in a South American dictatorship. Centered on the journal of a poet-in-exile and his failed attempts at translating a maddening text, it is told by a young woman trying to come to grips with a country that nearly devoured itself.In My Heart Struck Sorrow, a librarian discovers a recording from the Deep South—which may be the musical stylings of the Devil himself.Breathtaking and haunting, A Lush and Seething Hell is a terrifying and exhilarating journey into the darkness, an odyssey into the deepest reaches of ourselves that compels us to confront secrets best left hidden.

The Miniature Wife and Other Stories


Manuel Gonzales - 2013
    The eighteen stories of Manuel Gonzales’s exhilarating first book render the fantastic commonplace and the ordinary extraordinary, in prose that thrums with energy and shimmers with beauty. In “The Artist’s Voice” we meet one of the world’s foremost composers, a man who speaks through his ears. A hijacked plane circles a city for twenty years in “Pilot, Copilot, Writer.” Sound can kill in “The Sounds of Early Morning.” And, in the title story, a man is at war with the wife he accidentally shrank. For these characters, the phenomenal isn’t necessarily special—but it’s often dangerous. In slightly fantastical settings, Gonzales illustrates very real guilt over small and large marital missteps, the intense desire for the reinvention of self, and the powerful urges we feel to defend and provide for the people we love. With wit and insight, these stories subvert our expectations and challenge us to look at our surroundings with fresh eyes. Brilliantly conceived, strikingly original, and told with the narrative instinct of a born storyteller, The Miniature Wife is an unforgettable debut.

Horrorstör


Grady Hendrix - 2014
    Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking. To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination. A traditional haunted house story in a thoroughly contemporary setting, Horrorstör is designed to retain its luster and natural appearance for a lifetime of use. Pleasingly proportioned with generous French flaps and a softcover binding, Horrorstör delivers the psychological terror you need in the elegant package you deserve.Designed by Andie Reid, cover photography by Christine Ferrara.

The King in Yellow


Robert W. Chambers - 1895
    Since its publication in 1895, The King in Yellow has inspired other horror-genre writers including H. P. Lovecraft, and the text is referenced by many works of fiction, in music, and by the hit television series True Detective, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library_We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Wakenhyrst


Michelle Paver - 2019
    It is the home of Edmund Stearn and his family – a historian, scholar and land-owner, he's an upstanding member of the local community. But all is not well at Wake's End. Edmund dominates his family tyrannically, in particular daughter Maud. When Maud's mother dies in childbirth and she's left alone with her strict, disciplinarian father, Maud's isolation drives her to her father's study, where she happens upon his diary.During a walk through the local church yard, Edmund spots an eye in the undergrowth. His terror is only briefly abated when he discovers its actually a painting, a 'doom', taken from the church. It's horrifying in its depiction of hell, and Edmund wants nothing more to do with it despite his historical significance. But the doom keeps returning to his mind. The stench of the Fen permeates the house, even with the windows closed. And when he lies awake at night, he hears a scratching sound – like claws on the wooden floor...Wakenhyrst is a terrifying ghost story, an atmospheric slice of gothic, a brilliant exploration of the boundaries between the real and the supernatural, and a descent into the mind of a psychopath.

Homesick for Another World


Ottessa Moshfegh - 2017
    Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities. Homesick for Another World is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition. But part of the unique quality of her voice, the echt Moshfeghian experience, is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion. Moshfegh is our Flannery O'Connor, and Homesick for Another World is her Everything That Rises Must Converge or A Good Man is Hard to Find. The flesh is weak; the timber is crooked; people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful. But beauty comes from strange sources, and the dark energy surging through these stories is powerfully invigorating. We're in the hands of an author with a big mind, a big heart, blazing chops, and a political acuity that is needle-sharp. The needle hits the vein before we even feel the prick.

Dreams Underfoot


Charles de Lint - 1993
    Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the grey harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song.Contents:Uncle Dobbin's Parrot FairThe Stone DrumTimeskipFreewheelingThat Explains PolandRomano DromThe Sacred FireWinter Was HardPity the MonstersGhosts of Wind and ShadowThe Conjure ManSmall DeathsThe Moon is Drowning While I SleepIn the House of My EnemyBut for the Grace Go IBridgesOur Lady of the HarbourPaperjackTallulah

The Family Plot


Cherie Priest - 2016
    But business is lean and times are tight, so he’s thrilled when the aged and esteemed Augusta Withrow appears in his office, bearing an offer he really ought to refuse. She has a massive family estate to unload - lock, stock, and barrel. For a check and a handshake, it’s all his.It’s a big check. It’s a firm handshake. And it’s enough of a gold mine that he assigns his daughter Dahlia to personally oversee the project.Dahlia preps a couple of trucks, takes a small crew, and they caravan down to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the ancient Withrow house is waiting - and so is a barn, a carriage house, and a small, overgrown cemetery that Augusta Withrow left out of the paperwork.Augusta Withrow left out a lot of things.The property is in unusually great shape for a condemned building. It’s empty, but it isn't abandoned. Something in the Withrow mansion is angry and lost. This is its last chance to raise hell before the house is gone forever, and there's still plenty of room in the strange little family plot.New from Cherie Priest, a modern master of supernatural fiction, The Family Plot is a haunted house story for the ages - atmospheric, scary, and strange, with a modern gothic sensibility that every bit as fresh as it is frightening.

Everything That's Underneath


Kristi DeMeester - 2017
    Feel it. Tearing at your nails, gritty between your teeth, filling your nostrils. Consume it until it has consumed you. For there you will find the voices that have called from the shadows, the ones that promise to cherish you only to rip your body to shreds.In Everything That’s Underneath, Kristi DeMeester explores the dark places most people avoid. A hole in an abandoned lot, an illness twisting your loved one into someone you don’t recognize, lust that pushes you farther and farther until no one can hear yours cry for help. In these 18 stories the characters cannot escape the evil that is haunting them. They must make a choice: accept it and become part of what terrifies them the most or allow it to consume them and live in fear forever.

Honeycomb


Joanne M. Harris - 2021
    Full of dreams and nightmares, Honeycomb is an entrancing mosaic novel of original fairy tales from bestselling author Joanne M. Harris and legendary artist Charles Vess in a collaboration that’s been years in the making. The toymaker who wants to create the perfect wife; the princess whose heart is won by words, not actions; the tiny dog whose confidence far outweighs his size; and the sinister Lacewing King who rules over the Silken Folk. These are just a few of the weird and wonderful creatures who populate Joanne Harris’s first collection of fairy tales.Dark, gripping, and brilliantly imaginative, these magical tales will soon have you in their thrall in a uniquely illustrative edition.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk


David Sedaris - 2010
    Though the characters may not be human, the situations in these stories bear an uncanny resemblance to the insanity of everyday life. In "The Toad, the Turtle, and the Duck," three strangers commiserate about animal bureaucracy while waiting in a complaint line. In "Hello Kitty," a cynical feline struggles to sit through his prison-mandated AA meetings. In "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk," a pair of star-crossed lovers is separated by prejudiced family members.With original illustrations by Ian Falconer, author of the bestselling Olivia series of children's books, these stories are David Sedaris at his most observant, poignant, and surprising.