This collection will whisk you from Christmas season in steampunk London to Yule celebrations with the coven to Hanukkah celebrations with a supernatural twist. Battle Krampus, ghosts, vampires, demons, and a hell of an eggnog hangover in this special collection of paranormal, horror, urban fantasy, and steampunk holiday tales.PEPPERMINT AND PENTACLES: A Steampunk Christmas Fairy Tale by Melanie KarsakHELL'S SILVER BELLS by Margo Bond CollinsA HARKER CHRISTMAS by Erin HayesPOINSETTIAS and POLTERGEISTS: A Southern Stones Short by Blaire EdensHEARTLESS IN NEW ORLEANS by Pauline CreedenALL IS BRIGHT by Jayne FuryMISTLETOE AND MONSTERS by Katie HayozTHAT OLD FAMILIAR FEELING by S. K. Gregory'TWAS THE NIGHT by Evan WintersHOLIDAY MAGIC by Carrie L. WellsFESTIVAL OF GASLIGHTS by Bokerah BrumleyTHE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST by Anna AlbergucciDAWN by T.K. BradleyTHE TOWN IN THE MOUNTAIN by Angelique Archer & J. MillsEGGNOG & EXORCISM by Deb Christie & Margo Bond CollinsHIGH TIDE HOLIDAY by Ella Malone

    The bet pays off, resulting in a story that will be popular with book clubs and fun to discuss.” —Associated Press New York City, New Year’s weekend, 2001. Jillian Guthrie, a troubled young journalist, stumbles onto a tantalizing mystery: the same man, unaged, stands alongside Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gandhi in three different photographs spanning eighty-five years of history.In another part of town, Will—an enigmatic thirty-three-year-old of immense charm, wit, and intelligence—looks forward to the new year with hope and trepidation. Haunted by his secret past and shadowed by a dangerous stranger, he finds himself the object of an intense manhunt spearheaded by an ambitious Vatican emissary and an elderly former UN envoy named Hanna.During the next forty-eight hours, a catastrophic event unites Will, Jillian, and Hanna—and puts them in the crosshairs of a centuries-old international conspiracy. Together, the three must unravel an ancient curse that stretches back two millennia and beyond, and face a primal evil that threatens their lives and thousands more.Award-winning science-fiction mastermind Kenneth Johnson blends epic adventure, romance, and evocative drama into an intense supernatural thriller rooted in one of the great untold legends of human history.

    Tragedy strikes when a magic trick goes horribly wrong and a woman lies dead. A local magician Albert Trotter is railroaded during a rigged trial and locked away. Forever protesting his innocence and after a vicious assault in prison, he is eventually sent to a mental institution in a catatonic state.Now Tommy is 36 and heading home for the first time in over two decades, but he's not alone. Someone is slaughtering the residents of Denver Mills with magic-trick-themed murders and holding those involved with the Trotter trial in a steely grip of fear. Tommy will have to find the strength to bring his old friends together as secrets and lies are exposed throughout the small town of Denver Mills.Something evil is coming home, and they're bringing a whole new bag of tricks.

    Throw in some vampires and a plot to overthrow the British monarchy, and what you have is the thrilling account that Charles Dickens was too scared to share with the world.From the brilliant mind of novelist and comic book veteran Peter David, Artful is the dark, funny, and action-packed story of one of the most fascinating characters in literary history.With vampires.

    Seventeen year old Nikki and her twin brother, Nathan, move to the small town of Shore Lake to start over after their mother is brutally attacked. When a missing teenager washes up on shore during their first night at the cabin and there are whispers of vampires in Shore Lake, Nikki begins to realize that there are things roaming in the darkness that are far more sinister than what they left behind in the big city. This book contains some graphic language, violence, and mild sexual situations.

    Duperre, author of The Fall and Dead of Winter, now presents Silas, a contemporary fantasy novel. Ken Lowery is a man at odds with his life. He hates his job, is disappointed in his marriage, and feels resigned to leading a mundane existence. That all changes when his wife brings home a rambunctious Black Labrador puppy named Silas, who forges a remarkable connection with Ken and begins to heal his inner turmoil. When some neighborhood children start to go missing, he takes it upon himself to protect those around him and is thrust into a surreal world where monsters roam. Not everything is what it seems to be, he soon discovers, including his new best friend.

    Ever since witnessing his mother's murder at the hands of his abusive stepfather when he was a boy, he has spent every day trying to reach that goal. But every night he's denied the death he craves. As his eighteenth birthday approaches, a chance for change is offered when his life is plunged into a supernatural world of vampires and other creatures of darkness. Caught in the depths of this new reality, mysteries of his vampiric lineage begin to unravel and he's offered the ultimate choice: Continue on with his wretched human life or begin a new one as the vampire prodigy he was always meant to be. Unfortunately, the supernatural world can be just as unforgiving and brutal as any other and Xander's choice is met with disastrous consequences. Now, with a little support and even less hope, the chaos of his new world collides with his torturous past and threatens to crush him once and for all.

    But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?The world will soon find out.

    Time brings her ever closer to what seems an inevitable death and Two waits, uncaring, longing only for the next fix.That’s when Theroen arrives, beckoning to his Ferrari and grinning his inscrutable grin. He is handsome. Confident. Eager to help lift her out of the life that’s grinding her down.The only problem? Theroen is a vampire.His blood can cure her addiction, grant her powers she has never had, change her forever into something greater than she was. But when he sinks his teeth into her neck, Theroen also thrusts Two into a world of danger, violence, madness and despair. The powerful, twisted elder Abraham will use her arrival to shatter the uneasy peace that exists in his mansion, bringing an end to the dark game he has been playing for centuries.

    The minimal success his band, Road Craft, has had is being smothered by an era where bars are becoming discos, and live entertainment is being replaced by larger dance floors. They scored a small record deal years before, but the excitement has cooled, and they never got much radio play. The only hope he has of financing his future rests in a book he hunted down using contacts and skills he learned from his father, who was an expert at acquiring rare occult objects. Max is not a believer in mysticism, but he knows what he has was hard to get, and should be worth thousands. When he's told it's too hot to sell, his dreams are crushed, and his wallet is left empty. He'll have to tell his band mates that his plan has fallen through, and they have come to the end of the road. The members of Road Craft are set to return home during a Pagan summer festival called The Gathering, where hundreds of people gather to celebrate music, nature, and each other. The Gathering also puts him nose to nose with Miranda, a woman Maxwell knew when they were children, a veteran of the New York Rock scene and his equal. He doesn't know it yet, but this is the event that will make him a believer in the occult, and he will have some choices to make. All the while, there are people who know he has the book, and they are determined to twist the knowledge it contains to a terrible purpose, to break the circle of life, making resurrections possible, to open the door between the living and the dead just enough to embrace forbidden power. Their selfish intent would disrupt the natural order enough to change the world, and not for the better. Maxwell's music career is about to be the least of his worries.

    Then she lost her child. Finally, her grasp on reality.Now, after nine years in Bayshore mental institution, once called the lunatic asylum, Caroline Hill is finally being released.There will be no one to meet her. Her parents who brought her here...are dead.They have found her a room in a rooming house, a job washing dishes in a restaurant. She will do fine, they said. But no one told her that women in St. Simeon are already dying at the hands of a vicious predator. One, an actress who lived previously in her building.And others.And now, as Caroline struggles to survive on the outside, she realizes someone is stalking her.But who will believe her? She's a crazy woman after all.Then, one cold winter's night on her way home from her job, a man follows and is about to assault her when a stranger intercedes.A stranger who hides his face and whispers her name.

    But a student is missing. And he must find her. Compelled to leave his wife in Bath, Deans heads to North Devon, where he encounters Denise Moon, a medium, who exposes him to a psychic dimension he could never have imagined existed, in what soon becomes a murder hunt. Gripped by inexplicable phenomena attributed to his own ‘paranormal awakening’ and alienated from all but his new mystical muse, Deans is closing in on a sophisticated killer... ...but all is not as it seems, and Deans’ future is about to change.

    I rate this book as a ten-star and expect to see it as number one on the best selling list for many, many weeks.” Reviewed by Trudi LoPreto for Readers'Favorite.WHAT IF THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE TURNED INTO YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE?When nineteen-year-old Naomi Stone is snatched from her husband at knifepoint on the night of their wedding and taken to a deserted cemetery, she knows her life is finished. Drugged and disorientated, she loses consciousness as she lies in an open grave with a gun to her head. But the following day, she mysteriously awakes to find herself unharmed and secured to a bed. She's in a beautiful bedroom in a secluded cottage in open countryside. Only one person knows she’s there – the man in the balaclava who’s holding her, feeding her, revealing nothing. Naomi senses the unfolding of a plan. She should be on honeymoon in the Caribbean. Instead, she’s trapped with an emotionless psycho with no hope of escape . . . And his voice is chillingly familiar.Who is he? What does he want? What's happened to her husband? Where is she? Will anyone find her before it's too late?

    Physically harder, I mean. On TV a guy strangles someone for like 5 seconds and the body slumps to the ground in a heap of dead just like that. In real life, it takes so long you wouldn't believe it. "Catcher in the Rye meets Fight Club." "Fantastic psychological journey." "Holden Caulfield on steroids!" Jake saw something unspeakable when he was nine. An act of violence. Brutal. He doesn't know it, but this trauma will play a key role in shaping him later in life. Now, he's fifteen. A wimp. He flinches. Always. He's too timid to make a move on Beth, the buxom girl of his dreams, and too busy getting face-slammed into lockers by bullies to do much else. He seeks the guidance of the biggest bad ass he knows, his cousin Nick. Nick is a professional burglar and makes Jake his apprentice. They stalk suburban neighborhoods night after night, ransacking houses for jewelry and sweet valuables. Nick teaches Jake the finer points of breaking and entering along with his dark philosophy -- that there is no right or wrong in the world, just a series of events that happen without meaning. At first, adopting Nick's callous worldview helps Jake get over his fears and confront his tormentors, but he also unleashes an aggression in himself he never thought possible. And as he learns more about his cousin, he realizes that Nick's crimes go way beyond burglary. In the end, Jake must face not only the monster in his cousin but also the one in his own heart. Casting Shadows Everywhere is a dark and twisty psychological thriller perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Lucinda Berry, A.J. Finn, and Paula Hawkins.

    Inheriting a huge expanse of land should have made him a rich and happy man; but something about this birthday, his name, and the beautiful woman whose life he just saved, has suddenly made him-and everyone he loves-into a target. A target for extreme and uncompromising violence . . . In Alex, Terry Goodkind brings to life a modern hero in a whole new kind of high-octane thriller.