The Best of Joe R. Lansdale


Joe R. Lansdale - 2010
    A soul-sucking Mummy stalks Elvis and John F. Kennedy. Joe Bob Briggs has a moral dilemma: If your girlfriend turns zombie on you, what do you do?And that’s the tame stuff.In this red-hot collection from world-champion Mojo storyteller Joe R. Lansdale, you’ll find his best, most outrageous stories. The high priest of Texan weirdness does it all: horror, mystery, satire, suspense, and even Westerns. Prepare to be offended, shocked, and cackling like a crazed redneck.Featuring five Bram Stoker Award–winning stories, this career retrospective contains some of Lansdale’s rarer work, his nonfiction forays into drive-in theaters and B-movies, and the novella Bubba Ho-Tep, later made into a cult-classic major motion picture.Come on in—the weirdness is fine.

Vampire Chronicles: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned


Anne Rice - 1989
    But just lift the lid, slide the first tape from its ghostly sleeve, and you'll soon embrace the hypnotic realm of the undead.Book 1, Interview with the Vampire, opens with the seductive purr of F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus) stating, "I was a 25-year-old man when I became a vampire, and the year was 1791." And so our ultimate antihero, Louis, begins the elaborate retelling of his long, tortured life as a vampire. Winding through the ages, from New Orleans to Paris, we follow Louis and his undying mentor, Lestat, as they feed on humans, whet their carnal appetites, and uncover an underworld of vampire brethren.Interview with the Vampire, read by F.Murray AbrahamRunning time: 3 hours on 2 Audio Cassettes-----------------------------------------------Book 2, The Vampire Lestat, brings us up to date, with Lestat waking from his earthen slumber to join the ranks of rock superstardom before sitting down to share the tale of his own haunting initiation into the vampire world. Michael York (Cabaret) puts his wonderfully fluid, cosmopolitan voice to good use, adding a dash of sly humor to this fast-paced, satisfying blend of sex and blood and rock and roll.The Vampire Lestat, read by Michael York Running time: 3 hours on 2 Audio Cassettes-----------------------------------------------Book 3, The Queen of the Damned, takes us back, all the way back to ancient Egypt, exposing the origins of the vampire way. Narrating in eerily serene and gracious tones, Kate Nelligan (The Prince of Tides) leads us gently down this bloody path of immortal desires. David Purdham gives the voice of Lestat a wistful quality, tinged with an evil relish that exposes the master vampire's sanguine tastes.Queen of the Damned, read by Kate Nelligan and David PurdhamRunning time: 3 hours on 2 Audio Cassettes-----------------------------------------------Anne Rice has continued her Vampire Chronicles beyond these three novels, but that shouldn't make this collection any less tempting to either the undead initiate or certified vampire junkie. --George LaneyTotal: 6 Audio Cassettes / 9 hours~

Redemption


Kelly Moran - 2017
    But when a soldier shows up at her ranch with a final message from her brother, she finds new purpose. Nathan Roldan is as formidable as they come. Bulging muscles and inked to boot, he looks like every bit the bad boy he claims to be. Except, under his shuttered gaze and behind his walls lies a gentle giant. Determined to carry out her brother's wishes, she chips away at Nate's layers and discovers more pain than any person should ever have to endure. And a passion she never dreamed was possible.He's not the hero she thinks he is...Nate's mistake got a fellow comrade killed, and a deathbed promise to take care of the guy's sister lands him in Wyoming with the hope of redemption. But he wasn't expecting...her. Beautiful, witty, and sweet, Olivia is everything he doesn't deserve. Born a nothing, he'll die a nothing. Though guilt is a living thing, temptation is too hard to resist. Somehow, she's unleashing his restraint and unearthing feelings he buried long ago. He wants her. More, he's worried he needs her. She's trying to save him, but when she learns the truth, he'll lose the only happiness he's ever known.

The Reckoning: An Extreme Horror Novel (A Glimpse into Hell, # 5)


Wade H. Garrett - 2017
    Seth brings back Missy, Wyatt, Barry and Kenneth to help with a special assignment; to travel the State of Texas and inflict the most horrifying and demented acts of vengeance against our society’s most ruthless criminals. The Reckoning is filled with dark humor, distasteful content, sadistic torture and nonstop acts of carnage. It also has a new level of disgustingness that the previous books lacked. But it’s not all gore—there is also a great deal of interaction between Seth and his friends ranging from comradery, banter and animosity.WARNING: This book is extreme and contains filthy, grotesque and brutal torture scenes. It contains GRAPHIC CONTENT, ADULT LANGUAGE & POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS, may be disturbing to sensitive readers, and should only be read by the seasoned extreme-horror reader.

The Secret Fire


C.J. Daugherty - 2015
    He can throw himself off a roof, be stabbed, even shot, and he will always survive. Until the day when history and ancient enmities dictate that he must die. Worse still, his death will trigger something awful. Something deadly. And that day is closing in.Taylor Montclair is a normal English girl, hanging out with her friends and studying for exams, until she starts shorting out the lights with her brain. She’s also the only person on earth who can save Sacha.There’s only one problem: the two of them have never met. They live hundreds of miles apart and powerful forces will stop at nothing to keep them apart.They have eight weeks to find each other.Will they survive long enough to save the world?

Trolley No. 1852


Edward Lee - 2009
    In 1934, ground-breaking horror writer H.P. Lovecraft is invited to write a story for a subversive underground magazine, all on the condition that a pseudonym will be used. The pay is lofty, and God knows, HPL needs the money; therefore...he agrees.There’s one catch.It has to be a pornographic story...ALL ABOARD TROLLEY NO. 1852Through the midnight bowels of New York City, the decrepit trolley clatters on, its single yellow headlight illumining one desolate alley and squalid, trash-strewn street after the next, through crumbling ghettos and betwixt drab skyscrapers and labyrinthine edifices–indeed, the very guts of the Depression-ravaged metropolis. The Trolley admits only a special sort of rider, and takes them to a very select destination...THE 1852 CLUBWhat is the meaning behind the cryptic number, and what is the ghastly truth behind the club’s voluptuous madam? For, yes, the 1852 Club is a bordello of the most macabre discrimination. Destitute academician Morgan Phillips will learn of all the club’s pestiferous secrets but not before he is first subjected to unnameable acts degradation and abuse, and is then thrown body and soul into a morass of erotic abandon, sexual perversion, and gut-churning, brain-warping, inter-dimensional carnality so unspeakable it can scarcely be described...Join horror veteran Edward Lee in this bold homage to his favorite horror author: H.P. Lovecraft. Herein, Lee boldly converts HPL’s obscure fragment “The Thing in the Moonlight” into a full-fledged novella, incorporating as best he can the Master’s rich, singular style and vision, while integrating some of his own lurid tricks and treats...

Snowbound


Blake Crouch - 2010
    Will under suspicion, they flee. Suddenly a hard-edged FBI agent appears on their doorstep. “I know you’re innocent, because Rachael wasn’t the first ... or the last.”

Body


Audrey Carlan - 2014
    Good looking, intelligent, rich and powerful. I never stood a chance.I didn’t want to want him.I didn’t want to need him.I didn’t want to fall for him.He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I let him consume me. Arrogant, confident, controlling, demanding… intense.When he entered my life, I was finally healing after having barely survived the men of my past. My soul sisters told me to take a chance. To let someone in. I let him in, and he surrounded me with a light so bright I was blinded by the truth...Men don’t ruin women. They devour them in every way that counts.Warning: This book is designed for audiences 18+ due to language, graphic sexual content, and themes that some may find disturbing. BODY is book 1 of a three-part trilogy. Book 1 has a “Happy for Now” type ending.

Lost Boy Lost Girl


Peter Straub - 2003
    A week later, her son -- fifteen-year-old Mark -- vanishes. The boy's uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before Nancy's suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from basement to attic with the echoes of a long hidden true-life horror story, and Tim comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.

Blaze


Richard Bachman - 2007
    Stephen King's "dark half" may have saved the best for last.A fellow named Richard Bachman wrote Blaze in 1973 on an Olivetti typewriter, then turned the machine over to Stephen King, who used it to write Carrie. Bachman died in 1985 ("cancer of the pseudonym"), but in late 2006 King found the original typescript of Blaze among his papers at the University of Maine's Fogler Library ("How did this get here?!"), and decided that with a little revision it ought to be published.Blaze is the story of Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. --of the crimes committed against him and the crimes he commits, including his last, the kidnapping of a baby heir worth millions. Blaze has been a slow thinker since childhood, when his father threw him down the stairs--and then threw him down again. After escaping an abusive institution for boys when he was a teenager, Blaze hooks up with George, a seasoned criminal who thinks he has all the answers. But then George is killed, and Blaze, though haunted by his partner, is on his own.He becomes one of the most sympathetic criminals of all of literature. This is a crime story of surprising strength and sadness, with a suspenseful current sustained by the classic workings of fate and character--as taut and riveting as Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

Sweet Forgiveness


Lori Nelson Spielman - 2015
    But New Orleans' favorite talk show host, Hannah Farr, isn't biting. Intensely private and dating the city’s mayor, Hannah has kept her very own pouch of Forgiveness Stones hidden for two years—and her dark past concealed for nearly two decades. But when Fiona Knowles, creator of the Forgiveness Stones, appears on Hannah’s show, Hannah unwittingly reveals on air details of a decades-old falling out with her mother. Spurned by her fans, doubted by her friends, and accused by her boyfriend of marring his political career, Hannah reluctantly embarks on a public journey of forgiveness. As events from her past become clearer, the truth she’s clung to since her teenage years has never felt murkier. Hannah must find the courage to right old wrongs, or risk losing her mother, and any glimmer of an authentic life, forever.

The Closer


Donn Cortez - 2004
    He captures his prey, tortures them until they confess their sins, and disposes of them as they deserve. His victims have only one thing in common: theyare all serial killers.MOTIVEAccompanied by a hardened ex-prostitute who lost her closest friends to a twisted murderer, the Closer is closing in on his ultimate quarry: an ingenious psychopath known as the Patron who must be stopped. For behind the fagade of the Closer is atortured man whose family the Patron slaughtered.MADNESSBut even as the time for his revenge approaches, the Closer may be turning into what he despises most. Because with every violent act of retribution, he fears that he's no longer killing in thename of justice....HE'S KILLING BECAUSE HE "LIKES" IT.

Fünf


Ursula Poznanski - 2012
    A dismembered handN47° 48.022 E013° 10.910 Two severed earsN47° 26.195 E013° 12.523 A mutilated corpseA woman is found murdered. Tattooed on her feet is a strange combination of numbers and letters.Map co-ordinates. The start of a sinister treasure hunt by a twisted killer.Detective Beatrice Kaspary must risk all she has to uncover the killer in a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse

The Boy Who Granted Dreams


Luca Di Fulvio - 2008
    Ellis Island. Arriving off one of the many transatlantic freighters are Cetta Luminita and her illegitimate baby boy Natale, fleeing the poverty and violence of their Southern Italian hometown. Having sacrificed everything, and endured every possible shame, Cetta has but one wish: that her baby should be an American, and grow up with the freedom to decide his own destiny. As they alight, US Immigration officials give Natale a new name: Christmas. Growing up in the Lower East Side of New York with his mother, who works as a prostitute, Christmas is determined to be a success, whether a decent person or a gangster. The city is ruled by gangs from each community, Italian, Jewish and Irish, and survival is dependent on ruthlessness and strength. But Christmas has a vivid imagination, and an ability to tell stories that people want to believe...and thus is born his imaginary gang, the Diamond Dogs, which earns him respect within the ghetto. All this changes the day he saves the life of a rich Jewish girl Ruth, and despite their different backgrounds, he falls hopelessly in love with her. When circumstance tears them apart, Christmas vows that he will find her, by any means possible. A sweeping saga of love and hate set in the Roaring Twenties, The Boy Who Granted Dreams is the story of Christmas and Ruth; the story of the dawn of radio, Broadway and Hollywood; and above all, a story about believing in the power of dreams.

Naked Came the Manatee


Carl HiaasenTananarive Due - 1997
    A story of suspense written serially by thirteen Florida writers--including Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, and Elmore Leonard--features such strange occurances as a riot in Coconut Grove and an appearance by Fidel Castro.