Book picks similar to
Lucifer and the Child by Ethel Mannin
fiction
horror
swan-river-press
weird-strange-horror-ghosts-gothic
The Monkey's Paw
W.W. Jacobs - 1902
But every wish has a consequence, and the White family finds they are completely unprepared for what comes next. The Monkey’s Paw is a classic horror tale that gives new meaning to the phrase “be careful what you wish for.”The Monkey’s Paw has become a classic horror story and has been adapted numerous times, including into episodes of such popular television series as The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Tales from the Crypt.HarperCollins 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 HarperCollins short-stories collection to build your digital library.
The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim
Jonathan Coe - 2010
Estranged from his father, newly divorced, unable to communicate with his only daughter, he realizes that while he may have seventy-four friends on Facebook, there is nobody in the world with whom he can actually share his problems. Then a business proposition comes his way - a strange exercise in corporate PR that will require him to spend a week driving from London to a remote retail outlet on the Shetland Isles. Setting out with an open mind, good intentions and a friendly voice on his SatNav for company, Maxwell finds that this journey soon takes a more serious turn, and carries him not only to the furthest point of the United Kingdom, but into some of the deepest and darkest corners of his own past. In his sparkling and hugely enjoyable new book, Jonathan Coe reinvents the picaresque novel for our time.
Marabou Stork Nightmares
Irvine Welsh - 1995
This audacious novel is a brilliant (and literal) head trip of a book that brings us into the wildly active, albeit coma-beset, mind of Roy Strang, whose hallucinatory quest to eradicate the evil predator/scavenger marabou stork keeps being interrupted by grisly memories of the social and family dysfunction that brought him to this state. It is the sort of lethally funny cocktail of pathos, violence, and outrageous hilarity that only Irvine Welsh can pull off.
Paradise Club
Tim Meyer - 2021
Sandy beaches. Crystalline waters. An all-inclusive resort with virtually everything you can think of. A true idyllic paradise. An event is taking place at Paradise Club that wasn’t on the brochure: a dangerous game pitting the hotel’s guests against a gang of bloodthirsty maniacs. Elliot Harper - family man and FBI agent - is about to find out how fast heaven can become hell when every single vacationer is forced to become a ruthless killer in order to survive. A team of killers have been unleashed, and they won't stop until every single guest is dead. Let the mayhem begin...
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales
Edgar Allan Poe - 1849
Some of the celebrated tales contained in this unique volume include the world's first detective stories -- "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter", and three stories sure to make a reader's hair stand on end -- "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Tell-Tale Heart", and "The Masque of the Red Death".The work includes a new introduction by Stephen Marlowe, author of "The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus" and "The Lighthouse at the End of the World."Besides the five stories already mentioned, it also contains: "The Balloon-Hoax", "Ms. Found in a Bottle", "A Descent into a Maelstrom", "The Black Cat", "The Pit and the Pendulum", The Assignation", "Diddling", "The Man That Was Used Up", and the novel, "Narrative of A. Gordon Pym". These may vary with different editions.The Signet Classic Edition of "The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales" has over 250,000 copies in print!Librarian's note: this is a collection by the author of short stories, and one novel, Entries for each of them on their own can be found elsewhere on Goodreads, including the specific entry for the story, "The Fall of the House of Usher".
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Anonymous - 1846
This edition offers the original story with all its atmospheric Victorian trimmings. The story of Todd's murderous partnership with pie-maker Margery Lovett--at once inconceivably unpalatable and undeniably compelling--has subsequently set the table for a seemingly endless series of successful dramatic adaptations, popular songs and ballads, novellas, radio plays, graphic novels, ballets, films, and musicals. Both gleeful and ghoulish, the original tale of Sweeney Todd, first published under the title The String of Pearls, combines the story of Todd's grisly method of robbing and dispatching his victims--by way of Mrs. Lovett's meat pies--with a romantic sub-plot involving deception, disguise, and detective work, set against the backdrop of London's dark and unsavory streets. Editor Robert Mack 'fleshes' out the story with a fascinating introduction touching on the origins of the tale, the growth of the legend, and a history of its many retellings. Mack also includes explanatory notes that point out interesting aspects, plus a full chronology of the many versions of Sweeney Todd.Since Sweeney Todd first entered the public imagination in the mid-nineteenth-century, his exploits have chilled and fascinated audiences around the world. This new edition allows modern readers to savor the ghastly original in all its gruesome glory.
The Blood of the Vampire
Florence Marryat - 1897
Beautiful and talented, Harriet will gain the affections of many of the men and women she meets and a bright future seems assured for her.But there is something strange about Harriet. Everyone she gets close to seems to sicken or die. Doctor Phillips has a theory: the blood of the vampire flows through Harriet's veins, and she is draining the life out of those she loves. Are the misfortunes that seem to follow Harriet merely coincidence? Or is she really afflicted with the curse of the vampire?One of the strangest novels by the prolific Florence Marryat (1837-1899), "The Blood of the Vampire" was the "other vampire novel" of 1897, appearing the same year as "Dracula." Marryat's novel is fascinating not only for its sensational plot and bizarre characters, but also because of its engagement with many of the issues that haunted the late Victorian imagination, such as race, heredity, women's roles, Spiritualism, and the occult. This edition includes the unabridged text of the exceedingly rare 1897 first edition and a new introduction by Brenda Hammack.
Carmilla
J. Sheridan Le Fanu - 1872
Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest – the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day… Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.
Things We Say in the Dark
Kirsty Logan - 2019
But we can visit our fears at night, in the dark. We can turn them over and weigh them in our hands and maybe that will protect us from them. But maybe not.The characters in this collection find their aspirations for happy homes, happy families and happy memories dissected and imbued with shimmering menace. Alone in a remote house in Iceland a woman is unnerved by her isolation; another can only find respite from the clinging ghost that follows her by submerging herself in an overgrown pool. Couples wrestle with a lack of connection to their children; a schoolgirl becomes obsessed with the female anatomical models in a museum; and a cheery account of child’s day out is undercut by chilling footnotes.These dark tales explore women’s fears with electrifying honesty and invention and speak to one another about female bodies, domestic claustrophobia, desire and violence. From a talented writer who has been compared to Angela Carter, Things We Say in the Dark is a powerful contemporary collection of feminist stories, ranging from vicious fairy tales to disturbing horror and tender ghost stories.KIRSTY LOGAN WAS SELECTED AS ONE OF BRITAIN'S TEN MOST OUTSTANDING LGBTQ WRITERS by Val McDermid for the International Literature Showcase in 2019
The Ghost Tribe
Rob MacGregor - 2000
The year is 1627. And so begins a drama that will ultimately span centuries, as destinystrands a handful of luckless European voyagers in the most inhospitable jungle on the Earth. In a world unfathomed, they must bury their dead and push on deep into the dark and savage land explorers will one day call Amazon. For them, there is no going back--only treacherous miles of lush, impenetrable beauty that camouflages sudden and terrible death. And there are others waiting and watching, ready to destroy to preserve what no one may truly possess. But here, in this strange and violent place of wondrous discovery, a small band of settlers is determined to endure at all costs, to build a new life in a merciless wilderness--and to forge a remarkable society that will be there to greet another group of the desperate lost more than three hundred years in the future.Based on the acclaimed television phenomenon, Peter Benchley'sAmazon, here is the extraordinary untold beginning of an adventure to stagger the imagination.
The Forest, Part 1 of 2
Edward Rutherfurd - 2000
. . A sprawling tome that combines fact with fiction and covers 900 years in the history of New Forest, a 100,000-acre woodland in southern England . . . Rutherfurd sketches the histories of six fictional families, ranging from aristocrats to peasants, who have lived in the forest for generations. . . . But the real success is in how Rutherfurd paints his picture of the wooded enclave with images of treachery and violence, as well as magic and beauty.”–The New York Post
Crossroads
Laurel Hightower - 2020
The walls of grief close in on Chris's life until, one day, a small cut on her finger changes everything. A drop of blood falls from Chris's hand onto her son's roadside memorial and, later that night, Chris thinks she sees his ghost outside her window. Only, is it really her son's ghost, or is it something else—something evil? Soon Chris is playing a dangerous game with forces beyond her control in a bid to see her son, Trey, alive once again.
Glyphotech
Mark Samuels - 2008
Inside this book you will find weird things indeed, not least the likes of:The fungus-riddled mannequin in the lunatic asylumThe reconstruction company that works with life and deathThe legal nightmare where the sane are guiltyA horror writing convention taken over by black magic cannibalsThe Punch and Judy show broadcast live after deathThe strange fate of the reincarnation of H.P. Lovecraft