Horror Fiction
From classic ghost stories to gothic tales with an eerie modern twist, our chilling ebooks, audiobooks, and podcasts will haunt you — delightfully. Frightful stories of witches, exorcisms, and murderous neighbors by celebrated writers like Mary Shelley and Stephen Graham Jones are scarily easy to find with a Scribd subscription.
From classic ghost stories to gothic tales with an eerie modern twist, our chilling ebooks, audiobooks, and podcasts will haunt you — delightfully. Frightful stories of witches, exorcisms, and murderous neighbors by celebrated writers like Mary Shelley and Stephen Graham Jones are scarily easy to find with a Scribd subscription.
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INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick “For fans of The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Secret History…The perfect mystery.” —Jenna Bush Hager, Today In this “sinister, jaw-dropping” (Sarah Penner, author of The Lost Apothecary) debut novel, a circle of researchers uncover a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters. When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination. Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs. A haunting and magical blend of genres, The Cloisters is a gripping debut that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
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A House With Good Bones "I am beyond thrilled that Mary Robinette Kowal is going to be the voice of A House With Good Bones. If anyone understands a Southern Gothic sensibility, it's her." —T. Kingfisher A haunting Southern Gothic from an award-winning master of suspense, A House With Good Bones explores the dark, twisted roots lurking just beneath the veneer of a perfect home and family. "Mom seems off." Her brother's words echo in Sam Montgomery's ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone. She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam's excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out. But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mom is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mom jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above. To find out what’s got her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried. Also by T. Kingfisher Nettle & Bone What Moves the Dead A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piñata: A Novel A Head Full of Ghosts meets Mexican Gothic in Piñata, a terrifying possession tale by author and artist Leopoldo Gout. Carmen Sanchez is back in her home country of Mexico, overseeing the renovation of an ancient cathedral into a boutique hotel. Her teen daughters, Izel and Luna, are with her for the summer, and left to fill their afternoons unsupervised in a foreign city. The locals treat the Sanchez women like outsiders, while Carmen's contractors openly defy and sabotage her work. After a disastrous accident at the construction site nearly injures Luna, Carmen's had enough. They're leaving. Back home in New York, malevolent and unexplainable happenings seem to swarm the Sanchez family, throwing their lives into chaos. And it might be too late for them to escape what's been awakened... Inspired by the true, horrific history of how the Spanish conquistadors used piñatas to force Aztec children to break their gods, Piñata is a possession horror story about how the sinister repercussions of our past can return to haunt us.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sister, Maiden, Monster “Absolutely recommended for readers of the cosmic and gloriously horrific.” ―Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author Sister, Maiden, Monster is a visceral story set in the aftermath of our planet’s disastrous transformation and told through the eyes of three women trying to survive the nightmare, from Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lucy A. Snyder. A virus tears across the globe, transforming its victims in nightmarish ways. As the world collapses, dark forces pull a small group of women together. Erin, once quiet and closeted, acquires an appetite for a woman and her brain. Why does forbidden fruit taste so good? Savannah, a professional BDSM switch, discovers a new turn-on: committing brutal murders for her eldritch masters. Mareva, plagued with chronic tumors, is too horrified to acknowledge her divine role in the coming apocalypse, and as her growths multiply, so too does her desperation. Inspired by her Bram Stoker Award-winning story “Magdala Amygdala,” Lucy A. Snyder delivers a cosmic tale about the planet’s disastrous transformation ... and what we become after. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Fear the Reaper December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Graham Jones. Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho. Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday. Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over. Don’t Fear the Reaper is the page-turning sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spite House: A Novel "The plotting is intricate, following the points of view of many characters from the past and present, all of whom are expertly performed by Adam Lazarre-White." - Library Journal "Adam Lazarre-White narrates this terrifying debut novel with a Southern drawl that puts the gothic into this gothic thriller."- AudioFile A terrifying Gothic thriller about grief and death and the depths of a father's love, Johnny Compton's The Spite House is a stunning debut by a horror master in the making—The Babadook meets A Head Full of Ghosts in Texas Hill Country. Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. Having left his wife, his house, his whole life behind in Maryland, he's desperate for money—it's not easy to find steady, safe work when you can't provide references, you can't stay in one place for long, and you're paranoid that your past is creeping back up on you. When he comes across the strange ad for the Masson House in Degener, Texas, Eric thinks they may have finally caught a lucky break. The Masson property, notorious for being one of the most haunted places in Texas, needs a caretaker of sorts. The owner is looking for proof of paranormal activity. All they need to do is stay in the house and keep a detailed record of everything that happens there. Provided the house’s horrors don’t drive them all mad, like the caretakers before them. The job calls to Eric, not just because there's a huge payout if they can make it through, but because he wants to explore the secrets of the spite house. If it is indeed haunted, maybe it'll help him understand the uncanny power that clings to his family, driving them from town to town, making them afraid to stop running. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shoemaker's Magician A fabled lost movie. An increasing body count. How much do you risk for art? Paloma has been watching the Grand Vespertilio Show her entire life. Grand, America’s most beloved horror host showcases classic, low-budget and cult horror movies with a flourish, wearing his black tuxedo and hat, but Paloma has noticed something strange about Grand, stranger than his dark make-up and Gothic television set. After Paloma’s husband, a homicide detective, discovers an obscure movie poster pinned on a mutilated corpse on stage at the Chicago Theater, she knows that the only person that can help solve this mystery is Grand. When another body appears at an abandoned historic movie palace the deaths prove to be connected to a silent film, lost to the ages, but somehow at the center of countless tragedies in Chicago. The closer Paloma gets to Grand she discovers that his reach is far greater than her first love, horror movies, and even this film. And she soon becomes trapped between protecting a silent movie that’s contributed to so much death in her city and the life of her young son.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tell Me I'm Worthless Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless is a dark, unflinching haunted house story that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors through the lens of the modern-day trans experience. "Narrator Nicky Endres narrates three distinct POVs (Alice, Ila, and the House), and her voice easily slithers between all three, demonstrating how the house dominates this story and the women’s lives." - Library Journal "Transfeminine actor Nicky Endres’ narration is chilling throughout, as they voice the perspectives of Alice, Ila, and the house at an easy, relaxed pace. Their voice maintains a lulling and melodious sing-song quality, which acts in opposition to the horrors portrayed in the book." - Booklist “A triumph of transgressive queer horror.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED review “Easily one of the strongest horror debuts in recent memory.” —Booklist, STARRED review Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice’s life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep. Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go. Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own. Cutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I’m Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that examines the devastating effects of trauma and how fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other. “Ambitious, brutal, and brilliant.” —Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Raven She saw The Raven in her dreams. Now her life's a nightmare. No matter how hard she tries, Rebekah just doesn't fit in at her prestigious private school. The cruel, privileged students ridicule and bully her every day. And instead of standing up for herself, Rebekah retreats into a dark, unsettling world of nightmarish visions . . . In her dreams, a cloaked figure she calls The Raven gives her a chance to turn the tables on her tormentors, and exact bloody revenge. At first, she secretly relishes the power, but then Rebekah discovers her dreams have terrifying consequences in her waking world: The Raven's brutal justice is real. Echoing the gothic horror of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven unlocks deep truths about bullying, self-worth, and the price of revenge.
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll Hallows: A Novel With the 80's nostalgia of Stranger Things, this horror drama from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden follows neighborhood families and a mysterious, lurking evil on one Halloween day. It’s Halloween night, 1984, in Coventry, Massachusetts, and two families are unraveling. Up and down the street, horrifying secrets are being revealed, and all the while, mixed in with the trick-or-treaters of all ages, four children who do not belong are walking door to door, merging with the kids of Parmenter Road. Children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup. They seem terrified, and beg the neighborhood kids to hide them away, to keep them safe from The Cunning Man. There’s a small clearing in the woods now that was never there before, and a blackthorn tree that doesn’t belong at all. These odd children claim that The Cunning Man is coming for them...and they want the local kids to protect them. But with families falling apart and the neighborhood splintered by bitterness, who will save the children of Parmenter Road? New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Christopher Golden is best known for his supernatural thrillers set in deadly, distant locales...but in this suburban Halloween drama, Golden brings the horror home. All Hallows. The one night when everything is a mask...
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Blackhouse: A Novel From the author of the “dark and devious...beautifully written” (Stephen King) Mirrorland comes a richly atmospheric thriller set on an isolated Scottish island where nothing is as it seems and shocking twists lie around every corner. A remote village. A deadly secret. An outsider who knows the truth. Robert Reid moved his family to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides in the 1990s, driven by hope, craving safety and community, and hiding a terrible secret. But despite his best efforts to fit in, Robert is always seen as an outsider. And as the legendary and violent Hebridean storms rage around him, he begins to unravel, believing his fate on the remote island of Kilmeray cannot be escaped. For her entire life, Maggie MacKay has sensed something was wrong with her. When Maggie was five years old, she announced that a man on Kilmeray—a place she’d never visited—had been murdered. Her unfounded claim drew media attention and turned the locals against each other, creating rifts that never mended. Nearly twenty years later, Maggie is determined to find out what really happened, and what the islanders are hiding. But when she begins to receive ominous threats, Maggie is forced to consider how much she is willing to risk to discover the horrifying truth. Unnerving, enthralling, and filled with gothic suspense, The Blackhouse is a spectacularly sinister tale readers won’t soon forget.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of Fear: A Novel This “disorienting, creepy, paranoia-inducing reimagining of the devil-made-me-do-it tale” (Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World) follows the harrowing downfall of a tortured graduate student arrested for murder. Grayson Hale, the most infamous murderer in Scotland, is better known by a different name: the Devil’s Advocate. The twenty-five-year-old American grad student rose to instant notoriety when he confessed to the slaughter of his classmate Liam Stewart, claiming the Devil made him do it. When Hale is found hanged in his prison cell, officers uncover a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question that’s haunted the nation for years: was Hale a lunatic, or had he been telling the truth all along? The first-person narrative reveals an acerbic young atheist, newly enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to carry on the legacy of his recently deceased father. In need of cash, he takes a job ghostwriting a mysterious book for a dark stranger—but he has misgivings when the project begins to reawaken his satanophobia, a rare condition that causes him to live in terror that the Devil is after him. As he struggles to disentangle fact from fear, Grayson’s world is turned upside-down after events force him to confront his growing suspicion that he’s working for the one he has feared all this time—and that the book is only the beginning of their partnership. “A modern-day Gothic tale with claws” (Jennifer Fawcett, author of Beneath the Stairs), A History of Fear marries dread-inducing atmosphere with heart-palpitating storytelling.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5White Horse: A Novel "The audiobook narrated by Tonantzin Carmelo is enthralling." - Buzzfeed "Narrator Tonantzin Carmelo’s portrayal of Kari imbues her with a rebellious and tenacious attitude that makes her immediately likable." - Library Journal Erika T. Wurth's White Horse is a gritty, vibrant debut novel about an Indigenous woman who must face her past when she discovers a bracelet haunted by her mother’s spirit. Some people are haunted in more ways than one. Kari James, Urban Native, is a fan of heavy metal, ripped jeans, Stephen King novels, and dive bars. She spends most of her time at her favorite spot in Denver, the White Horse. When her cousin Debby finds an old family bracelet that once belonged to Kari’s mother, it inadvertently calls up both her mother’s ghost and a monstrous entity, and her willful ignorance about her past is no longer sustainable… Haunted by visions of her mother and hunted by this mysterious creature, Kari must search for what happened to her mother all those years ago. Her father, permanently disabled from a car crash, can’t help her. Her Auntie Squeaker seems to know something but isn’t eager to give it all up at once. Debby’s anxious to help, but her controlling husband keeps getting in the way. Kari’s journey toward a truth long denied by both her family and law enforcement forces her to confront her dysfunctional relationships, thoughts about a friend she lost in childhood, and her desire for the one thing she’s always wanted but could never have. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clown Brigade The following story may be disturbing and contains graphic violence which may not be appropriate for all readers/listeners. Stephen Graham Jones has been hailed as the Jordan Peele of horror lit and is the award-winning author of genre-defying New York Times bestsellers like The Only Good Indians and My Heart Is a Chainsaw. In his Scribd Original story The Clown Brigade, he takes on the horrors of mainstream American life as only he – a literary shapeshifter and Blackfeet Native American – can, reminding us that monsters too often hide in plain sight. It’s a brand-new day for Kyle: He’s flying across the country to meet a woman he connected with online. His last relationship still haunts him, but just because it didn’t work out with Steph, a wildly popular spin-class instructor, doesn’t mean it won’t with Jenna. When the plane hits some turbulence, Kyle feels the world go still even as the cabin’s insides churn, and he sees down the aisle, of all things, a clown – a real clown, white face paint, eyes drawn like diamonds, a wilted red wig – looking right at him and no one else. He briefly wonders if it’s some kind of an omen. He might be a fool for love, but he’s no clown, right? He plans to surprise Jenna and shows up at her building with a single red rose in hand. What could be more romantic, more innocent? Yet Kyle’s the one treated to surprise after surprise: Another clown, in white face and red wig – the works – pops up out of nowhere, and security on the premises isn’t as friendly as Kyle had hoped. He’s just a young guy looking for love. But looks can be deceiving, and in Jones’s hands boy-meets-girl becomes daring and darkly funny social commentary, a deeply disturbing and tragically timely Poe-esque reckoning with a culture where the fantasies of fools and clowns – in fact a whole brigade of them – too readily turn to senseless violence and end in chaos and destruction.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Eve From Catriona Ward, the international bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street comes Little Eve, a heart-pounding tale of faith and family, with a devastating twist. Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel. “A great day is upon us. He is coming. The world will be washed away.” On the wind-battered isle of Altnaharra, off the wildest coast of Scotland, a clan prepares to bring about the end of the world and its imminent rebirth. The Adder is coming and one of their number will inherit its powers. They all want the honor, but young Eve is willing to do anything for the distinction. A reckoning beyond Eve’s imagination begins when Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a brutal murder and their sacred ceremony goes terribly wrong. And soon all the secrets of Altnaharra will be uncovered. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hollow Kind: A Novel Andy Davidson's epic horror novel about the spectacular decline of the Redfern family, haunted by an ancient evil. Nellie Gardner is looking for a way out of an abusive marriage when she learns that her long-lost grandfather, August Redfern, has willed her his turpentine estate. She throws everything she can think of in a bag and flees to Georgia with her eleven-year-old son, Max, in tow. It turns out that the "estate" is a decrepit farmhouse on a thousand acres of old pine forest, but Nellie is thrilled about the chance for a fresh start for her and Max, and a chance for the happy home she never had. So it takes her a while to notice the strange scratching in the walls, the faint whispering at night, how the forest is eerily quiet. But Max sees what his mother can't: They're no safer here than they had been in South Carolina. In fact, things might even be worse. There's something wrong with Redfern Hill. Something lurks beneath the soil, ancient and hungry, with the power to corrupt hearts and destroy souls. It is the true legacy of Redfern Hill: a kingdom of grief and death, to which Nellie’s own blood has granted her the key. From the author of The Boatman's Daughter, The Hollow Kind is a jaw-dropping novel about legacy and the horrors that hide in the dark corners of family history. Andy Davidson's gorgeous, Gothic fable tracing the spectacular fall of the Redfern family will haunt you long after you turn the final page. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lute Wicker Man meets Final Destination in Jennifer Thorne's atmospheric, unsettling folk horror novel about love, duty, and community. On the idyllic island of Lute, every seventh summer, seven people die. No more, no less. Lute and its inhabitants are blessed, year after year, with good weather, good health, and good fortune. They live a happy, superior life, untouched by the war that rages all around them. So it’s only fair that every seven years, on the day of the tithe, the island’s gift is honored. Nina Treadway is new to The Day. A Florida girl by birth, she became a Lady through her marriage to Lord Treadway, whose family has long protected the island. Nina’s heard about The Day, of course. Heard about the horrific tragedies, the lives lost, but she doesn’t believe in it. It's all superstitious nonsense. Stories told to keep newcomers at bay and youngsters in line. Then The Day begins. And it's a day of nightmares, of grief, of reckoning. But it is also a day of community. Of survival and strength. Of love, at its most pure and untamed. When The Day ends, Nina—and Lute—will never be the same. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Curse of the Reaper: A Novel Scream meets The Shining in this page-turning horror tale about an aging actor haunted by the slasher movie villain he brought to life. Decades after playing the titular killer in the 80s horror franchise Night of the Reaper, Howard Browning has been reduced to signing autographs for his dwindling fanbase at genre conventions. When the studio announces a series reboot, the aging thespian is crushed to learn he’s being replaced in the iconic role by heartthrob Trevor Mane, a former sitcom child-star who’s fresh out of rehab. Trevor is determined to stay sober and revamp his image while Howard refuses to let go of the character he created, setting the stage for a cross-generational clash over the soul of a monster. But as Howard fights to reclaim his legacy, the sinister alter ego consumes his unraveling mind, pushing him to the brink of violence. Is the method actor succumbing to madness or has the devilish Reaper taken on a life of its own? In his razor-sharp debut novel, film and television writer Brian McAuley melds wicked suspense with dark humor and heart. Curse of the Reaper is a tightly plotted thriller that walks the tightrope between the psychological and the supernatural, while characters struggling with addiction and identity bring to light the harrowing cost of Hollywood fame.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Witch In The Well The Witch in the Well is a dark Norwegian thriller from Camilla Bruce, author of You Let Me In. When two former friends reunite after decades apart, their grudges, flawed ambitions, and shared obsession swirl into an all-too-real echo of a terrible town legend. Centuries ago, beautiful young Ilsbeth Clark was accused of witchcraft after several children disappeared. Her acquittal did nothing to stop her fellow townsfolk from drowning her in the well where the missing children were last seen. When author and social media influencer Elena returns to the summer paradise of her youth to get her family's manor house ready to sell, the last thing she expected was connecting with—and feeling inspired to write about—Ilsbeth’s infamous spirit. The very historical figure that her ex-childhood friend, Cathy, has been diligently researching and writing about for years. What begins as a fiercely competitive sense of ownership over Ilsbeth and her story soon turns both women’s worlds into something more haunted and dangerous than they could ever imagine. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leech A surreal and horrifying debut, Hiron Ennes's Leech defies our understanding of identity, heredity, and bodily autonomy. “A wonderful new entry to Gothic science fiction, impeccably clever and atmospheric. Think Wuthering Heights... with worms!”—Tamsyn Muir MEET THE CURE FOR THE HUMAN DISEASE In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed. In the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Spread The author of the “evocative, spine-tingling, and razor-sharp” (Bustle) I’m Thinking of Ending Things that inspired the Netflix original movie and the “short, shocking” (The Guardian) Foe returns with a new work of suspense following an elderly woman trapped in a mysterious facility. Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many “incidents.” Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping, looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny—with a growing sense of unrest and distrust—starts to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling? At once compassionate and uncanny, told in spare, hypnotic prose, Iain Reid’s “exquisite novel of psychological suspense” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) explores questions of conformity, art, productivity, relationships, and what, ultimately, it means to grow old.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5O Caledonia: A Novel In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern classic of Scottish literature about a doomed adolescent growing up in the mid-19th century—featuring a new introduction by Maggie O’Farrell, award-winning author of Hamnet. Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, attired in her mother’s black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw… Author Elspeth Barker masterfully evokes the harsh climate of Scotland in this atmospheric gothic tale that has been compared to the works of the Brontës, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edward Gorey. Immersed in a world of isolation and loneliness, Barker’s ill-fated young heroine Janet turns to literature, nature, and her Aunt Lila, who offers brief flashes of respite in an otherwise foreboding life. People, birds, and beasts move through the background in a tale that is as rich and atmospheric as it is witty and mordant. The family’s motto—Moriens sed Invictus (Dying but Unconquered)—is a well-suited epitaph for wild and courageous Janet, whose fierce determination to remain steadfastly herself makes her one of the most unforgettable protagonists in contemporary literature.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Babysitter Lives “I enjoyed The Babysitter Lives very much. It’s perfect for audio, as really scary stories always are, and this one is really scary. Perfect for a long car ride…especially when you’re almost out of gas and you start wondering if maybe someone has gotten into the backseat and will lurch into the rearview mirror.” —Stephen King Only on Audio! A new horror novel from the bestselling author of The Only Good Indians and My Heart Is a Chainsaw. A mother carries her six-year-old daughter into the tiled bathroom where the bathtub is already running, is still running, is overflowing, and for a moment the girl calms, seeing her little brother floating facedown in the water, his hair a golden halo around him, but then this mother is guiding her face-first down into that water, that, as it turns out, isn’t just water but scalding water, and eleven years later her scream is the drawer screeching out of the counter by the sink. When high school senior Charlotte agrees to babysit the Wilbanks twins, she plans to put the six-year-olds to bed early and spend a quiet night studying: the SATs are tomorrow, and checking the Native American/Alaskan Native box on all the forms doesn’t mean jack if you choke on test day. But tomorrow is also Halloween, and the twins are eager to show off their costumes—Ron is a nurse, in an old-fashioned white skirt-uniform, and Desi has an Authentic Squaw costume, complete with buckskin and feathered headdress. Excitement is in the air. Charlotte’s last babysitting gig almost ended in tragedy, when her young charge sleepwalked unnoticed into the middle of the street, only to be found unharmed by Charlotte’s mother. Charlotte vows to be extra careful this time. But the house is filled with mysterious noises and secrets that only the twins understand, echoes of horrors that Charlotte gradually realizes took place in the house eleven years ago. Soon Charlotte has to admit that every babysitter’s worst nightmare has come true: they’re not alone in the house. The Babysitter Lives is a mind-bending haunted house tale from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones. Featuring a note from the author.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jawbone Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award in Translated Literature! “Was desire something like being possessed by a nightmare?” Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters: a double image, inseparable. So how does Fernanda end up bound on the floor of a deserted cabin, held hostage by one of her teachers and estranged from Annelise? When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality. Interweaving pop culture references and horror concepts drawn from from Herman Melville, H. P. Lovecraft, and anonymous “creepypastas,” Jawbone is an ominous, multivocal novel that explores the terror inherent in the pure potentiality of adolescence and the fine line between desire and fear.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book Eaters "Katie Erich’s riveting and emotionally rich realization of Dean’s strange and vivid world makes this an entrancing listen from start to finish; we hope to hear much more from author and narrator alike." - The Seattle Times "Katie Erich narrates Devon with the voice of a true storyteller, providing a mesmerizing performance that communicates the devastating harshness and rich emotionality of Devon’s journey....Beautiful and intense, it is a must-listen."- Library Journal This program includes a bonus conversation between the author and narrator about the novel, family, and neurodivergency. Sunyi Dean's The Book Eaters is “a darkly sweet pastry of a book about family, betrayal, and the lengths we go to for the ones we love. A delicious modern fairy tale.”— Christopher Buehlman, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author "Katie Erich's Northern English accent transports listeners to the windswept Yorkshire moors in this atmospheric fantasy about a woman on the run."- AudioFile on The Book Eaters Truth is found between the stories we're fed and the stories we hunger for. Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries. Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shutter Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent skills have cracked many cases—she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook. As a lone portal to the living world for traumatized spirits, Rita is terrorized by nagging ghosts who won’t let her sleep and who sabotage her personal life. Her taboo and psychologically harrowing ability was what drove her away from the Navajo reservation, where she was raised by her grandmother. It has isolated her from friends and gotten her in trouble with the law. And now it might be what gets her killed. When Rita is sent to photograph the scene of a supposed suicide on a highway overpass, the furious, discombobulated ghost of the victim—who insists she was murdered—latches onto Rita, forcing her on a quest for revenge against her killers, and Rita finds herself in the crosshairs of one of Albuquerque’s most dangerous cartels. Written in sparkling, gruesome prose, Shutter is an explosive debut from one of crime fiction’s most powerful new voices.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology An anthology of original horror stories edited by Bram Stoker Award® winners Vince A. Liaguno and Rena Mason that showcases authors from historically excluded backgrounds telling terrifying tales of what it means to be, or merely to seem, “other” Offering new stories from some of the biggest names in horror as well as some of the hottest up-and-coming talents, Other Terrors will provide the ultimate reading experience for horror fans who want to examine fear of “the other.” Be they of a different culture, a different background, a different sexual orientation or gender identity, a different belief system, or a different skin color, some people simply aren’t part of the community’s majority—and are perceived as scary. Humans are almost instinctively inclined to fear what’s different, and there are a multitude of individuals who have spent far too long on the outside looking in. And the thing about the outside is . . . it’s much larger than you think. In Other Terrors, horror writers from a multitude of underrepresented backgrounds have created stories of everyday people, places, and things where something shifts, striking a deeper, much more primal, chord of fear. Are our eyes playing tricks on us, or is there something truly sinister lurking under the surface of what we thought we knew? And who among us is really the other, after all? CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE: Tananarive Due, Jennifer McMahon, S.A. Cosby, Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, Michael Thomas Ford, Ann Dávila Cardinal, Christina Sng, Denise Dumars, Usman T. Malik, Annie Neugebauer, Gabino Iglesias, Hailey Piper, Nathan Carson, Shanna Heath, Tracy Cross, Linda D. Addison, Maxwell I. Gold, Larissa Glasser, Eugen Bacon, Holly Lyn Walrath, Jonathan Lees, M. E. Bronstein, Michael Hanson
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Querelle of Roberval Shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Homage to Jean Genet’s antihero and a brilliant reimagining of the ancient form of tragedy, Querelle of Roberval, winner of the Marquis de Sade Prize, is a wildly imaginative story of justice, passion, and murderous revenge. As a millworkers’ strike in the northern lumber town of Roberval drags on, tensions start to escalate between the workers—but when a lockout renews their solidarity, they rally around the mysterious and magnetic influence of Querelle, a dashing newcomer from Montreal. Strapping and unabashed, likeable but callow, by day he walks the picket lines and at night moves like a mythic Adonis through the ranks of young men who flock to his apartment for sex. As the dispute hardens and both sides refuse to yield, sand stalls the gears of the economic machine and the tinderbox of class struggle and entitlement ignites in a firestorm of passions carnal and violent. Trenchant social drama, a tribute to Jean Genet’s antihero, and a brilliant reimagining of the ancient form of tragedy, Querelle of Roberval, winner of France’s Marquis de Sade Prize, is a wildly imaginative story of justice, passion, and murderous revenge.
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust Like Home "...it’s compulsively listenable. That’s thanks in part to Sands’ intense narration, whether she’s playing the inscrutable Vera or her wretched mother asking for yet another glass of lemonade." -Vulture "The audiobook narrated by Xe Sands is a genuinely nail-biting listen." - Buzzfeed "Gailey wisely unfurls this story at a delightfully excruciating pace. Accompanied by Sands’s versatile narration, this is a captivating listen."- Library Journal Just Like Home is a darkly gothic thriller from nationally bestselling author Sarah Gailey, perfect for fans of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House as well as HBO's true crime masterpiece I'll Be Gone in the Dark. “Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family. Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be? There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Moves the Dead "The audiobook narrated by Avi Roque is delightful." - Buzzfeed "Narrator Avi Roque delivers a perfectly paced performance in this concise audiobook...holding listeners hostage until the house reveals its terrifying secrets." -AudioFile Magazine From T. Kingfisher, the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones, comes What Moves the Dead, a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher." When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania. What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves. Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pallbearers Club: A Novel “Paul Tremblay delivers another mind-bending horror novel . . . The Pallbearers Club is a welcome casket of chills to shoulder.” – Washington Post “Uncertainty is Tremblay’s stock-in-trade. Over the last decade, he has grown from hot new thing to horror icon without compromising on his uniquely inexplicable nightmares.” – Esquire “[A] deliciously confusing thriller.” – Weekend Edition (NPR) A cleverly voiced psychological thriller from the nationally bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song. What if the coolest girl you’ve ever met decided to be your friend? Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a seventeen-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses. Okay, that part was a little weird. So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things – terrifying things – that happened when she was around, usually at night. But she was his friend, so it was okay, right? Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she’s making cuts. Seamlessly blurring the lines between fiction and memory, the supernatural and the mundane, The Pallbearers Club is an immersive, suspenseful portrait of an unusual and disconcerting relationship.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Author Spotlight
Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones is the author of fifteen novels and six story collections. He has received numerous awards, including the NEA Literature Fellowship in fiction, the Texas Institute of Letters Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction, the Independent Publisher Book Award for Multicultural Fiction, and the This Is Horror Award, as well as making Bloody Disgusting’s Top Ten Horror Novels of the Year. Stephen was raised in West Texas. He now lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and children.
Author Spotlight
Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones is the author of fifteen novels and six story collections. He has received numerous awards, including the NEA Literature Fellowship in fiction, the Texas Institute of Letters Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction, the Independent Publisher Book Award for Multicultural Fiction, and the This Is Horror Award, as well as making Bloody Disgusting’s Top Ten Horror Novels of the Year. Stephen was raised in West Texas. He now lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and children.
The Clown Brigade The following story may be disturbing and contains graphic violence which may not be appropriate for all readers/listeners. Stephen Graham Jones has been hailed as the Jordan Peele of horror lit and is the award-winning author of genre-defying New York Times bestsellers like The Only Good Indians and My Heart Is a Chainsaw. In his Scribd Original story The Clown Brigade, he takes on the horrors of mainstream American life as only he – a literary shapeshifter and Blackfeet Native American – can, reminding us that monsters too often hide in plain sight. It’s a brand-new day for Kyle: He’s flying across the country to meet a woman he connected with online. His last relationship still haunts him, but just because it didn’t work out with Steph, a wildly popular spin-class instructor, doesn’t mean it won’t with Jenna. When the plane hits some turbulence, Kyle feels the world go still even as the cabin’s insides churn, and he sees down the aisle, of all things, a clown – a real clown, white face paint, eyes drawn like diamonds, a wilted red wig – looking right at him and no one else. He briefly wonders if it’s some kind of an omen. He might be a fool for love, but he’s no clown, right? He plans to surprise Jenna and shows up at her building with a single red rose in hand. What could be more romantic, more innocent? Yet Kyle’s the one treated to surprise after surprise: Another clown, in white face and red wig – the works – pops up out of nowhere, and security on the premises isn’t as friendly as Kyle had hoped. He’s just a young guy looking for love. But looks can be deceiving, and in Jones’s hands boy-meets-girl becomes daring and darkly funny social commentary, a deeply disturbing and tragically timely Poe-esque reckoning with a culture where the fantasies of fools and clowns – in fact a whole brigade of them – too readily turn to senseless violence and end in chaos and destruction.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Final Girl The Last Final Girl is like Quentin Tarantino's take on The Cabin in the Woods. Bloody, absurd, and smart. Plus, there's a killer in a Michael Jackson mask." (Carlton Mellick III, author of Apeshit) Life in a slasher film is easy. You just have to know when to die. Aerial View: A suburban town in Texas. Everyone's got an automatic garage door opener. All the kids jump off a perilous cliff into a shallow river as a rite of passage. The sheriff is a local celebrity. You know this town. You're from this town. Zoom In: Homecoming princess, Lindsay. She's just barely escaped death at the hands of a brutal, sadistic murderer in a Michael Jackson mask. Up on the cliff, she was rescued by a horse and bravely defeated the killer, alone, bra-less. Her story is already a legend. She's this town's heroic final girl, their virgin angel. Monster Vision: Halloween masks floating down that same river the kids jump into. But just as one slaughter is not enough for Billie Jean, our masked killer, one victory is not enough for Lindsay. Her high school is full of final girls, and she's not the only one who knows the rules of the game. When Lindsay chooses a host of virgins, misfits, and former final girls to replace the slaughtered members of her original homecoming court, it's not just a fight for survival - it's a fight to become The Last Final Girl.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mongrels: A Novel A spellbinding and darkly humorous coming-of-age story about an unusual boy, whose family lives on the fringe of society and struggles to survive in a hostile world that shuns and fears them He was born an outsider, like the rest of his family. Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixed blood, neither this nor that. The boy at the center of Mongrels must decide if he belongs on the road with his aunt and uncle, or if he fits with the people on the other side of the tracks. For ten years, he and his family have lived a life of late-night exits and narrow escapes-always on the move across the South to stay one step ahead of the law. But the time is drawing near when Darren and Libby will finally know if their nephew is like them or not. And the close calls they've been running from for so long are catching up fast now. Everything is about to change. A compelling and fascinating journey, Mongrels alternates between past and present to create an unforgettable portrait of a boy trying to understand his family and his place in a complex and unforgiving world. A smart and innovative story-funny, bloody, raw, and real-told in a rhythmic voice full of heart, Mongrels is a deeply moving, sometimes grisly, novel that illuminates the challenges and tender joys of a life beyond the ordinary in a bold and imaginative new way. Advance Acclaim for Stephen Graham Jones's Mongrels "Stephen Graham Jones has written a wondrous shape-shifter of a novel. Mongrels exists somewhere in the borderlands of literary and genre fiction, full of horror and humor and heart-at once a nightmarish road trip and a moving story about a broken family leashed together by their fierce love and loyalty. A bloody great read."-Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands, Red Moon, and The Wilding "Mongrels isn't just a coming-of-age story or a horror story. It looks at the world through a disturbing, uncomfortable lens, and offers up a brutal mythology of werewolves. I've never seen anything quite like it and I won't forget it anytime soon."-Carrie Vaughn, New York Times bestselling author of the Kitty Norville series "You know how you once wished you were a werewolf? How you stood in front of the mirror and wanted to see a transformation? Mongrels takes you by the hand, guides you down that road, finally, to that change. . . . Stephen Graham Jones is as powerful as the monsters herein."-Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box "With lupine tongue tucked well into cheek, Mongrels is at once an adolescent romp through the tangled woods of family history and a rich compendium of werewolf lore, old and new."-Christopher Buehlman, author of Those Across the River and The Lesser Dead
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night of the Mannequins We thought we'd play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead. One last laugh for the summer as it winds down. One last prank just to scare a friend. Bringing a mannequin into a theater is just some harmless fun, right? Until it wakes up. Until is starts killing. Luckily, Sawyer has a plan. He'll be a hero. He'll save everyone to the best of his ability. He'll kill as many people as he needs to so he can save the day. That's the thing about heroes—sometimes you have to become a monster first.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Attack of the 50 Foot Indian Sharp, searing, with a masterful use of language, Attack of the 50 Foot Indian is a brilliant satire of the portrayal of American Indians from breakout author Stephen Graham Jones. A Tale of Two Moons. Every government of every nation debates what to do when a fifty-foot tall man, dressed in a loincloth and dripping from the sea, appears off the Siberian coast. As the American people puzzle over how he came to be and what to do next, the news outlets start calling the titan “Two Moons,” social media abducts him into the memesphere, and the military, well, they have their own action-plan for dealing with threats to what they mistakenly consider their homeland. With unapologetic honesty and wit, Stephen Graham Jones cuts to the bone of the stereotypes used for American Indians, showcasing his talent as a humorist and as one of our great American writers in this short story.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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