It’s the mid-'90s. Grunge and flannel are fading as the Spice Girls and Hot Topic conquer the malls. Cherry gloss glistens on the lips of the youth. Modems hiss as America comes online. And in a fog-drenched cove at the edge of New England, something terrible awakens when a fisherman reels in a gruesome catch: the remains of a young woman. Remains still pulsing with furious life.

Renee Thornton is on the brink of despair, ready to take a final plunge and join the other tragic souls at the bottom of Bradford Lake - known to locals as Suicide Lake. Her plans change when she's startled back to reality after a body brushes up against her from the depths below. Terrified, Renee runs away and slams into her old flame Cliff Simpson, a deputy with Whitten County Sheriff's Department. Strange events unfurl after the discovery of the corpse.

Oliver Fitch has a troubling issue: He lives in a state of constant terror. After purchasing a convenience store in a once civil society, the streets around him have rapidly devolved into utter lawlessness. They're now festering with sinister gutter scum that live only to harass and intimidate him. His pathetic profits are gouged under the threat of violence, and there isn't a damn thing he can do about it. Because in a city with no rules, where the sun never shines, the authorities are no help. In fact, they're an equal part of the problem.

A series of ritualistic murders are discovered six months after Max Elliot turned in his badge. Victims of the media-dubbed “Chinatown Surgeon” are little more than piles of flayed skin. The bones of each body were stolen. This torturous method of execution had only been seen once before and that case remained unsolved.

What would you do to save a loved one? Robert’s mother, Helen, is ravaged with cancer. Every day could be her last, and Robert dreads losing the last member of his family. Robert’s friend and Holocaust survivor, Josef, tells him an unholy story and leaves him a way to save his dying mother. But, as with everything in life, the salvation comes with a steep price.

After an exhausting day at work and a run-in with an obnoxious loudmouth at the gym, all Robin Bellamy wants is to go home and unwind with her father. But when she reaches their house, she discovers something is very wrong. Several armed men appear to be waiting inside, and they’re threatening her father’s life. However, there’s a bigger problem: The house itself won’t let her in.

Angel knows all about pain. His mother died in this room. He's researched its history. Today he's come back to end it, no matter the cost, once and for all. Shyla, a plus-sized escort, thinks the stories Angel tells her can't be true. Secrets so vile, you won't want to let them inside you. But the Lonely Motel doesn't forget. It doesn't forgive. And it always claims its victim.

Three low-income families have been given a handsome retainer to join Geraldine Borden for a day at her cliffside estate. All the parents must do to collect the rest of their money is allow their children to test out the revolutionary playground equipment Geraldine has been working on for decades. But there’s a reason the structures in the bowels of her gothic castle have taken so long to develop—they were never meant to see the light of 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.

After Miller's father dies, she agrees to a girls' vacation away from the city to reconnect with the only family she has left. Although she’s eager to make things work, Miller can’t help but worry that her mother is seeing their countryside retreat as a fun weekend getaway instead of what it really is: a last-ditch effort to repair their relationship.

Ani FaNelli seems to have it all: a glamorous job at a glossy magazine, an enviable figure with the wardrobe to match, and a handsome fiancé from a distinguished blue-blood family. But Ani FaNelli is an invention, that veneer of perfection carefully assembled in an attempt to distance herself from a shocking, sordid past.

After a series of bizarre and increasingly horrific attacks from pulpy, red, seeded fruit, Mason Dixon finds himself leading a "crack" team of specialists to save the planet. But will they be quick enough to save everyone? To save you? You can't run! You can't swim!

On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old Realtor, had three goals: sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she’s about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.

Real estate agent Anthony Graham has his family on the run after witnessing a murder at the hands of the powerful Costello crime family. They’re forced to hide at one of Anthony’s properties, a deserted campground with a sinister past. No one is safe from the men that hunt them, or the terrors that await them inside The Devil’s Nest.

After the loss of a child along with a slew of agonizing misfortunes, Nick and Jess decide to end their lives. Unable to cope with the misery that fills their days, they commit one last act together and die in loving relief. But when Nick wakes up, he soon realizes that death isn't the gentle darkness he expected. Panicked and horrified, he struggles to understand the twisted abominations and hellish world he's now trapped in.

Kate Corbin had a handsome boyfriend and a budding career as a reporter at a popular Chicago newspaper. But after the death of the woman who raised her, she fell into a rut and never got out. Now she's stuck writing fluff pieces about lipstick and wine and feeling trapped in a relationship that's going nowhere. Kate's boss gives her an intriguing assignment: spend a week interviewing R. J. Lawson, a modern-day Howard Hughes who recently reemerged as the owner of a well-respected Napa winery.

Imagine. You have cancer. You’ve been blasted and wasted with chemotherapy, along with every other poison the doctors could find to kill malignant cells. Most days you’re more dead than alive. Now there is one last chance for survival. Tomorrow you will be infused with your own, treated bone marrow frozen, stored, and safe in one of California’s most prestigious hospitals. Then comes the note: “We have your marrow.... pay or die."

On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old Realtor, had three goals: sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she’s about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.

In her tour-de-force first novel, Juliann Garey takes us inside the restless mind, ravaged heart, and anguished soul of Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive who leaves his wife and young daughter and for a decade travels the world giving free reign to the bipolar disorder he's been forced to keep hidden for almost 20 years.

It starts with a simple wish, and Emma Davies hardly notices when it comes true. She’s too preoccupied with a life she isn’t happy in - the spark in her marriage has fizzled, her career is headed nowhere and her boss is a misogynist. Her teenage daughter has grown distant, and her heart breaks daily for her teenage son with cerebral palsy. But soon Emma discovers her wishes are coming true, and she realizes that she has been given the power to change her life. Either that, or she’s going insane.

Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry has crammed a great deal of living - not to mention eight much-loved husbands - into her varied and rewarding life. Newly single, Toots is ready to taste life again, and fate has just handed her the perfect opportunity.

Max doesn't remember his mother, who was murdered by burglars before they emigrated from Beirut to New Jersey. He lives with his father, Rasheed, who is enamored of his concept of American culture - baseball and barbeques - and tries to shed his Lebanese heritage completely.

FBI analyst Kassidy Bishop is assigned to the "'For You' Killer" task force after a series of sadistic murders bearing the same signature arise in different parts of the country. The homicides are both calculated and savage, occurring in different states, but bearing the same signature: the words "for you" scribbled at each crime scene. The case chills Kassidy, bringing back memories of her own encounter with a violent criminal five years earlier.

When Dr. Rennie Newton goes to jury duty, she delivers a "not guilty" verdict in the murder case against contract killer Ricky Lozada. She will learn to regret this decision, because Rennie's trial with Lozada doesn't end with his acquittal. A colleague of hers is soon brutally slain and when Lozada begins an earnest courtship, it becomes clear that he is obsessed with having her. In order to defeat Lozada, Rennie forms an uneasy alliance with a detective who has a personal agenda for Lozada.

Brooding and sexy Rafe Di Luca has returned to his family's luxurious vineyard resort and discovers that a long-ago quarrel has ignited once more, forcing him to work with Brooke Petersson, the woman he seduced...and betrayed.

Anthony was my best friend and the first boy I ever kissed. The first boy I ever loved. I always thought we would be together. Then, he left town, and I never heard from him again. Now, there’s a new doctor at the hospital in the department where I work, and I can’t believe who it is. It’s Anthony.

Venus Johnston has a great job and a long-term, live-in boyfriend who happens to be a drop-dead gorgeous doctor. She also has a weekly beauty-parlor date to keep her long, nappy hair slick and straight. But the tedious hours and harsh chemicals in the salon have long grated on Venus. One frustrating day, she trades in the long hair for a dramatically short, natural cut and sends her commitment-balking boyfriend packing. It's a bold declaration of independence and one that has effects she never could have imagined.

When Dr. Blake Hunter discovers Casey Edwards wandering along a Sweetwater, Georgia, road, she's a woman without a past, her memory stripped of the terrifying events that shattered her innocence a decade ago. The scrap of paper she clutches in her hand bears the address to Swan House, the magnificent mansion where Casey's mother lives with her mysteriously ailing husband. But "home" turns out to be anything but a safe haven.…

Though Alison McKenzie lives near beauty-obsessed Beverly Hills, she's fine being a Plain Jane. But her mother Anne believes beauty is the key to success. So when Alison suffers a burn, Anne takes her to a plastic surgeon. The surgeon says he not only can take care of the scar but can make her beautiful. Anne is enchanted by his promises, and by him. As a romance blooms, Alison's transformation begins. But she has reason to be suspicious.

A girl who believes trust can be misplaced, promises are made to be broken, and loyalty is an illusion. A boy who believes truth is relative, lies can mask unbearable pain, and guilt is eternal. Will what they find in each other validate their conclusions, or disprove them all?

A famous author holds a contest to have characters named after his biggest fans – but after the book is published, the fans begin to die exactly as their characters did. A childhood friendship turns terrifyingly dark, and stalking is taken to a demented new level. A deranged serial killer has a special affinity for a deadly – and heinous – weapon. Two college heartthrobs are thrilled by the completely unexpected sex games their girlfriends want to play…until things go much too far.

Bethany can’t wait for the end of her hospital shift – four glorious days of relaxation await. Secretly, she’s most excited about the fun-filled nights reveling in an unexpected flirtation with her co-worker, Michelle. Thoughts of her long, cozy weekend vanish, however, when Francisco Delgado is admitted to her floor from the emergency room. Delgado, a man who came into contact with an unknown arachnid species in South America, and who now has something…squirming…beneath his skin.

A skeleton crew of desperate men looks to capitalize on a handsome reward offered by an eerie outsider. But when they brave the harsh winter waters to transport an ominous crate, their food supply mysteriously spoils, forcing them to stray off course. After several weeks of dead winds, absent sunlight, and diminishing rations the crew begins to question their faith and each other. As past lives of the crew are put on the chopping block, blood begins to spill. Has starvation driven them to delirium? Have they fallen out of the Lord's good graces?

By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child’s favorite ice princess. By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes. But when Gideon Green—her best friend’s brother—moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet. Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona.

For best-selling horror novelist Wilson Paventeau, the scariest novel of his career is the one he didn't write. It bears his name on the dust jacket and contains his bio near the end, but this enigmatic tome is not part of his oeuvre. And the most frightening thing about it may not be the tale between the covers, but the reason for its mysterious appearance in Paventeau's life.