When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee. Margaret is not most people. Margaret is staying.

1927: Mary Rourke—a Hollywood studio fixer—is called urgently to the palatial home of Norma Carlton, one of the most recognizable stars in American silent film. Norma has been working on the secret film everyone is openly talking about…a terrifying horror picture called The Devil’s Playground that is rumored to have unleashed a curse on everyone involved in the production. Mary finds Norma’s cold, dead body, and she wonders for just a moment if these dark rumors could be true.

When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities, and haunted house horror all collide in this thrilling story perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s bestsellers The Troop and The Deep.

On his 59th birthday, Tyson Parks—a famous, but struggling, horror writer—receives an ornate antiquarian desk in the hopes it will rekindle his creative juices. Perhaps inspire him to write another best-selling book and prove his best years aren’t behind him… As Tyson begins to use the new desk, he finds himself writing copy at an unfathomable speed, becomes so focused on writing that he binges on all-night, all-day sessions that take a serious physical and psychological toll. Soon, Tyson begins acting strange. Violent.

Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out, dead silent, her memory gone. The mystery of the Taken Ones captures the nation. Summer 2022: Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicide—a woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace belonging to one of the vanished girls. Van follows her gut. Harry trusts in facts. They’re both desperate to catch a killer before he kills again.

Vermont, 1950. There's a place for the girls whom no one wants - the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It's called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it's located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their budding friendship blossoming - until one of them mysteriously disappears.... Vermont, 2014. As much as she's tried, journalist Fiona Sheridan cannot stop revisiting the events surrounding her older sister's death.

Tananarive Due, author of The Living Blood won the American Book Award and is praised as Stephen King's equal by Publishers Weekly. In The Good House, Due sets a story of ancient powers and modern retribution in a small Pacific Northwest town. When a young woman returns to her grandmother's empty mansion, she is pitted against demonic forces that have poisoned her family for generations.

An intricate tale of love, haunting memories, and renewal, Second Glance begins in current-day Vermont, where an old man puts a piece of land up for sale and unintentionally raises protest from the local Abenaki Indian tribe, who insist it's a burial ground. When odd, supernatural events plague the town of Comtosook, a ghost hunter is hired by the developer to help convince the residents that there's nothing spiritual about the property.

Claudia Bishop's perfect life fell apart when the aftermath of a brutal assault left her with a crumbling marriage, a newborn daughter, and a constant sense of anxiety about the world around her. Now, looking for a fresh start with a home restoration project and growing blog, Claudia takes on a crumbling old house - one that, unbeknownst to her, has an ugly history and may hide long-buried secrets.

John Hart creates a literary thriller that is as suspenseful as it is poignant, a riveting murder mystery layered beneath the southern drawl of a humble North Carolina lawyer. When Work Pickens finds his father murdered, the investigation pushes a repressed family history to the surface and he sees his own carefully constructed facade begin to crack.

The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.

Discover original horror stories from around the world. Each author chose a letter of the alphabet and was given complete artistic freedom to make something horrible happen. Some stories will be mysterious, others creepy or even profound, but all are crafted to thrill and terrify you to the last word.

She only stepped outside for a minute… But a minute was all it took to turn Jean Kingsley’s world upside down - a minute she’d regret for the rest of her life. Stepping into her worst nightmare…Because when she returned, she found an open bedroom window and her three-year-old son, Nathan, gone. The boy would never be seen again. A nightmare that only got worse. A tip eventually leads detectives to their killer, a repeat sex offender, and inside his apartment, a gruesome discovery. A slam-dunk trial sends him off to death row, then several years later, to the electric chair.

When teenage girls vanish in what was once considered a safe, Louisiana bayou town, the lives of four desperate young locals take unexpected turns, begging the question: Do you every truly know those closest to you? When nineteen-year-old Tiffany Perron vanishes from rural Grand Trespass, Louisiana, best friend Haley Landry's relationship with her boyfriend becomes increasingly strained. To make matters worse, her impressionable younger sister Becky has begun idolizing an impetuous, seductive 15 year old who's encouraging her to do dangerous things.

Alan, Tommy, Rick, Donald and Bernard were inseparable best friends living in the small, coastal Massachusetts town of Potter's Cove. A circle of five, their world was simple and happy until the day Tommy was struck by a car and killed. Nothing was ever the same. They were never the same. Years later, as the four survivors - all unhappy, unsuccessful and marking time - approach their 40th birthdays, Bernard suddenly commits suicide....