Art student Jo Kozak and her fellow classmates and best friends, Caroline, Finch, Amrita, and Saz, are one another’s muses—so close they have their own language and so devoted to the craft that they’ll do anything to keep their inspiration alive. Even if it means naively resorting to the occult to unlock their creativity and to curse their esteemed, if notoriously creepy, professor. They soon learn the horrible price to be paid for such a transgressive ritual.

Rae Dixon is lucky to be alive. Fifteen years ago, she survived being trafficked and abused, escaping her captors to reclaim her life. Now, she’s running a thriving business with her best friend and raising a teenage daughter on her own. Rae’s finally in control—literally. As Mistress V, Rae is the one calling the shots catering to Oklahoma City’s elite in her private dungeon, which is fronted by a spa. But when a client goes missing, Rae’s world spins out of control.

When patrolman Brandon Hall comes upon a broken-down car on a Colorado highway, he finds a young girl in a bloodied nightgown at the wheel. In the back seat, the brutalized body of a teenage boy. The girl will say only one word: Hurt. When the girl is admitted to the hospital, the doctor on call is Brandon’s ex-wife, Olivia Blake. For Olivia and Brandon, the traumatized Jane Doe opens a floodgate of memories. It’s been four years since they shared their own tragedy—the unsolved disappearance of their eight-year-old daughter, Carly, and the end of their marriage.

She wakes on the shore of a remote lake in the middle of the night, freezing and afraid. With no memory of who she is or how she got there, she stumbles frantically toward the lights of a house. The handsome stranger who lives there is shocked to see a woman on his doorstep and takes her in. Trapped by a winter storm and cut off from the outside world, she starts to suspect that all is not right with the house on Gravewater Lake—or the man, who says his name is Gregg.

When sixteen-year-old Angie Stewart starts hearing a mysterious voice in her house, she’s thrilled at the possibility of a ghost. Finally, something interesting is happening in her boring hometown of East Henderson, Pennsylvania. But why is she the only one who can hear it? And what does it want from her?

Twelve-year-old Maddie Thompson and her friend Lana share a love of horror stories and wild imaginings. But Lana insists they are too old for pretending. It’s time for a different game: serving Him, a figure she sees lurking in the dark, mysterious and demanding. According to Lana, she and Maddie must obey Him or else suffer the consequences. Maddie doesn’t want to lose her most important friendship, even if it means luring an innocent girl into the woods—as a sacrifice for Him.

When Mia Sinclair-Kroner wakes from a coma, all she can remember are the movies she’s known and loved. Her college friends quickly assemble for a weekend party, in an effort to help her remember. But with old friends come old wounds, and it soon becomes clear that Mia’s accident might not have been an accident at all.

After years of self-exile, Jacinda “Jac” Brodie is back in Brook Haven, South Carolina. But the small cliffside town no longer feels like home. Jac hasn’t been there since the beloved chief of police fell to his death—and all the whispers said she was to blame. That chief was Jac’s father. Racked with guilt, Jac left town with no plans to return. But when her granddad lands in the hospital, she rushes back to her family, bracing herself to confront the past.

What happens at the cabin stays at the cabin. Right? Andrew Harrison “Harry” Leonard is destined for politics. Getting his start on the Rochester City Council, he quickly rose to become the youngest representative in Congress. Now the up-and-comer from Minnesota is on the brink of something big. If all goes well, he’ll be in perfect position to aim for the presidency.

When eight-year-old Kathy Stone turns up on the side of the road a year after her abduction, the world awaits her harrowing story. But Kathy doesn’t say a word. Traumatized by her ordeal, she doesn’t speak at all, not even to her own parents. Child therapist Robin Hart is the only one who’s had success connecting with the girl. Robin has been using play therapy to help Kathy process her memories. But as their work continues, Kathy’s playtime takes a grim turn: a doll stabs another doll, a tiny figurine is chained to a plastic toy couch.

Lilly Bly desperately wants to have a baby. She is struggling with infertility and bad spending habits when her husband, Jack, gets a new job that moves them from Chicago to a small town in Wisconsin. Impractical Lilly falls in love with a decrepit mansion well out of their price range—she is convinced that she will finally get pregnant and have a baby in this house—and Jack agrees to it. But when Lilly learns that her dream house was the site of a gruesome triple homicide/suicide in the 1950s, she begins to experience strange occurrences that soon lead her to believe the house is haunted.

All Ruby wanted was a fresh start. But after an early retirement and a relocation to a tight-knit community with her husband, Tom, and her daughter, Lily, her new beginning takes a turn. First her troubled daughter and then her husband disappear without a trace. Unsure how to cope, grief-ridden Ruby turns to her neighborhood friends to find a way forward with new hobbies, including a murder club where they try to solve cold cases. But just as unexpectedly as her family vanished, a body floats to the surface of the nearby lake.

In an immersive Southern Gothic with echoes of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, a restauranteur lured by pandemic-era incentives moves her family to a seemingly idyllic small town in Georgia, only to discover a darkness lurking beneath the Southern hospitality and sun-dappled streets.

Eddie Asher arrives at Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his brother’s fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. He can’t imagine doing such a terrible thing, but Eddie hasn’t been himself lately. Eddie’s anxiety is nothing new to Pär, the one Eddie calls his Other, who protects Eddie from truths he’s too sensitive to face. Or so Pär says. Troubled by Pär’s increasing sway over his life, Eddie seeks out Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in dissociative identities.

Jeckle Island offers Rachel’s children the chance to spend summers roaming wild and free, as long as they follow the rules. But when her son comes face to face with a terror they dare not speak of, she must prepare for their perfect world to change. Forever.

Art student Jo Kozak and her fellow classmates and best friends, Caroline, Finch, Amrita, and Saz, are one another’s muses—so close they have their own language and so devoted to the craft that they’ll do anything to keep their inspiration alive. Even if it means naively resorting to the occult to unlock their creativity and to curse their esteemed, if notoriously creepy, professor. They soon learn the horrible price to be paid for such a transgressive ritual.

After years of self-exile, Jacinda “Jac” Brodie is back in Brook Haven, South Carolina. But the small cliffside town no longer feels like home. Jac hasn’t been there since the beloved chief of police fell to his death—and all the whispers said she was to blame. That chief was Jac’s father. Racked with guilt, Jac left town with no plans to return. But when her granddad lands in the hospital, she rushes back to her family, bracing herself to confront the past.

“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.” So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . while living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life “detective fever.”

Dunia Ahmed lives an ordinary life—or she definitely used to. Now she’s the subject of a true crime podcast. She’s been missing for over a year, and no one knows if she’s dead or alive. But her story has listeners obsessed, and people everywhere are sporting merch that demands “Find Dunia!” In the days before her disappearance, Dunia is a successful pharmacist living in New York. The daughter of Pakistani immigrants, she’s coping with a broken engagement and the death of her mother. But then something happens that really shakes up her world: someone tries to murder her.

Dr. Willa Watters is a prominent child psychologist at the height of her career. But when a viral video of a disastrous television interview puts her reputation on the line, Willa retreats to Broken Bayou, the town where she spent most of her childhood summers. There she visits her aunts’ old house and discovers some of her unstable mother’s belongings still languishing in the attic—dusty mementos harboring secrets of her harrowing past. Willa’s hopes for a respite are quickly crushed, not only by what she finds in that attic but also by what’s been found in the bayou.

Twelve-year-old Maddie Thompson and her friend Lana share a love of horror stories and wild imaginings. But Lana insists they are too old for pretending. It’s time for a different game: serving Him, a figure she sees lurking in the dark, mysterious and demanding. According to Lana, she and Maddie must obey Him or else suffer the consequences. Maddie doesn’t want to lose her most important friendship, even if it means luring an innocent girl into the woods—as a sacrifice for Him.

Remi Finch has spent the better part of her adult life avoiding family—especially her sisters. They just don’t click. Besides, her unconventional upbringing and major anxiety have convinced Remi that she can’t build a relationship with anyone. Period. When her parents plan a family reunion camping trip to celebrate their anniversary, Remi’s willing to reconnect, if only because she doesn’t have a choice. But then a dead body turns up at their campsite, and their sisterly bonding kicks into high gear.

By all accounts, Lucy’s handled her divorce well. She’s finally in the cozy, plant-filled house of her dreams. And although she doesn’t fit in with the other divorcées—all busy looking for their next ex—she’s excited to get down to earth and savor the small joys of life. When Lucy meets Elle, a hip younger woman who shares her same passions, their connection is instant. Taking a chance on kismet, Lucy forges a friendship that fills her days with meaning. She and Elle are inseparable, from sunup to sundown, enjoying the immediate ease and familiarity of each other’s company.

She wakes on the shore of a remote lake in the middle of the night, freezing and afraid. With no memory of who she is or how she got there, she stumbles frantically toward the lights of a house. The handsome stranger who lives there is shocked to see a woman on his doorstep and takes her in. Trapped by a winter storm and cut off from the outside world, she starts to suspect that all is not right with the house on Gravewater Lake—or the man, who says his name is Gregg.

For better or for worse, Sarah Anderson has it all: a thriving career, a nice home in Ottawa, two young kids…and a marriage coming apart at the seams. Then her husband, Matthew, vanishes without a trace during a family vacation up north. Sarah and her children are nearly lost among the slumbering lakes, treacherous cliffs, and brooding forests of the Canadian Shield. A glacier-scraped realm of ancient beauty and terror, it’s a world away from the safety of the suburbs. And a big storm is brewing.