Showing results by author "Steve Vernon" in All Categories

There is a big old sledding hill not more than two or three good snowballs' worth of distance from our home, just behind Hank Macabee's house. That hill was waiting for me and my brand new toboggan. It's one of those sneak-up kind of hills with a long slow ride down that picks up speed as it goes with a bump-hump at the end that you never see coming. The Christmas tree crashed through Hank Macabee's bay window. The tree stand clattered behind it and bounced with a clank on Hank's half-frozen front lawn. Hank came through the door with a shotgun in hand.

You can smell that long-dying aroma of Autumn in the air. Kids are talking trick or treat and the leaves are already screaming at you in red and yellow and deep golden rust as they prepare for one final parachute down into the dirt. The tombstones are talking amongst themselves and winter is hiding just around the corner. It is the time of the year when people draw around the wood stove and the campfire and whisper stories of death and omens and ghosts and things that don't even have a name.

Lucas Sawyer and his wife, Tamsen, find themselves marooned in the heart of a mid-19th century wilderness forest. They are rescued by Jonah Duvall, a mysterious woodsman abiding in this strange valley with his wife, Jezebel, and thier son, Cord. Brooding over all stands the Devil Tree - a huge evil jackpine that has summoned them to this valley to feed upon their collective emotions and their unnatural offspring. Part earth spirit, part elder demon - the tree is farming them.

This is the final book of the trilogy - a fat monstrous volume of pure undiluted scarecrow terror.

In 1691, the town of Crossfall taught the witch Thessaly how to die. They beat her; they shot her; they hung her - but nothing worked. When they finally tried to bury her alive, Thessaly set the field against them. The first man died as a gust of wind harrowed the meat from his bones. A root, flung like a dirty javelin, cut a second man down. Many more deaths followed. The Preacher Fell impaled the witch upon her very own broom, but she dragged him down into the field to wait for three more centuries.

Bobby Kaye's life story started and ended with an email, and then the monkey dung hit the fan. We're talking blue plague monkeys, tulwar-swinging cab drivers, a ride-on-mower caravan of unbridled mass consumption, and a moon-infatuated, eight-legged story-telling spider god going toe-to-toe-to-toe-to-toe with the merciless, scud-spear wielding Nigerian spam genie - Prince Wanna-Wanna-Wanna!

Meet Lady Macbeth - a high school librarian, ex-assassin, and part-time kelpie, whose mother wanted to name her Hemorrhoid at birth. Now she has to take on a Sea Hag - eight legs of Godzilla-ugly poured into a bucket full of meanness - with the help of a one-woman army named Rhonda, a 200-year-old sea captain, and a hunky lighthouse keeper who won't admit that he's dead as well. Kelpie Dreams is a funny, action-packed, shoot-em-up paranormal romance novel for folks who hate romance novels.

So what happens when Bigfoot, the Trickster Coyote, the ghost of Sam Steele and the long-lost spirit of The Prophet, brother to the mighty Tecumseh and reincarnated in the form of a giant pink flying Winnebago go toe-to-toe with dark supernatural forces in a cross-Canada battle ranging from Cape Breton to Labrador to Thunder Bay? I'm not saying that it is going to be pretty...

Olan Walker was first out of the slat truck and he could have slid through one of the slats. That man was nothing but lank. He was as lean as a dog in Lent. He was as lean as hunger poured thinner than a spoon full of prison soup. He looked like he ate nothing but wind and shadow all his life. If there was a king and queen of skinny; a duke of raw bone, an earl of gaunt, and a prince of scrawny - well Olan Walker was the lord high ruler of them all.

Nobody really knew how long the old Funnel mansion had stood empty, waiting up there high on Carpenter's Hill like a child's forgotten lunch box, any more than anybody knew just how long that old cat had squatted in behind the screen of the front porch window. Three young boys are about to find out just exactly what the dark and horrifying secret is behind that cat. Only two of them will survive.

The story of a young farmer, a wishing ring, and a fairy named Queen Maab. This is old school fairytale telling at its very finest.

Will has got a secret. He keeps that secret hidden in the field out back behind his house. Sam and Artie will do just whatever Will tells them to do because they know what Will's secret is, and they will do anything to make sure that Will doesn't lose his temper on them.

Just imagine you walk into a cheesy old greasy-spoon diner, the kind that ought to hand out antacid along with a napkin, knife, and fork. You ask the waitress for eggs and bacon, and she brings you a plate with live chicken on it. I mean, feathers and beak and the whole bonanza. Just think about a mix of Kafka and O'Henry and you are somewhere close to the mark.

Tommy has come home from the city to visit his dad for one last time. He is determined to get to the bottom of all of the secrets that his dad has kept for hidden behind a smokescreen of storytelling and charm. It turns out that some secrets are best left untold.

So how does a kelpie, an ex-assassin high school librarian, Santa Claus, the Flying Dutchman, and the Krampus wind up going toe-to-toe with a Martian Expeditionary Force in a highly unidentifiable flying gravy bowl? Why don't you grab this audiobook and hear for yourself?

A short story involving a Celtic water spirit (the kelpie), an assassin, a librarian, a ghost, and a Santa-mugging street gang - a wild weird paranormal romance shoot-em-up story - written for listeners who hate to listen to romance.

Meet Bass Clayton, a bounty killer turned professional drunkard. Silver Grimes is the man who inadvertently turned Bass Clayton into a drunk; after Bass accidentally shot Silver's arm off with an eight gauge shotgun. Sally Jezebel has a secret that she is keeping from both of them. Their lives are going to turn when Newt Gallagher comes riding into Willy Jake's bar on top of Pritcher Targate's prize sow. What you have got to ask yourself is just how far one man will go for revenge?

This is a story set in war-torn Okinawa - back in the final days of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The story is told from the point of view of a young Kamikaze pilot preparing to fly his fighter plane into the side of an American battleship. It is a story of guilt, loneliness, memory, and the taste of the sea. Oh, and there's a sea monster as well. I expect I ought to mention that...

Love is one of those four letter words that some people like to throw around - but sometimes love can be one of the meanest and nastiest games in town. Here are six of the strangest love stories you have ever heard. Find love and memories in the bag of a mysterious 18 wheeler in "Do-Overs and Detours - Somewhere North of Bigfoot". Find out just how bitter love can truly taste in "Hard Soup". Find out why the sea is so darned salty in "The Woman Who Lost Her Tooth While Laughing at the Sea".

Love is one of those four-letter words that people like to throw around, but sometimes love can be one of the meanest and nastiest games in town. If you have ever had your heart broken - then this audiobook is for you. If you enjoy the taste of strong meat - then this audiobook is for you. If you've got a sense of weird that is honed as sharp as a cutthroat's knife - then this audiobook is for you. Here are three of the strangest love stories you have ever read.