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Dead souls : a novel
by J. Lincoln Fenn
When she literally makes a deal with the devil, exchanging her soul for the ability to become invisible and agreeing to perform a special favor for him whenever the time comes, Fiona Quinn, now initiated into a bizarre support group of similar ôdead souls,ö spends her waking hours in absolute terror of that favor eventually being called in. Original.
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| A Natural History of Hell: Stories by Jeffrey FordAuthor Jeffrey Ford explores the underlying darkness of daily life via the 13 stories collected in A Natural History of Hell. Using humor, literary allusions, folklore tropes, and science fiction settings, he satirizes parenting in an account of a teenager's exorcism ("The Blameless"), portrays young children who meet a wise woman ("Mount Chary Galore"), and chillingly depicts an open-carry high school ("Blood Drive"). Fans of Kevin Brockmeier and Ray Bradbury, especially, will enjoy these twisty, creepy, and disturbing thrills. |
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| Pressure by Brian KeeneFollowing a tremendous undersea disturbance of the earth's crust, scientists rush to discover the cause, only to find that it's not just an earthquake. Further investigating the phenomenon, diver Carrie Anderson encounters an enormous predatory creature that would dwarf Jules Verne's giant squid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Combining a corrupt corporation's enforcers and a growing ecological disaster with the monstrous, malevolent entity, Pressure delivers chilling terror that will captivate fans of Nick Cutter's The Deep. |
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| The Port-Wine Stain by Norman LockIn The Port-Wine Stain, an elderly Edward Fenzil narrates his recollections from 30 years earlier in 1844. The novel focuses on Edgar Allan Poe as one of a group of people who are fascinated by death. The young Fenzil's association with surgeon Thomas Dent Mütter (based on another real-life person) brings him into the occultist society, where he also becomes acquainted with Poe. Blending historical fiction with horror, Lock bleakly depicts obsession and psychological manipulation. If you like this novel's layered tale infused with literary history, try its standalone predecessors in Lock's American Novels series, The Boy in His Winter and American Meteor. |
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Reanimatrix
by Pete Rawlik
"An obsessed detective on the trail on a murdered young woman finds more than he bargained for in this tale of hard-boiled cosmic horror, an inventive mash-up of the pulp detective story and Lovecraftian terror. Some say the war drove Robert Peaslee mad. Others suggest that given what happened to his father, madness was inevitable. He's spent years trying to forget the monsters that haunt his dreams, but now has returned to witch-haunted Arkham to do the only job that he's qualified for, handling the crimes other cops would prefer to never talk about. He's the hero Arkham doesn't even know it has. Megan Halsey is dead, her body missing. She might have been one of the richest young women in Arkham, but all that money couldn't make her happy. Word on the street is that her mother split a long time ago, and Megan had spent a lot of her money trying to find her. Peaslee soon becomes obsessed with the murdered Megan. Retracing the steps of her own investigation, traveling from Arkham to Dunwich, and even to the outskirts of Innsmouth, he will learn more about Megan and Arkham than he should, and discover things about himself that he'd tried to bury. It's 1928, and in the Miskatonic River Valley, women give birth to monsters and gods walk the hills. Robert Peaslee will soon learn the hard way that some things are better left undead"
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| The Prisoner of Hell Gate by Dana I. WolffKaralee Soper, a (fictional) contemporary graduate student in public health, is descended from (the real) Dr. George Soper, who identified and locked up "Typhoid Mary," the asymptomatic cook who spread typhoid to dozens of people. While boating on the East River with some friends, Karalee is drawn to the ruins of Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island, where Mary was isolated for two decades. The group decides to explore, but their light-hearted excursion turns dark when they meet an old woman named Mary who seems to be alive and well. Booklist calls The Prisoner of Hell Gate a "strong, quick, and perfectly upsetting little shocker." |
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Great Books You Might Have Missed
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| The Curse of Crow Hollow by Billy CoffeyThe Appalachian village of Crow Hollow is way off the beaten track -- so far off that strangers find it only by accident. Maybe its isolation has something to do with the fearsome events associated with Alvaretta Graves, who some people think is a witch. Or maybe the mysterious symptoms afflicting teenaged girls are just a case of mass hysteria. Either way, author Billy Coffey's exploration of good and evil in The Curse of Crow Hollow will make you want to lock your doors and turn on all your lights. While not all of Coffey's books are scary, for additional chills try his supernatural suspense in The Devil Walks in Mattingly and When Mockingbirds Sing. |
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| Styx by Bavo Dhooge with Josh PachterAward-winning Flemish crime writer Bavo Dhooge busts through genre boundaries with this police procedural featuring a serial killer with an unusually gruesome M.O. and a flawed, over-the-hill cop who's been turned into a zombie. Rafael Styx is working the serial murderer case when the killer shoots him in the chest, but the now-undead detective perseveres. Replete with allusions to well-known surrealists, the history of Belgian imperialism, and hardboiled atmosphere, Styx will captivate both horror fans and lovers of gloomy, noir-style murder mysteries. |
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| When We Were Animals: A Novel by Joshua GaylordIn When We Were Animals, a small Midwestern community boasts a peculiar tradition: for one year starting at puberty, every teenager runs wild during the full moon, wreaking havoc as they go. Narrator Lumen Ann Fowler detests the practice, called "breaching," and promises she'll never do it. Later, as a middle-aged suburban mother, she goes back to her hometown to revisit that time in her life and learns more about herself and her community than she expected. Author Joshua Gaylord (who also publishes as Alden Bell), uses lyrical, slightly old-fashioned language in this coming-of-age novel to build suspense in Lumen's story and relate appalling and violent rampages. |
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It : a novel
by Stephen King
They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they were grown-up men and women who had gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them could withstand the force that drew them back to Derry, Maine to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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