Publisher: The Penguin Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/18/2013
ISBN-13: 9781594205385
ISBN-10: 1594205388

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Except that in Lexicon certain words have power to maim and kill, and only a few people can wield them. One is a street denizen named Emily, who is recruited by the mysterious Poets to learn how to manipulate her power with words. In a parallel story, Wil is the only survivor of a catastrophe in Australia, and one Poet thinks he might have immunity to the effects of powerful words. Tension between rival groups of Poets builds as Wil's and Emily's lives begin to converge. You won't be able to put Lexicon down before the staggering conclusion.

Publisher: Severn House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/01/2013
ISBN-13: 9780727882516
ISBN-10: 0727882511

Olivia James, a recently divorced mother, decides to move to her childhood home, but just before the move her brother -- dead for nine weeks -- telephones to warn her about "the piper." Olivia thinks she knows what the message means, but returns anyway to the house in Knoxville, along with Teddy, her daughter. When Teddy suddenly disappears after having received threatening text messages, Olivia must decide whether she, too, must "pay the piper" in order to save her daughter. Kirkus Reviews warns that this tale may "keep you awake till the last page and maybe even afterward."

Publisher: Subterranean Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/31/2013
ISBN-13: 9781596065376
ISBN-10: 1596065370

Civil War veteran Trevor Lawson has been going out only at night for 25 years, ever since a vampire named LaRouge turned him as he lay wounded after the Battle of Shiloh. Lawson's humanity is gradually draining away as he searches for LaRouge, aiming to kill her before his vampire nature becomes irreversible. When a man asks him to ransom his daughter from an insane kidnapper, he accepts the job, hoping this will lead him to LaRouge. The brooding atmosphere and mounting dread make I Travel by Night "a must for horror fans," according to Booklist.

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/13/2013
ISBN-13: 9780399158551
ISBN-10: 0399158553

Rare documents expert Joseph Barkeley accepts a commission to authenticate a manuscript said to be Bram Stoker's original version of Dracula, about to be auctioned at Christie's. The job includes a trip to Romania, Barkeley's birthplace, where he discovers that vampires are not just products of the imagination. With echoes of Stoker's original tale updated to 21st-century Romania, author Royce Prouty has produced a compelling story. In a signed review in Publishers Weekly, Dacre Stoker (great-grand nephew of Bram Stoker and co-author of Dracula: The Undead) calls Stoker's Manuscript "a real page-turner."

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/16/2013
ISBN-13: 9780307700964
ISBN-10: 0307700968

Police officer Nick Kavanaugh has a lot of crime to battle in Niceville, but he and his wife Kate have challenges at home, too: the increasingly ominous behavior of orphaned Rainey Teague, the ten-year-old they're fostering; Kate's traumatized sister-in-law Beth and her children, who moved in after escaping Beth's violent husband Byron; and the secret hidden in a closet in their house. The Homecoming is both a fast-paced action thriller and a ghost story full of mysterious evil. You'll want to pick up Niceville, the 1st book in this trilogy, to read while waiting for volume 3, The Reckoning.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Penguin Classics
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/28/2010
ISBN-13: 9780141192420
ISBN-10: 0141192429

The Woman in White, first published in 1860, is one of the earliest Gothic horror stories, involving a beautiful heiress to a grand estate and great fortune, a mysterious woman dressed in white who bears secrets about the heiress' husband, and the Victorian-era practice of bundling inconvenient women off to insane asylums. The atmosphere of mystery and menace gradually builds throughout the plot, culminating in a frightening and satisfying conclusion. If you want to read some contemporary novels with similar themes, try Sarah Waters' Fingersmith and Joanne Harris' Sleep, Pale Sister.

Publisher: Harper
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/10/2011
ISBN-13: 9780061728273
ISBN-10: 0061728276

A taxi deposits 17-year-old American student Andrew Taylor outside the gate of Harrow, where he glumly surveys the storied boarding school once attended by Lord Byron and Winston Churchill. Andrew's encounter with Matron doesn't improve his mood -- especially after she hints at ghosts in the basement. Nor does his troubling sense of confusion lift when he learns that he uncannily resembles the young Lord Byron. But when he stumbles upon a figure assaulting one of his housemates in the graveyard, he realizes he's witnessed a murder -- and the killer saw him. For another book about a haunted school, read Douglas Clegg's Mischief.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Scribner
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/06/2012
ISBN-13: 9781451694925
ISBN-10: 145169492X

Authors Stephen King and Peter Straub team up in this tale about Jack Sawyer, who first appeared as a 12-year-old in The Talisman. Now 35, Jack is a retired cop living in Wisconsin. When a cannibalistic serial killer begins taunting investigators by sending information that only the killer in a 67-year-old case could have known, the police ask Jack to help. Known to just a few people, the Black House nearby is a portal to Hell, and when it claims another victim, Jack overcomes his reluctance to get involved. If you enjoyed The Talisman, you'll find Black House equally engrossing, though you don't need to be familiar with the earlier work to read the sequel.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Ecco
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/11/2012
ISBN-13: 9780062195692
ISBN-10: 0062195697

Black Dahlia & White Rose presents a set of macabre and suspenseful stories. In "Black Dahlia & White Rose," author Joyce Carol Oates imagines that Marilyn Monroe was roommates with Elizabeth Short, viciously murdered in 1947. A divorced father uncovers an old crime in "Run Kiss Daddy" -- and he may have a connection with the years-ago events. One story involves a were-hyena, while another revolves around an unreliable narrator, and still others take the reader inside maximum-security prisons. Oates' compelling prose will make you keep turning the pages just to see what she'll come up with next.

First Chapter  Table of Contents  

Publisher: Ballantine Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/31/2005
ISBN-13: 9780449006542
ISBN-10: 0449006549

For 13-year-old Angie Sullivan and her parents, buying the amazingly cheap house at Black Creek Crossing offers a chance to make a fresh start. The catch? The original owners of the place were burned for witchcraft, and it's had a reputation ever since for being haunted. But Angie adores their new home, and she doesn't mind the strange things that occur there. Together with her friend Seth (a fellow outcast), Angie discovers a book filled with spells and begins casting them on her cruel new classmates. But before long, the former inhabitants of the house begin to turn on its new residents, and Angie quickly discovers that magic has some pretty unpleasant downsides.

First Chapter