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"Suffering is a kind of horror. Blood is a kind of horror." ~ Bela Lugosi (1882-1956), Hungarian-American film star
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New and Recently Released!
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| This House is Haunted by John BoyneIn 1867 London, 21-year-old Eliza Caine's father dies, and she must look for a means of income. Responding to an advertisement, she takes a job as a governess at Gaudlin Hall in Norfolk -- but a mysterious power opposes her even before she gets there. There are no parents and few or no servants at Gaudlin, and her two charges are very odd children. Clearly, something is deeply wrong, and Eliza must discover the house's evil secrets before it's too late. With literary nods to gothic horror traditions, This House is Haunted provides a "subtle, satisfying tale of ghostly terror" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| Starter House by Sonja ConditLooking for a convenient residence where they can start raising their family, Lacy and Eric snap up a good deal on an attractive house -- ignoring warnings about its history. Lacy, who is pregnant, realizes only after they've moved in that a hostile presence is determined to add her to its list of victims. A little boy named Drew, who may be the key to the dark mystery, befriends Lacy -- but only Lacy can see him. Disturbing events and coincidences gradually build to a horrifically violent climax in author Sonja Condit's compelling debut novel. |
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| Dead Set by Richard KadreyWhat if you could communicate with the dead through special "records" that bring them back to life, as a musical recording brings back the sounds of long-ago performances? When 16-year-old Zoe tries out one of these unusual discs in hopes of bringing back her dead father, she's in for an experience in the otherworld she hadn't expected -- more like a nightmare than a dream. By contrast, Zoe's unsettling daytime world, where she must pass a strip club and a head shop on the way to school, seems like a safe haven when she follows the pathway to the underworld in Richard Kadrey's Dead Set. |
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| Bleeding Shadows by Joe R. LansdaleTexan author Joe R. Lansdale explores the darker side of his native state through ten poems and 20 stories in Bleeding Shadows. The legend of Deadwood Dick (the fictional star of a 19th-century series of dime novels) gets a new look in a couple of stories, while several tales offer tribute to classic horror writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Richard Matheson. "Dread Island" teams Huck Finn with Br'er Rabbit in a supernatural confrontation, while a story about a soldier unexpectedly returning home, "The Stars are Falling," applies the sensibilities of a classical Greek tragedy. This collection reveals Lansdale's superlative skill at crafting enthralling works out of his imagination. |
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| The Heavens Rise by Christopher RiceNear New Orleans, water from an old well infects teenaged Niquette Delongpre and her manipulative, jealous admirer Marshall Ferriot with parasites that bestow strange powers. Soon, Niquette, with the rest of her family, dies in a car accident, while Marshall survives a fall from a high building that leaves him comatose -- but endowed with dark psychic abilities. In chapters that alternate points of view and moments in time, The Heavens Rise explores the connections among Niquette, her friend Ben, her lover Anthem, and Marshall against the background of natural disaster, official corruption, and racism in New Orleans. The suspense peaks in deadly violence, leaving the reader with both goosebumps and lingering questions about the nature of humanity. |
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Red Blood for Valentine's Day
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| Blood Oath by Christopher FarnsworthSecret agent Nathaniel Cade has sworn an oath to protect the president and the U.S. from supernatural threats. Cade is an unusual secret agent: he's a 140-year-old vampire who has served presidents since the administration of Andrew Johnson. In Blood Oath, the 1st in the Nathaniel Cade series, the vampire and his human co-agent Zach Barrows are assigned to head off a mad scientist who plans to marshal dead American soldiers he's revivified, but the agents are diverted to a more complex -- and dangerous -- conspiracy within the government. Blood Oath provides a roller-coaster ride that will leave you thirsting for more. Fortunately, you can slake your thirst on two additional books to date: The President's Vampire and Red, White, and Blood. |
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| The Red Tree by Caitlín R. KiernanAfter writer Sara Crowe moves into a rural Rhode Island house looking for solitude that may help her finish writing her overdue novel, she discovers an unfinished manuscript about New England folklore and learns that its author committed suicide. He was obsessed with a giant red oak tree that stands nearby and has been the focus of supernatural and violent events through many years -- and now the tree and its eerie history become Sara's own nightmare. Kirkus Reviews notes references to H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe in this "evocative and chilling" novel. |
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| Blood and Ice by Robert MaselloEnjoy a romantic tale entwined with a chilling tragedy? You won't want to miss this adventure of travel writer Michael Wolfe, who's gone to Antarctica hoping to let work assuage his grief over a recent personal misfortune. In Antarctica, Michael discovers a different calamity: that of a soldier and a nurse from England who met and fell in love in the mid-1850s. Like Michael, they were headed to Antarctica when their ship foundered and they went overboard. But their story's not over -- not by a long shot -- for Michael discovers their bodies, chained together and submerged in ice, and that's when the fun really begins... |
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| Red Moon by Benjamin PercyDwelling among ordinary humans and suppressing their shape-shifting nature with drugs, lycans have been around for millennia -- but a new movement has emerged that presses for werewolf equal rights with increasing violence. Opposition to the lycan revolutionary movement has likewise escalated, and war has broken out in the Lupine Republic. A prion infection causes the condition known as lycanthropy, and ordinary humans never know when they might be infected -- or who already has been! Fans of Max Brooks' World War Z and Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf shouldn't miss this sophisticated thriller. |
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