Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/17/2013
ISBN-13: 9781451696684
ISBN-10: 145169668X

Each of these novellas by different authors springs from the same idea: when a stranger comes to town and offers to resurrect the dead, there are unexpected consequences. Horror masters Kelley Armstrong, David Liss, Christopher Golden, and Jonathan Maberry take their stories in different directions, each of them equally uncomfortable. In Armstrong's "Suffer the Children," the stranger asks for a 100% return on each child brought to life, while Golden's "Pipers" includes both drug smugglers and an undead army. An extortionist demands to be paid not to revive unloved ones in "The Good-Natured Man" by David Liss. Finally, in "Alive Day," Jonathan Maberry calls on anti-terrorism specialist Joe Ledger to handle complications with a mission in Afghanistan.

Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/15/2013
ISBN-13: 9781250018199
ISBN-10: 1250018196

Marta Bjornstad is uncomfortable with her newly empty nest and has also begun to doubt her relationship with her much-older husband. She secretly stops taking her medication and soon begins to have disturbing dreams of a thin girl -- or could the dreams actually be memories? In How to be a Good Wife, author Emma Chapman deftly portrays a marriage whose foundation may be based on something much darker than Marta had believed. According to the Library Journal reviewer, Chapman "sharpens the feminine experience to a knife's edge." For another disturbing tale of a woman striving to recover long-hidden memories, read S.J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep.

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Publisher: Random House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/24/2013
ISBN-13: 9780345806659
ISBN-10: 0345806654

In author Susan Hill's pair of chilly tales, vengeful spirits cause certain characters' past misbehavior to wreak horrifying consequences in the present. "The Small Hand" relates the terrifying experience of an antiquarian book dealer named Adam Snow, who finds a cold, childlike hand slipping into his -- and refusing to let him go no matter how far he travels. In "Dolly," a child's toy makes the connection that revives the childhood fury of Edward Cayley's cousin at the reading of their aunt's will. These classically gothic novels decisively refute the "claim that the ghost story is dead and buried," says Publishers Weekly.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Pocket Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/03/2013
ISBN-13: 9781451639193
ISBN-10: 1451639198

Author John Ringo puts a new twist on surviving the zombie apocalypse in Under a Graveyard Sky. Steve Smith and his family launch an escape vessel into the Atlantic Ocean to avoid infection by an airborne zombie plague. Using their boat as a base, Steve, his wife, and their two daughters begin locating and rescuing stranded survivors, collecting supplies, and organizing a new society. There's plenty of action along with witty banter as the family struggles to stay ahead of the undead hordes. Zombie survival enthusiasts will be thrilled by this thought-provoking yet humorous tale, the 1st in a planned series.

Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/01/2013
ISBN-13: 9781605984766
ISBN-10: 1605984760

In The Sleep Room, narrator James Richardson takes a job at an isolated specialty hospital on the coast of Suffolk in the 1950s, where a secretive psychiatrist is carrying out experimental treatments for mental illness. For Richardson, a young doctor hoping to gain valuable experience in psychiatry under a prominent therapist, the position at Wyldehope Hall seems like a dream come true -- until he sees a ghostly apparition and a staff member disappears. This gothic supernatural thriller produces chills by undermining the characters' -- and readers' -- sense of reality, which should appeal to readers who liked Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger.

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/11/2011
ISBN-13: 9780312680275
ISBN-10: 0312680279

Anders and Cecelia love the harbor they can see from their little island house, called The Shack, so as soon as the water firmly freezes over, they go out with their seven-year-old daughter Maja for a picnic at the old lighthouse. Everything is covered in white, and there's no place to hide, but Maja mysteriously disappears -- wearing her red snow suit -- without even a trace of her footprints. Devastated, Anders drowns his sorrow in alcohol and Cecelia leaves him. A few years later, he returns to The Shack hoping to find some trace of Maja. What he finds is subtle, indefinable evil, and deeper terror than just the disappearance of a child.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Anchor Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/01/2012
ISBN-13: 9780307739827
ISBN-10: 0307739821

While on a skiing holiday in the Pyrenees, married couple Zoe and Jake are buried by an avalanche. Although they manage to free themselves from the snow, they soon begin to wonder if they're trapped in some other, stranger place. The pair reaches civilization only to discover that they're completely alone, the hotel empty and the town deserted. There's no way to contact the outside world and, what's more, they can't seem to leave without ending up back where they started. What's going on? You'll wonder, too, as you read this suspenseful, haunting tale of a "love that can transcend death" (Publishers Weekly).

First Chapter  

Publisher: Bantam Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/24/2012
ISBN-13: 9780553577938
ISBN-10: 055357793X

In 1857, an icy winter falls over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, where steamboat captain Abner Marsh receives an offer he can't refuse: a luxurious river boat, the Fevre Dream, built just for him. Joshua York, a rather pale gentleman, makes one demand: Marsh must ask no questions about the activities of York and his nocturnal friends. Obviously, vampires are involved, though York doesn't let Marsh in on all his secrets right away. Meanwhile, Damon Julian, a rival vampire leader in New Orleans, aims to thwart York's benevolent plans. When the Fevre Dream disappears, Marsh gets his decrepit old steamboat running in a desperate search to find York and head off his nemesis. "Abundantly creepy," says Kirkus Reviews.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Tor Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/29/2008
ISBN-13: 9780765361158
ISBN-10: 0765361159

Hoping to rekindle the passion they felt when they were married 21 years before, David and Ellen return to the site of their honeymoon on the beach -- only to find a run-down, cold, depressing cottage that seems unlikely to sustain any sparks. When Ellen goes for a walk, David receives an unexpected visitor -- a beautiful woman called Marianna who enchantingly tells the story of her love for an artist who once lived in this house. But there is something odd about the woman, who seductively visits David whenever Ellen is either asleep or out for a walk. David eventually realizes that he and Ellen must leave -- but will Marianna let them go without a fight?

Publisher: Berkley Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 02/07/2012
ISBN-13: 9780425245293
ISBN-10: 0425245292

In The Winter Ghosts, Englishman Freddie Watson struggles to overcome his grief following his brother George's death in World War I. After a nervous breakdown on George's 25th birthday, Freddie goes to Southern France hoping to find relief in the change of scene. He shelters in a village called Nulle when an unexpected snowstorm causes him to wreck his car. In Nulle, a local woman named Fabrissa invites him to share the story of his grief, and in turn recounts her own loss. But the villagers there have never heard of a woman with that name. Obsessed, Freddie begins a quest to solve the mystery of Fabrissa, leading readers on an absorbing -- and chilling -- ghostly odyssey.