Collection: Horror

One of NPR's Best Books of 2016, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, the This is Horror Award for Novella of the Year, and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards

People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there.

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.

A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?

"LaValle's novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York is a magnificent example of what weird fiction can and should do."
-- Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All

"[LaValle] reinvents outmoded literary conventions, particularly the ghettos of genre and ethnicity that long divided serious literature from popular fiction."
-- Praise for The Devil in Silver from Elizabeth Hand, author of Radiant Days

"LaValle cleverly subverts Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos by imbuing a black man with the power to summon the Old Ones, and creates genuine chills with his evocation of the monstrous Sleeping King, an echo of Lovecraft's Dagon... [The Ballad of Black Tom] has a satisfying slingshot ending." - Elizabeth Hand for Fantasy & ScienceFiction

Eighteen stories of found footage horror. Featuring stories by Bev Vincent, Ali Seay, Holly Rae Garcia, Clay McLeod Chapman, Nick Kolakowski, Ally Wilkes, Alan Baxter, Tim McGregor, Jeremy Hepler, Angela Sylvaine, Josh Rountree, Donna Lynch, Kurt Fawver, Robert Levy, Joe Butler, Fred Fischer, Georgia Cook, and Aristo Couvaras. An anthology edited by Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias.

Reader caution is advised.

An adorable spooky twist on "The Teeny Tiny Woman" that's perfect for Halloween!

In the teeny tiny barnOf a teeny tiny houseLived a teeny tiny ghostAnd a teeny tiny mouse...This teeny tiny ghost is too little to be spooky. Will she find her voice... and a friend, too? Discover the perfect Halloween read-aloud, full of vibrant illustrations, bouncy rhymes, and an adorable friendship duo! Celebrate the seasons with Teeny Tiny!

Anya could really use a friend. But her new BFF isn't kidding about the "Forever" part . . .

Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of them. Especially not a new friend who's been dead for a century.

Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya's normal life might actually be worse. She's embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she's pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend--even a ghost--is just what she needs.

Or so she thinks.
Spooky, sardonic, and secretly sincere, Anya's Ghost is a wonderfully entertaining debut graphic novel from author/artist Vera Brosgol.

This title has Common Core connections.

Anya's Ghost is a 2011 Kirkus Best Teen Books of the Year title.
One of School Library Journal's Best Fiction Books of 2011.
One of Horn Book's Best Fiction Books of 2011.
Winner of the 2012 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Young Adults (Ages 12-17)

Set more than one hundred years after the Borden murders, this propulsive, supernatural thriller imagines what might happen if history were to repeat itself today. Perfect for fans of Kara Thomas and Courtney Summers!

When Mariella Morse accuses her boyfriend, Vik Gomez, of murdering her wealthy parents with an axe, the town is quick to believe her. It doesn't help that Vik is caught standing over her parents' bodies with blood on his hands, unable to remember anything about the night in question.

But Vik's sister, Tessa, knows that Vik would never be capable of such a gruesome crime. Haunted by the mistakes she made that led her family to move to Fall River, MA in the first place, she sets out to prove her brother's innocence.

Tessa's search for answers will lead her into a sprawling, notoriously cursed forest, where she and Mariella must face a darkness that has lurked within their town since before the days of Lizzie Borden--the original axe murderess of Fall River.

A widowed writer begins to work on a biography of a novelist and artist--and soon uncovers bizarre parallels between her life and her subject's--in this chilling and singularly strange novella by a contemporary master of horror and fantasy.

The narrator of Lisa Tuttle's uncanny novella is a recent widow, a writer adrift. Not only has she lost her husband but her muse seems to have deserted her altogether. Her agent summons her to Edinburgh to discuss her next book. What will she tell him? At once the answer comes to her: she will write the biography of Helen Ralston, best known, if at all, as the subject of W.E. Logan's much-reproduced painting Circe, and the inspiration for his classic children's book, Hermine in Cloud-Land.

But Ralston was a novelist and artist in her own right, though her writing is no longer in print and her most radical painting, My Death, deemed too unsettling--malevolent even--to be shown in public. Over the months that follow, Ralston proves an astonishingly cooperative subject, even as her biographer uncovers eerie resonances between the older woman's history and her own. Whose biography is she writing--really?

In 1920s Edinburgh, Scotland, Evelyn Hazard is a young, middle-class housewife living the life she's always expected--until her husband, Robert, upends everything with a startling announcement: he can communicate with the dead.

The couple is pulled into the spiritualist movement--a religious society of mediums and psychics that emerged following the mass deaths of the Spanish flu and First World War--and Evelyn's carefully composed world begins to unravel. And when long-held secrets from her past threaten to come to the surface, presenting her with the prospect of losing all she holds dear, Evelyn finds herself unable to avoid the question: is the man she loves a fraud, a madman, or--most frighteningly--is he telling the truth?

Cloaked in the moody, beguiling backdrop of twentieth-century Scotland, Anbara Salam's Hazardous Spirits brings a sparkling sense of period detail and dry humor to the life of a young woman whose world is unsettled by mediums and spirits, revealing the devastating secrets that ghosts from the past can tell when given the voice to do so.

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes a hard-rocking, spine-tingling horror novel about a washed-up guitarist of a '90s heavy metal band who embarks on an epic road-trip across America and deep into the web of a sinister conspiracy.

Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity.

Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she's tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes--a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band. Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival. A furious power ballad about never giving up, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul.

"This is a teeth-chattering, eyes bulging, shuddering-and-shaking, chills-at-the-back-of-your-neck ghost story. I loved it!"--R.L. Stine, author of the Goosebumps series

For fans of Small Spaces and the Goosebumps series by R.L Stine comes a chilling ghost story based on real Chicago history about a malevolent spirit, an unlucky girl, and a haunting mystery that will tie the two together.

Claire has absolutely no interest in the paranormal. She's a scientist, which is why she can't think of anything worse than having to help out her dad on one of his ghost-themed Chicago bus tours. She thinks she's made it through when she sees a boy with a sad face and dark eyes at the back of the bus. There's something off about his presence, especially because when she checks at the end of the tour...he's gone.

Claire tries to brush it off, she must be imagining things, letting her dad's ghost stories get the best of her. But then the scratching starts. Voices whisper to her in the dark. The number 396 appears everywhere she turns. And the boy with the dark eyes starts following her.

Claire is being haunted. The boy from the bus wants something...and Claire needs to find out what before it's too late.

Pick up Scritch Scratch if you are looking for:

• A book for middle school students, 5th grade to 9th grade
• A story with a strong female protagonist that explores bravery, friendship, and family
• Mystery books for kids 9-12
• Chilling ghost stories and ghost books for kids (perfect for Halloween!)
• Historical mysteries and Chicago history books for kids

Labyrinth meets folk horror in this darkly romantic tale of a girl who wishes her baby brother away to the Lord of the Wood

Growing up in the small town of Winston, Pennsylvania feels like drowning. Leah goes to church every Sunday, works when she isn't at school, and takes care of her baby brother, Owen. Like every girl in Winston, she tries to be right and good and holy. If she isn't the Lord of the Wood will take her, and she'll disappear like so many other girls before her.

But living up to the rigorous standards of the town takes its toll. One night, when Owen won't stop screaming, Leah wishes him away, and the Lord listens. The screaming stops, and all that's left in the crib is a small bundle of sticks tied with a ribbon.

Filled with shame and the weight of the town's judgment, Leah is forced to cross the river into the Lord of the Wood's domain to bring Owen back. But the devilish figure who has haunted Winston for generations isn't what she expects. He tells her she can have her brother back--for the price of a song. A song that Leah will have one month to write.

It's a bargain that will uncover secrets her hometown has tried to keep buried for decades. And what she unearths will have her questioning everything she's been taught to fear.

Midwestern Mayhem!

Remember the '90s? Well...the town of Demise, North Dakota doesn't, and they're living in the year 1997. That's because an alien worm hitched a ride on a comet, crash-landed in the town's trailer park, and is now infecting animals with a memory-loss-inducing bite-and right before Christmas! Now it's up to nineteen-year-old Realene and her best friend Nate to stop the spread and defeat the worms before the entire town loses its mind. The only things standing in the way are their troubled pasts, a doomsday cult, and an army of infected prairie dogs.

Ghouls live among us, the same as normal people in every way--except their craving for human flesh.

Ghouls live among us, the same as normal people in every way--except their craving for human flesh.

Ken Kaneki is an ordinary college student until a violent encounter turns him into the first half-human half-ghoul hybrid. Trapped between two worlds, he must survive Ghoul turf wars, learn more about Ghoul society and master his new powers.

Things heat up in the 11th Ward as the CCG investigates the high rate of investigator deaths. Kaneki has an explosive run-in with Aogiri Tree, essentially a Ghoul Gang, run by a Ghoul known only as the One-Eyed King.

Sam Graves's school is ALIVE!

This series is part of Scholastic's early chapter book line called Branches, which is aimed at newly independent readers. With easy-to-read text, high-interest content, fast-paced plots, and illustrations on every page, these books will boost reading confidence and stamina. Branches books help readers grow!In the second book in the series, Sam Graves's friend Lucy disappears into her locker! Sam and his friend Antonio follow a trail of clues that leads them through the locker and deep inside the school. Will they find Lucy? Will they learn why the school is ALIVE? Sam and Antonio must rescue Lucy from this scary school before it's too late!

Full of romance, intrigue, magic, and passion, the first book of The Five Crowns of Okrith--the thrilling TikTok sensation from A.K. Mulford--The High Mountain Court begins the journey of the fugitive red witch Remy as she fights to reclaim her kingdom and discover what's inside her heart.

For thirteen years, nineteen-year-old Remy has known she is possibly the last red witch alive, and she is determined to stay that way. But the Northern Court King, who has slaughtered her family and placed a bounty on red witch heads, is intent on destroying her kind once and for all.

When four fae warriors enter her tavern refuge, Remy tries to flee, but her magic isn't strong enough to stop the determined--and handsome--Prince Hale of the Eastern Kingdom. He claims he wants to stop a war with the Northern Court before his kingdom succumbs to the same fate as Remy's. In order to do that, he needs a red witch...and Remy may be the only person alive who can help him.

Yet even as she's drawn to him, can she really trust Prince Hale? Can her fallen court truly be rescued from the evil clutches of the Northern Court King?

Does she even have a choice?

For the chance to save herself, her people, and help rid the world of a murderous tyrant, Remy must put her faith in Hale and his companions on a dangerous quest to find lost relics...and discover if she is ready to secure her legacy.

ENROLLMENT BEGINS NOW

A beguiling, sinister collection of 12 dark academia short stories from masters of the genre, including Olivie Blake, M.L. Rio, Susie Yang and more!

In these stories, dear student, retribution visits a lothario lecturer; the sinister truth is revealed about a missing professor; a forsaken lover uses a séance for revenge; an obsession blooms about a possible illicit affair; two graduates exhume the secrets of a reclusive scholar; horrors are uncovered in an obscure academic department; five hopeful initiates must complete a murderous task and much more!

Featuring brand-new stories from:
Olivie Blake
M.L. Rio
David Bell
Susie Yang
Layne Fargo
J.T. Ellison
James Tate Hill
Kelly Andrew
Phoebe Wynne
Kate Weinberg
Helen Grant
Tori Bovalino

Definition of dark academia in English:
dark academia
1. An internet subculture concerned with higher education, the arts, and literature, or an idealised version thereof with a focus on the pursuit of knowledge and an exploration of death.
2. A set of aesthetic principles. Scholarly with a gothic edge - tweed blazers, vintage cardigans, scuffed loafers, a worn leather satchel full of brooding poetry. Enthusiasts are usually found in museums and darkened libraries.

Now a USA TODAY bestseller!

Ilube Nommo Award 2022 for Best Novel

"An absolute delight . . . kept me totally hooked." - Genevieve Cogman, bestselling author of The Invisible Library

Sixth Sense meets Stranger Things in T. L. Huchu's The Library of the Dead, a sharp contemporary fantasy following a precocious and cynical teen as she explores the shadowy magical underside of modern Edinburgh.

WHEN GHOSTS TALK
SHE WILL LISTEN

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker - and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh's dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. A girl's gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone's bewitching children - leaving them husks, empty of joy and strength. It's on Ropa's patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will rock her world.

Ropa will dice with death as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. And although underground Edinburgh hides a wealth of dark secrets, she also discovers an occult library, a magical mentor and some unexpected allies.

Yet as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?

"A fast-moving and entertaining tale, beautifully written." - Ben Aaronovitch, bestselling author of Rivers of London

Edinburgh Nights series:
The Library of the Dead
Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments
The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle
The Legacy of Arniston House