These are stories that will scare you and keep you from sleeping, if they are done right. It was a dark and stormy night… You can also check out these subcategories:
angels & devils | comedy | fairy tale/folklore | ghosts & haunted houses | gothic | litrpg | lovecraftian/cthulhu | man-made horrors | monsters | mythic | noir | occult | post-apocalyptic | psychic talents | psychological | shifters | splatterpunk | vampires | weird horror | werewolves | witches | zombies
Note: these books are currently sorted by release date, with newest first.
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Summary: Rose Titus, author of The Vampire Next Door Trilogy, now brings together a collection of her best short stories. Here in this book you will find tales of vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, space aliens, and even a few angels. These stories answer questions such as where do we go after we die? What is the future of this planet? And what is the future of humanity? There are also stories of young runaways, old hippies, worried mothers, troubled families, love gone horribly wrong, selfish billionaires, people who find themselves suddenly homeless, old men with their recollections of days gone by, and girls gone wild! There may even be a murder or two.
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Comedy
- Fantasy - Dark Fantasy
- Fantasy - Magical Realism
- Fantasy - New Adult
- Fantasy - Paranormal
- Fantasy - Young Adult
- Horror
- Horror - Angels & Devils
- Horror - Comedy
- Horror - Gothic
- Horror - New Adult
- Horror - Occult
- Horror - Post-Apocalyptic
- Horror - Shifters
- Horror - Vampires
- Horror - Werewolves
- Paranormal
- Paranormal - Angels & Devils
- Paranormal - Comedy
- Paranormal - Dark
- Paranormal - Ghosts & Haunted Houses
- Paranormal - Magical Beings
- Paranormal - Shifters
- Paranormal - Vampires
- Paranormal - Young Adult
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Summary: For some, the zombies are a good thing. The man who calls himself Marcus Black spent years hiding his true identity from the world, killing to feed the shadow that lives inside him. Now the dead walk the earth and he’s just trying to survive. With the dead a constant threat, Marcus is forced to suppress his true self and fight against the shadow that lives inside him. Losing that fight will leave him exposed and could cost him his life. When he discovers an abandoned camp deep in the forest Marcus believes he’s finally found a home. A place where he can once again unleash the shadow. Isolated. Quiet. Safe. It’s perfect. Until the outside world intrudes and Marcus finds himself caught between the living and the dead. Hiding behind a veneer of humanity, Marcus struggles to find a way to get rid of the new arrivals. But as his mask begins to slip, he discovers that he may not be the only one with a deadly secret. Dexter meets The Walking Dead in this gripping new horror series. Get Serial Killer Z today and face the dead.
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Summary:
Withrow Surrett, the most sarcastic vampire for a country mile, makes an annual Appalachian pilgrimage to keep tabs on nocturnal colleagues and his last living friend from mortal days. What should be a quiet week among familiar faces quickly fills with undead rednecks, folk magic, murder, a rookie detective and Withrow's own psychotic cousin who insists on trying to help. Because even vampires have cousins, and Southern ones especially so.
As Withrow chases the phantoms of conspiracy and paranoia across moonlit forests, abandoned factories, shadowy back roads and seedy bars - all the quiet little places humans fear to tread - Withrow also struggles with who he wants to be. Can a monster find a place among family and friends?
Fans of The Black Knight Chronicles, The Tome of Bill, and Fred, the Vampire Accountant will love this series!
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Summary:
Durham, North Carolina has industry, commerce, fine universities, a world-famous baseball team, technopagans, vampires, and its very first superhero and supervillain.
As Withrow Surrett, self-declared vampire lord of North Carolina, digs in to see what’s up in his own back yard, two mortals - The Bull’s Eye and El Diablo - make headlines fighting crimes and committing them. With the help of friends old and new, Withrow has to track down both hero and villain before his city decides to go looking for even weirder things that go bump in the night!
The fists fly fast and furious in the third installment of this vampire and urban fantasy series, perfect for fans of Rick Gualtieri, Jeff Strand, or Christopher Moore.
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Summary:
Withrow Surrett, cantankerous vampire lord of North Carolina, is passing the long winter nights of the off-season in the sleepy resort town of Sunset Beach. When the nights are long and humanity slumbers, where else would a vampire go but the beach? This is no mere vacation for Withrow and his cousin Roderick, though. They’re hunting down a nest of nasty elder vampires who want to take over the world!
Of course it’s not that simple, because for Withrow nothing ever is. Withrow and Roderick - and their team of frienemies, rivals, and allies - soon learn there are stranger things afoot than vampiric machinations among the dunes of Sunset Beach: mysterious mortals, twisted sorceries, and fleeting apparitions. Through sabotage, espionage, and bare-knuckled brutality Withrow must find and stop the elder vampires before they play the ace up their sleeve!
Kick back in the sand with the fourth installment of this vampire and urban fantasy series, perfect for fans of Rick Gualtieri, Jeff Strand, or Christopher Moore.
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Summary: “Stephen Colbert meets Stephen King” - Book Nerd’s Brain Candy Winner of the 2012 Laine Cunningham Award! Withrow Surrett is more than just his neighborhood’s resident curmudgeon: he's also the self-declared vampire lord of North Carolina. Across the state, Jennifer McCordy is a genius stuck in a dead-end job. When the dead rise, which will Withrow’s neighbors find worse: the monsters outside or the vampire who might be their only hope? When Jennifer takes matters in hand, will the people around her trust her competence or surrender to their own prejudices? And when they meet, will anything survive? Perishables is a novel in three parts, telling the story of reclusive vampires, reluctant heroes, questionable potlucks, late-night electronics sales, retail hell, unexpected friendships, and post-apocalyptic recipes. It’s sometimes funny, sometimes deadly serious, and utterly original! Fans of The Black Knight Chronicles, The Tome of Bill, and Fred, the Vampire Accountant will love this series.
Word Count: 120000
Summary: U.S. Marshal James Creed has known loss, starting from the untimely death of his wife and daughter in a sudden fire. His work, chasing down and arresting outlaws across the Wild West, is all he has left to live for. Then one day, in 1876, the infamous killer Corwin Blake catches Creed by surprise and guns him down. Creed awakes after a mysterious young woman resurrects him in a basement laboratory beneath a brothel. Half alive, Creed feels torn between his need for justice and his desire to fall back into the peace of death. Creed's instincts drive him to protect the city of Santa Cruz, California, from the outlaws it harbors while searching for Blake. He uncovers a secret criminal organization, likely protecting Blake, determined to use resurrection technology for its own ends. The former marshal, now faster, stronger, and a more deadly shot than ever before, must work with a brothel madam, a bounty hunter, and the remaining marshals to uncover the criminal syndicate before they can misuse the machines of rebirth and create more mindless zombies. Meanwhile, he must also stop Blake, before the outlaw kills the only people he cares about. His own death can wait.
Word Count: 90000
Summary: Intenze is the newest designer drug. Take it, and nightmares come alive. “Edging” is a better rush than the Tower of Terror. It’s a fraction of the price of a Six Flags admission. And it’s the most addictive high that the tiny suburb of New London has ever known. For Rick Carlson, the junkies roaming the streets don’t even scratch the surface of what worries him. He’s trying to win back his cheating wife. He’s trying to protect his residents at Belmont Assistant Living from their own drug-addled grandchildren. And he’s trying to save his twin boy and girl from their mother’s murderous paranoia. But he can’t save them all. The fears of all those who edge summon the Thirst—a living miasma that thrives on terror. It is bringing a storm. And time is running out.
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Summary: WILL YOU BE ONE OF THE INVITED? A forbidden midnight market is coming to town. The Night Bazaar isn't new. In fact, it's as old as civilization. Its first recorded appearance was in Sana'a, around 700 B.C.E. with secretive merchants from the East who presented covered stalls of exotic goods and arcane services. Various mentions appear in obscure and controversial works from around the world. The only common element is that the market opens at midnight, closes before sunrise, and may appear for up to a week in the same city . . . Paris, 1796 . . . London, 1888 . . . Berlin, 1936 . . . San Francisco, 1906 . . . but never in the same venue each night. And never again in the same city. There's just one catch: In order to find it, you must be Invited. Tonight, The Night Bazaar opens in a parking garage somewhere in Manhattan. A whole subterranean city full of antique costumes, alchemical treatments, magical dentistry, palmistry, Tarot, tea leaf-reading, and water-, glass-, and crystal-gazing, oddities and objets d’art, medical curiosities and surgical instruments. Other lost arts and body alterations are offered in certain alcoves. Through the narrow aisles throng jongleurs, freaks, charlatans, mountebanks, faeries, prostitutes, and acrobats. The scents of opium, perfume, tobacco, greasepaint, incense, plastic explosive, alcohol, and sex permeate the air. But each object or service comes with a gift, a curse, or a haunting. (This is the summary of volume one. However, The Night Bazaar anthologies need not be read in any particular order; they are all designed to stand alone as well.) The Bazaar sells that which cannot be had elsewhere. Everything you’ve read about but thought had passed away, or perhaps never existed. How wrong you were! Your guide is Madame Vera, a tall, thin woman of uncertain age, ethnicity, and trustworthiness. The stories within are your invitation to join us. It seems you have already spotted something you desire . . . but don’t head off that way, not just yet. You have all night . . . but not a moment more.
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Comedy
- Fantasy - Contemporary
- Fantasy - Dark Fantasy
- Fantasy - Faery & Fae
- Fantasy - Low Fantasy
- Fantasy - Magical Realism
- Fantasy - Slipstream
- Fantasy - Urban & Magical Beings
- Fantasy - Weird Fantasy
- Fantasy - Young Adult
- Horror
- Horror - LGBTQ+
- Horror - Lovecraftian/Cthulhu
- Horror - Occult
- Horror - People of Color
- Horror - Psychological
- Horror - Weird Horror
- Horror - Witches
- Paranormal
- Paranormal - Magical Beings
- Paranormal - Young Adult
Word Count: 98659
Summary: Many obstacles stand in Warrick Synclaire’s way. A baronet’s son, he’s in love with his best friend, Thomas Smythe. Same-sex love is illegal in early 20th century England. To complicate things, Warrick is heading for Canada, while Thomas is destined for the military college at Sandhurst. Warrick isn’t sure he can bear the separation. The day before Warrick leaves, Thomas persuades him to see a fortuneteller. The old gypsy woman’s warnings don’t scare Warrick, but another gypsy, Nicolae, intrigues, arouses, and terrifies him. Later that evening, Nicolae breaks into Warrick’s bedchamber, bedding then biting him. But Warrick convinces himself it was just a bad dream and sails off to Canada to start a new life. There Warrick renews his acquaintance with Fox Sullivan, who he first met during the war. Soon the two become lovers, but for Warrick, the relationship is purely physical. Thomas still owns his heart. When he can no longer bear their separation, Warrick returns to his ancestral home in Kent, determined to reunite with Thomas, who now has a lover of his own. But the encounter with Nicolae changed Warrick considerably. Every full moon he turns into a ravenous creature, which seems able to rule his life even during daylight hours. Determined to win over Warrick, Fox sells his medical practice and heads for England. But will he be too late to save the man he loves?
Word Count: 62000
Summary: Sanderson always envied the townies, all smiling faces and holding hands at his performances. He wanted the happy ever after that came with real life, not the pretend one in the twinkling fairy lights of the Moonlight Market. So when the Weaver of Dreams conjured him a normal life, college classes instead of performances, a chance at a boyfriend instead of an audience, he ran for daylight. Now a year later, he’s learned that connecting with someone physically doesn’t always lead to a lasting relationship. To get closer to the man of his dreams, Sanderson offers to help Cory find his missing sister. This means navigating the twists and turns of the Moonlight Market, the disorienting world of performers and hawkers, bizarre sights, sounds—and dangers. The sinister Weaver of Dreams offers to forgive Sanderson’s obligation in return for a lost soul, for Cory, who is still grieving the death of his parents and the disappearance of his sister. Surrounded by both friends and enemies, Sanderson fights doubts about his budding relationship with Cory while guiding them ever closer to his ultimate dilemma. The debt is valid and the choice is clear–his lover, or his dreams. The Moonlight Market, a paranormal finalist for the 2017 Southern Magic Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, is a full-length new adult romance brimming with magical realism, fairy tale villains, and quirky characters. If you like your romance to send a shiver down your spine, you’ll love The Moonlight Market! Buy your copy now and enter a world of dark fantasy and magic!
Word Count: 85,000
Summary: Reylan’s last assignment for The Arcadia Trust brought a rebellious human servant under his roof, and a volatile werewolf lover named Jorgas into his bed, leaving the self-reliant Blood Shade—known to the outside world as vampires—in no hurry to risk his immortality for them again. But when a new terror starts disappearing humans from a bad part of town, Reylan must do everything in his power to keep Sydney’s supernatural factions from the brink of war. Having an ambitious, meddlesome human in the mix is only going to make things worse…especially when that human is Jorgas’s father. Reylan will need all his determination and cunning to keep the peace under his roof, between the night’s power brokers, and in his lover’s troubled heart.
Word Count: 54000
Summary: He was the shameful cause of his sister Elena’s death and he stole state papers from England, yet Adrian Hart is feted by the best of society in Rome, and boldly dubs himself ‘Iago’. Determined to avenge Elena, his unrequited love, Lieutenant Andrew Sullivan asks the advice of poet and Shakespearian John Keats, and his artist friend Severn. Soon Percy and Mary Shelley join them, then Lord Byron and his servant Fletcher. But how can the seven of them work against this man, when they can’t even agree what he is? The atheist Shelley insists that Hart is an ordinary man, while Byron becomes convinced he’s the Devil incarnate, and Keats flirts with the idea that he’s Dionysius… As death and despair follow in Hart’s wake, Sullivan knows he must do something to stop Hart before even Sullivan himself succumbs – but what…?
Word Count: 85,000
Summary: A school in turmoil over its senior play, a sly career as a teenage gigolo, an unpredictable girlfriend with damage of her own, and a dangerous housebreaker tied up downstairs. Any of these would make a great plot for budding filmmaker Eric's first movie. Unfortunately, they're his real life. When Julien, a handsome wannabe actor, transfers to Eric's class, he's a distraction, a rival, and one complication too many. Yet Eric can't stop thinking about him. Helped by Eric's girlfriend, Mary, they embark on a project that dangerously crosses the line between filmmaking and reality. As the boys become close, Eric soon wants to cross other lines entirely. Does Julien feel the same way, or is Eric being used on the gleefully twisted path to fame?
Word Count: 52000
Summary: Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine it could happen to us... In the years since the Twelve-Minute War, the world has fallen into darkness and chaos. The combined impact of nuclear, biological, and chemical agents has rendered the majority of the world's water unfit for human consumption. Only the bravest men and women dare to venture out into the desolate, radioactive wasteland to collect this precious commodity. Matt Freeborn is one such man... a weller. A lone drifter, Freeborn's gaze is fixed ever east, away from the horrors of his past. Danger is always one step behind, however, as the weller's precious cargo makes him a prime target for attack. Savage road pirates, grotesque mutants, ravenous cannibals, and ruthless private armies all lurk behind every dune. Armed with his trusty sidearm, the Well Digger, Freeborn is fully prepared to handle any of these terrors, but there are still things even the weller fears: the bogeymen of the wastes... distillers. A high-octane, post-apocalyptic thrill ride from the author of Birthright and War of the Worlds: Goliath!
Word Count: 80,350
Summary: The sun and moon have been devoured by the cosmic wolves Skoll and Hati. Fimbulwinter has enveloped the world in the cold and darkness. Men prey on each other in order to survive. Amid the chaos, in the struggle for the throne, comes a war between brothers. Hakon, the illegitimate heir to the throne of Norveig, has obtained a horn that can summon a terror from the depths of the ocean. This monstrosity has been sinking the vessels of his half-brother, Jarl Erik Bloodaxe. Erik sends a company of untried heroes to infiltrate Hakon’s stronghold and steal the horn. As with all things political, there are other agendas. Fjorn, the leader of the team, is Erik’s half-brother who could challenge Erik for the throne. Erik's wife Gunnhild is a powerful sorceress with her own ambitions- could her goals derail the heroes? In life, sometimes a Jarl wins, and other times a Jarl wins.
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Summary:
“Human civilization has collapsed. Rainey Vidic, MD is a genius, and she has Preston Hayes--her open hand, or hammering fist...
...Only the strongest and smartest will survive in The After.
A gifted surgeon, her retired warrior lover, a former Marine, and a taciturn drone pilot fight for survival in a dangerous and pitiless world, while navigating human needs for love, family and community.
When one of their own faces a lethal illness, Dr. Rainey Vidic's efforts are compromised by a savage horde of highly intelligent, relentlessly evil creatures that threaten the lives of the entire team.
Desperate to save their teammate, the Team encounters an imperiled town of survivors that may hold the key to saving them all. . . or send humanity into extinction.
With echoes of McCarthy's "The Road" and the thrill ride of "Jurassic Park," this three volume, four part series, "Love, Death, & The After," tests the limits of romance, loyalty, and community against a violent world hell-bent on devouring it all.
This book, Love, Death, & The After: Darkness is the first of three:
Book 2: Love, Death, & The After: Abandoned Spaces
Book 3: Love, Death, & The After: Never Again”
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Summary: Love defies time, crosses the infinite distance of space, and sparks formidable magics in the hearts of those it touches. And immortality? Yeah, it’s got that covered, too. In this powerful volume, Pop Seagull Publishing presents twelve science fiction and fantasy short stories on the theme of love and its role as a force of nature. Follow an ambitious 1930’s journalist and her high-society boyfriend as they defend the world from evil beings that hide in shadows. Can love prevail when science fails? Take a wild ride with Zephraim Cochrane as he searches for his long lost love through inter-dimensional travel. After all, the best inventions are always made to get dates. Embark on a whirlwind romance with a creature of the Fey in seven days, a beautiful story of friendship and finding self-love before all else. Descend into a very Torontonian sort of hell in search of lost love in Melanie in the underworld... just don’t forget to pet the corgi. You’ll find these adventures, and many more, inside.
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Summary: The Fright Factory is here to help you as you labor in the control room, on the assembly line, or mixing the chemicals of inspiration and imagination in huge vats that give off dark and eerie vapors. Here you'll find guidance in drawing up the blueprints of your story along with a selection of tools to help you customize your design. The elements of horror include the setting, the tingle of suspense building into genuine fear, and of course the Monster. Those are the basics. From there horror can become ghost stories, tales of suspense, splatter and/or gross-out horror, and what might be called the O. Henry approach (twist endings). Cross-genre writing mixes in police procedurals, P.I. stories, and medical horror. Romance with monsters has become popular. You can also throw in the weird western, the Elder Gods, and Joe R. Lansdale - a category unto himself. Whether you're telling a weird tale in the classic tradition of Clark Ashton Smith or creating cutting edge steampunk frights, the long and venerable history of the horror story has also spawned a set of clichés you'll want to avoid. Now the whistle shrieks, signalling the beginning of a new shift. Time to set the machinery of the factory in motion as we explore the art and craft of building better horror.
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Summary: Josh Caplan is your average late-night convenience store clerk, but the Quik-Mart where he works is nothing like normal with that hell vortex in the parking lot. Waiting on zombies, demons, and other things that go bump in the night might scare some, but they're actually more polite than the stoners, and Josh welcomes the break in the monotony—especially when he acquires himself a sexy new boyfriend with a deadly secret. Will Josh survive this retail nightmare? It's a Big Gulp of a chance, but between the hazard pay and the hottie with a sweet tooth for Josh's candy, it's a chance he's willing to take. This box set includes: - Pretty Monsters (Josh of the Damned, #1) - Peek-a-Boo (Josh of the Damned, #2) - Josh of the Damned Triple Feature #1 - Josh of the Damned Triple Feature #2: The Final Checkout