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The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror
By Robert Louis Stevenson. 2002
Everyone has a dark side.Dr Jekyll has discovered the ultimate drug. A chemical that can turn him into something else.…
Suddenly, he can unleash his deepest cruelties in the guise of the sinister Hyde. Transforming himself at will, he roams the streets of fog-bound London as his monstrous alter-ego.It seems he is master of his fate.It seems he is in complete control.But soon he will discover that his double life comes at a hideous price...Stories for Halloween
By Edgar Allan Poe. 2014
The midnight hour approaches. You lie in bed and try to sleep, but there is the howling of the wind…
outside, the creak of a floorboard, the scream of a cat, the ticking clock...Your heart beats, your skin crawls, and despite yourself you reach for this book and enter a world like a nightmare, haunted by dark fears, guilty secrets and the bloody consequences of rage, revenge and obsession. You cannot tear yourself away, these tales will appall and yet enthrall you, for no mere mortal can resist the master of Gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe.Stop What You’re Doing and Read…After Dark: Ghost Stories & Dracula
By Bram Stoker, M. R. James. 1987
To mark the publication of Stop What You're Doing and Read This!, a collection of essays celebrating reading, Vintage Classics…
are releasing 12 limited edition themed ebook 'bundles', to tempt readers to discover and rediscover great books. M.R. JAMES' GHOST STORIESSELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY RUTH RENDELLM. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernise a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognisable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a dolls house, a lonely beach, a branch tapping on a window - ordinary things take on more than a tinge of dread in the hands of the original master of suspense.DRACULA'The door is shut, and the chains rattle; there is a grinding of the key in the lock; I hear the creaking of lock and bolt...I shall not remain alone with them. I may find a way from this dreadful place, away from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet!'Young lawyer Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania on business for a mysterious Count. Months later in England, beautiful Lucy Westenra falls ill and dies, inexplicably, as if from a severe loss of blood. Lucy's friends, including Jonathan's fiancée Mina and the intrepid doctor Van Helsing, must begin a desperate battle against a powerful, ancient evil, in Bram Stoker's definitive gothic tale.The Spook House: Terrifying Tales of the Macabre (Pocket Penguin Classics Ser. #Vol. 4)
By Ambrose Bierce. 2008
Death awaits them all …A man stares into the deep river swirling beneath him – hands tied, noose around his…
neck – and waits for the order to end his life. Another is trapped for eternity in a room full of corpses. A cowering woman is strangled in the dead of night. These are just some of the countless victims for whom all hope is lost in Ambrose Bierce’s chilling stories of death, delusion and the supernatural.Spirits of the Dead: Tales and Poems
By Edgar Allan Poe. 2007
A unique one volume collection of all Poe's best tales and poems. Full of variety, entries include The Murders in…
the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, The Purloined Letter - three classic detective stories - plus The Raven, one of his greatest poems. A wonderful selection of tales and poems that are representative of every genre written by Poe, from the macabre and horrifying to the humorous and purely descriptive.The Snow Ghost and Other Tales: Classic Japanese Ghost Stories
By Various. 2023
Enter the haunted world of Ancient Japan in this spine-tingling collection of ghostly tales told and retold across the centuries.…
From Goblin infested caves and haunted Tombs, to vengeful spirits and strange, sinister happenings, Ancient Japan was a country and culture that lived with between realms: the world of everyday and the world of supernatural.It was a time and place where men could be brought down by karmic forces or lured into deadly danger by ghostly apparitions, and where the land held sorrowful secrets or stories that long-awaited an opportunity to reveal them and seek reparation.The Snow Ghost and Other Tales brings together some of the best and scariest tales that endured across centuries of folk lore in one new beautiful hardback collection. Finally commited to writing during the turn of the twenieth cenutry by a unique set of folklorists, the ghost stories presented in this new anthology will transport readers to a time of magic and mystery, and let them relish in the spine-tingling traditions of Japanese culture largely lost now to modernity.For readers of Haruki Murakami, David Mitchell and Shirley JacksonSlow Motion Ghosts
By Jeff Noon. 2019
'Noon's storytelling is assured and compelling ... it's a belter' Guardian‘Constantly surprising’ SpectatorA viciously occult murder.A curious clue left on…
the body.The soundtrack to the murder still playing...It is 1981 and Detective Inspector Henry Hobbes is still reeling in the aftermath of the fire and fury of the Brixton riots. The battle lines of society - and the police force - are being redrawn on a daily basis. With the certainties of his life already sorely tested, a brutal murder will shake his beliefs to their very core once more. The manner of the death and its staged circumstances pose many questions to which there are no obvious answers. To track the murderer, Hobbes must cross boundaries into a subculture hidden beneath the everyday world he thought he knew. His investigation takes him into a twisted reality, which is both seductive and devastating, and asks him the one question he has been dreading: How far will he go in pursuit of the truth?Jeff Noon is the author of six acclaimed novels, Vurt, Pollen, Automated Alice, Nymphomation, Needle in the Groove and Falling Out of Cars, as well as two collections of short fictions, and is also the crime fiction reviewer for The Spectator. He lives in Brighton.A Skull in Shadows Lane
By Robert Swindells. 2012
The war has just ended in the tiny village of Coney Cley, and Josh and his gang are desperate for…
some excitement. When they head for the eerie, abandoned Shadows Lane to explore a deserted house, they find more than they bargained for - a human tooth. Then a creepy, skeletal face appears at a dark window . . .Believing there's a skeleton haunting Shadows Lane, the children are shocked to learn the truth about 'Boney' - he's an escaped prisoner of war. But someone else is also hiding in the village - someone much more dangerous.Tense and chilling, this is another fantastically gripping tale from the award-winning author of Room 13 and Stone Cold.Shine
By Candy Gourlay. 2012
Monsters are in the eye of the beholder.Rosa suffers from a rare condition that renders her mute. She lives on…
the strange island of Mirasol where the rain never seems to stop.In the gloom of the island, its superstitious population are haunted by all sorts of fears . . . they shun people who suffer from Rosa's condition, believing them to be monsters. So Rosa must live hidden away in an isolated house with its back to the rest of the world, with only the internet for a social life.But Rosa has no desire to leave Mirasol. This is where her mother died and every night she lights a candle on the windowsill. The islanders believe this is the way to summon ghosts, and Rosa wants her mother back.One day she is befriended by a boy online who calls himself Ansel95 – and she quickly realizes that this is one friendship that can take place in the real world. Can she really trust him? What does he want from her?And then Mother turns up at the front door.From the author of the critically-acclaimed Tall Story comes a haunting, intense and moving novel which weaves myths and ghosts into a modern setting. As Rosa's social life blossoms, how will she seize the freedom to be who she really is?The Shattered Lands
By Brenna Nation. 2023
'An enemies to lovers must-read' - Gay Times18 years after her disappearance, the princess has returned. But what is left…
of her kingdom?Sapphire finds herself in Eriobis with a crown, a castle and too many handmaidens to count. And so her life begins as the heir to the throne of a country she doesn't understand - a country ruled by magic and secrets.That's before she meets Ashes. A dark witch with the power to destroy Sapphire's life and kingdom. But Ashes also happens to be the only person that can help her discover the truth.And the answers might unravel the very world she's come to know.'A bewitching fantasy packed with dark secrets, luscious world building and heart shattering twists, Brenna Nation has woven a romantic and devastating tale about the things we do for love.' - Rosie Talbot, author of Sixteen SoulsPerfect for fans of The Dark Tide and Six Of Crows, discover the secrets of Eriobis in this magical Sapphic story.The Shade of Hettie Daynes
By Robert Swindells. 2012
If you expect to see a ghost, you see a ghost... That's what Bethan tells herself when her brother Harry…
takes her to see the ghost at the old reservoir. But she really can see it: a pale figure floating over the water, one finger pointing downwards.Local legend says that the ghost is Hettie Daynes, an ancestor of their family, who vanished over a hundred years ago.If so, what does she want? And why is she appearing now?Harry and Bethan and their friends Rob and Alison are determined to find out!A deliciously shivery ghost tale from multi award-winning author Robert Swindells.Fire and Ice (The Ice Series #5)
By Anne Stuart. 2008
The stunning finale to RITA Award-winner Anne Stuart&’s The Ice Series brings us back to Japan, where deadly machinations have…
an odd couple in their crosshairs.In the wake of a failed love affair, Jilly Lovitz takes off for Tokyo. She&’s expecting to cry on her sister&’s shoulder, then spend a couple months blowing off steam in Japan. Instead, she&’s snatched away on the back of a motorcycle, narrowly avoiding a grisly execution attempt meant for her sister and brother-in-law.Her rescuer Reno is the Committee&’s most unpredictable agent. They&’d met once before and the attraction was strange—opposites in more way than one—but electric. Now Reno and Jilly are pawns in a deadly tangle of assassination attempts, kidnappings, and prisoner swaps that could put their steamy partnership on ice.Previously published.Broken Glass (The Mirror Sisters Series #2)
By V. C. Andrews. 2017
This second gothic novel in the dark Mirror Sisters trilogy continues the tale of sisterly love at its absolute worst—from…
the legendary New York Times bestselling author of Flowers in the Attic and My Sweet Audrina (now Lifetime movies). For fans of Ruth Ware (In a Dark, Dark Wood) and Liane Moriarty (The Husband&’s Secret).Under their mother&’s watchful eye, identical twins Haylee and Kaylee Fitzgerald have lived their entire lives in sync. Never alone, never apart, everything about them must be exactly the same: clothes, friends, punishments. One night, in the darkness of a movie theater, Haylee reveals that she&’s leaving to meet up with someone she knows from online. But suddenly feeling ill, and not wanting to disappoint this older man, she convinces Kaylee to go in her stead. He&’ll never know, and this way he won&’t think she stood him up. Kaylee reluctantly agrees to go, but when the credits roll and she&’s nowhere to be found, Haylee confesses everything to her mom. With the manhunt on, Haylee knows everything must be done to find her sister. Still, for the first time in her life, she&’s free from her twin, which, really, isn&’t so bad...is it?A terminally ill doctor battles crime and corruption in this medical thriller trilogy by the New York Times–bestselling author of…
Critical Condition. Farewell to Dreams: ER doctor Angela Rossi is struggling with insomnia when she receives a ghostly plea to save a missing girl. Aided by a police detective fallen from grace, Angela searches the midnight catacombs beneath the city, facing down a ruthless gang leader and stumbling onto a serial killer&’s lair. Her desperate quest to rescue the girl leads her to the one thing she least expected to find: a last chance for love. As her symptoms escalate in bizarre and disturbing ways, Angie realizes exactly how serious her illness is. She might be dying, but she&’s finally choosing how to live . . . A Raging Dawn: Dr. Rossi is diagnosed with Fatal Insomnia and given only a few months to live. She&’d like to say her goodbyes to everyone and spend her last days on a deserted island. But first she must provide testimony in a rape case. However, on the day of the trial, the victim is murdered, allowing the rapist to go free—and motivating Angela to bring him to justice. With nothing left to lose or fear, she makes for a perfect vigilante . . . The Sleepless Stars: When Dr. Rossi discovers that her disease—and the disease she&’s discovered in dozens of young children—is the creation of a mysterious cabal, she begins investigating the lies and betrayal that led the terrible epidemic. Meanwhile, Devon Price, a father of one of those children, is on the hunt for those responsible. He is willing to lie, cheat, steal, or even kill to ensure his daughter&’s safety. But in the end, their only hope might be a desperate deal with the devil: the faction behind the epidemic. A deal paid with blood. A deal not everyone will survive. Praise for the Fatal Insomnia series &“A remarkable medical thriller equal to the very best of Robin Cook or Michael Crichton. This intelligent, well-crafted novel, based on a startlingly original premise, builds up tension to the breaking point and beyond, delivering plenty of surprises along the way. Totally absorbing and impossible to put down.&” —Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times–bestselling author &“Farewell to Dreams has it all: a heroine you&’ll never forget and a story that whips by at bullet speed.&” —Tess Gerritsen, New York Times–bestselling authorFalling Stars (Shooting Stars)
By V. C. Andrews. 2001
All The World's A Stage -- but What If The Play Doesn't Go As Planned? Four talented girls from vastly…
different pasts share a dream of stardom: Cinnamon, the edgy actress; Ice, the phenomenal vocalist; Rose, the beautiful dancer; and Honey, the first-rate violinist. The four meet at the prestigious Senetsky School of the Performing Arts -- housed in an ornate New York City mansion -- and become instant friends as they take off on a dazzling whirlwind of intense classes, theater outings, and celebrity-studded parties. And together they bend the strict house rules of Madame Senetsky, a famous actress who guarantees success for students under her tutelage. But they soon realize this is no ordinary school. Madame Senetsky pushes the girls' studies beyond reason. She controls their social lives. And they get the strange feeling someone is watching them. But who...and why? Cinnamon, Ice, Rose, and Honey set out to untangle a shadowy web of Senetsky family secrets. As they explore dark corners and hidden rooms, every creak and moan of the old mansion tells a story too frightening to repeat. A devastating story that can destroy their dreams...Since their first publication in the 1830s and 1840s, Edgar Allan Poe's extraordinary Gothic tales have established themselves as classics…
of horror fiction and have also created many of the conventions which still dominate the genre of detective fiction. As well as being highly enjoyable, Poe's tales are works of very real intellectual exploration. Attentive to the historical and political dimensions of these very American tales, this new selection places the most popular -- `The Fall of the House of Usher', `The Masque of the Red Death', `The Murders in the Rue Morgue; and `The Purloined Letter' -- alongside less well-known travel narratives, metaphysical essays and political satires.The Secrets of Time and Fate (Secrets #3)
By Rebecca Alexander. 2016
16th CenturyEdward Kelley and his mentor Dr John Dee have come to a crossroads. At the mercy of Countess Elizabeth…
Báthory, they set out to find a cure for her unnatural condition.21st CenturyJackdaw Hammond is living rough in London, blacking out and waking with a sense of dread. Can the lessons of the past help defeat the dark magic that threatens to steal her soul?The Season: (Debutantes: 2): LOVE, HATE, ALLIES, ENEMIES. The Season begins
By Charlotte Bingham. 2001
An immensely readable drama of period society that you WILL NOT be able to put down. Authored by the million…
copy and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlotte Bingham, perfect for fans of Louise Douglas and Dinah Jefferies.'Bingham's imagination is thoroughly original' - DAILY MAIL'Charlotte Bingham...always tells a rattling good story...Pure escapism!' - Woman and Home'Pure delicious escapism' - ***** Reader review'The characters are so well developed with such an engaging story line. I wish there were more books in this series.' - ***** Reader review*********************************************************************************ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR...Portia and Emily meet to launch their daughters on an unsuspecting Society for the London Season. Both are determined that their offspring, Phyllis and Edith, will catch the eye of their friend May's son, a future Duke.Meanwhile, their arch-enemy Daisy Lanford, fallen on hard times due to his own extravagance and penchant for lovers, is busy launching American heiresses. However, Phyllis, having formed an unholy alliance with Edith, is intent on spoiling the American girl's chances.As always, the Season is fraught with dangers for both the young and the middle-aged, while the old observe, knowing it has all gone on before.It will be a minor miracle if all three girls find husbands before the end of the Season, and their mothers renewed happiness...The Scarlet Letter
By Nathaniel Hawthorne. 2008
'One of the greatest allegories in all literature' D.H. Lawrence Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also…
an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter, Pearl, is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl's father. Hester's refusal to name him brings more condemnation upon her. But she stands strong in the face of public scorn, even when she is forced to wear the sign of her shame sewn onto her clothes: the scarlet letter 'A' for 'Adulteress'Heavenstone Secrets (Heavenstone #1)
By V. C. Andrews. 2010
Secrets are at home here...and there is no escape.The Heavenstone sisters live with their mother and father in a grand…
old mansion in bluegrass Kentucky. Semantha, the younger and prettier one, is afraid of so many things—darkness, strange noises, mysterious whispers in the night. But nothing frightens her more than her sister, Cassie. She is older and wiser, and always telling Semantha what to do, what to wear, and how to behave around those wicked boys at school. Semantha has her eye on one special guy—but Cassie has other plans for her. In the Heavenstone house, big sister knows best. When tragedy strikes like a lightning bolt from heaven, Semantha&’s life becomes a living hell. Under Cassie&’s constant, watchful eye, she feels like a prisoner—a helpless pawn in her sister&’s cruel game. When Cassie begins wearing their mother&’s clothes and vying for their father&’s affections, Semantha realizes she must bring their twisted sibling rivalry to an end...before a new generation is born.