Waking up undead is just the start of my bad night. This night is going from bad to worse. My roommate is dead. My sexy neighbor, who I've never worked up the guts to talk to before, is standing in my living room. I have a gold amulet I just stole from the museum hidden in my pocket. Oh, and I'm dead... or undead? All the myths about vampires, were-wolves, and the like? Turns out, all true. My sexy neighbor claims I'm a vampire now. I don't quite believe him, but then again, he turned into a coyote in front of me. Jackal, whatever. Plus, you know, my new fangs. Oh, did I mention my sexy neighbor is an ex-cop? And his cop buddies just knocked down my door. I'm pretty sure this night can't get any worse... I'm probably wrong.

Step into your high heels and listen to astronaut Charlie Brick confess his sins in this supernatural tragedy.A complete Novella, no part-two or cliffhanger ending. You can read this for free and know that you will see the whole story.Step into your high heels and listen to astronaut Charlie Brick confess his sins in this supernatural tragedy. Throughout the course of this novella, Brick will deal with feelings of loathing, hate, and loneliness, but what happens when his darkest desires are fulfilled, seemingly by random chance? Will he be able to live with himself after such a supernatural tragedy? Will his failed journey into space continue to haunt him with PTSD-like intesity? Decide for yourself at the end of this drama.A complete Novella, no part-two or cliffhanger ending. You can read this for free and know that you will see the whole story. Also, don't expect any explicit sex or drug use in this story, consider it a PG-13 rating.

A motionless man stands alone in the hall, the foundations of his thick legs sunk into dusty boots. Bleak electric light illumines a galaxy of emulsion, pebble-dashing the grey overalls that are stretched taut over the barrel of his middle. His fingers, stained as if by a baker’s flour, droop from the weight of the tools they barely hold. A hammer within the unclenching left fist. Suspended from the idle digits of the right hand, a small axe.

Five rituals to control Chaos. That's all it takes.Now that Harley knows her enemy's grand plan—to become a godlike Child of Chaos and punish those deemed "unworthy"—she's got to figure out what the heck to do about it. Many of the missing magicals are still out there, and Katherine has vowed to kill everyone Harley cares about and make her watch.So that's fun.Just when it seems like things can't get much worse, one of the most precious monsters of the Bestiary escapes, and Harley is sure that Katherine has her dirty hands involved. But that crazy witch had better be ready because Harley has finally figured out a way to unleash her powers—although the cost might not be worth it.Astrid, a human living amongst magicals, is just as determined to thwart Katherine's schemes. At the same time, her budding romance with the Coven's trademark bad boy has earned her father's disapproval, and it seems like betrayal is lurking around the corner...Continue the...

A mad surrealist's art threatens to rip open the fabric of reality, in this twisted tale of eldritch horror and conspiracy, from the wildy popular world of Arkham Horror.Aspiring painter Alden Oakes is invited to join a mysterious art commune in Arkham: the New Colony. When celebrated Spanish surrealist Juan Hugo Balthazarr visits the colony, Alden and the other artists quickly fall under his charismatic spell. Balthazarr throws a string of decadent parties for Arkham's social elite, conjuring arcane illusions which blur the boundaries between nightmare and reality. Only slowly does Alden come to suspect that Balthazarr's mock rituals are intended to break through those walls and free what lies beyond. Alden must act, but it might already be too late to save himself, let alone Arkham.

On 21st September 2001 the mutilated torso of a small child was found floating beside London’s Tower Bridge, one tide away from being swept into the North Sea. Unable to identify the victim, the Murder Squad turned to Richard Hoskins, a young professor of theology with a profound understanding of African tribal religion, whose own past was scarred by a heartbreaking tragedy. Thus began a journey into the tangled undergrowth of one of the most notorious murder cases of recent years; a journey which would reveal not only the identity of the boy they called Adam but the horrific truth that a succession of innocent children have been ritually sacrificed in our capital city. Insightful and grippingly written, The Boy in the River is an inside account of a series of extraordinary criminal investigations and a compelling personal quest into the dark heart of humanity.

In Eileen Wilks’s new Novel of the Lupi, FBI agent Lily Yu is about to confront a power even darker than magic… On her 57th birthday, Lily’s mother suddenly loses all memory beyond the age of twelve. Lily knows her mother was attacked by something more than magic. More . . . and darker. When Lily and Rule discover that others suffered the same, mysterious loss—at the same time on the same night—their investigation into the darkness begins. Joining them is someone Lily never thought she’d see again: Al Drummond, who once tried to destroy her. He also happens to be dead. But the mysterious attacks were caused by a power strong enough to affect matters beyond the world of the living. With some victims losing years of memory and others their lives, Lily must discover what on earth—or beyond—connects them.

fiction; prose, Young Readers

A William Falconer Mystery - Oxford University, 1271. As old buildings are pulled down to make way for a new purpose-built college, a body is revealed. Regent Master William Falconer deduces that the skeleton is twenty years old. He must try to recall any significant events, when England was involved in an earlier Crusade, which could provide a solution. As the heavens open, and Oxford is threatened with flooding, Falconer is drawn into violent events where the past and the present collide with startling consequences . . .

Death stalks London and the newspapers proclaim that a mummy's curse has been unleashed. Sir Maurice Newbury, Gentleman Investigator for the Crown, is drawn into a web of occult intrigue as he attempts to solve the murders. And he soon finds himself on the trail of a rogue agent - a man who died to be reborn as a living weapon. Newbury's able assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, has her own mystery to unravel. Girls are going missing from a magician's theatre show. But what appears to be a straightforward investigation puts Miss Hobbes in mortal danger. Can Newbury save his assistant, solve the riddle of the mummy's curse, capture the deadly man-machine - and stop the terrifying Osiris Ritual from reaching its infernal culmination?

Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD is stunned when he gets the report. Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed. The crime was called in by Rina Lazarus, and Decker is relieved to discover that she is a calm and intelligent witness. She is also the only one in the sheltered community willing to speak of this unspeakable violation. As Rina tries to steer Decker through the maze of religious laws, the two grow closer. But before they get to the bottom of this horrendous crime, revelations come to light that are so shocking, they threaten to come between the hard-nosed cop and the deeply religious woman with whom he has become irrevocably linked. From Publishers WeeklyLike the series it inspired, Kellerman's award-winning 1986 debut novel combines police procedure, via hard-boiled LAPD detective Peter Decker, with Judaic rites and rituals courtesy of its heroine Rina Lazarus, an ultra-Orthodox widowed mother of two. Decker and Lazarus are brought together by the brutal rape of a young bride-to-be at the mikvah (a bathhouse used in the purification ritual) that Rina manages in the Hollywood hills. Mitchell Greenberg nicely vocalizes the story from Decker's point of view, with the detective struggling to stick to his sleuthing in spite of his developing feelings for Rina. The novel continually rings true, from explaining various Orthodox beliefs and customs to Decker and his crew's no-nonsense unmasking of the villain. Greenberg moves in and out of the novel's elements smoothly and efficiently. He paces the police work with just the right sense of urgency and frustration; handles the romantic sequences with the proper emotion and without a hint of sentimentality; and breezes through the many Jewish-centric passages with the confidence and clarity of a yeshiva graduate. An Avon paperback. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review"A Master of Mystery" -- Cleveland Plain Dealer"Engaging" -- -- Los Angeles Times Book Review"Exceptionally fine suspense." -- -- San Diego Union-Tribune "Phenomenal!" -- -- Murder Inc.

Gerard Sorme is a lonely young Londoner at work on his first novel, in which he intends to express his belief in the meaninglessness of life. He finds his life changing in new and unexpected ways when he begins an intimate friendship with Austin Nunne, a wealthy and charming gay man with violent sexual desires, and meets Nunne's circle of friends: Gertrude, his well-meaning but naive Jehovah's Witness aunt, the ugly but kindly Father Carruthers, and a strange and fanatical artist named Oliver Glasp. Meanwhile, though, someone else is busy exposing life's meaninglessness in a different way: a serial killer is brutally murdering women in Whitechapel in a manner reminiscent of the Jack the Ripper slayings. The police suspect a crazed sex maniac, but Gerard has his own theory of the killer's motives. As the killings continue and the investigation proceeds, Gerard suddenly finds himself haunted by a terrible suspicion: could his new friend Austin Nunne have anything to do with the...

It's a beautiful chair. All gleaming and evocative and wicked looking; an object of desire, more than just a piece of furniture. I shouldn't have bought it. Yet when I saw the chair, I saw Simon in it. I could just imagine him lounging against the leather, enthroned like a sex god and ready to dispense retribution, just like one of those vintage disciplinary gentlemen in the Blue Book…. Simon and Suzanne have been exploring their wicked fantasies of dominance and discipline after finding a book of vintage BDSM photos. When they see a red chair at an antique shop that would make a perfect prop for their sexy scenarios, Suzanne can't resist splurging on it - giving Simon another reason to punish her. But his punishment is just the beginning of the erotic rituals featuring the Red Chair… Book two of Portia Da Costa's 3 Colors Sexy series. Discover how their story began in Discipline of the Blue Book and continues in Ecstasy in the White Room.

Jean-Paul Finnegan stands on board the Ulysses ferry heading home to Ireland. 'Not one person in Ireland has even read Joyce!' he rants, terrifying the passengers around him. A young man in a dark depression roams the vast, formless landscape of a Dublin industrial park where he meets a strange vagrant in the grip of a dangerous ideology. A woman fleeing the break-up of a long-term relationship finds herself taking part in an unusual sleep experiment. A man obsessed with Nietzsche clings desperately to his girlfriend's red shoes. Among these masterful stories lurk characters that straddle the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. What did happen to Killian Turner, Ireland's vanished literary outlaw? Or the Glaswegian novelist Malcolm Donnelly? And just who is Rob Doyle? Exploring notions of masculinity, failed idealism, sex and the writing life – and moving from Paris to Barcelona, Dublin and London – these inventive, funny, often explicit...

When four old University friends set off into the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle, they aim to briefly escape the problems of their lives and reconnect with one another. But when Luke, the only man still single and living a precarious existence, finds he has little left in common with his well-heeled friends, tensions rise. With limited experience between them, a shortcut meant to ease their hike turns into a nightmare scenario that could cost them their lives. Lost, hungry, and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, Luke figures things couldn’t possibly get any worse. But then they stumble across an old habitation. Ancient artefacts decorate the walls and there are bones scattered upon the dry floors. The residue of old rites and pagan sacrifice for something that still exists in the forest. Something responsible for the bestial presence that follows their every step. As the four friends stagger in the direction of salvation, they learn that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees . . . Review"A mind-twisting journey into the dark backwoods of terror. Deeply disturbing and absolutely riveting." -Jonathan Maberry"A book which preys on our most basic, instinctive fears, then amplifies them ten-fold. A desperate, intense descent into the depths of somewhere unimaginably ancient and unspeakably evil." -David MoodyPublishers Weekly – Starred Review:“And on the second day things did not get better.” This suitably foreboding opening sentence sets the stage for a dark and mesmerizing horror debut that riffs on Algernon Blackwood’s classic story “The Wendigo.” Hutch, Luke, Dom, and Phil set off on a camping trip in the forests of Sweden, only to find the woods hostile to their explorations. Tensions arise when it becomes clear that two of the party aren’t physically up to the challenges of navigating the rough terrain, and fears set in with the discovery of an eviscerated “thing” hanging higher up in a tree then any animal would place it. Nevill makes the natural world deeply menacing, using the power of suggestion rather than explicit images to create a growing claustrophobic feeling as the difficult journey to return to some semblance of civilization embeds the quartet only further in the grasp of primal evil. "A spine-tingling tale of one man’s survival in a truly horrific realm." - Suspense MagazineAbout the AuthorAdam L. G. Nevill was born in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and grew up in England and New Zealand. The Ritual is his first novel to be published in the U.S.

Toni, a woman on the run for her life, finds safety with the descendants of a legendary creature living deep in the mountains. An ancient mating ritual with their leader, Cormac, protects her from being claimed and mated by the other males. She gradually falls for him, but can she give up her old way of life to stay with him in the mountains?