fiction

Thirteen-year-old Boone Mason came face to face with the buck of a lifetime. Would he find the faith to believe he could make the shot or would he believe the old man who taunted him in his dreams, telling him he didn't have what it takes to bring the buck down?.

After saving her house and her friends from a magical flood, Henrietta Achilles settles in for the winter. But as her allies depart the manor, a strange army of walking statues begins heading her way.

As the chief forensic anthropologist for the FBI's Chicago field office, Christine Prusik has worked her fair share of bizarre cases. Yet this one trumps them all: a serial killer is strangling young women and dumping their bodies in the steep, forested ravines of southern Indiana. With each victim, the killer leaves a calling card: a stone figurine carved like the spirit stones found among the primitive tribes of Papua New Guinea; the same tribes from whom Prusik narrowly escaped a decade earlier while doing field research. The similarity is eerie and, frankly, terrifying; Prusik still carries the scars from the tribesmen's attack. But is the connection real? Or have the dark details of Prusik's nightmares finally wormed their way into her waking life?.

Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams. But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end. In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed. As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hales mysterious disappearance. Tricia plays the tapes one by one, late into the night. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrienne Hales web of lies slowly unravels. And then Tricia reaches the final cassette. The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.

It?s hard to find an employer who doesn?t ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want. It?s almost perfect. But I still haven?t met Mrs. Garrick, or seen inside the guest bedroom. I?m sure I hear her crying. I notice spots of blood around the neck of her white nightgowns when I?m doing laundry. And one day I can?t help but knock on the door. When it gently swings open, what I see inside changes everything. That?s when I make a promise. After all, I?ve done this before. I can protect Mrs. Garrick while keeping my own secrets locked up safe. Douglas Garrick has done wrong. He is going to pay.

A collection of three short stories: 3 Days to Live: A CIA-agent bride is on her European honeymoon when she and her husband are poisoned; leaving her seventy-two hours to take revenge. Women and Children First: When a deal goes bad on a tech executive in Washington, DC, he turns an order to kill his family into a chance to relive his military glory days. The Housekeepers: A Los Angeles doctor trusts her two housekeepers, but when she's murdered in a botched attempt to steal drugs, the pair of grifters vie to control their former employer's estate; facing off against the Russian mob.

Searching for the truth behind the secret she's long concealed, Dora, a former domestic servant, is given curatorship of The National Museum of the Worker by her lover. The place that isn't at all what it seems as she unravels a monstrous conspiracy that brings her to the edge of worlds.

A family's maids witness a horrible cycle of abuse, a girl is auctioned off by a gang of criminals, and two sisters find themselves at the mercy of their spiteful brother. With violence masquerading as love, characters spend their lives trapped reenacting their past traumas.

In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.

A collection of original horror and dark fantasy from the world's best writers.