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When 42 year old behavior analyst Kate Lockbee loses everything in a fire, including her husband, she responds to a strange ad online, hoping for a fresh start. Soon, she finds herself traveling to Louisiana to Cypresswood, an old plantation home in the Atchafalaya Basin to be the therapist for a young child with autism. When she meets the girl's father, the scarred Young Winstone, who catches and sells alligators for a living, she is attracted to him but loathe to get involved after her recent loss. When a murder occurs on the property, she realizes someone is trying to harm him and his daughter. Can she protect them both and solve the mystery before something terrible happens? This is a steamy gothic romance novel.

In book two of this addictive quartet, Kimi and her sister, Hana, have disguised themselves as boys to study at Master Goku's dojo. They prepare themselves to take revenge on the uncle who murdered their father and older brothers by becoming masters of the sword, and their combat skills are deadly. But after their uncle's unexpected arrival and Master Goku's untimely death, the sisters' future is uncertain. Kimi and Hana are forced to go on the run once more, but word has come that their mother and younger brother are alive and waiting for them. Can Kimi, Hana, and their friend Tatsuya survive the perils that lie ahead and defeat their uncle once and for all?

For over three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror readers crave. Now, with the eighth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. Encompassed in the pages of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as: Neil Gaiman Kim Stanley Robinson Stephen King Linda Nagata Laird Barron Margo Lanagan And many others With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness as articulated by today’s most challenging and exciting writers.

Lost in the dusty Inca ruins of Peru at age 6, tattooed by head-hunters in the jungles of Borneo at age 12, luxuriated lasciviously and flirted with pro-Castro revolutionaries in a corrupt pre-Castro Havana, wrestled a Bengal tiger, lived beneath the iron curtain's shadow in occupied Trieste, witnessed the astounding mid-hurricane Atlantic rescue of hundreds of passengers and sailors from a burning ship. An atypical upbringing meant atypical experiences. Stephen Baldwin's ordinary world involved living with very rich and very famous relatives and friends, including Adlai Stevenson, Richard Nixon, and the Washington Post's Phil and Kaye Graham. He explored virtually unknown temples in Angkor and Rangoon, routinely crisscrossed oceans in luxury liners that fully lived up to their promise, ran with the bulls in Pamplona when he was 20, was instrumental in saving thousands clinging to life after a cataclysmic tidal wave and cyclone in Bangladesh, then in setting up an underground railway for Bengali leaders escaping from Pakistani genocide, finally escaping to carry that story to the outside world. It is true that there are few undiscovered wildernesses today. Transportation and...

Dark things stir in the night. When the world sleeps and quiet settles in, shadows assume sinister shapes, guilt and regret well up from the mind’s deepest recesses, and the lonely face their greatest fears. Darkness bares the secret truths whispered on the lips of the lost and the desperate. At night, terrors come alive. For those who journey too far into the dark, no escape remains—but there is a place from which to view these nightmares, a place...on the night border. The fifteen stories collected here come from the last edge of the light and deliver glimpses into the dreadful, the mysterious, and the strange. These stories offer readers unsettling and weird visions from across the border, visions out of history and from the world around us, visions of cosmic horror, personal madness, and agonizing heartbreak. A literary legend confronts the reality of a chaotic, uncaring universe. A young girl grows up in the shadow of a ferocious monster. A man seeks to kill his memories. Love defeats death in an odd world not unlike our own. An artist’s drawings unlock a terrifying truth of his adopted city. A mask burns. The mother of plagues offers a deadly future. Readers will find...

Fans of Jill Shalvis, Susan Mallery, and RaeAnne Thayne will love the fourth book in Olivia Miles's Briar Creek series. Love is always in season . . . Florist Ivy Birch fantasizes about the day a man will surprise her with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Especially if that man happens to be Brett Hastings. One stolen kiss at her best friend's wedding and Ivy can't get the sexy ER doctor out of her head. In the small town of Briar Creek, you can't avoid anyone for very long. Not that Brett has been trying to avoid Ivy. He just can't afford to let anything distract him from his work-not again. So when a hospital fundraiser throws them together, love is the last thing on his mind. But with her quick wit and sweet laugh, soon the one woman he's tried to keep at arm's length is capturing his heart..

Writer Fred Van Lente leads the way for the world's most famous barbarian! Conan drinks himself into a stupor of grief while in the troubled city of Shumballa--until a brazen act of thievery against him sends the Cimmerian into a witch-hunt full of adventure, demons, and rebellion! This city on the edge of a revolution must rely on Conan if it is to survive, and when the truth of is revealed, Shumballa will never be the same! This exciting volume collects issues #1--6 of the Dark Horse Comics series Conan the Avenger.

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Wingate captures the heart and faith of small-town America in Talk of the Town. Daily, Texas, has never really been known for much until Amber Anderson becomes a finalist on a television singing show. The producers want to stage a surprise concert for one of the final episodes--only everyone in town seems to know the secret. And paparazzi are arriving. And word from Hollywood is that Amber has disappeared with a bad-boy actor. Can anything go right in this tumbleweed town? Widow Imagene Doll loves her town, but without her beloved husband, life seems lonely--and a bit dull. At least until that fancy-dressed television producer pulls into town, looking terrified and glamorous all at once. Soon life's not the least bit boring as the town finds itself at the center of a media maelstrom . . . with a young girl's future on the line.

Smitten by a love of hot peppers, journalist Richard Schweid traveled to the capital of the U.S. hot sauce industry, New Iberia, Louisiana. This is Cajun country, and capsicum (as hot peppers are known botanically) thrive in the region's salty, oil-rich soil like nowhere else. At once an entertaining exploration of the history and folklore that surround hot peppers and a fascinating look at the industry built around the fiery crop, Schweid's book also offers a sympathetic portrait of a culture and a people in the midst of economic and social change. This edition of Hot Peppers has been thoroughly updated and includes some twenty-five recipes for such deliciously spicy dishes as crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, and okra shrimp gumbo.

Master short story author Lucy A. Snyder is back with a dozen chilling, thought-provoking tales of Lovecraftian horror, dark science fiction, and weird fantasy. Her previous two collections received Bram Stoker Awards and this one offers the same high-caliber, trope-twisting prose. Snyder effortlessly creates memorable monsters, richly imagined worlds and diverse, unforgettable characters. Open this book and you'll find a garden of stories as dark and heady as black roses that will delight fans of complex, intelligent speculative fiction.

Describes the facilities and special attractions of Southern parks, and recommends spots for camping, fishing, and hiking

Lucy Snyder’s stories are the sort that carry you away to unusual places, usually dark ones, and this collection is a perfect example. As the follow-up to the Bram Stoker Award winning collection Soft Apocalypses, it contains plenty of darkly imaginative tales. Many of these stories, including the title piece, are heavily influenced by the work of H.P. Lovecraft and The King in Yellow mythos. They whisper madly among each other creating weird echoes. Like the black stars of theoretical astronomy they are dense entities born from polarization so strong that instead of collapsing into nothingness, a black hole, they instead form dark constellations burning dimly with spectral light.

Example in this ebook CHAPTER I JOAN GETS A JOB “I’ll be back in a minute,” Joan called over her shoulder to Mother, as she scurried around past the lilac bushes by the kitchen windows. Oh, suppose she were too late! Tim had gone into the Journal office, just as she had started doing the dishes. Joan rarely minded doing dishes, because the windows above the kitchen sink looked across at the Journal office and she could watch everything that went on over there. Usually, she lingered over the dishes, just as she hustled over the bed making because the bedrooms were on the other side of the house. But to-day, she had done the dishes in less than no time, because she wanted to be nearer the scene of action than the kitchen windows. She hurried now, though it was rather undignified for a person fourteen years old to run in a public place like this. That was the trouble with living right down town. No privacy. Joan thought of the rows and rows of new homes out at the end of Market Street, and then looked back at her own little home—also on Market Street. It was a tiny, red brick house, tucked in between the Journal office and the county court house, set back behind a space of...

***One of Publishers Weekly's ""Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2018""*** A group of mountain climbers, caught in the dark, fight to survive their descent; in the British countryside, hundreds of magpies ascend into the sky, higher and higher, until they seem to vanish into the heavens; a professor and his student track a zombie horde in order to research zombie behavior; an all-girl riding school has sinister secrets; a town rails in vain against a curse inflicted upon it by its founders. For more than three decades, editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow, winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, has had her finger on the pulse of the horror genre, introducing readers to writers whose tales can unnerve, frighten, and terrify. This anniversary volume, which collects the best stories from the first ten years of her annual The Best Horror of the Year anthology series, includes fiction from award-winning and critically acclaimed authors Neil Gaiman, Livia Llewellyn, Laird Barron, Gemma Files, Stephen Graham Jones, and many more. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction―Ellen Datlow Lowland Sea―Suzy McKee Charnas Wingless Beasts―Lucy Taylor The Nimble Men―Glen...

In Gunman, the Tucson Kid is hired by a businessman to track down and kill a band of outlaws who have kidnapped his daughter and taken her into the Badlands. In the Badlands, Tucson is captured by a tribe of rogue Comanche; it's only by passing a series of ordeals that he can win his freedom. When he finally reaches the lair of the outlaws, Tucson must use all of his fighting skills to defeat them.

There's just nowhere else but South Louisiana to find real knee-slapping, crowd-hooting Zydeco music. Even the big-city chefs can't cook up a Cajun meal the way they do at the roadside restaurants deep in the bayous of Acadiana. Likewise, no other guide matches the amount of in-depth information presented in Cajun Country Guide. It's a study of Cajuns that tells visitors how to find the sights, sounds, and flavors of one of America's most culturally unique regions. Take a vacation to a part of our own country that, in some places, didn't even speak English until nearly fifty years ago. While modern technology is weeding out some of the one-of-a-kind qualities of this subculture, not all of them are gone, or even hard to find, if you know how to hunt for them. And there are no better hunters than authors Macon Fry and Julie Posner. With the handy maps, reviews, and recommendations packed into the Cajun Country Guide, a trip to the bayous won't leave one feeling like a visitor, but more like a native who has come back home.

The "breathtakingly brilliant" novel by the author of Infinite Jest (New York Times) is a deeply compelling and satisfying story, as hilarious and fearless and original as anything Wallace ever wrote. The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has. The Pale King remained unfinished at the time of David Foster Wallace's death, but it is a deeply compelling and satisfying novel, hilarious and fearless and as original as anything Wallace ever undertook. It grapples directly with ultimate questions -- questions of life's meaning and of the value of work and society -- through characters imagined with the interior force and generosity that were Wallace's unique gifts. Along the way it suggests a new idea of heroism and commands infinite respect for one ...

Anthropologist Paul Ellery discovers that the small Texas town of Jefferson Springs is actually an imitation of small-town America created by the aliens who now offer him a chance to explore the universe.

HUMANITY IS TARNISHED. First he gave us Little Deaths: The Definitive Edition. Then he unleashed his unique brand of pain in The End in All Beginnings. Now Bram Stoker Award-nominated John F.D. Taff – modern horror's King of Pain – returns with Little Black Spots. Fifteen stories of dark horror fiction gathered together for the first time, exposing the delicate blemishes and sinister blots that tarnish the human condition. -- A man stumbles on a cult that glorifies spontaneous human combustion... -- A disgraced nature photographer applies his skills for a vile outcome... -- A darkened city parking structure becomes dangerously and malevolently alive... -- An innocent Halloween costume has a husband seeing his wife in a disturbing new light... -- A ruined man sees far too much of himself in his broken family... -- A young boy finds a mysterious bottle of liquid containing a deadly secret... -- And so much more. Little Black Spots is a beacon shining its light into some of life's most shadowy corners, revealing the dark stains that spatter all mankind. Praise for the horror writing of John F.D. Taff: "Of the current breed of authors riding the wave of digital liberation, John...

Dark Stars, edited by John F.D. Taff, is a tribute to horror’s longstanding short fiction legacy, featuring 12 terrifying original stories from today's most noteworthy authors. Within these pages you’ll find tales of dead men walking, an insidious secret summer fling, an island harboring unspeakable power, and a dark hallway that beckons. You’ll encounter terrible monsters—both human and supernatural—and be forever changed. The stories in Dark Stars run the gamut from traditional to modern, from dark fantasy to neo-noir, from explorations of beloved horror tropes to the unknown—possibly unknowable—threats. It’s all in here because it’s all out there, now, in horror. Dark Stars features all-new stories from the following award-winning authors and up-and-coming voices: Chesya Burke, Ramsey Campbell, Gemma Files, Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, Caroline Kepnes, John Langan, Livia Llewellyn, Josh Malerman, Usman T. Malik, Priya Sharma, and John F.D. Taff. Created as an homage to the 1980 classic horror anthology Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley, Dark Stars features an afterword from original contributor Ramsey Campbell—a poignant finale to this bone-chilling ...

This easy-to-use guide, completely revised and updated in clear, concise prose, features more than hundreds of sites in 31 states--solemn battlefields, gracious mansions, state parks, cemeteries, memorials, museums, and more. Specific directions, hours, and contact information help to plan the trip; evocative description and detailed maps help orient you when you're there. Also, boxed sidebars highlight select people and events of the Civil War.

AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME! A five-book collection of some of the most sweet and romantic Marietta, Montana love stories - all in one set and for a special price! Get five stories in one in this Father's Day Bundle, featuring heartwarming tales of family and romance. Brought to you by NY Times, USA Today and national bestselling authors. You'll want to read every story, a delightful reminder that dads hold a special place in our hearts. A Christmas Miracle for Daisy by Jane Porter Cormac Sheenan had no desire to become a family man, but when his goddaughter, Daisy, is orphaned, he adopts her and becomes a devoted single father. Precocious Daisy strikes up an unlikely friendship with Marietta’s seasonal Santa Claus, but Cormac's worried as Santa has promised her she’ll have a mommy for Christmas. Cormac's definitely not getting back together with his old flame Whitney Alder, b ut that’s exactly the kind of miracle our angelic Santa Claus has planned… What a Bride Wants by Kelly Hunter Ella Grace Emerson adores her father, but he keeps trying to marry her off to every eligible rancher in Montana. When he puts an ad in the paper on her behalf, Ella retaliates with one of...

The Origins Game Fair is proud and pleased to present Mystery!, our 2018 fiction anthology. The collection features stories by authors in the convention's Library program. This collection brings together fourteen tales of mystery set across genres, in a legion of times and places. Each author has provided a story which will give you an excellent opportunity to sample their skill and imagination.

In the midst of a beautiful summer, in a perfectly American suburban middle-class neighborhood, a faraway evil is lurking, waiting to strike the unsuspecting residents. First come the flashing lights, then the heavy rains, high winds, and finally a total blackout. But that's only the beginning… When the whipping black tentacles fall from the sky and begin snatching people at random, the denizens of Piccamore Way must discover the terrifying truth of what these beings have planned for the human race.

When Flynn was sixteen, he was a new kid in a new school. At first, he was ignored. Then he was bullied, tormented, and beaten. Chad Reese offered him a way out. He introduced him to Toddy and Bones. They made Flynn's enemies their own. Before long, he was the most popular kid at school. But there was a price. When he wouldn't pay it, they took something he loved. Now, thirty years later, Flynn is rich and successful. Everything he touches seems to turn into gold. Until he comes back home to discover that the payment for living the good life has been long overdue.

Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press

Shaddock Valley. A maximum security prison that houses the worst of the worst: drug gangs, psychopaths, rapists, gangters, and outlaw bikers. In a place like that, a skinny little kid like Danny Palmquist doesn't stand a chance. It doesn't take long before the hardtimers move in on him. Then they begin to die horribly. In locked cells. When the lights go out at Shaddock Valley, the nightmare begins. When Danny Palmquist goes to sleep, something else wakes up. Something primeval. Something bloodthirsty. And if you mess with Danny Palmquist, it will find you. And in the darkness, nothing can save you.

Christina is young, pretty and very alone. Her relationships seem cursed, each one turning to slow poison. Then one perfectly ordinary day, as an act of kindness, she pulls some weeds from an old derelict grave. Now she's no longer alone. For what has laid down in the cold black earth for decades has attached itself to her. For it, she will be the perfect wife and, God help her, the perfect mother.

The Long Black Coffin is a '67 GTO. A street-eater and a life-taker. Like an open grave, it's hungry for death. Vic Tamberlyn committed suicide in it. His son Kurt asphyxiated in it. Maybe there's no connection, but Kurt's best friend, Johnny Breede, doesn't believe it. He begins seeing dark connections, convinced that beneath the skin of the Coffin there beats a black, terrible heart. But it's even worse than he can imagine. For the Long Black Coffin has a history. And that history will lead Johnny into a web of murder, insanity, and sexual perversion. He'll learn gruesome family secrets that connect a decade-old series of child abductions to a primordial evil that lives on in the car in the form of a sadistic teenage girl. A girl whose mother was human, but whose father was anything but.

It comes out of the night. It kills with animal stealth and viciousness, but with an almost human capacity for cruelty and sadism. And this time, it has left a witness. Jim Duchane watched it kill his two best friends. Now tormented by their deaths and skeptical of his own memories of that awful night, he is approached by two fringe monster hunters who are desperate to track the beast. With his help, they will hunt down a monster of Native American folklore whose very existence belies a terrible biological reality. And it may be the worse mistake Jim has ever made.

Holly is not herself. She was once a pretty young woman, healthy and strong, completely devoted to her husband Richard. When she became pregnant, he was ecstatic. They would finally have a child to complete their love. But then Holly began to change. She began reading strange, old books and consorting with a mysterious midwife named Mrs. Crouch. Day by day, she becomes less like the woman Richard married, slowly degenerating into something evil and monstrous. The child she carries is not his. In fact, it's not even human. Holly is about to unleash hell into the world.

With a kid on the way, Boyd needed the job bad. But the idea of going underground at the Hobart Mine, down into the dark labyrinth of tunnels to get at the raw ore, left him with a brooding sense of unease. Maybe it was the fact that his father had died down in the mines or maybe it was something much worse. Digging a new drift down in Level #8, the lowest level of the mine, an immense shaft opens up. Boyd and a few others volunteer to explore it. Some 400 feet down, they find a passage that leads to an immense cavern from prehistory. A petrified world. A prehistoric graveyard. Then a cave-in traps them down there. In the darkness and dank shadows of a fossilized world, they realize they are not alone. Something has woken in the stone. Something ancient and terrible and coldly intelligent. And it is lonely.

Five months after her sister Gloria disappeared, Kitty Seevers receives a lock of Gloria's hair in the mail. No return address. Just a cryptic message that brings Kitty to the Bamboo Lounge and into the twisted realm of ventriloquist Ronny McBane and his dummy, Piggy. Kitty descends into a haunted place where reality is frayed, where the puppetmaster and puppet seem to have reversed roles—a nightmare place where a dummy moves and speaks when his master is nowhere near him. Kitty suspects not only is there something wrong with McBane and his dummy, but a greater evil is at work as those named by the dummy are dying horrible deaths. And now she has been named by the same soul-eater that destroyed her sister.

Birch Street. A beautiful neighborhood on a beautiful summer day. Then raw meat falls from the sky. People are at first offended, then intrigued. Once tasting it, they can eat nothing else. It becomes an addiction that owns them body and soul, releasing pent-up frustrations, secret desires, and nameless horror. And when the meat runs out,the monsters are loose on Birch Street. Into this hell zone of starvation, rot, and worms comes a conflicted, traumatized young woman. She’s returning home after a long, painful absence. She alone broods over the secret of the meat. Through her is deliverance from starvation. But only at the most horrific price.

Six friends are returning home from a night out when they end up in a town called Stokes. They discover they are trapped there, as Stokes does not really exist. The actual town had burned to the ground more than fifty years ago. The Stokes they are in is a nightmare version of the former town, engineered by a deranged and undead mind, a supernatural machine of wrath that will destroy them one by one … unless they submit to its dominance and become living dolls.

The dark feast is ready. The cauldron is smoldering. Ladle yourself a full of bowl of Bone Marrow Stew and savor every mouthful of gut and grue, every crawling strand of meat and maggoty bite of flesh. The gravy is thick, rich, and noxious, blood-seeped and foul beyond measure. The aroma that of bone dust and corpse slime, insects and puppet eyes, snake oil and the bile of resurrection. Finish every last drop. You have been warned. Stories included in this collection: REIGN OF THE EATER RED SEA THE EYES OF HOWARD CURLIX THE CHATTERING OF TINY TEETH NOT SUGAR, SPICE, OR ANYTHING NICE PIT CREW LONG IN THE TOOTH THE RESURRECTION MAN LITTLE MISS WICKED THE ARCHITECT OF PESTILENCE NIGHT AND FOG QUEEN OF SPADES THE WRECK OF THE GHOST ONE DARK SEPTEMBER NIGHT… MIGRATION THE PUPPETEER THE LEGEND OF BLACK BETTY