Horror
Carmilla : the first vampire
Amy Chu
GRAPHIC NOVEL Chu
Diverse Characters, Fantasy, Horror, LGBTQ+, Graphic Novels, Mystery
"Before Dracula, before Nosferatu, there was...CARMILLA. At the height of the Lunar New Year in 1990s New York City, an idealistic social worker turns detective when she discovers young, homeless LGBTQ+ women are being murdered and no one, especially the police, seems to care. A series of clues points her to Carmilla's, a mysterious nightclub in the heart of her neighborhood, Chinatown. There she falls for the next likely target, landing her at the center of a real-life horror story-and face-to-face with illusions about herself, her life, and her hidden past. Inspired by the gothic novel that started a genre and layered with dark Chinese folklore, this queer, feminist murder mystery is a tale of identity, obsession and fateful family secrets"--
My brother's keeper
Tim Powers
SCIENCE FICTION Powers Tim
Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Horror
"This is a ghost story. It is a story about werewolves, and things that go bump in the night. It is a story of an ill-fated land, the pathless moors of Northern England so well chronicled in Wuthering Heights. And it is the story of a real family whose destiny it is to deal with this darkly glamorous and dangerous world. When young Emily Brontë helps a wounded man she finds at the foot of an ancient pagan shrine in the remote Yorkshire moors, her life becomes contentiously entwined with his. He is Alcuin Curzon, embittered member of a sect working to eradicate the resurgent plague of lycanthropy in Europe and northern England. But Emily's father, curate of the Haworth village church, is responsible for having unwittingly brought a demonic werewolf god to Yorkshire forty years ago-and it is taking possession of Emily's beloved but foolish and dissolute brother. Curzon must regard Emily's family as a dire threat. In spite of being at deadly odds, Emily and Curzon find themselves thrown together in fighting werewolves, confronting pagan gods, even saving each other from the lures of moorland demons. And in a final battle that sweeps from the haunted village of Haworth to a monstrous shrine far out on the moors, the two of them must be reluctant allies against an ancient power that seems likely to take their souls as well as their lives" --
Once again, Powers crafts an engaging, supernatural tale involving well known literary figures, in this case the Bronte sisters. Also thrown into the mix are their father and brother, and the consequences of missteps, misdirection and misdeeds with worldly and other worldly implications. -Paul
Hell bent
Leigh Bardugo
SCIENCE FICTION Bardugo, Leigh
Fantasy, Horror
"Alex Stern returns in #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent, another tale of murder and dark magic set among the Ivy League elite."
Hell Bent was worth the wait! If you enjoyed Ninth House or the Grishaverse series I highly recommend Hell Bent. -Casey
How to sell a haunted house
Grady Hendrix
FICTION Hendrix, Grady
Horror
"New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a hilarious and terrifying new novel that explores the way your past-and your family-can haunt you like nothing else.... Louise's parents have passed away, and she's returning to the small Southern town where she grew up to get their house ready to sell. It means she'll have to spend time with her younger brother-and their old grudges make that a terrifying prospect. But childhood hurts pale in comparison to the dangers posed by what still lives inside the house"--
Equal parts hilarious and horrifying. I would love to see this turned into a campy movie! -Mari
Moon of the Crusted Snow
Waubgeshig Rice
With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision. Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.
This book was very freaky and a wonderful book to read during a cold October. I'd recommend it if you're interested in horror, but it also doesn't go too far into that direction, perhaps it's more atmospheric horror than actual. But the tone of the piece had me shivering in more ways than one. -Zach
Rock paper scissors
Alice Feeney
FICTION Feeney Alice
Fiction, Horror, Thriller
"Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney. Think you know the person you married? Think again ... Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can't recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts--paper, cotton, pottery, tin--and each year Adam's wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn't randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn't want them to live happily ever after. Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget"--
This was my spooky read for the season. While the eeriness stems mostly from a couple that struggles to be honest with each other, the twists and turns in the plot will leave any reader unsettled. The characters are haunted by bad memories, the expectations they set upon themselves, and the constant feeling of disconnection from each other, but is someone or something haunting the church they are spending the weekend in? -Mari
Took : a ghost story graphic novel
Mary Downing Hahn
jGRAPHIC NOVEL Hahn
Horror, Graphic Novels
"They say that a ghost witch lives in the woods, up on Brewster's Hill. They say her companion, Bloody Bones, has a pig skull for a face and stands taller than a man, his skeleton gleaming white in the moonlight. They say that the witch takes young girls, and no one ever sees them again. Daniel doesn't believe the stories about the witch or her beast. He figures the kids on the bus are just trying to scare him, since he's new. But when his sister, Erica, disappears into the woods one day and doesn't come home, Daniel knows something is terribly wrong. Has Erica been 'took'?"--Back cover.
The two most common requests I hear on the bookmobile are "where are your comics," and "do you have any scary books?" Mary Downing Hahn has always been a favorite of mine for ghost stories, so I was so excited to see one of her novels turned into a graphic novel. This creepy story is even creepier with illustrations! And now it can reach a whole new audience of kids who enjoy graphic novels! -Mari
Interview with the Vampire
Anne Rice
Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Horror
The Vampire Chronicles, Book 1 The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author “A magnificent, compulsively readable thriller . . . Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire.”—Chicago Tribune Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.
Added by Alexander
House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski
FICTION/Danielewski, Mark Z.
Fiction, Horror
“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York TimesYears ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices.The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
Added by Alexander
Scary stories complete set Scary stories to tell in the dark, more scary stories to tell in the dark, and scary stories 3
Alvin Schwartz, 1927-1992
The iconic anthology series of horror tales that's now a feature film! The three Scary Stories books come together in this eBook collection to form a timeless collection of chillingly scary tales and legends. Folklorist Alvin Schwartz offers up some of the most alarming tales of horror, dark revenge, and supernatural events of all time. The eBooks in this collection feature Stephen Gammell's artwork from the original Scary Stories books. Read if you dare! Includes Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories, and Scary Stories 3
These books are full of classic scary stories. I read them as a child and they still hold up today. I'm not really scared of supernatural stuff but the story about the girl that has spiders hatch from a boil still gives me nightmares. Check them out on Hoopla! -Mykle
A cool reimagining of the 1872 classic "Carmilla" that takes queer vampire murder mystery to a new level by incorporating Chinese folklore in the heart of 1990s New York. Perfect for the dark season! -Annie