He builds his home beneath it and takes the love of his life, a beautiful soprano, under his wing. Edgar Allan Poe was a great American writer during the early 19th century. Poe was one of the earliest authors of detective fiction and short stories. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote.
And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old. Reclusive author Vida Winter, famous for her collection of twelve enchanting stories, has spent the past six decades penning a series of alternate lives for herself. Now old and ailing, she is ready to reveal the truth about her extraordinary existence and the violent and tragic past she has kept secret for so long. Calling on Margaret Lea, a young biographer troubled by her own painful history, Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good.
Together, Margaret and Vida confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves. Demonstrating once again her gift for spellbinding stoyrtelling, Anne Rice makes real a family of witches—a family given to poetry and incest, to murder and philsophy, a family that is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous and seductive being. The story is sometimes considered an early example of detective fiction with the hero, Walter Hartright, employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives.
One of the strangest and most unforgettable eighteenth-century novels, Vathek is a wild Gothic fantasy whose sensuous imagination and grotesque comedy have inspired writers from Byron to Lovecraft. The Caliph Vathek is dissolute and debauched, and hungry for knowledge. When the mysterious Giaour offers him boundless treasure and unrivalled power he is willing to sacrifice his god, the lives of innocent children, and his own soul to satisfy his obsession.
An eating disorder starves her. She begins hearing voices. At once an unforgettable mystery and a meditation on race, nationality, and family legacies, White is for Witching is a boldly original, terrifying, and elegant novel by a prodigious talent. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue, Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney.
In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity. In this celebrated work, his only novel, Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in lateth-century England.
Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity.
Aubrey, a young Englishman, meets Lord Ruthven, a man of mysterious origins who has entered London society. Aubrey accompanies Ruthven to Rome, but leaves him after Ruthven seduces the daughter of a mutual acquaintance. Ianthe tells Aubrey about the legends of the vampire. Ruthven arrives at the scene and shortly thereafter Ianthe is killed by a vampire.
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Aubrey does not connect Ruthven with the murder and rejoins him in his travels. The pair is attacked by bandits and Ruthven is mortally wounded. Before he dies, Ruthven makes Aubrey swear an oath that he will not mention his death or anything else he knows about Ruthven for a year and a day.
Looking back, Aubrey realizes that everyone whom Ruthven met ended up suffering.
Tales of Horror and Suspense
Aubrey returns to London and is amazed when Ruthven appears shortly thereafter, alive and well. Arthur Kipps is an up-and-coming London solicitor who is sent to Crythin Gifford—a faraway town in the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway—to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client, Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. Psychologically terrifying and deliciously eerie, The Woman in Black is a remarkable thriller of the first rate. With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs.
Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten—a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs.
With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. The Castle of Otranto is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever associated with the effects that Walpole pioneered. Professing to be a translation of a mysterious Italian tale from the darkest Middle Ages, the novel tells of Manfred, prince of Otranto, whose fear of an ancient prophecy sets him on a course of destruction.
After the grotesque death of his only son, Conrad, on his wedding day, Manfred determines to marry the bride-to-be.
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The virgin Isabella flees through a castle riddled with secret passages. Chilling coincidences, ghostly visitations, arcane revelations, and violent combat combine in a heady mix that is both chilling and terrifying. A best-seller in its day and a potent influence on Sade, Poe, and other purveyors of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic horror, The Mysteries of Udolpho remains one of the most important works in the history of European fiction. Aubuert is imprisoned by her evil guardian, Count Montoni, in his gloomy medieval fortress in the Appenines, terror becomes the order of the day.
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord.
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There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw; and how Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. She wrote just one strikingly innovative novel, Wuthering Heights, but was also a gifted and intense poet.
Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, 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.
It recounts the diabolical decline of Ambrosio, a Capuchin superior, who succumbs first to temptations offered by a young girl who has entered his monastery disguised as a boy, and continues his descent with increasingly depraved acts of sorcery, murder, incest and torture. Combining sensationalism with acute psychological insight, this masterpiece of Gothic fiction is a powerful exploration of how violent and erotic impulses can break through the barriers of social and moral restraint. Its supernatural appeal has spawned a host of film and stage adaptations, and more than a century after its initial publication, it continues to hold readers spellbound.
The Strange Case of Dr. Hyde is one of the best known works of the renowned 19th century author Robert Louis Stevenson. This early foray into science fiction delves into the battle between good and evil in its most ubiquitous form. Jekyll, like every human being, struggles with good and evil within his own personality. He seeks to purify his soul through scientific means, concocting potions intended to refine his loftier qualities by separating them from his base impulses.
At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein. Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises rofound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human?
What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever. A-B , Last Name: Titles Appear On 1 List Each. A Dream Within a Dream. A Great and Terrible Beauty. Psychotherapist Eric Lavender loves living the lifestyle of a Manhattan bachelor. But when he meets Colleen Golden—a single mom and divorce lawyer from outside the city—he begins to sing a different tune. Under Colleen's influence, Eric turns into not just an honest man but a father and suburbanite.
Colleen has a past far grimmer than anyone could've imagined, and it'll take a professional fiasco to bring her true nature into the light. But is her unraveling caused by madness—or something even more terrifying and powerful? Enter Jonah, a man they hardly know, but whose arrival may destroy them entirely.
It doesn't take long for the couple to realize Jonah is more monster than victim—and that he knows more about them than any normal stranger should.
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Thayer keeps tensions high, as the Jensens try to win their visitor's messed-up, psychological games. But despite her personal problems, Karen's powers of intuition haven't been dulled, and she's convinced the answer lies within its seventh victim. Can she solve the case in time to stop the killer and save her career?
Detective Phil Brennan and psychologist Marina Esposito have made a shocking discovery inside an abandoned house: A cage made of bones, which holds a feral child. Now, they're in the middle of a grisly serial killer case that has stumped police for 30 years. In a terrifying marriage of horror and psychological suspense, Tania Carver's novel keeps the chills and surprises coming as the duo confronts a dark and elusive evil.
Get a free ebook! The basis for the movie adaptation starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche, Damage is a masterful psychological thriller that will make your blood run hot and cold. Purely by luck, Steve Harris did not meet the same fate of his mother and brother, who were murdered by his father in Since then, Steve has tried to move on with his life, though a new true crime book threatens to open old wounds. Still, Steve cooperates with author Rebecca Soltero, as she digs deeper into the events of that fateful day.
What ensues is an eye-opening investigation that reveals painful truths about the crime, Steve's father, and the family he loved and lost. From the creator and showrunner of the BBC series Luther comes a gritty thriller about promises and second chances. Diagnosed with terminal cancer and approaching death, Kenny Drummond sets out to right all his past wrongs.
But when he reaches the name of his former schoolmate Callie Barton, all his attempts to locate her come up empty.
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Kenny vows to find out what happened to Callie—but does he have enough time? Loosely based on the Parker-Hulme murder seen in the Kate Winslet film Heavenly Creatures , Harriet Said stars two bored teenage girls who go embark a disturbing mission: They're going to woo the much-older and married Peter Biggs. But how far will they go to achieve their goal? Well, it's up to whatever Harriet says—and what she says will surely incite life-shattering terror. Fans of the movie Single White Female will recognize a familiar trope in this thrilling novel by Gillian White: Martha and Jennie are neighbors and occasional frenemies, with Martha on top and Jennie struggling to fit in.
But when the tables are suddenly turned, this harmless friendship turns into a dark obsession that doesn't end well. Helen Stone's year-old protagonist is an anti-heroine straight out of the Amy Dunne handbook: To her insufferable boss, Stephen, Jane is just a normal Midwesterner—hard-working, reliable, and good-natured. While she plays the role of his dutiful manager, she secretly plots his demise—and as far as she's concerned, the more brutal, the better. In fact, they're lurking in her own backyard