Lighthouse Hauntings
This book features twelve never before published stories of the supernatural that all feature lighthouses as their setting and focus. Within that framework, however, these contemporary authors bring tremendous variety to their plotlines and their characters. Some stories are creepy, others mystifying or metaphysical, but all are vividly memorable.
The Woman in White Marble
Drake Ramsey is a Californian news reporter who wants to write the great American science fiction novel. Dumped by his girlfriend, Drake finds himself with nothing to lose, and he searches online for a secluded place to work. Alone in a dreary English coastal town, consumed by boredom and loneliness, he is lured up the road to the Skinburness Hotel, where he finds inspiration in a beer and the atmosphere. Drake senses this is the place to harness his creative genius, without any idea of what awaits him in the near future. After a few visits, Drake is befriended by the hotel manager-just as a staff member is found mysteriously dead. Drake, ever the streetwise reporter, senses a story and begins to investigate. The last person to have seen the dead man alive is Zuri Manyika, a stunningly beautiful hotel guest. Now Drake must determine whether Zuri was involved, all the while wrestling with his undeniable attraction to her. Unfortunately, this is not the first death in the hotel-nor will it be the last-unless Drake finds a way to stop a killer on a quest for revenge. In this eerie tale, an American news reporter suddenly immersed in a suspicious death investigation in a remote corner of England is about to discover that every mystery comes with an unexpected twist.
The Woman in White Marble
Drake Ramsey is a Californian news reporter who wants to write the great American science fiction novel. Dumped by his girlfriend, Drake finds himself with nothing to lose, and he searches online for a secluded place to work. Alone in a dreary English coastal town, consumed by boredom and loneliness, he is lured up the road to the Skinburness Hotel, where he finds inspiration in a beer and the atmosphere. Drake senses this is the place to harness his creative genius, without any idea of what awaits him in the near future. After a few visits, Drake is befriended by the hotel manager-just as a staff member is found mysteriously dead. Drake, ever the streetwise reporter, senses a story and begins to investigate. The last person to have seen the dead man alive is Zuri Manyika, a stunningly beautiful hotel guest. Now Drake must determine whether Zuri was involved, all the while wrestling with his undeniable attraction to her. Unfortunately, this is not the first death in the hotel-nor will it be the last-unless Drake finds a way to stop a killer on a quest for revenge. In this eerie tale, an American news reporter suddenly immersed in a suspicious death investigation in a remote corner of England is about to discover that every mystery comes with an unexpected twist.
Lonely Haunts
This volume brings together two classic ghost story collections. The first, Six Ghost Stories by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson (1919) is an antiquarian ghost story delight in the vein of M. R. James. These are fully developed tales of ordinary lives into which the supernatural creeps. The second, Mrs. H. D. Everett's The Death Mask and Other Ghosts (1920), is a fun and varied collection of fourteen shorter ghost stories, with family haunts, communication from the other side, malevolent curses, and more. These are an excellent addition to the ghost story bookshelf.
Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans
"He struck a match to look at his watch. In the flare of the light they saw a young woman just at Pitot's elbow--a young woman dressed all in black, with pale gold hair, and a baby sleeping on her shoulder. She glided to the edge of the bridge and stepped noiselessly off into the black waters."--from Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans Ghosts are said to wander along the rooftops above New Orleans' Royal Street, the dead allegedly sing sacred songs in St. Louis Cathedral, and the graveyard tomb of a wealthy madam reportedly glows bright red at night. Local lore about such supernatural sightings, as curated by Jeanne deLavigne in her classic Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans, finds the phantoms of bitter lovers, vengeful slaves, and menacing gypsies haunting nearly every corner of the city, from the streets of the French Quarter to Garden District mansions. Originally printed in 1944, all forty ghost stories and the macabre etchings of New Orleans artist Charles Richards appear in this new edition. Drawing largely on popular legend dating back to the 1800s, deLavigne provides vivid details of old New Orleans with a cast of spirits that represent the ethnic m矇lange of the city set amid period homes, historic neighborhoods, and forgotten taverns. Combining folklore, newspaper accounts, and deLavigne's own voice, these phantasmal tales range from the tragic--brothers, lost at sea as children, haunt a chapel on Thomas Street in search of their mother--to graphic depictions of torture, mutilation, and death. Folklorist and foreword contributor Frank A. de Caro places the writer and her work in context for modern readers. He uncovers new information about deLavigne's life and describes her book's pervasive lingering influence on the Crescent City's culture today.
Ghost Town
From the stars of the SyFy network's popular show Ghost Hunters, the second novel in a new spine-tingling supernatural series. WELCOME TO EXETER, THE "MOST HAUNTED TOWN IN AMERICA," thanks to a deadly flood that unleashed an army of ghosts decades ago. And when ghost trackers Amber, Drew, and Trevor attend a conference during Exeter's spookiest week of the year, the ghouls grow restless. First, an innocent bookstore worker is mysteriously killed, setting off a string of strange deaths that point to a shadowy spirit known as the Dark Lady. With a paranormal revolution ensuing, the team must stop the twisted bloodbath. But a past horror involving the death of a former teammate has them spinning faster than a specter in a storm, especially when they learn that it's his ghost who awakened the Dark Lady. Now, with their lives on the line and the entire town at stake, the three must decide whether to trust the spirit of their old friend or to finally put a stake through his heart.
The Shadowy Horses
"I've loved every one of Susanna's books! She has bedrock research and a butterfly's delicate touch with characters--sure recipe for historical fiction that sucks you in and won't let go!"--DIANA GABALDON, #1 New York Times bestselling author of OutlanderArchaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea, in this darkly romantic novel of historical fiction by bestselling author Susanna Kearsley.The invincible ninth Roman Legion marches from York to fight the Northern tribes, and then vanishes from the pages of history. When Verity Grey goes looking for them in modern-day Scotland, she may find more than she bargained for.Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it--not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.Here on the windswept Scottish shores, Verity may find the answer to one of the great unsolved mysteries of the historical record. Or she may uncover secrets from the romantic past that were buried for a reason.Fans of historical romance will be completely transported by The Shadowy Horses, an exquisite novel of Scottish historical fiction.Also by Susanna Kearsley: The Winter SeaA Desperate FortuneThe FirebirdThe Rose GardenThe Splendour FallsSeason of StormsMarianaNamed of the DragonBellewether
Spooky Campfire Stories
A portable and family-friendly collection of some of the most classic and entertaining scary stories--perfect to share around the campfire. These stories can be read aloud or easily retold; either way, your fellow campers may want to sleep with the light on.
The Woman in Black
The classic ghost story from the author of The Mist in the Mirror a chilling tale about a menacing spectre haunting a small English town. 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. Mrs. Drablow's house stands at the end of the causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows. The routine business trip he anticipated quickly takes a horrifying turn when he finds himself haunted by a series of mysterious sounds and images--a rocking chair in a deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and, most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black. Psychologically terrifying and deliciously eerie, The Woman in Black is a remarkable thriller of the first rate. The basis for the major motion picture starring Daniel Radcliffe.
Sacred Evil
A Terror Born of Jack the Ripper The details of the crime scene are no coincidence. The body--a promising starlet--has been battered, bloodied and then discarded between two of Manhattan's oldest graveyards. One look and Detective Jude Crosby recognizes the tableau--a re-creation of Jack the Ripper's gruesome work. But he also sees something beyond the actions of a mere copycat. Something more dangerous...and unexplainable. As the city seethes with suspicion, Jude calls on Whitney Tremont, a member of the country's preeminent paranormal investigating team, to put the speculation to rest. Yet when Whitney and Jude delve deeper, what they discover is more shocking than either could have predicted...and twice as sinister....
Lost
"A brilliant, perceptive, and deeply moving fable." --Boston Sunday Globe Publishers Weekly calls Gregory Maguire's Lost "a deftly written, compulsively readable modern-day ghost story." Brilliantly weaving together the literary threads of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, and the Jack the Ripper stories, the bestselling author of The Wicked Years canon creates a captivating fairy tale for the modern world. With Lost, Maguire--who re-imagined a darker, more dangerous Oz, and inspired the creation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway blockbuster Wicked--delivers a haunting tale of shadows and phantoms and things going bump in the night, confirming his reputation as "one of contemporary fiction's most assured myth-makers" (Kirkus Reviews).
The Tale of Halcyon Crane
A young woman travels alone to a remote island to uncover a past she never knew was hers in this thrilling modern ghost story When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James's mailbox, her life is upended. Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier. But it turns out that her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie's father have taken her away from Madlyn? What really happened to her family thirty years ago? In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place where her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes. The stiff islanders fix her first with icy stares and then unabashed amazement as they recognize why she looks so familiar, and Hallie quickly realizes her family's dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange place. But not everyone greets her with such a chilly reception--a coffee-shop owner and the family's lawyer both warm to Hallie, and the possibility of romance blooms. And then there's the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her--maybe it's the eerie atmosphere or maybe it's the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can't shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen . . . In The Tale of Halcyon Crane, Wendy Webb has created a haunting story full of delicious thrills, vibrant characters, and family secrets.
Cry at Dusk
Daring and impulsive, Laney McCall lived for the moment. And now she was dead. Her battered body had washed ashore in mist-enshrouded waters below desolate Crybaby Bridge. An accident, they said. After three months of plaguing misgivings, Laura Graham, Laney's cousin and lifelong friend, returns to their small hometown of Redpath, South Carolina, and her high school reunion, determined to find some answers to Laney's puzzling death. When a search of Laney's bungalow reveals a locket belonging to the long-dead child Amanda, Laura realizes she is enmeshed in not one mystery, but two. Then, at a class picnic at Willowbend, home of the locally prominent Squires family, she is lured to the cupola by a haunting music box tune. Later, the same fragile song entices her to follow an elusive figure in white to Amanda's lonely grave in the Squires Family cemetery. "I'm going to meet Amanda," Laney had said before she died. Had she discovered a dangerous secret? Now, in what she assumed was the sheltering town of her childhood, Laura must uncover the secret of Amanda's life before she can come face to face with her irrational fear of Crybaby Bridge and the truth about her cousin's death.
Paranormal Agency
A black image engulfed the television screen for a full second, revealing narrowed slits over black pupils and a wide mouth. Alison McCarthy had seen it before. It was the face of death. Ever since the traumatic death of her little sister when she was sixteen, Alison has had a special gift-the ability to see the dead. After opening her own business, McCarthy's Paranormal Agency, Alison is frequently summoned to use her abilities to investigate hauntings and exorcise poltergeists. She is hired by Joshua Burt, who pleads with her to help convince his sister Emily that her house is not haunted. He fears that because of a traumatizing experience, his sister is hearing and seeing things that aren't really there. As Alison begins her investigation, she begins to notice strange and unnatural things happening that go far beyond the normal realm of the dead. Meanwhile, the ghost of Gregory Jones is following Alison around and soon partners with her to solve Emily's case. As Alison struggles to understand the larger mysteries that surround her, she is only just beginning to understand the power of the Soulless.
Paranormal Agency
A black image engulfed the television screen for a full second, revealing narrowed slits over black pupils and a wide mouth. Alison McCarthy had seen it before. It was the face of death. Ever since the traumatic death of her little sister when she was sixteen, Alison has had a special gift-the ability to see the dead. After opening her own business, McCarthy's Paranormal Agency, Alison is frequently summoned to use her abilities to investigate hauntings and exorcise poltergeists. She is hired by Joshua Burt, who pleads with her to help convince his sister Emily that her house is not haunted. He fears that because of a traumatizing experience, his sister is hearing and seeing things that aren't really there. As Alison begins her investigation, she begins to notice strange and unnatural things happening that go far beyond the normal realm of the dead. Meanwhile, the ghost of Gregory Jones is following Alison around and soon partners with her to solve Emily's case. As Alison struggles to understand the larger mysteries that surround her, she is only just beginning to understand the power of the Soulless.
Haints
How thin is the veil between myth and reality? Haints' ghost stories are the legends and lore of the Cumberland Plateau. Using the Cumberland River, which winds its way through Brewster County as binding twine, Nash Black weaves yarns of the probable and the plausible. Scientific fact, recorded history, and ecological observation exist side by side with superstition, cultural folklore, and myths. You will ask what is fact and what is fiction as each man tells his story according to his own understanding of the world of Haints. The stories are graphic examples of an oral tradition as old as the mountains of their origin when story telling was both an important means of passing on history and an evening's entertainment. "Wow, what a gripping, spell-binding collection." -- Paula Vaccarino "I read "Don't Go There," and truly think it is a fantastic story, as it sounds so realistic." -- Dr. Lynwood Montell, Ghosts Along the Cumberland: Deathlore of the Kentucky Foothills, Kentucky's Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts, and other collections.
Stardust Dads
The e-mail Danny and Allison read on their new computer in 1996 looks no different from the millions of others received by Web users around the world, with one glaring exception--it was sent by their dads who died during the 1970s. While residing in the afterworld at an amenity-laden paradise called Midway Manor, guitar-strumming Mickey Parks and piano-playing Lloyd Wallace monitor and manipulate the lives of their adult children on earth from the mid-'70s through the 1990s. Tampering with the facility's sophisticated computer, the dads thrust Mickey's daughter Allison and Lloyd's son Danny into a passionate but sometimes stormy relationship-a relationship steeped in Danny's heavy drinking and entangled in the often-zany world of men's adventure magazine publishing. After carefully implementing a plan to send their son and daughter a gift of knowledge that could enrich their lives forever, the dads' brief contact is cut short. They are banished to another destination in the afterworld, but not before they impart indisputable proof of life after death--and unwittingly put Danny's and Allison's earthbound lives on the line.
Stardust Dads
The e-mail Danny and Allison read on their new computer in 1996 looks no different from the millions of others received by Web users around the world, with one glaring exception--it was sent by their dads who died during the 1970s. While residing in the afterworld at an amenity-laden paradise called Midway Manor, guitar-strumming Mickey Parks and piano-playing Lloyd Wallace monitor and manipulate the lives of their adult children on earth from the mid-'70s through the 1990s. Tampering with the facility's sophisticated computer, the dads thrust Mickey's daughter Allison and Lloyd's son Danny into a passionate but sometimes stormy relationship-a relationship steeped in Danny's heavy drinking and entangled in the often-zany world of men's adventure magazine publishing. After carefully implementing a plan to send their son and daughter a gift of knowledge that could enrich their lives forever, the dads' brief contact is cut short. They are banished to another destination in the afterworld, but not before they impart indisputable proof of life after death--and unwittingly put Danny's and Allison's earthbound lives on the line.
The Ghosts Among Us
The Ghosts Among Us is the fifth book in Rita Arnold's series of supernatural phenomena in Southwest Ohio. In this latest book, Rita expands the many tales of spirits to include not only Darke County, but also Preble and Randolph counties. It seems that this part of Ohio has a history whose inhabitants just can't leave it behind. Some ghosts are friendly, some downright unnerving, but the frequent encounters with those still in the flesh will leave readers wondering about the unseen residents of small town America.
The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories
Whether viewed as a subtle, self-conscious exploration of the haunted house of Victorian culture, filled with echoes of sexual and social unease, or simply as "the most hopelessly evil story we have ever read," The Turn of the Screw is probably the most famous of ghostly tales and certainly the most eerily equivocal. This new edition includes three rarely reprinted ghost stories from the 1890s, "Sir Edmund Orme," "Owen Wingrave," and "The Friends of the Friends," as well as relevant extracts from James's notebooks and journals. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Native Ghost Stories
Embark on a journey into the spirit world of First Nations peoples with some of the most intriguing stories of ghost spirits in nature and the underworld. These stories have been passed on orally through countless generations and are drawn from across the continent.
An American Haunting
Long before the Blair Witch was fabricated to scare audiences, the Bell Witch did it for real in Tennessee. An American Haunting tells her story--the basis for the 2005 horror film starring Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek. Known throughout Tennessee as "Old Kate," the Bell Witch took up residence with John Bell's family in 1818. It was a cruel and noisy spirit, given to rapping and gnawing sounds before it found its voices. With these voices and its supernatural acts, the Bell Witch tormented the Bell family. This extraordinary book recounts the only documented case in U.S. history when a spirit actually caused a man's death. The local schoolteacher, Richard Powell, witnessed the strange events and recorded them for his daughter. His astonishing manuscript fell into the hands of novelist Brent Monahan, who has prepared the book for publication. Members of the Bell family have previously provided information on this fascinating case, but this book recounts the tale with novelistic vigor and verve. It is truly chilling.
Texas Ghost Stories
Storytelling World/Storytelling Magazine Award Winner "I love a book that gives me what it promises, and this one does: fifty real ghost stories, drawn from a variety of sources and told in as many voices, written so as to simulate the language and delivery of a face-to-face performance, and artfully, delightfully done."--Review of Texas Books "Scarcely a page will you turn in this collection of ghost stories in Texas without encountering a disembodied hand or a fang baby--creatures guaranteed to shock the shell of an armadillo. . . . Whether you read the tales out loud or spin them around a campfire, you--and your audience--will be spooked. And you'll never again saunter along a dark, deserted riverbank late at night."--Patti Ross, San Antonio Express-News Some humorous, some haunting, and some just late-night terrifying, these stories, gathered by two favorite Texas tellers, span a rich cultural heritage from the earliest Spanish explorers to the present, from La Llorona (the Weeping Woman) to the vanishing hitchhiker. Introduced by John O. West and John L. Davis, two of Texas' most respected folklorists, the stories include tales adapted by European settlers to their new southwestern settings, more historically rooted legends about such early pioneers as Britt Bailey of the Gulf Coast prairie and Josiah Wilbarger of Austin, and those notorious contemporary cautionary tales known as urban legends. With two appendixes addressing selection, learning, and telling of stories as well as sources and scholarship, Texas Ghost Stories is a full-service compendium for tellers, teachers, readers, and collectors. Celebrating both the blending and the diversity of Texan cultures through the timeless stories we love to be scared by, it is a treasury for all Texans and for those who really want to know us.
The Bell Witch
Known throughout Tennessee as "Old Kate," the Bell Witch took up residence with John Bell's family in 1818. It was a cruel and noisy spirit, given to rapping and gnawing sounds before it found its voices. With these voices and its supernatural acts, the Bell Witch tormented the Bell family. This extraordinary book recounts the only documented case in U.S. history when a spirit actually caused a man's death. The local schoolteacher, Richard Powell, witnessed the strange events and recorded them for his daughter. His astonishing manuscript fell into the hands of novelist Brent Monahan, who has prepared the book for publication. Members of the Bell family have previously provided information on this fascinating case, but this book recounts the tale with novelistic vigor and verve. It is truly chilling.
