Horror, ghost stories and supernatural fiction

Book SynopsisJim Rook gets the shock of his life when he returns for a new semester to find something more than unpleasant in his classroom.Jim Rook, remedial English teacher and psychic, knows it''s going to be a bad day. He nearly runs over someone dressed entirely in black - but why did they walk right in the middle of the college driveway? And who just walks off into the fog after nearly being run over? But when a splash of blood appears on a questionnaire Jim realizes that his day isn''t going to be merely bad: it''s going to be the day from hell. Perhaps quite literally . . .

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Book SynopsisWhat would happen if the water ran out?Ex-Marine Martin Makepeace only learned the truth of the maxim that you don''t know what you have until you lose it, the day his wife walked out on him with their two kids. Now, the social worker does his best to take care of those who need it most.But good deeds mean nothing when the water just . . . disappears. It hasn''t rained for months, and now, in the height of summer, the taps run dry. And not, as they first suspect, because of a burst water main. In the deprived areas where Martin works, the water''s been intentionally cut off. And it''s his job, he discovers, to tell the families he cares for not to panic.Martin soon has more problems than lack of water. His daughter is sick with fever. And as riots over bottled water start, Martin''s teenage son is framed, and arrested, for a terrible crime. Soon Martin is left with no choice but to take drastic action to save his family, while corrupt politicians try and use the situation to their advantage, with calamitous results . . .

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Book SynopsisIndiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness"."My baby boy..." she whispers before dying. Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an axe, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of America's greatest president for the first time - all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of the nation.Trade ReviewEven bookworms are in love with Seth Grahame Smith's ingenious 'mash up' fiction. * The Sunday Telegraph *Evocative...Grahame-Smith [is] a lively, fluent writer with a sharp sense of tone and pace. * Time *Not just the Lincoln biography we've all been waiting for. It's also the funniest, most action-packed and weirdly well-researched account of the Civil War you'll probably read in a long time. Grahame-Smith could be poised to become the Howard Zinn of vampire-related alterna-history. * Vanity Fair *Grahame-Smith does an excellent job of capturing the spirit of this style of story-telling, mixing historically accurate anecdotes with entries from Lincoln's fictional secret journal, weaving the vampire elements into the story in a manner that's quite believable. * Wired *Seth Grahame-Smith is an excellent writer whose prose raises Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter a step above others of its genre...[He] does such an excellent job blending the facts of Lincoln's life into the story that it is sometimes hard to determine fact from fiction...Suspenseful, and most readers will want to read it in one sitting. * Ashbury Park Press *Dismiss Seth Grahame-Smith's historical romp as nonsense at your peril. * Sci-Fi Now *

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Book SynopsisSome of the best of Fred Urquhart's ghost stories are gathered in this volume. They include humorous and satirical tales, depicting an afterlife in which dispirited spirits, although perhaps unionised themselves, are oppressed by what they see as the banal horrors of modernity. Other stories, such as 'The Saracen's Stick' and 'Proud Lady in a Cage', convey a real sense of evil, often rooted in the genuine horrors of the historical past. The title story reflects Urquhart's lifelong interest in the theatre, economically telling the story of the great actress Ellen Terry through the reminiscences of her ghost. Throughout he displays the great skill in characterisation and dialogue that he is noted for, and, as in all his work, his native Scotland is seldom far away.

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