What terror lurks in the shadows of the Old Country? Well, there are the goblins, of course. Then there are the bloodthirsty cannibals from nearby Carpathia, secret societies plotting in whispers, and murder victims found drained of their blood, to name a few. That's to say nothing of the multitude of government ministries, any one of which might haul one off for "questioning" in the middle of the night. The Old Country is saturated with doom, and Sloot is scarcely able to keep from drowning in it. Each passing moment is certain to be his last, though never did fate seem so grim as the day he was asked to correct the worst report ever written. Will the events put in motion by this ghastly financial statement end in Sloot's grisly death? Almost definitely. Is that the worst thing that could happen? Almost definitely not.

Peril in the Old Country (Terribly Serious Darkness)

Humor & Entertainment

Hooker, Sam

Humor

Black Spot Books

New York City has always been a big fat sack of stress for Amanda Grey. Luckily, the one-bedroom apartment in Queens she shares with her parents has always served as a refuge from a world that's too loud and too bright for Grey. Of course, that's all about to change. When she inadvertently rents a room to a demon, Grey goes from a woman concentrated on her own personal demons to the woman responsible for recapturing the six Shades from Hell she's unleashed upon the city. She manages to survive by accepting the help of Barnem, an antisocial seraphim who just happens to reside in an upstairs apartment and the demon she now shares her apartment with. Together the unlikely trio will have to face off with the devils of New York politics, break the curse of infomercial jingles, and figure out exactly how Grey has become the leader of a cult, all as Grey begins to realize that maybe the end of the world is exactly what her life needed. Now she just needs to figure out how to survive it.

And Then There Were Crows (Shades of Hell)

Literature & Fiction

Leyva, Alcy

Humor & Satire

Working on completing her ecology graduate degree, Bernice is doing invasive species research in Cleary Swamp when she is confronted by a mysterious hag who says she is the swamp’s caretaker. When Bernice discovers that the hag is actually a woman named Rebecca Hallett who disappeared in the swamp decades before she attempts to remove the strange old woman from Cleary Swamp, but little does Bernice know that Rebecca has a mystical bond to the area—one that possesses a human host and bonds them to it. One magical hallucinogenic powder cocktail and a space opera spirit journey later, Bernice’s life has changed forever. The swamp wants her for its new caretaker, and it won’t take no for an answer.

Come Back to the Swamp

Morrison, Laura

Genre Fiction

The year is 1716—the Golden Age of the Pirates. An orphan who sleeps in the dusty kitchens of a quayside brothel, Merrin Smith is desperate to unravel the secrets of her past and find the truth about the events that brought her to Isla Perla as a child. Disguised as a sailor, she joins the crew of the pirate ship Riptide, helmed by the notorious Captain Erik Winters. Tenacious and rumored to be a madman, Winters is known as much for his ruthlessness as for his connection to the enigmatic and beautiful proprietress of The Goodnight Mermaid, Evangeline Dahl, who vanished from the island two summers before.This book is an epic, emotional adventure of two women—one desperate to save herself, and the other determined to be rescued—and the secret which binds them together.

The Isle of Gold (Daughters Jones Trilogy)

Jane, Seven

Children's Books

It's 2025. Sisters, Doris and Thea, exist worlds apart, despite living within a few miles of one another. Doris with her regular home and regular husband and regular job, and Thea slinking along the edges of society, solitary and invisible. When a storm of biblical proportions strikes, the wayward sisters are begrudgingly forced together as the rain waters rise, each attempting to survive both the flood and each other. One year later, Thea -- now calling herself Sestra -- floats throughout a ravaged, flood-soaked world. Her former life drowned beneath metric tons of water, she and her only companion, Robert, battle starvation, heatstroke, and the monstrous creatures called Posies that appeared alongside the flood. When they run across what they assume to be an abandoned tugboat, their journey takes a new turn, and the truth about the flood and the monsters seems more intricately linked to Thea's past then she may realise.

A Flood of Posies

Meuret, Tiffany

Award-Winning Finalist, Fiction Series, Chanticleer International Book Awards Time is running out for the Old Country. How does one save a nation when the erstwhile gods are against the idea? In the finale of Terribly Serious Darkness, it's up to Sloot Peril--the world's greatest accountant and poorest everything else--to figure it out. Unfortunately, he'll have help. A philosopher who'd sooner die (again) than do any real work, a bard who can't play his non-instrument, and a spooky wizard who's often mistaken for a vampire may not be ideal allies, but with any luck--which Sloot's never had--they'll occasionally get out of his way. Does Sloot stand a chance against serpent cults, demons, dragons, and the most sinister financial report every written? Doubtful. If he's even going to survive the dance contest, he'll have to think of something now, before the Dark swallows everything up.

Now Before the Dark (Terribly Serious Darkness)

Review\n"Not for the faint of heart...Each word and phrase has been structured in such a way that the reader will experience an intense depth of emotion and feelings." —Gini Rainey, EGuide Magazine\n"...varied themes, approaches, and poetic structures create a diverse series of horror inspections. Under Her Skin is unparalleled in scope, creativity, and literary strength. It is highly recommended for any collection strong in women's writings, horror, or literary works." —Midwest Book Review\n"Exquisite, bloody, and unflinching, Under Her Skin will leave you eviscerated and transformed. The collection features some of the strongest voices in horror poetry today as they slice open the female experience and hold up each glistening morsel for examination." --Geneve Flynn, Bram Stoker® and Shirley Jackson Award winner\n“The fragile resilience of women is explored in this beautiful, brooding collection where every nook of the shadow feminine is prodded and exposed. The best in female dark poets have gathered together to examine the collective pieces that make up who we are. Without apology, these women share both fire and flaws, pinning it all to the page. They redefine what it means to be a woman. Raw and authentic, these poems bleed agony...but there is no defeat here. This isn't the poetry of victims asking for mercy. Rather they face the world, naked and unapologetic. They don't request acceptance. They forge their own place where they are perfect as they are, every scar an accolade. These are poems of blood and sinew, knitting our parts together in pain, the burdens placed upon our shoulders hefted and thrown back. All parts of the female physique are explored—Everything Under Her Skin—and every sum of her is breath-taking.” —Angela Yuriko Smith, Bram Stoker Award®-Nominee\n"Powerful and visceral, the poems in Under Her Skin scream of the brutal realities women endure in life. These voices, long silenced, testify to the need for women to be treated as individuals with agency and rights, not pieces of property... A difficult read for those who endure. A necessary read for everybody else." --Christina Sng, Two-time Bram Stoker Award®-winning poet\n“Under Her Skin pair[s] body horror with verse to explore…the female experience, including the endless and sometimes surgical quest for unattainable beauty, the inherent and catastrophic violence of abusive relationships and societal expectations, and the frightening transformation(s) of motherhood.” —Rue Morgue\n"Visceral poems pack an emotional punch, and yet, also hold a beauty, truth, and lyricism that cannot be denied... A message carried with strength by the entire volume." --Becky Spratford, Library Journal\n"The quantity of writers, known and unknown, as well as the diversity of voices makes this all but required reading for anyone interested in the various directions horror poetry can and will take." —Joshua Gage, Cemetery Dance\nA showcase of poetry from some of the darkest and most lyrical voices of women in horror.\nUnder Her Skin features the best in never-before-published dark verse and lyrical prose from the voices of Women in Horror. Centered on the innate relationship between body horror and the female experience, this collection features work from Bram-Stoker Award® winning and nominated authors, as well as dozens of poems from women (cis and trans) and non-binary femmes.\nEdited by Lindy Ryan and Toni Miller, Under Her Skin celebrates women in horror from cover to cover. In addition to poems contributed by seventy poets, the collection also features a foreword penned by Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) Grand Master and recipient of the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, Linda D. Addison; interior illustrations by Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association Grand Master and recipient of the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award Marge Simon; and cover art by noted horror artist Lynne Hansen.\n"Not for th

Under Her Skin: A Women in Horror Poetry Showcase, Vol. I

Poetry

<div>Eight chilling tales to read under the Cold Moon. A tinker's son acquires a cursed soul. A dying woman is haunted by her own reflection. An uninvited presence haunts a Christmas seance. A festive holiday turns macabre. Despite the twinkling lights and steaming cocoa, the end of the year is the darkest time of the year--a season of short days, long nights, and cold skies. In this special anniversary anthology, the authors of Black Spot Books mix Ye Olde Yuletide hauntings with modern-day holiday horrors to weave a chilling new collection of dark winter tales. From frozen forests stalked by eerie Christmas ghosts to rotting gifts of winter malice, the spirits of Christmas come home for the holidays in the Dead of Winter.</div>

Dead of Winter

Windwalker, Cassondra

Storm, Dalena

Ember, N.J.

Buell, Daniel

The skeletons in the closet have nothing on the one in your backyard.\nFreshly divorced and grieving the death of her father, Josie Lauer has caged herself inside her home. To cope with her losses, Josie follows a strict daily routine of work, playing with her dog, and trying to remember to eat a decent meal—and ending each night by drinking copious amounts of vodka. In other words, she is not coping at all.\nEverything changes when Josie wakes to find a small shrub has sprouted in her backyard the morning after yet another bender. Within hours, the vine-like plant is running amok—and it’s brought company: a busybody new neighbor who insists on thrusting herself into Josie’s life, and a talking skeleton called Skelly that has perched itself in Josie’s backyard on a throne made of vines.\nAs the strangely sentient plant continues to grow and twist its tendrils inside Josie’s suddenly complicated life, Josie begins to realize there’s a reason Skelly has chosen to appear. All Josie has to do is figure out what that reason is—and she has only a few days to do it, or else she might find herself on the wrong side of catastrophe.

Little Bird

Literary

From the Helen Kay Chapbook Award-Winning poet Cassondra Windwalker, an unsuspecting librarian falls head-over-heels for a married man, but when she finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance, she discovers her new husband’s past wives have all met early deaths—and some aren’t ready to let go yet. 
Obsession never dies. 
When librarian Sigrun falls head-over-heels for the sophisticated and very married Edgar Leyward, she never expects to find herself in his bed—or his heart. Nevertheless, when his enigmatic wife Octavia dies from a sudden illness, Sigrun finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance worthy of the most lurid novels on her bookshelves. 
Sigrun soon discovers Octavia wasn’t Edgar’s first lost love, or even his second. Three women Edgar has loved met early deaths. As she delves into her beloved’s past through a trove of discovered letters, the edges of Sigrun identity begin to disappear, fading into the women of the past. Sigrun tells herself it’s impossible for any dark magic to be at play—that the dead can’t possibly inhabit the bodies of the living—but something shadowy stalks the halls of the Leyward house and the lines between the love of the present and the obsessions of the past become increasingly blurred—and bloody. Mixing lyrical prose with simmering terror, Hold My Place is a modern gothic horror worthy of Shirley Jackson’s nightmares and Daphne DuMaurier’s dangerous lovers. 
"Hold My Place is a dark, sensuous tale about obliterating love, and Windwalker's superb prose fairly drips with beauty. You simply must read this haunting book." —Mercedes M. Yardley, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Little Dead Red 
"Sinister undertones steadily build into a genuine sense of doom...as thought-provoking as it is harrowing." —Publishers Weekly 
"With ethereal prose [Hold My Place]'s departure from genre tropes will make it a favorite with gothic-horror and dark-romance readers." —Booklist 
"A satisfying blend of romance and ghost story…. Hold My Place is anything but ordinary or predictable, despite its firm roots in the horror world." —Midwest Book Review 
"Brimming with muted eroticism, Hold My Place is a dark romance novel punctuated by longing, lingering spirits and love without end." —Foreword Reviews

Hold My Place

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