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The Painted Bride
by Stephen GallagherThe woman in the red dress. He called it the painted bride. Pippa showed the picture to her father and her father called the police. They had Jack in a room all yesterday and kept asking him about it. Now they're all trying to twist it by saying it means something.""What are they trying to say?""That he must have seen her lying on the kitchen floor. That the rainbow means he saw her blood come out.
The Painted Bride
by Stephen GallagherThe woman in the red dress. He called it the painted bride. Pippa showed the picture to her father and her father called the police. They had Jack in a room all yesterday and kept asking him about it. Now they're all trying to twist it by saying it means something.""What are they trying to say?""That he must have seen her lying on the kitchen floor. That the rainbow means he saw her blood come out.
The Painted Room
by Inger ChristensenA captivating experimental novel about the Italian Renaissance by the Danish master, whose “sensuous language resonates with cosmic urgency” (Columbia Review). The Painted Room is a magnificent three-part short novel about the Italian Renaissance, and, specifically, the intrigue surrounding the frescoes that Mategna (1431-1506) made on the walls of a famous bridal chamber in the ducal palace of Lodovico III Gonzaga. Prince Lodovico of Mantua invites Mantegna to his palace to decorate the chamber, and the paintings are slowly completed. The painting of the duke and his family looks so peaceful—you would never guess that a murder had just taken place.The prince's secretary records its progress in his gossip-laden diary, while the story of the prince's daughter, the dwarf Nana, digs deeper into darker motivations, involving deceit, vendettas, an assassination, and the dalliances of Pope Pius II. Mantegna’s young son, Bernardino, helps complete the paintings and introduces a note of high fantasy into the narrative. What results is a beautiful yet startling picture of the Renaissance, as rich and colorful as the men and women depicted on the palace walls.
The Painting
by Charis CotterA haunting, beautiful middle-grade novel about fractured relationships, loss, ghosts, friendship and art.Annie and her mother don't see eye to eye. When Annie finds a painting of a lonely lighthouse in their home, she is immediately drawn to it--and her mother wishes it would stay banished in the attic. To her, art has no interest, but Annie loves drawing and painting. When Annie's mother slips into a coma following a car accident, strange things begin to happen to Annie. She finds herself falling into the painting and meeting Claire, a girl her own age living at the lighthouse. Claire's mother Maisie is the artist behind the painting, and like Annie, Claire's relationship with her mother is fraught. Annie thinks she can help them find their way back to each other, and in so doing, help mend her relationship with her own mother. But who IS Claire? Why can Annie travel through the painting? And can Annie help her mother wake up from her coma? The Painting is a touching, evocative story with a hint of mystery and suspense to keep readers hooked.
The Pale House Devil
by Richard KadreyA gripping, snappy creature feature from the master of horror noir about two detectives—one dead, one living—hired by an embittered old landowner to banish a bloody cosmic monster from his ancestral home, perfect for fans of Cassandra Khaw, Charles Stross and Lucy A. Snyder.Ford and Neuland are paranormal mercenaries—one living, one undead; one of them kills the undead, the other kills the living. When a job goes bad in New York, they head west to wait for the heat to cool down. There, a young woman named Tilda Rosenbloom hires them on behalf of wealthy landowner, Shepherd Mansfield, to track and kill a demon haunting a mansion in remote northern California. As Ford and Neuland investigate the creature they uncover a legacy of blood, sacrifice and slavery in the house. Forced to confront a powerful creature unlike anything they&’ve faced before, they come to learn that the most frightening monster might not be the one they're hunting...
The Paleontologist: A Novel
by Luke DumasUSA TODAY BESTSELLER 2024 ITW Thriller Award Winner Esquire &“Best Horror Books of 2023&” Pick A haunted paleontologist returns to the museum where his sister was abducted years earlier and is faced with a terrifying and murderous spirit in this chilling novel.Curator of paleontology Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch, and the guilt has haunted Simon ever since. After a recent breakup and the death of the aunt who raised him, Simon feels drawn back to the place where Morgan vanished, in search of the bones they never found. But from the moment he arrives, things aren&’t what he expected. The Hawthorne is a crumbling ruin, still closed amid the ongoing pandemic, and plummeting toward financial catastrophe. Worse, Simon begins seeing and hearing things he can&’t explain. Strange animal sounds. Bloody footprints that no living creature could have left. A prehistoric killer looming in the shadows of the museum. Terrified he&’s losing his grasp on reality, Simon turns to the handwritten research diaries of his predecessor and uncovers a blood-soaked mystery 150 million years in the making that could be the answer to everything.
The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic
by Clive Bloom“Simply put, there is absolutely nothing on the market with the range of ambition of this strikingly eclectic collection of essays. Not only is it impossible to imagine a more comprehensive view of the subject, most readers – even specialists in the subject – will find that there are elements of the Gothic genre here of which they were previously unaware.” - Barry Forshaw, Author of British Gothic Cinema and Sex and Film The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic is the most comprehensive compendium of analytic essays on the modern Gothic now available, covering the vast and highly significant period from 1918 to 2019. The Gothic sensibility, over 200 years old, embraces its dark past whilst anticipating the future. From demons and monsters to post- apocalyptic fears and ecological fantasies, Gothic is thriving as never before in the arts and in popular culture. This volume is made up of 62 comprehensive chapters with notes and extended bibliographies contributed by scholars from around the world. The chapters are written not only for those engaged in academic research but also to be accessible to students and dedicated followers of the genre. Each chapter is packed with analysis of the Gothic in both theory and practice, as the genre has mutated and spread over the last hundred years. Starting in 1918 with the impact of film on the genre's development, and moving through its many and varied international incarnations, each chapter chronicles the history of the gothic milieu from the movies to gaming platforms and internet memes, television and theatre. The volume also looks at how Gothic intersects with fashion, music and popular culture: a multi-layered, multi-ethnic, even a trans-gendered experience as we move into the twenty first century.
The Palgrave Handbook of Gothic Origins
by Clive BloomThis handbook provides a comprehensive overview of research on the Gothic Revival. The Gothic Revival was based on emotion rather than reason and when Horace Walpole created Strawberry Hill House, a gleaming white castle on the banks of the Thames, he had to create new words to describe the experience of gothic lifestyle. Nevertheless, Walpole’s house produced nightmares and his book The Castle of Otranto was the first truly gothic novel, with supernatural, sensational and Shakespearean elements challenging the emergent fiction of social relationships. The novel’s themes of violence, tragedy, death, imprisonment, castle battlements, dungeons, fair maidens, secrets, ghosts and prophecies led to a new genre encompassing prose, theatre, poetry and painting, whilst opening up a whole world of imagination for entrepreneurial female writers such as Mary Shelley, Joanna Baillie and Ann Radcliffe, whose immensely popular books led to the intense inner landscapes of the Bronte sisters. Matthew Lewis’s The Monk created a new gothic: atheistic, decadent, perverse, necrophilic and hellish. The social upheaval of the French Revolution and the emergence of the Romantic movement with its more intense (and often) atheistic self-absorption led the gothic into darker corners of human experience with a greater emphasis on the inner life, hallucination, delusion, drug addiction, mental instability, perversion and death and the emerging science of psychology. The intensity of the German experience led to an emphasis on doubles and schizophrenic behaviour, ghosts, spirits, mesmerism, the occult and hell. This volume charts the origins of this major shift in social perceptions and completes a trilogy of Palgrave Handbooks on the Gothic—combined they provide an exhaustive survey of current research in Gothic studies, a go-to for students and researchers alike.
The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic
by Clive BloomBy the early 1830s the old school of Gothic literature was exhausted. Late Romanticism, emphasising as it did the uncertainties of personality and imagination, gave it a new lease of life. Gothic—the literature of disturbance and uncertainty—now produced works that reflected domestic fears, sexual crimes, drug filled hallucinations, the terrible secrets of middle class marriage, imperial horror at alien invasion, occult demonism and the insanity of psychopaths. It was from the 1830s onwards that the old gothic castle gave way to the country house drawing room, the dungeon was displaced by the sewers of the city and the villains of early novels became the familiar figures of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dracula, Dorian Grey and Jack the Ripper. After the death of Prince Albert (1861), the Gothic became darker, more morbid, obsessed with demonic lovers, blood sucking ghouls, blood stained murderers and deranged doctors. Whilst the gothic architecture of the Houses of Parliament and the new Puginesque churches upheld a Victorian ideal of sobriety, Christianity and imperial destiny, Gothic literature filed these new spaces with a dread that spread like a plague to America, France, Germany and even Russia. From 1830 to 1914, the period covered by this volume, we saw the emergence of the greats of Gothic literature and the supernatural from Edgar Allan Poe to Emily Bronte, from Sheridan Le Fanu to Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson. Contributors also examine the fin-de-siècle dreamers of decadence such as Arthur Machen, M P Shiel and Vernon Lee and their obsession with the occult, folklore, spiritualism, revenants, ghostly apparitions and cosmic annihilation. This volume explores the period through the prism of architectural history, urban studies, feminism, 'hauntology' and much more. 'Horror', as Poe teaches us, 'is the soul of the plot'.
The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire
by Simon BaconThis Handbook MRW will be a unique encompassing overview of the figure of the vampire. Not only covering the list of usual suspects, this volume will provide coverage from the very first reports of vampire-like creatures in the 17th century to film and media representations in the 21st century. The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire will show that what you thought you knew about vampires is only a fraction of the real and fascinating story.
The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature
by Kevin Corstorphine Laura R. KremmelThis handbook examines the use of horror in storytelling, from oral traditions through folklore and fairy tales to contemporary horror fiction. Divided into sections that explore the origins and evolution of horror fiction, the recurrent themes that can be seen in horror, and ways of understanding horror through literary and cultural theory, the text analyses why horror is so compelling, and how we should interpret its presence in literature. Chapters explore historical horror aspects including ancient mythology, medieval writing, drama, chapbooks, the Gothic novel, and literary Modernism and trace themes such as vampires, children and animals in horror, deep dark forests, labyrinths, disability, and imperialism. Considering horror via postmodern theory, evolutionary psychology, postcolonial theory, and New Materialism, this handbook investigates issues of gender and sexuality, race, censorship and morality, environmental studies, and literary versus popular fiction.
The Pallbearers Club: A Novel
by Paul TremblayThe ebook is designed to be read on devices with large color displays. See below for a list of supported devices.“Paul Tremblay delivers another mind-bending horror novel . . . The Pallbearers Club is a welcome casket of chills to shoulder.” – Washington Post“Uncertainty is Tremblay’s stock-in-trade. Over the last decade, he has grown from hot new thing to horror icon without compromising on his uniquely inexplicable nightmares.” – Esquire“[A] deliciously confusing thriller.” – Weekend Edition (NPR)A cleverly voiced psychological thriller from the nationally bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song.What if the coolest girl you’ve ever met decided to be your friend?Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a seventeen-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses.Okay, that part was a little weird.So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things – terrifying things – that happened when she was around, usually at night. But she was his friend, so it was okay, right?Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she’s making cuts.Seamlessly blurring the lines between fiction and memory, the supernatural and the mundane, The Pallbearers Club is an immersive, suspenseful portrait of an unusual and disconcerting relationship.
The Paper Flight
by Cristina Lattaro Paolo Santini and Cassidy GreenIn Belcolle, a village in the north of the Italian region of Lazio, four old musicians guard a special place, Villa Tornaboni, to ensure themselves an unnatural eternity. Duilia Liberati, a realtor, receives the mandate to sell the estate and reaches Belcolle with her young secretary. The peculiar symbiosis between the young man and the estate attracts the ire of the old ladies who see their slice of heaven threatened, leading them to use their peculiar powers to contain the danger. In the background, two organizations that have been fighting each other from time immemorial. In the foreground, the people living in Belcolle, many of whom have fragments of their story linked with Villa Tornaboni and its old owner. A paranormal tale with elements of crime, sprinkled with science fiction, mythology, and esoterism. A layered and complex text, that in its initial part continuously introduces characters and mysteries to later solve them one by one.
The Paper Grail (The Christian Trilogy #2)
by James P. BlaylockThe second thriller in the supernatural trilogy by the World Fantasy Award–winning author— An &“intriguing and absorbing work from a major talent&” (Kirkus Reviews). Howard Barton came to Mendocino in search of a folded scrap of paper. Not just any old scrap of paper, but one bearing what might be a sketch by the legendary Japanese artist, Hoku-sai. But Howard, unfortunately, is not the only one who wants the sketch . . . There&’s old Heloise Lamey, whose lush and noxious garden is watered with blood, ink, and stranger substances. And the enigmatic Mr. Jimmers, the owner of a workshop that holds a bizarre invention designed to raise the dead. Even Howard&’s Uncle Roy, a builder of haunted houses and founder of the Museum of Modern Mysteries, has an interest in the sketch. In Northern California, nothing is what it appears, but everything is connected— and Howard is led to a mysterious private war between secret, underground societies. Now he just needs to figure out whose side he&’s on in the quest for the Paper Grail. &“Blaylock redeems the familiarity of his plot with a gift for drawing characters who are eccentric in delightful and original ways, whichever side of the war they are on.&” —Publishers Weekly &“Blaylock ventures into the realm of magical realism as eccentric matrons and failed entrepreneurs assume mythic proportions in this witty and intelligent metaphysical novel. This crossover novel belongs equally well in literary and fantasy collections.&” —Library Journal
The Paradise Engine (Nunatak First Fiction Series #34)
by Rebecca CampbellWhile working to restore an historic theatre in a seedy part of the city, a graduate student named Anthea searches to find her best friend, lost to the rhetoric of an itinerant street mystic. Almost a century earlier, Liam, a tenth-rate tenor, visits the same theatre while eking out a career on the dying Vaudeville circuits of the day. In both eras, an apocalyptic strain of mysticism threatens their existence: Anthea contends with a nascent New Age movement in the heart of the city while Liam encounters a radical theosophical commune along the coast of British Columbia, who appear to be building … something. The Paradise Engine unfolds across a colourful backdrop of labour organizers, immaculately-attired cultists, ambitious socialites, basement offices and coffee shops. Its cast of characters and historical setting recalls Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business or Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day, while its approach to memory and community is reminiscent of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.
The Paradise Motel
by Eric MccormackFrom the acclaimed author of Cloud and The Dutch Wife, an early novel of Gothic terror that creeps into the blood and captivates with hypnotic fascination.On his deathbed, Ezra Stevenson's grandfather bequeaths him a macabre tale of domestic violence. Driven to investigate his grandfather's account of the four Mackenzie children and their monstrous family history, Ezra embarks on a horrific voyage of discovery, deception and revelation.
The Paradise Trap
by Catherine JinksEleven year old Marcus loves video games and hates the beach. So he is not happy when his mum Holly drags him to Diamond Beach, the place she loved as a child. Once there, Holly meets Coco, her friend from her childhood. She is there with her electronics-obsessed husband, Sterling Huckstepp, and their kids, cool teenage Newt, pizza-loving Edison and the family robot, Prot. Opening a door into the basement of Holly's caravan, Edison discovers the most amazing amusement park. Whoever opens a door in the basement finds themselves in their very own dream vacation. But when the dream becomes impossible to escape from, it all begins to feel more like a nightmare: Marcus, Holly, and the Huckstepps find themselves trapped in a matrix of terrifyingly perfect dreamscapes peopled with strange characters that will allow them to do anything they want, except leave... A whirlwind adventure at a breakneck speed.
The Paradox (Oversight Trilogy #2)
by Charlie FletcherThe last members of the secret society known as the Oversight still patrol the border between the natural and supernatural, holding a candle to the darkness. But the society's new members are unproven, its veterans weary and battle-scarred. Their vulnerability brings new enemies to London, and surprising new allies from across the sea.But most surprising of all are revelations about the Oversight's past, secrets that will expose the true peril of the world in which their friends Sharp and Sara are trapped - the riddle of the Black Mirrors, and what lies beyond. And the catastrophic danger that will follow the duo home, if they ever manage to return.The dark waters rise. The candle is guttering. But the light still remains. For now . . .
The Paradox (The Oversight #2)
by Charlie FletcherFrom HBO scriptwriter Charlie Fletcher comes a wildly original and hugely entertaining new fantasy series for a generation that has grown up with Harry Potter and Neil Gaiman.The Last Hand of the Oversight still patrols the border between the natural and supranatural, holding a candle to the darkness. But this new Hand is unproven, its fresh members untrained, its veterans weary and battle-scarred. Their vulnerability brings new enemies into the city, and surprising new allies from across the sea. But most surprising of all are new revelations about the Oversight's past, revelations that will expose the true peril of the world in which Sharp and Sara are trapped -- the secret of the Black Mirrors, and what lies beyond. And the catastrophic danger that will follow them home, if they ever manage to return. The dark waters rise. The candles are guttering. But the light still remains. For now...
The Paradox: An Oversight Novel (Oversight Trilogy #2)
by Charlie FletcherSOMETIMES YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR - SOMETIMES IT LOOKS BACK.Those who belong to the secret society called The Oversight know many things. They know cold iron will hold back the beasts in the darkness. They know it is dangerous to stand between two mirrors. And they know that, despite their dwindling numbers, it remains their duty to protect humanity from the predations of the supernatural. And vice versa.But two of the society's strongest members, Mr Sharp and Sara Falk, are trapped in the world between the mirrors, looking for each other, searching for a way back home. What they discover there will have ominous consequences both for The Oversight and the world it protects, effects that will make them question everything they thought they knew.The dark waters rise. The candle is guttering. But the light still remains. For now . . .
The Parasite
by Ramsey CampbellTwenty years after a game of Ouija ends in a ten-year-old's disappearance, Rose Tierney discovers that she has developed psychic powers that enable her to see into the future and travel without her body, but that make her vulnerable to an evil force.
The Parasite and Other Tales of Terror (Haunted Library Horror Classics)
by Arthur Conan DoyleNine spine-tingling stories from the creator of Sherlock HolmesMournful cries in an ice-bound sea, a potion that allows the user to commune with ghosts, an Egyptian priest who cannot die, and a mesmerist of unrivaled power. Brace yourself for these and other chilling encounters in The Parasite and Other Tales of Terror. Even before he created Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle terrified and delighted readers with tales of suspense, haunted by mysterious forces that defy rational explanation. These stories capture the unique draw of the uncanny and the curiosity that compels us all to ask, "Could it be true?"Presented by the Horror Writers Association, and introduced by award-winning author Daniel Stashower, this collection illuminates Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's talent for the macabre and the supernatural. The Parasite and the other stories in this collection showcase Conan Doyle at his most inventive, sure to entertain both new readers and his most dedicated fans.
The Parentations
by Kate MayfieldEighteenth-century London – the lives of the sisters Fitzgerald, Constance and Verity, become entwined with the nearby Fowler household, charged with providing safe harbour to a mysterious baby from far away. Camden, London, 2015, December 17th – the lives of the sisters Fitzgerald, Constance and Verity, are consumed by the wait for this boy, who may or may not be dead. There is no way of knowing. Deep within the savage beauty of Iceland, a hidden pool grants those who drink from it endless life. For those that have, their secret must remain held close for two hundred years, but time is slipping away, and malign forces are gathering. And for those who have sipped from the pool, they discover all too quickly that immortality is no gift, because in the absence of death, true darkness emerges.
The Pariah
by Graham MastertonThe quaint little seaside town of Granitehead seemed like a perfect place for John and Jane Trenton to start their life together. But disaster strikes and Jane and their unborn child are killed. John's grief is total, so when he starts to see the ghostly apparition of his wife he almost welcomes this supernatural phenomenon. Yet all is not what it seems, and this sinister spirit is not Jane, but something altogether evil and terrifying. In a bid to rid himself of this horrific spectre he soon finds that many more in the town have been victims of unwanted visitations. And when he discovers the body of a local busybody, impossibly impaled on a still hanging chandelier, he knows something must be done. But how do you kill the undead?As he searches for an explanation he uncovers a link to a mysterious ship, lost around the time of the nearby Salem witch trials. For three centuries the rotting wreck of the David Dark has lain beneath waves, but an awful secret is concealed in the chill waters...
The Pariah (The Covenant of Steel #1)
by Anthony Ryan"A gritty, heart-pounding tale of betrayal and bloody vengeance. I loved every single word." —John GwynneThe Pariah begins a new epic fantasy series of action, intrigue and magic from Anthony Ryan, a master storyteller who has taken the fantasy world by storm.Born into the troubled kingdom of Albermaine, Alwyn Scribe is raised as an outlaw. Quick of wit and deft with a blade, Alwyn is content with the freedom of the woods and the comradeship of his fellow thieves. But an act of betrayal sets him on a new path - one of blood and vengeance, which eventually leads him to a soldier's life in the king's army. Fighting under the command of Lady Evadine Courlain, a noblewoman beset by visions of a demonic apocalypse, Alwyn must survive war and the deadly intrigues of the nobility if he hopes to claim his vengeance. But as dark forces, both human and arcane, gather to oppose Evadine's rise, Alwyn faces a choice: can he be a warrior, or will he always be an outlaw?"This makes a rich treat for George R.R. Martin fans." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)For more from Anthony Ryan, check out:Raven's Shadow TrilogyBlood SongTower LordQueen of FireRaven's Blade DuologyThe Wolf's CallThe Black SongThe Draconis Memoria TrilogyThe Waking FireThe Legion of FlameThe Empire of Ashes