Special Collections
Bram Stoker Award Winners (horror)
Description: The Bram Stoker Awards are given by the Horror Writers Association in acknowledgment of superior achievement in the horror genre. Bookshare is pleased to offer the following titles awarded the Bram Stoker Award for best novel. #award
- Table View
- List View
Mr. X
by Peter StraubFor more than two decades Peter Straub has engrossed, entertained, and terrified us with his dazzling blend of cool artistry and mad, spine-tingling imagination. With Mr. X, the bestselling author of Ghost Story, The Talisman(with Stephen King), and The Hellfire Club takes us into the darkest dimensions of the human psyche and proves once again that he is without peer in the realm of psychological suspense and horror, a master storyteller whose unique and powerful gifts qualify him to be called the Edgar Allan Poe of our times. Mr. Xis Straub's original and startling take on the theme of the doppelgänger. Ned Dunstan's birthday is fast approaching, and every year on this date, Ned experiences a paralyzing seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious and malevolent figure in black whom Ned calls Mr. X. Ned has been drawn back to his hometown, Edgerton, Illinois, by a premonition that his mother, Star, is dying. Before she loosens her hold on life, she imparts to Ned the name of his father, never before disclosed, and warns him that he is in grave danger. Despite her foreboding, Ned's determination to learn as much as possible about his absent father ignites a series of extraordinary adventures that gradually reveal the heart of both his own identity and that of his entirely fantastic family: He discovers that he is shadowed by an identical twin brother who can pass through doors and otherwise defy the laws of nature; he becomes the lead suspect in three violent deaths; he investigates the secret shadow-world within Edgerton; he learns to "eat time" and remembers the one occasion when he and his sinister brother united into a single being. Finally, at the moment of battle, he must call upon everything he has learned to save his own life. Brimming with the author's trademark wit, understated eloquence, vibrant characters, and brilliant sense of pace, Mr. X displays Peter Straub at the top of his form.
Bag of Bones
by Stephen KingA powerful tale of grief, love&’s enduring bonds, and secrets of the past from #1 New York Times bestselling author and master storyteller Stephen King.Four years after the sudden death of his wife, bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is still grieving. Unable to write and plagued by vivid nightmares set at the western Maine summerhouse he calls &“Sara Laughs,&” Mike reluctantly returns to the lakeside getaway. There, he finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, whose vindictive purpose is to take his three-year-old granddaughter, Kyra, away from her widowed young mother, Mattie. As Mike is drawn into Mattie&’s and Kyra&’s struggle—and as he falls in love with both of them—he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs…now the site of ghostly visitations and escalating terrors. What are the forces that have been unleashed here—and just what do they want of Mike Noonan?
Children of the Dusk
by Janet BerlinerConcluding the saga of Solomon, Erich, and Miriam, Dusk begins as they land on Nosy Mangabé, a small island off the coast of Madagascar, in the midst of one of the most dense rainforests on Earth. Along with their mysterious Malagasy guide Bruqah, 144 Jews, 40 heavily armed Nazis, and Erich's crack canine unit, the three fight to find a place in this strange new world, while also fighting to stay alive. Winner of the Bram Stoker Award
The Green Mile
by Stephen KingMasterfully told and as suspenseful as it is haunting, The Green Mile is Stephen King&’s classic #1 New York Times bestselling dramatic serial novel and inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks.Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk &“the Green Mile,&” the lime-colored linoleum corridor leading to a final meeting with Old Sparky, Cold Mountain&’s electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities over the years working the Mile, but he&’s never seen anything like John Coffey—a man with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, condemned for a crime terrifying in its violence and shocking in its depravity. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecombe is about to discover the terrible, wondrous truth about John Coffey—a truth that will challenge his most cherished beliefs…
Zombie
by Joyce Carol OatesMeet Quentin P.He is a problem for his professor father and his loving mother, though of course they do not believe the charge (sexual molestation of a minor) that got him in that bit of trouble.He is a challenge for his court-appointed psychiatrist, who nonetheless is encouraged by the increasingly affirmative quality of his dreams and his openness in discussing them.He is a thoroughly sweet young man for his wealthy grandmother, who gives him more and more, and can deny him less and less.He is the most believable and thoroughly terrifying sexual psychopath and killer ever to be brought to life in fiction, as Joyce Carol Oates achieves her boldest and most brilliant triumph yet--a dazzling work of art that extends the borders of the novel into the darkest heart of truth.
Winner of Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
Dead in the Water
by Nancy HolderThe shipwrecked, vacationing passengers of the ill-fated freighter, Morris, are picked up by the H.M.S. Pandora and sail into a cruise of metaphysical terror, madness, and death.
Winner of Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
The Throat
by Peter StraubPeter Straub's chilling Blue Rose Trilogy comes to an astonishing close--secrets unearthed, demons revisited, and mysteries solved. The Throat. Tim Underhill, now an acclaimed novelist, travels back to his hometown of Millhaven, Illinois after he gets a call from John Ransom, an old army buddy. Ransom believes there's a copycat killer on the loose, mimicking the Blue Rose murders from decades earlier--he thinks his wife could be a potential victim. Underhill seeks out his old friend Tom Pasmore, an aging hermit who has attained minor celebrity as an expert sleuth, to help him investigate. They quickly discover that Millhaven is a town plagued by horrifying secrets and there is a twisted killer on the loose who is far more dangerous than they ever imagined. Expertly tying together the events of Koko and Mystery, The Throat proves Peter Straub to be the master of the suspense novel.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Blood of the Lamb
by Thomas F. MonteleoneThe previous Pope died in his arms, blessing him with his last breath. He can perform miracles. His mother was a virgin. His DNA came from the Shroud of Turin. Peter Carenza is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy and a secret, Vatican-sponsored experiment. But is he the Second Coming, or something far, far worse? Believers the world over hail Carenza as the new Pope and rejoice as he creates a new Church for the new Millennium. Few people know the truth -- that mixing science with the works of God has created not a Savior but the Anti-Christ. Now the latest -- and last -- Pope scours the world for the human guardians of the Biblical seven seals, which must be destroyed before the final cataclysm can begin. Opposing him are a lone Archbishop, the female American journalist who chronicled Carenza's rise to power, and Peter's mother, a nun who truly hears the Word of the Lord.
Boy's Life
by Robert R. MccammonIn me are the memories of a boy's life, spent in that realm of enchantments. These are the things I want to tell you....
Boy's Life is a richly imagined, spellbinding portrait of the magical worldview of the young -- and of innocence lost.
Zephyr, Alabama, is an idyllic hometown for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson -- a place where monsters swim the river deep and friends are forever. Then, one cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake -- and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face-to-face with a terrible, haunting vision of death. As Cory struggles to understand his father's pain, his eyes are slowly opened to the forces of good and evil that surround him. From an ancient mystic who can hear the dead and bewitch the living, to a violent clan of moonshiners, Cory must confront the secrets that hide in the shadows of his hometown -- for his father's sanity and his own life hang in the balance....
Winner of Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
Mine
by Robert McCammonA psychopathic female fugitive provokes a mother&’s vengeance in this terrifying thriller by the New York Times–bestselling author of Gone South and Boy&’s Life. Back in the 1960s, Mary Terrell shot and killed a man. A former member of the fanatical Storm Front Brigade—a splinter group of the notorious Weathermen—Terrell has stayed one step ahead of the FBI for decades. Living with numerous identities and menial jobs, Terrell&’s only constants in life have been LSD, psychotic delusions of motherhood, and murderous rage. The sixties are long gone, but Mary is still out there. Now, provoked by a message she reads in Rolling Stone, she&’s convinced that the surviving leader of her old band of radicals wants to build a life with her. So one night, Mary sneaks into the maternity ward of an Atlanta hospital. Laura Clayborne has a successful career and now, a newborn baby. She&’s the type of person who is sensitive to suffering and injustice. But the kidnapping of her infant son has brought out a white-hot fury. She&’s not going to sit and wait while the FBI investigates. She&’s going after Mary herself—headlong and relentless—on a twisting and violent cross-country pursuit to get her child back. But to track a madwoman, Laura will have to think like one . . . A Bram Stoker Award winner, this &“expertly constructed novel of suspense and horror&” (Publishers Weekly) from the author of Swan Song, Speaks the Nightbird, and other acclaimed works is &“feverishly exciting . . . a page-whipping thriller&” (Kirkus Reviews).
Carrion Comfort
by Dam SimmonsThe Past... Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face-to-face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazis themselves.... The Present... Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of twentieth-century history to reveal a secret society of beings who throughout the ages may exist behind the world’s most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, they are people with the psychic ability to “use” humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, and force them to acts of unspeakable aggression. Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their triumphs of bloodshed and destruction. But at this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself.
The Silence of the Lambs
by Thomas HarrisFirst published in 1988, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is the #1 best selling novel by Thomas Harris, author of HANNIBAL.
Swan Song
by Robert McCammonNew York Times Bestseller: A young girl&’s visions offer the last hope in a postapocalyptic wasteland in this &“grand and disturbing adventure&” (Dean Koontz).A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick Swan is a nine-year-old Kansas girl following her struggling mother from one trailer park to the next when she receives visions of doom—something far wider than the narrow scope of her own beleaguered life. In a blinding flash, nuclear bombs annihilate civilization, leaving only a few buried survivors to crawl onto a scorched landscape that was once America. In Manhattan, a homeless woman stumbles from the sewers, guided by the prophecies of a mysterious amulet, and pursued by something wicked; on Idaho&’s Blue Dome Mountain, an orphaned boy falls under the influence of depraved survivalists and discovers the value of a killer instinct; and amid the devastating dust storms on the Great Plains of Nebraska, Swan forms a heart-and-soul bond with an unlikely new companion. Soon they will cross paths. But only Swan knows that they must endure more than just a trek across an irradiated country of mutated animals, starvation, madmen, and wasteland warriors. Swan&’s visions tell of a coming malevolent force. It&’s a shape-shifting embodiment of the apocalypse, and of all that is evil and despairing. And it&’s hell-bent on destroying the last hope of goodness and purity in the world. Swan is that hope. Now, she must fight not only for her own survival, but for that of all mankind. A winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, Swan Song has become a modern classic, called &“a chilling vision that keeps you turning pages to the shocking end&” by John Saul and &“a long, satisfying look at hell and salvation&” by Publishers Weekly.
Misery
by Stephen KingPaul Sheldon. He's a bestselling novelist who has finally met his biggest fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she is more than a rabid reader--she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident.
But she is also his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house.
Now Annie wants Paul to write his greatest work--just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an ax. And if they don't work, she can get really nasty.