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
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Lost Boy, Lost Girl
by Peter StraubA woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son -- beautiful, troubled fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill -- vanishes from the face of the earth. To his uncle, horror novelist Timothy Underhill, Mark's inexplicable absence feels like a second death. After his sister-in-law's funeral, Tim searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this mystery of death and disappearance. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother's suicide Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house on Michigan Street whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain. With lost boy, lost girl, Peter Straub affirms once again that he is the master of literary horror.
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).
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.
The Missing
by Sarah LanganA remote and affluent Maine community, Corpus Christi was untouched by the environmental catastrophe that destroyed the neighboring blue-collar town of Bedford. But all that will change in a heartbeat . . . The nightmare is awakened when third-grade schoolteacher Lois Larkin takes the children on a field trip to Bedford. There in the abandoned woods, a small, cruel boy unearths an ancient horror--a contagious plague that transforms its victims into something violent, hungry . . . and inhuman. The long, dark night is just beginning. And all hope must die as the contagion feeds--for the malevolence will not rest until it has devoured every living soul in Corpus Christi . . . and beyond.
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.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
by Stephen Graham JonesWinner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest chilling novel that &“will give you nightmares. The good kind, of course&” (BuzzFeed) from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones.&“Some girls just don&’t know how to die…&” Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called &“a literary master&” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and &“one of our most talented living writers&” by Tommy Orange. Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw &“a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.&” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life. Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold. Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.
The Night Class
by Tom PiccirilliFacing another semester of classes, Cal Prentiss moves into a new dorm unaware that a murder occurred there over the winter break. He discovers evidence of the unspeakable crime and becomes obsessed with finding the truth. As he gets closer to the heart of the mystery, Cal is surrounded by the supernatural and the grotesque--like the blood that appears on his hands when someone close to him dies.
2002 Bram Stoker Award winner.
The Only Good Indians
by Stephen Graham JonesA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From USA TODAY bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a &“masterpiece&” (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition. Labeled &“one of 2020&’s buzziest horror novels&” (Entertainment Weekly), this is a remarkable horror story that &“will give you nightmares—the good kind of course&” (BuzzFeed).From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
The Reformatory
by Tananarive DueA gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.
Gracetown, Florida
June 1950
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.
The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.
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.
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.
The Traveling Vampire Show
by Richard LaymonThree friends are determined to see the Traveling Vampire Show, featuring the only known vampire in captivity, when it arrives in the summer of 1963. Janks Field, where the show will take place, has been declared off-limits because of its sinister history, but the three teens don't want to miss the performance... and their efforts yield far more than they ever imagined.
Bram Stoker Award winner in 2000.
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