Dazzled by Christian's hypnotic seduction, single mother Meredith goes home with him against her better judgment, to his apartment in the underbelly of Detroit. Big mistake. For Christian's smile hides deadly secrets, and he wants more than a one-night stand. He wants to keep Meredith--forever.After her husband's death, single mother Meredith just wants to raise her son in peace--until her handsome young co-worker Christian catches her eye. Dazzled by Christian's hypnotic seduction, Meredith goes home with him against her better judgment, to his apartment in the dark underbelly of Detroit. Big mistake. For Christian's easy smile hides deadly secrets, and he wants more than a one-night stand. He wants to keep Meredith forever. PRELUDE is a short story prequel to the crime horror-thriller series SO DAMN BEAUTIFUL, a finished trilogy intended for adults. The other books in the series include:1. So Damn Beautiful: The Lonely One (So Damn Beautiful, #1)2. So Damn Beautiful: Children's Home 5 (So Damn Beautiful, #2)3. So Damn Beautiful: Lost Sanctum (So Damn Beautiful, #3)

In this second collection of stories, Black Cat Tales: Black Anne and Other Short Stories you'll find more of the most popular spooky (and sometimes mischievous) stories and flash fiction from Black Cat Tales.In this second collection of stories, Black Cat Tales: Black Anne and Other Short Stories you'll find more of the most popular spooky (and sometimes mischievous) stories and flash fiction from Black Cat Tales.Stories include:Black Anne;The River Rising;Squirrel Hunting;The Magic in the Stones; and more

When I change I change fast. The moon drags the whatever-it-is up from the earth and it goes through me with crazy wriggling impatience . . . I’m twisted, torn, churned, throttled—then rushed through a blind chicane into ludicrous power . . . A heel settles. A last canine hurries through. A shoulder blade pops. The woman is a werewolf. The woman is Talulla Demetriou. She’s grieving for her werewolf lover, Jake, whose violent death has left her alone with her own sublime monstrousness. On the run, pursued by the hunters of WOCOP (World Organisation for the Control of Occult Phenomena), she must find a place to give birth to Jake’s child in secret.             The birth, under a full moon at a remote Alaska lodge, leaves Talulla ravaged, but with her infant son in her arms she believes the worst is over—until the windows crash in, and she discovers that the worst has only just begun . . .             What follows throws Talulla into a race against time to save both herself and her child as she faces down the new, psychotic leader of WOCOP, a cabal of blood-drinking religious fanatics, and (rumor has it) the oldest living vampire. Harnessing the same audacious imagination and dark humor, the same depths of horror and sympathy, the same full-tilt narrative energy with which he crafted his acclaimed novel The Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan now gives us a heroine like no other, the definitive twenty-first-century female of the species. 

The final, haunting novel in the extraordinary story that has enthralled millions! The horror began with Flowers in the Attic, the terrifying tale of four innocent children locked away from the world by a cruel mother. The shocking fury continued with Petals on the Wind and If There Be Thorns. Now V.C. Andrews has created the last dark chapter in the strange, chilling tale of passion and peril that has captivated millions of readers around the world. Cathy and Chris, entwined with the evil that haunts their children, living with the fearful spectre of Foxworth Hall, are awaiting the final, shuddering climax... prisoners of a past they cannot escape.

Author Nick Blake has it all: success, wealth, fame. Sam Bishop, his main rival, is getting desperate. With his career stalled, he’s going nowhere. Breaking into Blake's house, Bishop finds his latest manuscript – a collection of stories titled Something Weird. As he begins to read, it isn't long before the book starts living up to its title....“On the morning of Sunday April 16, two days before his fortieth birthday, Samuel P Bishop went to kill a man….”Nick Blake has it all: success, wealth, fame. His last book, Come The Night, was a bestseller, and he’s currently flavour of the month. A media darling. Sam Bishop, his main rival, is getting desperate. With his career stalled, he’s going nowhere. One night, he breaks into Blake’s house. The author isn’t home, but Bishop finds his latest manuscript – a collection of stories titled Something Weird. As he begins to read, it isn’t long before the book starts living up to its title….

Hannah and her mother Marla moved to a new place : a new house, in Melbourne. Neither of the two had slightest idea how soon the things would start changing!Hannah and her mother Marla moved to a new place : a new house, in Melbourne. Neither of the two had slightest idea how soon the things would start changing! Marla not only found a new place to work at but also a new place to live in! Twists and turns in place on such a short notice that things totally slipped out of their hands!.........Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends butplease do not post or archive without asking me first. If you like the story, please tell yourfriends, add the title to reading lists etc but direct people back to my official distribution sites.Please keep this book in its complete original form, with the exception of quotes used inreviews. No alteration of the content is allowed.Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, eventsor locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination andused fictitiously.

Only a handful of fictional characters are recognized by first name alone. Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas is one of those rare literary heroes who have come alive in readers' imaginations as he explores the greatest mysteries of this world and the next with his inimitable wit, heart, and quiet gallantry. Now Koontz follows Odd as he is irresistibly drawn onward to a destiny he cannot imagine and to undreamed of places where the perils he will face and the stakes for which he fights will eclipse all that he has known. The legend began in the obscure little town of Pico Mundo. A fry cook named Odd was rumored to have the extraordinary ability to communicate with the dead. Through tragedy and triumph, exhilaration and heartbreak, word of Odd Thomas's gifts filtered far beyond Pico Mundo, attracting unforgettable new friends--and enemies of implacable evil. With great gifts comes the responsibility to meet great challenges. But no mere human being was ever meant to face the darkness that now stalks the world--not even one as oddly special as Odd Thomas. After grappling with the very essence of reality itself, after finding the veil that separates him from his soul mate, Stormy Llewellyn, tantalizingly thin yet impenetrable, Odd longed only to return to a life of quiet anonymity with his two otherworldly sidekicks--his dog Boo and a new companion, one of the few who might rival his old pal Elvis. But a true hero, however humble, must persevere. Haunted by dreams of an all-encompassing red tide, Odd is pulled inexorably to the sea, to a small California coastal town where nothing is as it seems. Now the forces arrayed against him have both official sanction and an infinitely more sinister authority...and in this dark night of the soul dawn will come only after the most shattering revelations of all. Burnishing Dean Koontz's stature as a master of suspense and one of our most innovative and gifted storytellers, Odd Hours illuminates a legacy of mystery and hope that will shine on long after the final page.

Available only in e-book format, Backteria and Other Improbable Tales is a brand new collection of short tales of terror and the unknown from master storyteller Richard Matheson. In the title story, published here for the first time, a researcher encounters an exotic new strain of virus that causes the infected person to disappear. Curiosity leads the doctor on a path of discovery which takes him deep into his own personal history and suggests the age-old warning: Be careful what you wish for. In "Getting Together", a case of mistaken identity leads to a darkly farcical story of marriage, murder, and a love that knows no bounds. The quietly threatening "Haircut" shows how a routine trim becomes a dark and terrifying experience when a barber is confronted with a sick customer who seems to him otherworldly. In this collection of stories Matheson clearly demonstrates once again why Ray Bradbury called him "one of the most important writers of the twentieth century" and Stephen King named him as "the author who influenced me most as a writer." ABOUT THE AUTHOR Richard Burton Matheson (born February 20, 1926) is an American author and screenwriter working primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. Between 1950 and 1971, Matheson produced dozens of stories, frequently combining elements from the different genres in which he works, making important contributions to the further development of modern horror. Matheson wrote fourteen episodes for the American television series The Twilight Zone, including the famous "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Notably, Steven Spielberg's first full length film (made for television) was based on the story “Duel,” for which Matheson also wrote the screenplay. Matheson's first novel, Someone is Bleeding, was published in 1953. His thirty novels since then include The Shrinking Man (filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man, again adapted from Matheson's own screenplay), and a science fiction/vampire novel, I Am Legend (made into film as The Last Man on Earth, 1964, The Omega Man, 1971, and I Am Legend, 2007). A new film based on Matheson's story “Steel,” entitled Real Steel, is a major motion picture that was released in October 2011. His most recent novel, Other Kingdoms, appeared in March 2011. According to film critic Roger Ebert, Matheson's scientific approach to the supernatural in I Am Legend and other novels from the 1950s and '60s anticipated the "pseudorealistic fantasy novels like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist." In 2010, Matheson was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and Stephen King has cited Matheson as a creative influence; his novel Cell is dedicated to Matheson along with filmmaker George A. Romero. Author Anne Rice has said that Matheson's short story, "A Dress of White Silk" was a primary early influence on her interest in vampires and fantasy fiction.

Twenty two tales of horror and mystery unearth dark secrets and terrible truths. From serial killers to short-order cooks, disillusioned office workers to child prodigies, the members of this braying human menagerie are on a collision course with the end times – and one another. Ashton Raze’s debut short story collection weaves a series of narratives into a creepy, tangled, darkly comic whole.“Reality made this factual. The monsters weren’t the undead, the wolfmen or the creeping horrors. The monsters were living; they were alive. They lived among the population, waiting, watching and then, when they were content to watch no longer… they snapped.”A shot is fired. Passengers on the Underground get too close for comfort. A stoic grandmother reaches out to her estranged granddaughter through her first computer. A familiar drive home takes an unfamiliar turn – literally. A Hollywood effects artist discovers that even heroes have a dark side.Twenty two tales of horror and mystery unearth dark secrets and terrible truths. From serial killers to short-order cooks, disillusioned office workers to child prodigies, the members of this braying human menagerie are on a collision course with the end times – and one another. Ashton Raze’s debut short story collection weaves a series of narratives into a creepy, tangled, darkly comic whole.

"A world of slaughter, pain and frightAnother life we take tonightA whole new world of blood and fearWatch as we coax another tear..."Karpacia. A world of nightmares, fear and pain. It's also where Sara lives.A new world taken over by manslaughter after animals are killed off, bringing upon a new idea of an "Expiration Date" where no one lives a day past their 18th birthday.On this day, they expirance the horrors Naomi, Sara's sister, felt...But you don't know about that yet...Care to learn?

In a fantasy world, a journal is found describing events either real or myth about a nation known only as the Illistarta and how they came to be forgotten. A man once known as Quillis Olgatin is haunted by his guilty secret.Several millennia ago a war raged between the factions of dragonkind. With their world ravaged, the Kaldean Alliance forged the Amulet of Draconic Control and the Tethering Stone, and banished their foes other realms, saving Kalda from utter destruction. Fearing the power of the Amulet, the survivors secreted it away. But now knowledge of the Amulet has resurfaced—and in the wrong hands, war could erupt anew. Over the last thousand years, the humans of Kalda have regressed to a medieval realm; magical objects are scarce and outlawed in certain Kingdoms. Though mages are abundant magical items are precious and often tip the balance of power. Thirsty for power, the necromancers of Soroth often send expeditions to the far reaches of Kalda. On one such search to a remote island ancient texts are discovered detailing the ancient dragon war and the Amulet of Draconic Control. Wary of the find, a warrior must decide whether to deliver them to the necromancers or ally with an old friend–the fate of Kalda rests in his hands. An epic tale in a far off mystical land, The Dragons’ Legacy will send you on a riveting ride fraught with adventure, intrigue and wonder.

The Tooth Fairy is another stunning story from Ryan Ramoutar.Small glimpses of relief and liberty are in fact bad omens. And the death is very small and very silent...‘I’ve traded my old enemies for just this one…’ The axe thundered home. ‘I miss the old ones.’Every man has a past, none more so than Draven Reinhardt. Abandoning his old life to settle down as a villager, he struggles to fit in, let alone hold down a job. When opportunity offers the much needed coin, Draven is torn between a promise and a purpose. But, what’s one last job if you’ve already got blood on your hands?‘From Man to Man’ is the story of how one man can change – or not – for the best. Prequel to the upcoming novel ‘It Began With Ashes’, the short (6400 words) introduces the reader to a world of suspense, intrigue, and action.BONUS MATERIAL:Exclusive preview chapter from ‘It Began With Ashes’.

Life ultimately brings us back, through tragedy especially, forcing us to confront the past by painful means. Heading back to the dock, to the edge of the water, recalling a childhood spent fishing with a father he loved then. Too bad things never last.Standing on the end of that peer, waiting for the news that everything was over, he sees it slinking from the depths. Why on today, of all days?Tommy started believing in impossible things the day he caught a bus along with a man curiously dressed as a live size teddy bear. What followed was the most bizarre journey of his life.Join Tommy and his reluctant school friends on an adventure as they meet, elephant men, talking owls, the Man of Christmas, and many more. All whilst being chased by a Duchess who knows their deepest personnel secrets

Brooke's marriage had been dead to her for years, but a chance meeting with an old high school classmate offered her the chance at a new life. First dates had never held such promise. But she hadn't factored in the walking dead.This is the fifth story in the series. A new story will be released each week through the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012.Following a nuclear holocaust, Nathan Taylor and his family face grim choices in order to stay alive. Fleeing deadly radiation, plague and desperate men, Nathan, an army officer, leads his wife and their two teenage sons away from chaos and madness toward his ancestral home in Kentucky. Horrors lie in their path. From the prison struggling to maintain control of its inmates, to the desperadoes who enslave anyone who comes their way, even survival may cost Nathan his humanity...or that of his sons, Joshua and David. Nathan struggles to keep his family intact, but it requires making brutal choices. He wants to protect his sons, but knows they now must be deadly and cold at times.Nathan's home has been spared from the worst of the destruction, but a larger conflict over scarce resources erupts. For the survivors to have any chance they will have to fight and the desperate journey has transformed young Joshua and David into men called upon to lead and sacrifice. Torn between harsh realities, and wanting to hold onto fleeting childhoods, they are often conflicted and angry about the roles thrust upon them. Much will depend on how Nathan and his sons respond to a madman and his military regime seeking to conquer the fledgling community they are helping to build.GLIMMER OF HOPE is an epic tale of one family's endurance and triumph after tomorrow's apocalypse.

When Koios agreed to become a vampire ten years ago, it was to save who he thought was the love of his life. When he found her, it was already too late. Since then, he has carried the guilt of her death on himself.But when out on a hunt, he comes across a person strikingly familiar to him. He is forced to choose between loyalty to the ones who created him, and the love he once knew.When Koios agreed to become a vampire ten years ago, it was to save who he thought was the love of his life. When he found her, it was already too late. Since then, he has carried the guilt of her death on himself.But when out on a hunt one night, he comes across a person strikingly familiar to him, and he is forced to choose between loyalty to his family and the ones who created him, and the love he once knew.A dark tale of death, rebirth and redemption, Aeternum Amor twists and turns as it follows Koios right to the end and answers the question about what it means to be alive.