As a massive outbreak of supernatural Visitors baffles Scotland Yard and causes protests throughout London, Lockwood & Co. continue to demonstrate their effectiveness in exterminating spirits. Anthony Lockwood is dashing, George insightful, and Lucy dynamic, while the skull in the jar utters sardonic advice from the sidelines. There is a new spirit of openness in the team now that Lockwood has shared some of his childhood secrets, and Lucy is feeling more and more as if her true home is at Portland Row. It comes as a great shock, then, when Lockwood and George introduce her to an annoyingly perky and hyper-efficient new assistant, Holly Munro. Meanwhile, there are reports of many new hauntings, including a house where bloody footprints are appearing, and a department store full of strange sounds and shadowy figures. But ghosts seem to be the least of Lockwood & Co.'s concerns when assassins attack during a carnival in the center of the city. Can the team get past their personal issues to save the day on all fronts, or will bad feelings attract yet more trouble? Danger abounds, tensions escalate, and new loyalties form in this third delightfully terrifying adventure in the critically acclaimed Lockwood & Co. series.

A new Newsflesh novella from the New York Times bestselling author that brought you Feed, Mira Grant. Post-Rising Australia can be a dangerous place, especially if you're a member of the government-sponsored Australia Conservation Corps, a group of people dedicated to preserving their continent's natural wealth until a cure can be found. Between the zombie kangaroos at the fences and the zombie elephant seals turning the penguin rookery at Prince Phillip Island into a slaughterhouse, the work of an animal conservationist is truly never done--and is often done at the end of a sniper rifle.

Short horror story. Pages: 6. Words: 1,910Evan awakens in a dark place where he must fight for his life from evil beings and twisted puzzles.A young man awakens in an unknown place, strapped to a bed, with shadows around, his whole world is turn upside down. He is in a race of time to escape the hell he has awoken in. As He dives deeper into the mysterious world around him, he starts to realize that not all is what it seems when people try to play God. Everything he once knew has been turned upset down and only gets worse as he starts to unravel the sicking truth around him with the help from another.

From the bestselling author of the Charlie Parker mysteries—"the finest crime series currently in existence" (The Independent)—comes a new anthology of chilling short fiction. A decade after Nocturnes first terrified and delighted readers, John Connolly, bestselling author of thirteen acclaimed thrillers featuring private investigator Charlie Parker, gives us a second volume of tales of the supernatural. From stories of the monstrous for dark winter nights to fables of fantastic libraries and haunted books, from a tender account of love after death to a frank, personal, and revealing account of the author's affection for myths of ghosts and demons, this is a collection that will surprise, delight—and terrify. Night Music: Nocturnes 2 also contains two novellas: the multi-award-winning The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository and The Fractured Atlas. Night Music: Nocturnes 2 is a masterly collection to be read with the lights on—menace has never been so seductive.

R is recovering from death. He’s learning how to breathe, how to speak, how to be human, one clumsy step at a time. He doesn’t remember his old life and he doesn’t want to. He’s building a new one with Julie. But his old life remembers him. The plague has another host far more dangerous than the Dead. It’s coming to return the world to the good old days of stability and control and the strong eating the weak, and stopping it will require a frightening journey into the surreal wastelands of America—and the shadowy basement of R’s mind.

Frustrated musician Jamie finally gets some luck: a beautiful girl who understands him and an amazing record contract. But is the song that haunts his memory really his own creation, or did something whisper it to him long ago... the sinister something that haunts the windswept monument?A lonely, windswept monument stands overlooking the sea, where misunderstood songwriter Jamie escapes to be alone with his doubts. The monument proves lucky when he meets a beautiful girl there, who reminds him of a brilliant song he composed years before... but no sooner does he find love and success than a sinister figure begins to haunt him, demanding retribution.

From Australian Shadow Award finalist Daniel I. Russell comes a tale of pure love and darkest night.July 15th, 1905.A reserved doctor travels by carriage to his newest abode, 39 Hilldrop Crescent, just off Camden Road. A dark house, a quiet house. Too much room for the doctor and his music hall entertainer wife, Cora. What follows is one of history's most notorious murder cases.From Australian Shadow Award finalist Daniel I. Russell comes a tale of pure love and darkest night. God May Pity All Weak Hearts is the first of a selection of short stories taken from the collection, Tricks, Mischief and Mayhem, with cover art by Bram Stoker Award winner, Greg Chapman.July 15th, 1905.A reserved doctor travels by carriage to his newest abode, 39 Hilldrop Crescent, just off Camden Road. A dark house, a quiet house. Too much room for the doctor and his music hall entertainer wife, Cora. What follows is one of history's most notorious murder cases.

A woman who loves cats perhaps just a little too much; a pair of spinsters not to be underestimated; a bullied boy at the end of his tether; a successful couple about to lose everything... These and other stories begin so innocently, but there is often darkness hidden in everyday lives...This collection of seven short stories will surprise and entertain with their unusual take on modern lives.To a young person entering upon maturity, there are many unknowns. What to wear, who to hang out with, what to listen to, which substances should be taken, where can I go next, do we chose our diet or does society and omnipotent marketing - what on earth to do for work! Do we have a choice anyway? When you are not the average, average person - because as we all know, our backgrounds never fulfil media's illusive social and family ideals - how do you make sense of the mixed messages of the world, or carve a future space for yourself within it? Fables is a mix of tales which grapples with these dilemmas. A mad, youthful dash for freedom, turns to analysis, judgement, learning and decision. Fables surprises, with enlightening characters, earnestly tackling their individual adventures; it is thought provoking and amusing. It is not for the closed minded. It is bemused by the idea of normal life.

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills. And that's both a good, and a bad thing. It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance...

When mutant rats threaten to take over Staten Island, which has become a huge landfill, 14-year-old Sarah and her younger brother Mike try to figure out how to stop them.

A very precise, very orderly author has the worst case of writer's block. He is working on book five in his series and the submission date is fast approaching but the words are just not there when he needs them. He attempts to fix it using every possible method he knows.The Kingdom of Heaven has been downsized to a single city. And to save overcrowding, God has a new chosen race and set of entry qualifications. In the modern hereafter only good Americans go to Paris when they die. But not even a divinely ordered bureaucracy is infallible and five not-so-good Americans find themselves thrown together and trapped in a surreal limbo while awaiting official ruling on their fate: return to the void of death or return outside to the Paris of their twenty-fifth year.They are an ill-assorted lot: randy 1900s marine Louis Forster; Maggie Thompson, an over-sexed 1930s fan dancer; neurotic 1940s New York intellectual Seymour Stein;modern-day foul-mouthed truck-driver, Max Pilsudski; Helen Ricchi, the mysterious and bookish wallflower suspected of murder after her husband's disappearance in the Paris of the 1950s. And these desperate departed will stop at nothing to return to the land of the living and repair flawed lives and fractured loves.

“…a modern masterpiece.” -- Jason Kehe, WiredA demon living in rotting flesh commands an army of zombies and shapeless monsters. A mortal man and an army of clone women fight to stop them.“…a modern masterpiece.” -- Jason Kehe, WiredA demon's army grows as her monsters turn the living into hordes of living death. The Army of Four and the Virgin Army join together to resist. A mortal man, mystical creatures and mass-produced clone women battle zombies, cyborgs and shapeless horrors. Their war is a suspenseful tale of high adventure.

John Benton was one of the toughest men ever to wear a Texas Ranger badge. But eight years ago, in August 1871, he hung up his guns for good. Or so he hoped. Then young Robby Coles challenged him to a fight over some imagined slight to the boy's sixteen-year-old girlfriend. At first Benton tried to laugh off the affair. Why, the boy was little more than a child. But rumors and gossip spread like wildfire through their dusty frontier town and soon enough the entire community seems to be goading both men towards a fatal confrontation neither one truly wants. Benton doesn't want to kill again. Robby is secretly terrified of facing the legendary gunfighter. Yet, with both men's honor on the line, is there any way to avoid a duel to the death?

Halloween only comes around once a year, and the Justices do it right. They turn their house into a museum of torture, sectioning off each room with a velvet rope. The exhibits are so terrifying that the local amusement park asks them for their secret. It's quite simple, actually. And four lucky--or unlucky--fans get to find out what it is first hand."For so many years, passionate fans of The Count of Monte Cristo have suffered a loss upon finishing Alexandre Dumas' last words. It is a grieving of sorts that has long been unmitigable... until now. The mysterious Holy Ghost Writer has penned "The Sultan of Monte Cristo" as a direct continuance of the story readers have long struggled against leaving behind. The adventure-laden journeys of Edmond Dantes continues in (Dumas') newly-honed role as investigative reporter who publishes his (original) book as part of (this) story. New life is breathed into those characters we all knew and loved (or loved to hate) in the original Count of Monte Cristo tale (what can now, finally, be referred to as Book 1). Haydee, the infamous Villeforts, and even Countess G are lifted from the stalemate of our beloved story and given new life, and readers will also be introduced to a host of colorful new characters (like the memorable Raymee) whose lives, loves, and circumstance flow comprehensively and effortlessly through the entire narrative. Amazingly, the prose so closely matches the mood, tone, pacing, and richness of environment of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo that this feels like the natural continuance of those lives. The sequel manages to introduce such a microscopic view into the full-flesh world our colorful characters engage in that readers can't help being sucked in. We cannot help but run breathlessly alongside them throughout the journey, to imagine the consequences between their words, to ponder on their insights and their woe-filled courses of action. We stand next to Mercedes as she lives and breathes; we get that rare glimpse into the future of the characters that Alexandre Dumas himself surely intended. Through well-defined and multilayered plotlines, the story's laser-point pacing, and rich character building, this work lends the quagmire of adventures, missteps, and danger-filled mysteries a guarantee of unforeseen, adventurous turns and cathartic "a-ha" insights. The Holy Ghost Writer seems a literary time-traveller: the swiftness with which he carries us straight into the 1800s is mind-boggling and a rare feat even in the best historical fiction writing. Excellent novel, and highly recommended!" Peanut's review.