Gothic / Horror
Books in these categories typically include terror, mystery, supernatural elements, and often focus on the psychological aspects involved that help create the frightening situations that occur. Gothic usually includes medieval buildings or dark and harsh cultural mores often based on a European pagan and/or Christian background with some element of romance combined. Overall, the protagonist or other major characters end up in some frightening situations. Horror is a broader category that may or may not include Gothic elements. Perhaps, the main trait of horror is its ability to elicit fear in the reader.
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Base Spirits (Barrett) In 1605, Sir Walter Calverley’s murderous rampage leaves a family shattered. The killer suffers a torturous execution… but is it truly the end? A noble Yorkshire house stands forever tarnished by blood and possessed by anguished spirits . . .Read a sample chapter here.
Darklands: A Vampire’s Tale (Burgess) is a violent tale of survival, bloodlust, and two people trying to hang on to the last shreds of their humanity, while teetering on the edge of immortality . . .
In Darkroom (Poppet) Shauna is stolen by Vengeance. Using torture, he breaks her, forcing her to reform and adapt. When he frees her, she flees. Thinking she’s escaped her stalker and tormentor, she lets her guard down . . .Read a sample chapter here.
In Djinn (Poppet) Cindy’s life changes the minute she receives the book Djinn from Sasha. Within hours the forces of darkness infiltrate her life . . .
In Don of the Living Dead (DeCoteau) Don Carver is the unlikely hero of a zombie outbreak. He must brave the savage streets to escape downtown Seattle in order to save his six-year-old son and his cruelly, vindictive ex-wife, but first he has to figure out how to escape the zombie standing outside the door of his bathroom stall . . .Read sample chapter here.
Edge of Shadows (Smith) Fresh off a marriage that spiraled into a dangerous tailspin, Ellie Coulter doesn’t believe in fate or luck. She’s been surrounded by darkness since her parents’ untimely death, and harbors a secret that never lets her forget . . .
In Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon (Gustafson) six-year-old Willy survived a huge fire. The memory of the flames engulfed his childhood and haunted him for years. Terrible secrets that should have burned away have come back . . .
In From Within (Dow) three strangers find themselves drawn to Wakely, a small village in the Scottish Borders, where a centuries-old conflict between two warring Celtic deities is drawing to its gruesome . . .Read a sample chapter here.
Gothic Blue Book: The Haunted Edition (Pelayo, et al.) A collection of short stories and poems resurrect the spirit of the Gothic Blue Book. Gothic Blue Books were short fictions popular in the 18th and 19th century . . .
Nightcry (Thompson) is about Grant Sykes, who has returned to his hometown of Ilton to run the local paper. Soon, people start to die and fingers point to him—it doesn’t help the evidence continues to amass against Grant. He thinks the deaths may have something to do with a supernatural being that killed . . .
In Quislings (Poppet) A harmless game of Spirit of the Glass changes their lives. Immersed head first into the ancient Mayan world, tattoos transform, prayers are caught by the greedy, and the rattlesnake comes to stake its claim . . .
In Servant of the Gods (Douglas) a child of prophecy, in her life she would bear three names, the one she bore as a peasant and a mercenary, another after she was captured and enslaved, but despite it all she would rise to become Priestess of Isis and High Priestess of all Egypt . . .Read a sample chapter here.
In Voices (Robinson) after witnessing and surviving the horror of a bomb attack, college tutor Chris Deacon finds himself deaf and mute, and plagued by two phantoms, the inexplicable Colonel Gun and the frightening dwarf, Egghead. As his hearing returns, he begins to hear voices in his head . . .Read a sample chapter here
