When Diya Burman's best friend Angie dies, it feels like her own life is falling apart. Wanting a fresh start, she joins Slough & Sons - a family firm that cleans up after the recently deceased. Old love letters. Porcelain dolls. Broken trinkets. Clearing away the remnants of other people's lives, Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Thi...

Death was everywhere. They all stared at me, bumping into one another and slowly coming forward. Sixteen-year-old Zharie Young is absolutely certain her mother morphed into a zombie before her untimely death, but she can't seem to figure out why. Why her mother died, why her aunt doesn't want her around, why all her dreams seem suddenly, hopelessly...

From New York Times best-selling author Erik Larson comes his first venture into fiction, an otherworldly tale of intrigue and the impossible that marshals his trademark approach to nonfiction to create something new: a ghost story thoroughly grounded in history. Pioneering psychologist William James leads an expedition to a remote isle in search o...

Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula, may not be the first vampire novel, but it is certainly the most famous. These scenarios couldn't be more different than the conservative Victorian era during which the book was published — though critically praised from the start as being ahead of its time it was not an immediate bestseller. The story...

A game that turns to a nightmare.... Non Omnis Moriar I shall not altogether die A young boy watches his mother die. A sadistic man dies in agony. Drunk students play with a Ouija board in a damp cellar. Can bricks and mortar retain imprints of the emotions experienced within them? Frannie is delighted when a chance meeting with a handsome man and...

1950. A teenage girl is brutally murdered in a forest. But, somehow, her baby survives.1976. A mysterious and charming young man returns to the remote coastal village of Mulderrig, seeking answers about the mother who, it was said, had abandoned him on the steps of a Dublin orphanage.With the help of its oldest and most eccentric inhabitant, he wil...

Alison Hart is a medium by trade: dead people talk to her. With her cynical assistant and business partner, the slender, flint-hearted Colette, Alison travels the clubs and psychic fairs of London's orbital road, passing the messages of the dead. But behind Alison's plump, smiling public persona is a tormented woman. When Colette persuades her to d...

For millions of years, men and rats had been natural enemies. But now for the first time - suddenly, shockingly, horribly - the balance of power has shifted and the rats begin to prey on the human population. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND/OR ADULT THEMES.

"Baglady" is a surprising, and brilliant short story. Here, Byatt presents a horror story in which a woman gets trapped in a mall. Although the messages may not be original, Byatt's short but effective look at narcissism and capitalism is wittily told.

Jonathan Harker, an English solicitor, travels to Transylvania to meet the mysterious `Count' who has instructed him to purchase a property in England on his behalf. Thus begins a series of awful events, where Harker finds himself in the midst of a nightmare, in a deadly game of cat and mouse where he himself is hunted as prey. With a host of maste...

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes horrifying discoveries about his client and his castle. Soon afterwards, a number of disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and the inmate of a lu...

The Green Man pub is haunted by the spirit of Dr Thomas Underhill, the 17th-century scholar rumoured to have killed his wife. The local sexton had refused to dig Underhill's grave and the rector had declined to officiate at his funeral. And there are skeletons in the cupboard of the publican's own domestic affairs - just rattling to get out.

January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun...

Abi, a recently-ordained priest of the Church of England, is appointed to the parish of the charismatic but fundamentalist Kier. He objects to her mysticism, her practice of healing in particular. When she sees a vision, Kier accuses her of witchcraft, but Abi soon sees more visions; an entire Roman family history, dark with betrayal and a promise...

As a boy, William Bellman commits one small cruel act that appears to have unforeseen and terrible consequences. The killing of a rook with his catapult is soon forgotten amidst the riot of boyhood games. And by the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, he seems indeed, to be a man blessed by fortune. Until tragedy strikes, and the...

Professor David Ullman is a world authority on demonic literature, so when offered a luxury trip to Venice to consult on a 'phenomenon' he accepts, taking his daughter, Tess, with him. In Venice, things take a sinister, terrifying turn when a man speaks in the voice of David's dead father, repeating the last words he ever spoke to his son. Then Tes...

Four boys and four girls are on a trip to the theatre. Little do they know that they will never see the play. They're about to be plunged into a nightmare. Beneath the theatre lies a secret. And now she has been released....

Most people ignored the outrageous reports on the news. But they became too frequent, they became too real. And soon, they began happening down the street. Then the Internet died. The television and radio went silent. The phones stopped ringing. And we couldn't look outside anymore. Malorie raises the children the only way she can; indoors. The hou...

The mutant white rat has grown and mated, creating offspring in its own image. They dominate the others, the dark-furred ones, who forage for food and bring it back to the lair. Now the dark rats are restless, and the white slug-like thing that rules them remembers the taste of human flesh.

A compilation of five chilling stories from M. R. James, including four previously unreleased stories and originally recorded for the Radio 4 'Woman's Hour' in Christmas 2007. M. R. James is an important part of the nation's celebration of Christmas. In the oral tradition, many of his thirty or so tales were penned as Christmas Eve entertainments a...

Moving from the heart of Brighton and Hove to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for Ollie and Caro Harcourt and their twelve-year-old daughter Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House - a huge, dilapidated Georgian mansion - Ollie is filled with excitement. Despite the financial strain of the move, he has dreamed of living in the country...