Rapid Readers' Advisory: Gothic, Horror, Supernatural

They've infiltrated homes in Hong Kong, shops in Vancouver, the streets of in Sierra Leone, town squares in Oaxaca, schools in Tel Aviv, bedrooms in Indiana. They're everywhere. They're here. They're us. They're not pets, or ghosts, or robots. They're real people, but how can a person living in Berlin walk freely through the living room of someone in Sydney? How can someone in Bangkok have breakfast with your children in Buenos Aires, without your knowing? This is a story that is already happening; it's familiar and unsettling because it's our present and we're living it, we just don't know it yet. #Horror #ScienceFiction #PrintBook

"Alamat" are legends, and this anthology is stocked with a mythic dip into the rich trove that is Philippine folklore. Richly imagined realms where powerful gods and supernatural creatures are responsible for the random twists and turns of fate in the lives of ordinary people. These and more await readers of this canonical collection of fantasy stories from the Philippines! Myth and legend collide in this anthology... Fusing folklore, myth and magic, these stories are by more than a dozen well-known and award-winning authors. Each myth-based tale is reimagined for a modern sensibility and reinvented for the current generation of fantasy fiction lovers. #Mythology #Supernatural #Folklore #eBook

Schweblin's stories have the feel of a sleepless night, where every shadow and bump in the dark take on huge implications; they leave your pulse racing and the line between the real and the strange blurring.     "The crunch of a bird's wing. A cloud of butterflies, so beautiful it smothers. A crimson flash of blood across an artist's canvas. Spine-tingling and unexpected, unearthly and strange, the stories of Mouthful of Birds are impossible to forget. Samanta Schweblin's writing expertly blurs the line between the surreal and the everyday, pulling the reader into a world that is at once nightmarish and beautiful. An exhilarating tour de force guaranteed to leave the pulse racing." #MagicalRealism #ShortStories #DysfunctionalFamilies

#Folklore #GhostStories #Legends #ShortStories #Mexico #Texas

"Collection of short stories that blend horror, surrealism, and speculative fiction to take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and reign of big tech." #Horror #Speculative #Surrealism #PrintBook

Chinese American twins, Milly and Billy, are having a tough time. On top of the multiple failures in their personal and professional lives, they're struggling to keep their restaurant afloat. Luckily their parents, Ipo and Keon, are in town for their annual visit. Having immigrated from Hong Kong before the twins were born, Ipo and Keon have supported their children through thick and thin and are ready to lend a hand—but they're starting to wonder, has their support made Milly and Billy incapable of standing on their own? When Ipo forces them to help her clean up the house next door—a hellish and run-down ruin that was the scene of a grisly murder—the twins are in for a nasty surprise. A night of terror, gore, and supernatural mayhem reveals that there is much more to Ipo and her children than meets the eye. #Supernatural #Monsters #Demonology #GraphicNovel #eBook

Volumes 1 and 2 (Her Little Reapers) are both available!

A collection of six stories and novellas includes the title story, in which the disappearance of a sweet blonde-haired child is linked to her mother's indiscretions and an older student with a fascination for a Native American legend. #Horror #Suspense #ShortStories

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemi Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She's not sure what she will find--her cousin's husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemi knows little about the region. Noemi is also an unlikely rescuer: She's a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemi; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemi, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past. #HauntedHouse #FamilySecrets

When solicitor Jonathan Harker visits a castle in Transylvania to help his client, Count Dracula, purchase a house in England, he makes many shocking discoveries about him. As strange incidents begin to occur in England, it becomes clear that the sinister Count Dracula must be stopped. #Gothic #Vampires #PrintBook

"Collection of short stories that blend horror, surrealism, and speculative fiction to take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and reign of big tech." #Horror #Speculative #Surrealism #eBook

A sequel cowritten by Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew and based on the original author's handwritten notes takes place twenty-five years later and finds Van Helsing's morphine-addicted protégé obsessed with countering evil forces. #Horror #Vampires #PrintBook

"A vast, intricate novel that weaves six narratives and spans from 1984 to the 2030s about a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes called the Night Shift who try to take them down. An up-all-night story that fluentlymixes the super-natural, sci-fi, horror, social satire, and hearbreaking realism." #ScienceFiction #Horror #Satire #Supernatural

After her father's death, Rilla Brae puts off thoughts of college to take over his lobstering business, while helping an archaeology student excavate nearby Malaga, an uninhabited island with a ghost that beckons her. #Archaeology #GhostStory #Maine #LobsterFishers #Racism #YA

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tells the story of scientist Victor Frankenstein’s creation of a monster and the disaster and woe that result. Victor Frankenstein, telling his story to explorer Robert Walton, explains that he assembled a creature out of body parts, brought it to life, and fled in terror. The creature was rejected by humans and came to realize the horror of his existence, blaming Victor. The creature began to hunt down and kill Victor’s loved ones and pursued Victor to the Arctic... #Horror #ScienceFiction #Monsters #PrintBook

Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. The stories in her next collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken -- fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history -- with unsettling urgency. A woman is sexually obsessed with the human heart; a lost, rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom; a pair of teenage girls can't let go of their idol; an entire neighborhood is cursed to death by a question of morality they fail to answer correctly.Written against the backdrop of contemporary Argentina, and with resounding tenderness towards those in pain, in fear, and in limbo, this new collection from one of Argentina's most exciting writers finds Enriquez at her most sophisticated, and most chilling. #ShortStories #Horror #eBook (Print also available.)

"By turns suspenseful and enchanting, this breathtaking first novel weaves a story of love, family, history, and myth as seen through the eyes of one immortal woman. Collette LeSange is a lonely artist who heads an elite fine arts school for children in upstate New York. Her youthful beauty masks the dark truth of her life: she has endured centuries of turmoil and heartache in the wake of her grandfather's long-ago decision to make her immortal like himself. Now in 1984, Collette finds her life upended by the arrival of a gifted child from a troubled home, the return of a stalking presence from her past, and her own mysteriously growing hunger. Combining brilliant prose with breathtaking suspense, Jacqueline Holland's The God of Endings serves as a larger exploration of the human condition in all its complexity, asking us the most fundamental question: is life in this world a gift or a curse?" #Vampires #HistoricalFiction