New Horror Titles from Virgin Books and Raw Dog Screaming Press announced
Isabel Burning by Donna Lynch from Raw Dog Screaming Press
As a young woman raised in the soot-covered mediocrity of an English industrial town, Isabel has led a common and directionless life. Secretly she yearns to be the center of something, anything, that is momentous and vital. She dreams of making marks on the world.
Her new job as housekeeper at Grace mansion is hardly exciting but does surround her with the accouterments of aristocratic lineage while allowing her to observe the habits of the enigmatic Dr. Edward Grace. Captivated by his tales of travel to Africa, Isabel is inexorably drawn into a tumultuous relationship which eventually reveals the Grace family's dark heritage and lays bare every secret, even the ones she keeps from herself.
Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria by D. Harlan Wilson from Raw Dog Screaming Press
Rutger Van Trout has worse problems than his mundane existence in the all-consuming, all-suppressing Vulgaria of Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's not that his son might be turning into a werewolf, or that his daughter might be a nymphomaniac. The problem does not lie in his obsession with transforming his middle-class estate into a three-ring barnyard, nor in the shrunken head collection under the bed. He doesn't even mind his wife's (possibly) haunted skeleton or the freak-of-the-week superheroes and window-jumpers populating his neighborhood. The complication has invaded his community in the form of a new breed of serial killer, one who stalks from house to house throughout the Vulgaria leaving a bloodbath that would make Jack the Ripper himself blush. The killer's name is Mr. Blankety Blank, and Rutger Van Trout's neighborhood is on the wrong end of a killing spree...
BANQUET FOR THE DAMNED by Adam L G Nevill from Virgin Books
When students suffering from horrific dreams mysteriously vanish from their beds and body parts wash ashore, it seems an ancient darkness has stirred once more in Scotland’s oldest university town. Some suspect a professor of divinity’s meddling with the occult has unleashed a horror, banished by religious fire centuries before. Something eager to return and take a bloody revenge.
In this chilling occult thriller, a pair of unlikely heroes, a rootless musician and an American explorer, must find the courage to accept the impossible and do the unthinkable to prevent a demonic force from unleashing its dreadful rage upon humanity.
Combining elements of classic horror films such as The Omen and The Wicker Man, this chilling occult thriller is both homage to the great age of British ghost stories and a pacy modern tale of diabolism and witchcraft.
The Perils and Dangers of this Night by Stephen Gregory from Virgin Books
A Bleak mid-winter. An icy wind blows through the corridors of Foxwood Manor, a boys’ prep-school deep in the woodlands of Dorset. The school is empty. The boys have gone home at the end of the Christmas term. The old house is left to the headmaster, Dr Kemp, and his wife.
Cold silent and empty. No, not quite empty. One boy is left behind. Alan Scott, 12, abandoned by his feckless mother, faces the grim prospect of Christmas alone with the Kemps. Until, at dusk the following afternoon, a vision from the outside world arrives at the school: Martin Pryce, a suave, arrogant ex-pupil, and his bewildered girlfriend Sophie.
And, as the snow falls heavily on the house and the surrounding woods, a story of revenge and retribution unfolds. A web of half-truths and innuendos weaves into a bizarre game of hide-and-seek through the corridors and dormitories of the school, and a series of shocking revelations soon leads to inexorably, horrifically, to a bloody climax on a crisp, lovely Christmas morning.
TEATRO GROTTESCO By Thomas Ligotti from Virgin Books
‘An accomplished conjurer of nightmares in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft’ The Times
Thomas Ligotti is one of the most original and remarkable figures in horror literature since H.P. Lovecroft. In Teatro Grottesco, Ligotti follows the literary tradition that began with Edgar Allan Poe: portraying characters that are outside of anything that might be called normal life, depicting strange locales far off the beaten track, and rendering a grim vision of human existence as a perpetual nightmare.
Just by entering his unique world where odd little towns and dark sectors are peopled with clowns and hideous puppets, and where tormented individuals and blackly comical eccentrics play out their doom, is to risk your own vision of the world.
As a young woman raised in the soot-covered mediocrity of an English industrial town, Isabel has led a common and directionless life. Secretly she yearns to be the center of something, anything, that is momentous and vital. She dreams of making marks on the world.
Her new job as housekeeper at Grace mansion is hardly exciting but does surround her with the accouterments of aristocratic lineage while allowing her to observe the habits of the enigmatic Dr. Edward Grace. Captivated by his tales of travel to Africa, Isabel is inexorably drawn into a tumultuous relationship which eventually reveals the Grace family's dark heritage and lays bare every secret, even the ones she keeps from herself.
Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria by D. Harlan Wilson from Raw Dog Screaming Press
Rutger Van Trout has worse problems than his mundane existence in the all-consuming, all-suppressing Vulgaria of Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's not that his son might be turning into a werewolf, or that his daughter might be a nymphomaniac. The problem does not lie in his obsession with transforming his middle-class estate into a three-ring barnyard, nor in the shrunken head collection under the bed. He doesn't even mind his wife's (possibly) haunted skeleton or the freak-of-the-week superheroes and window-jumpers populating his neighborhood. The complication has invaded his community in the form of a new breed of serial killer, one who stalks from house to house throughout the Vulgaria leaving a bloodbath that would make Jack the Ripper himself blush. The killer's name is Mr. Blankety Blank, and Rutger Van Trout's neighborhood is on the wrong end of a killing spree...
BANQUET FOR THE DAMNED by Adam L G Nevill from Virgin Books
When students suffering from horrific dreams mysteriously vanish from their beds and body parts wash ashore, it seems an ancient darkness has stirred once more in Scotland’s oldest university town. Some suspect a professor of divinity’s meddling with the occult has unleashed a horror, banished by religious fire centuries before. Something eager to return and take a bloody revenge.
In this chilling occult thriller, a pair of unlikely heroes, a rootless musician and an American explorer, must find the courage to accept the impossible and do the unthinkable to prevent a demonic force from unleashing its dreadful rage upon humanity.
Combining elements of classic horror films such as The Omen and The Wicker Man, this chilling occult thriller is both homage to the great age of British ghost stories and a pacy modern tale of diabolism and witchcraft.
The Perils and Dangers of this Night by Stephen Gregory from Virgin Books
A Bleak mid-winter. An icy wind blows through the corridors of Foxwood Manor, a boys’ prep-school deep in the woodlands of Dorset. The school is empty. The boys have gone home at the end of the Christmas term. The old house is left to the headmaster, Dr Kemp, and his wife.
Cold silent and empty. No, not quite empty. One boy is left behind. Alan Scott, 12, abandoned by his feckless mother, faces the grim prospect of Christmas alone with the Kemps. Until, at dusk the following afternoon, a vision from the outside world arrives at the school: Martin Pryce, a suave, arrogant ex-pupil, and his bewildered girlfriend Sophie.
And, as the snow falls heavily on the house and the surrounding woods, a story of revenge and retribution unfolds. A web of half-truths and innuendos weaves into a bizarre game of hide-and-seek through the corridors and dormitories of the school, and a series of shocking revelations soon leads to inexorably, horrifically, to a bloody climax on a crisp, lovely Christmas morning.
TEATRO GROTTESCO By Thomas Ligotti from Virgin Books
‘An accomplished conjurer of nightmares in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft’ The Times
Thomas Ligotti is one of the most original and remarkable figures in horror literature since H.P. Lovecroft. In Teatro Grottesco, Ligotti follows the literary tradition that began with Edgar Allan Poe: portraying characters that are outside of anything that might be called normal life, depicting strange locales far off the beaten track, and rendering a grim vision of human existence as a perpetual nightmare.
Just by entering his unique world where odd little towns and dark sectors are peopled with clowns and hideous puppets, and where tormented individuals and blackly comical eccentrics play out their doom, is to risk your own vision of the world.
posted by Monster Librarian at
6:16 PM
0 Comments
