An Hour Before Dark – Larry Hinkle
Cosmic horror collection
Ten interconnected tales that deepen the mystery while expanding the mythos of the Eris Ridge Trail.
The barriers between worlds are breaking down.
People, planes, an entire military base-all have gone missing, transported to an ever-changing cosmic kaleidoscope where they’re hunted, haunted, recruited, and cursed, trapped in time and terrorized by forces they can’t comprehend.
A man afraid of flying boards a never-ending flight. An online paranormal show’s investigation takes a bloody detour. A woman on the run is recruited by a mysterious corporation with nefarious plans. An army guard fights for his life when the military opens a doorway they can’t close.
Watch your step on the Trail. It will be dark soon.
Deal – Howley & Willcocks
Supernatural horror – Book 4 of Twisted Tales
A shattered life. An unmarked invitation. A deal with deadly consequences.
Dane Creed’s life is in ruins. Once a rising star in corporate finance, he’s been chewed up, spat out, and left with nothing. No job, no means to pay his mother’s urgent medical bills, not even a shot at redemption.
Until the letter arrives.
Hand-delivered, unmarked, promising him a second chance to reclaim it all. One night to prove his worth. One choice to change his fate. All he has to do is show up.
But the moment he returns to the towering skyscraper of McKinley & Shaw, he knows something is wrong. The lights hum too softly. The paintings come alive. And the executives offering this once in a lifetime deal might not be human.
Dane soon realises this deal might not just cost him his life.
It might just cost him his soul.
Dementia – Justin Boote
Psychological horror – Book 4 of The Demons Among Us
When Julian’s wife, Claire, dies in a car crash, his world is turned upside down. Especially as they have just become parents. Devastated, Julian moves back home with his mother, Edna, so she can help raise the young baby, Isaak, while Julian throws himself into his work and processes his grief. Edna, despite her seventy years, is more than happy to help out, doting on the boy, doing everything she can while Julian tries to cope with his sudden tragic situation.
Yet Edna has a dark secret. Something she has carried with her for years, a promise she made, and now, there can be no turning back. Failure to do so and the consequences will be catastrophic for her and everyone she loves. And that time has arrived.
Terry is devastated too. Since the incident in Northgate Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Agatha remains in a vegetative state in its sister hospital, and show no signs of recovery, despite Terry and his friend, Michael’s, best efforts. Fearing she may never recover, Terry spirals into a world of self-pity, drinking far too much, not caring for himself or anything else. Much less the promise he made to his little sister, Katie, all those years ago. Yet when ghostly sounds and shadows start appearing at Northgate Mental Hospital and Michael is given clues as to what could be happening at Julian’s home, he begs Terry to reconsider and help out. Yet it could be too late for all of them if Edna carries out her promise.
Dollface – Lindy Ryan
Serial killer horror
Horror author Jill has just moved to suburban New Jersey, hoping to fit in with the new PTA moms and maybe not weird everyone out with her Final Girl coffee mug. You know. Make some real friends.
But then a plastic face-masked serial killer begins slashing their way through town, one overly made-up mom at a time. The police are incredulous. The moms are indignant. And Jill is slowly wrapped into a killer’s murderous spree, until she might just be the last woman standing.
Ghost Glasses – Rikki Goodwin
Ghost horror
When a sixty-years-dead lonely ghost meets the spirit of a child, she’s forced to confront the monsters haunting her to provide the child with companionship. Whether by finding others trapped in-between as they are, or contacting the girl’s living father using a smarmy paranormal investigator hunting for fame, she’s determined to succeed in her task.
But the ghost’s memory isn’t what it used to be, and reality fades more by the day. The monsters are growing more resolute.
She’ll have to reunite the child with family before she forgets her mission, and herself.
Nowhere Burning – Catriona Ward
Psychological horror
Secrets in the flames. Answers in the ashes.
Riley and her brother Oliver set off in the pitch-black night, fleeing their troubled home. They are heading for Nowhere, an abandoned ranch, once the playground of its former eccentric movie-star owner, now a haven for runaways.
What awaits could be the freedom they crave.
But this mysterious clan guards dark secrets, and the scorched grounds hold the ghosts of the past. Riley quickly realizes that while she and Oliver may have escaped the devil they knew, something darker lurks in the burnt shell of Nowhere.
Something which asks a terrible price for sanctuary.
Shimmer – David A Lambert
Psychological horror
In the deep woods of Appalachia, something waits in the spaces between the trees.
Kyle and Macy Connors disappeared on a bright summer morning, walking into the forest behind their home in Laurel Gap, TN The search lasted two weeks. Bloodhounds lost the scent. Volunteers found nothing. The woods gave back only silence. Seventy-two days later, the children walked out on their own.
They were filthy. Clothes torn to rags, skin covered in scratches and bruises, dirt ground so deep it seemed part of them. But no real injuries. Nothing broken, nothing infected, nothing to explain how two kids survived over two months in the wilderness. The doctors ran every test. Physically, they were fine. Miraculous, they said. A blessing. But blessings don’t stare through their own parents with empty eyes.
Kyle and Macy sit at the kitchen table like hollow puppets. They answer questions in flat, emotionless voices. They claim no memory of the missing months. They move through their home as strangers, responding without recognition, eating without hunger, existing without the spark that makes a child human. Their dog won’t go near them. Their mother’s relief curdles into something she can’t name.
Sheriff Ty Sherrod knows the wrongness runs deeper than trauma. He’s seen grief. He’s seen shock. This is something else. Then the bodies start appearing. Drained in ways that turn his stomach. Twisted into positions that break the laws of anatomy. Left in a condition no man or animal could cause. And each time, there’s no evidence. No tracks. No explanation. Just death wearing a question mark. The town fractures between relief and horror. The children watch it all with those same blank stares. And in the woods behind the Connors’ house, something ancient stirs, finally given eyes to see our world.
In Laurel Gap, Tennessee, the woods hide secrets, and the lost don’t come home unchanged.
Wretch – Jeremy Wagner
Revenge horror
Chicago is choking under the hottest summer on record, but the true heat comes from the blood spilled on its streets.
Detective Donnie Lynch trails a killer who shouldn’t exist. Mob boss Tico “The Meatgrinder” Tortellio has stepped out from the shadows of his empire with a personal vendetta to avenge his daughter, and nothing short of blood will settle the score. Both men are hunting the same man, if “man” is still the right word.
The elusive killer, Derek Hoffman, is a steroid-abusing-sociopath twisted beyond recognition whose body and mind have been grotesquely transformed after his participation in a clinical trial for an experimental ED-arousal-drug called, LIBIDONAL. Hoffman has become something monstrous, a predator driven by lust, rage, and a thirst for blood.
With the city becoming a killing ground for a new apex predator, Lynch and Tortellio race toward the same target. But who will reach Hoffman first? And when they do, can bullets or brutality be enough to stop him?
