Best Served Cold – Paul Kane & Marie O’Regan (editors)
Crime horror anthology
From the very beginning, the theme of revenge has been a major part of crime fiction. Whether it’s perceived slights, rifts within families or sibling rivalry, jealous lovers, business competitors or just good old-fashioned retribution, this anthology gathers together the very best – and most unique – tales of dark revenge.
Curated by Paul Kane & Marie O’Regan and featuring some of the top names in crime writing alongside a handful of stories selected from open submissions, this is one book that will definitely make you think twice about wronging anyone ever again.
The full list of featured authors in this book is: Amanda Brittany, Joanie Brittingham, John Connolly, Helen Cooper, Terry Edge, Marcus Field, Helen Fields, Ikechukwu Henry, Susi Holliday, William Hussey, Jo Jakeman, Roxanne Kalinda, David Mark, Guy Morpuss, Victoria Selman, Ronnie Turner, Roz Watkins and Iris Yamashita.
Blood Rising – Markus Redmond
Vampire horror – Book 2 of The Blood Saga
A vengeful vampire tribe formed of formerly enslaved Africans wages war across the Southern colonies.
Kwadzo Okoro never believed the bloody legend of Ramanga was real. Now, he stands as the leader of a new Ramanga Tribe, one that sieged the Barrow plantation in a storm of righteous carnage, liberating its formerly enslaved Africans. Reclaimed as the Crimson Plantation, it is now also home to the wronged Natives who fearlessly aligned with the Ramangans.
But Kwadzo knows that freedom is not secure. Bartholomew and Constance Crabtree, the most influential slaveholders in the region since the demise of Big Jim Barrow, are galvanizing the Lakeside community to strike back—violently. The threat they pose, however, pales in comparison to the insidious menace of Penelope Knudsen. Her white-hot hatred, now fueled by Ramangan blood, and an ability to survive the sunlight – a power Kwadzo doesn’t have – threatens to upend Kwadzo’s advancement of Ramangan might throughout the colonies to free his people.
But the gravest threat comes from within: Rafazi. His blood fathered the rebellion, but he will not take orders from his own creation. And when Rafazi makes a deadly deal with the Crabtrees, Kwadzo is forced into a battle with his maker that he may not survive, while the everlasting freedom of every enslaved person in the colonies hangs in the balance.
In Carolina and beyond, a reckoning is coming that will change the colonies forever.
Crimson Rain – John Ashley
Vampire horror – Book 1 of Crimson Empire
An empire fueled by blood. A people desperate for the dawn.
A world ruled by merciless vampires is the only thing those born in the Crimson Empire have ever known. For almost a millennium, darkness has shrouded the sky, and the Empire’s human occupants have lived like livestock, relentlessly harvested for the precious resource flowing through their veins. When Lyric Wexler is selected for harvesting and taken to the vampirine city of Ravenheart, a swift death is her only hope. But not all who are taken there are slaughtered right away, and she soon finds herself embroiled in the dangerous games of the second most powerful vampire House in the Empire.
Dorian Ravenheart is the son of the city’s founder and the heir to the highest seat on its Council. But he isn’t content with serving as his father’s puppet for the next two centuries. His reckless effort to change his station puts him on a collision course with a group of human freedom fighters known as the Daybreak Resistance—and one former vamp hunter for the Daybreakers with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance.
War has been brewing for centuries. For the first time since the Long Night began, it’s a war that humanity might actually have a hope of winning.
Escape from the Chrome Dome – R.L. Stine
Middle grade interactive horror – Book 1 of Craniacs
A looming volcano eruption leads to a flaming-hot competition.
When the ultra-futuristic planet Futerra and the Stone Age–style Retrovia smashed together, they formed one world with two very different populations who must find a way to live in peace. Their solution? The Chrome Dome, where danger is the name of the game and kids compete in wild and wacky challenges to settle domestic and interplanetary disputes.
It’s a battle to the fiery, lava-filled death when a giant volcano on Retrovia is about to explode and destroy the entire planet. The winner will have to get past the hot-snot-dripping, pointy-toothed Boarger, scale the Slippery Sock Slide of Ultimate Shame, traverse the Exploding Toilets of Doom obstacle course, and pass the Excuse Me, Your Zip Line Is on Fire challenge.
The Girl in the Video – Michael David Wilson
Psychological horror
After a teacher receives a weirdly arousing video, his life descends into paranoia and obsession.
More videos follow, each containing information no stranger could possibly know.
But who’s sending them? And what do they want?
The answers may destroy everything and everyone he loves.
The Lost Ones – Chris DiLeo
Psychological horror
John Bare wants to tell you about the summer he turned twenty-eight, the summer a psychopath tried to kill him. He also wants to tell you about a little boy who was abducted four years earlier and how he helped solve the case.
In 2009, John loses his teaching job because of budget cuts and works in a factory where people soon invite him to join The Lost Ones, an informal support group. When he learns one of the members had a child abducted years earlier, he grows obsessed with solving the case. John is convinced the killer is someone at the factory, and his amateur sleuthing quickly puts him and his new friends in danger.
The Lucid State – Madison Estrada
Supernatural horror
In a cold and isolated trailer park in Maine, Carter stumbles across a YouTube video that promises to teach her how to lucid dream. Caught up in the nostalgia of old internet trends, she clicks.
When impossible things start happening, she realizes that the video might have been real, and that there is such a thing as being too good at dreaming.
When nightmares and reality begin to bleed in terrifying ways, Carter must question not only her own sanity, but what exactly has noticed her, and what is coming closer to entering her waking world.
Revenge of the Rhinobino – R.L. Stine
Middle grade interactive horror – Book 2 of Craniacs
A school field trip ends in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with a dangerous beast.
When the ultra-futuristic planet Futerra and the Stone Age–style Retrovia smashed together, they formed one world with two very different populations who must find a way to live in peace. Their solution? The Chrome Dome, where danger is the name of the game and kids compete in wild and wacky challenges to settle domestic and interplanetary disputes.
The kids of Futerra and Retrovia are taking a break from Chrome Dome challenges to pile on the skull buses for a school trip to the skull dogs eating contest on Boney Island. By the end of the competition, every single skull dog on the island has been eaten. Unfortunately, the local beast Rhinobino loves snacking on skull dogs, and with none left, he’s ready for his second favorite food: Craniacs! Making it to safety means getting past other dangerous cranimals: saber-toothed hamsters, lava lizards, a Bonosaurus Rex, and more!
Ronin – Oscar Brady
Post-apocalyptic horror
Welcome to the brutality of the wasteland, where it’s kill or be killed.
Meet Seph. Seph is a badass outsider hero for a messed-up, rabid, and gruesome world. All her life, she has scraped by, choosing to fight to live over ending up on some mutant cannibal’s dinner table.
When she is assigned a big score to escort a truckload of trafficked sex workers across the country, she fends for her life and the lives of her priceless cargo.
Accepting the seemingly impossible quest was the easy part of the mission. Seph never knows when she will come face-to-face with randy riders, monstrous mutants, and feral forest folk.
Will anybody make it out in one piece? Not if Seph has her say!
The Snow Globe – William F. Gray
Supernatural horror
When ten-year-old Brianna discovers a mysterious man trapped inside her new snow globe, her refusal to release him sparks a nightmarish journey through hell.
Trapped with and hunted not only by a man who may be the Devil himself but other lost souls with varying intentions, Brianna must navigate a maze of hallways and rooms within the globe to find her way home.
Stinetinglers 5 – R.L. Stine
Middle grade horror collection – Book 5 of Stinetinglers
A boy discovers a magical deck of wizard cards… but will they spell chaos for his school talent show?
Two siblings believe that the best way to beat their bullies is to become monsters… but what happens when they can’t change back?
A boy gets a strange call on his second-hand cell phone… but when the creatures on the other end of the line find him, he gets much more than he bargained for.
