Southern Gothic Horror

The air hangs heavy in the Deep South, thick with the perfume of magnolia and the stench of the grave. In the murky waters of the bayou and the decaying halls of forgotten plantations, the past is never truly past. It waits, patient and hungry. This chilling anthology of fifteen unsettling tales will drag you into a world of Southern Gothic dread. Witness a desperate fisherman follow a spectral bride into the heart of the swamp, where the only treasure is a tomb. Listen to a voodoo drumbeat that is not a drum at all, but a parasitic heart that feeds on the unwary. Stand vigil on a haunted ...

The Creatures of Madison Monsters, Moonlight, and Southern Legends Summer in Madison, Georgia, brings long humid nights and the feeling that something out there is watching you. In this newest collection from the Haunted South, familiar streets and historic homes become the stage for seven strange encounters where folklore, friendship, and the unexplained coexist. A stubborn Goatman still lingers beneath the abandoned railroad trestle bridge. An ancient Haintwing circles silently above moonlit rooftops. A mischievous Pukwudgie arrives as an unexpected stowaway. And the son of the legendary ...

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm. But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life.

They buried something beneath Cypress Hollow. Now it remembers. Lana Gray keeps to herself—curator of a half-forgotten museum in a swamp town most have already left behind. But when a local widow’s quiet unraveling leads to an unmarked shoe and a floor that seems to breathe, Lana stumbles into a pattern that stretches back decades. Maybe longer. The town is changing. The people are changing. And the roots run deeper than anyone knew. As memory distorts, nature recoils, and the soil begins to hum, Lana must decide whether to resist what’s waking beneath her—or become part of it. The ...

Award-winning author William Kent Krueger has gained an immense fan base for his Cork O’Connor series. In Ordinary Grace, Krueger looks back to 1961 to tell the story of Frank Drum, a boy on the cusp of manhood. A typical 13-year-old with a strong, loving family, Frank is devastated when a tragedy forces him to face the unthinkable - and to take on a maturity beyond his years.

The sprawling highways and quiet small towns of Texas hide a dark and brutal history. Beyond the headlines and whispered local legends lie the definitive, blood-curdling stories of the state's most horrifying crimes. True Crime - Gore in Texas is not for the faint of heart. This meticulously researched anthology rips open the case files on the Lone Star State's most infamous and psychologically disturbing criminals. From the sadistic "Candy Man" Dean Corll to the shocking acts of family annihilators and the cold, calculated slayings of cartel hitmen, these accounts detail the manhunts that ...

Four men on a job in the remote mountains. A desecrated grave in a forgotten holler. They thought it was a simple task, but they’ve disturbed something ancient, something that owns the woods. Now, they’re marked. The forest is silent, the locals watch with unblinking eyes, and a primal fear begins to claw at them. They’ve awakened a curse, a hungry darkness that has claimed victims for generations. A terrifying presence stalks their every move, turning the wilderness into an inescapable nightmare of supernatural suspense. Trapped and hunted, they must fight for survival against a ...

"...splendidly performed by Mary Robinette Kowal." - AudioFile Magazine "Narrator Mary Robinette Kowal wonderfully conveys the wryly funny prose and the creeping horror of the story. Giving each character a distinct voice, Kowal deftly and consistently moves between them and superbly renders...

A dream job in a millionaire’s villa on the French Riviera. A travel vlogger hired to document a life of luxury. But this paradise has a bloody secret, and the only thing starving more than the beast in the woods is her audience’s hunger for content. Cassie James, known to her millions of followers as "Wandering Cass," has just landed the gig of a lifetime: house-sitting a modern, isolated mansion clinging to the cliffs above the Mediterranean. The stunning views and infinity pool are a goldmine for her channel, a fantasy of the luxe life she’s ready to deliver in high definition. But...

Love the creepy charm of old Southern houses? Start here. Four bone-chilling novellas from M.L. Bullock in one haunting bundle. Whispers linger in the heat, and every home has a ghost. Step into the Southern Gothic world of M.L. Bullock—where love turns tragic, secrets are buried beneath the porch, and the veil between the living and the dead is thinner than a thread of Spanish moss. This specially curated set includes four unforgettable novellas: Being With Beau A grieving girl. A mysterious boy. And a love story that might not survive the grave. Death’s Last Darling Hollywood glamor ...

Wilbur and Elouise Saxton are forced to move south after losing their fortune following the Civil War. Hot-headed Wilbur was not happy about the adjustment, but his wife is glad to finally return to her home state. At least she was until they arrive at the home her late uncle left her, and find it in much despair. It also comes with a dark secret, something her family hid from her for good reason.

The summer of 1994 was supposed to be boring. It ended in a flash of violet light. In the dying coal town of Iron Creek, twelve-year-old Micah Lawson didn't run away. He was taken. He was lifted from his bicycle by a silent, defying force that melted the asphalt and shattered the silence of the Appalachian woods. His friends saw it happen. Caleb, Craig, and Toby watched the sky tear open. But in Iron Creek, the truth is the first thing buried. The Sheriff calls it a runaway case. The parents call it a tragedy. The town chooses to look down at the ground rather than up at the impossible ...

I inherited forty acres of Louisiana bayou from a great-aunt I met once. She looked at me across a diner table when I was eleven and said: you'll do. Twenty-six years old and I still don't know what she was asking. The land came with conditions. A blood tithe, paid at the last hard frost. A boundary that has to be walked. And four creatures who have been keeping this property for over a century, waiting for someone with Vauclain blood to come home and pay what's owed. The one in the house has been here since before the house. The one at the boundary was promised his freedom thirty years ago...

Catherine “Tink” Mabry, an up and coming attorney, is shocked by her recent inheritance from her estranged family on the bayou. After her mother died during childbirth, Tink’s father had quickly relocated them to the big city of Atlanta, Georgia. With no memory of her mother, she is determined to learn more about her lineage and decides to visit the bayou town of Kane, Louisiana. Candace, Tink's co-worker and best friend, agrees to make the trip with her. Before she has time to explore her family’s history or decide what to do with the declining property, local murders plague ...

South Carolina, 1853. Lillian Carmichael, privileged daughter of a disgraced Charleston family, is due to be hanged for the murder of her sister when fate gives her a second chance at life. After a catatonic episode on the long walk to the gallows, Lillian is declared dead and entombed in the family mausoleum. She awakens days later, buried alive, and flees to the Lowcountry marshes to survive on her wits and reinvent herself. All the while, a series of exsanguination murders holds the terrorized city in thrall.

A dark collection of tales from the American South full of twists and turns that you will never see coming. Did you ever have your name on the board for misbehaving in class? If you only got in trouble with the teacher, you should count yourself lucky. Ever find something old in the water? Was it an old box? Did it divide your whole town in ways you couldn’t imagine? What is beauty, and how do you stay forever young? The answer might not be what you want, especially if Joe passes by your house. Where does art come from? An old man’s backyard? Who’s to say?

Welcome to Madison, Georgia, where the magnolias bloom, the tea is sweet, and the monsters are real. In this cozy horror anthology, the charming town of Madison hides secrets in its flowerbeds and shadows in its attics. Behind every wrought-iron fence and sun-warmed porch lies something unexpected: a banshee who quilts in the carriage house, a wight who prefers crossword puzzles to haunting, a wendigo who wears sweaters by the fire, and cryptids who just want someone to talk to. But don’t be fooled by the cobblestone streets and Southern charm. The ghouls here are real and love has a ...

New Orleans, 1930s—where jazz drips like honey through the humid night and shadows whisper with the voices of spirits. Evelyn Harker, an English anthropologist, arrives to study Vodou with a detached academic eye. But when a midnight ceremony in the swamp binds her to the goddess Erzulie-Damballa, her careful world unravels. The bite of a sacred serpent awakens powers that blur the line between passion and possession. Lucien Duval, a charismatic Vodou priest, feels both drawn to and terrified of Evelyn. As her senses sharpen and the goddess within her stirs, desire binds them together ...

Jonah Rourke is a railroad man, and railroad men don’t believe in miracles. So when his sister, Nell, disappears into a town that shouldn’t exist—one that won’t let anyone in, and won’t let anyone out, Jonah follows her anyway. Past the last streetlamp. Past the last honest mile. Onto a road that counts down like an execution and charges for every step. On this road, you don’t pay in money. You pay in pieces of yourself. Because something is coming. Something hungry. Something that doesn’t care who you are, only what you’re willing to surrender to keep moving. Jonah isn’t ...

ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR The dark, gripping tale of a 1930’s family in the remote hills of the Smoky Mountains, their secret religion, and the daughter who turns her back on their mysterious god—from the acclaimed author of Spoonbenders. “Gods and...