FREE/BARGAIN - Horror/Supernatural

[ZodWallop]

A couple of other Jack Ketchum titles on sale. These are all Amazon exclusives I'm afraid.

The Lost - $1.99

It was the summer of 1965. Ray, Tim, and Jennifer were just three teenage friends hanging out in the campgrounds, drinking a little. But Tim and Jennifer didn’t know what their friend Ray had in mind. And if they’d known, they wouldn’t have thought he was serious. Then they saw what he did to the two girls at the neighboring campsite—and knew he was dead serious.

Four years later, the sixties were drawing to a close. No one ever charged Ray with the murders in the campgrounds, but there was one cop determined to make him pay. Ray figured he was in the clear. Tim and Jennifer thought the worst was behind them, that the horrors were all in the past. They were wrong. The worst was yet to come.

Red - $1.99

Jack Ketchum’s previous novel, The Lost, caught readers’ attention like a well-timed gunshot. Fans and critics alike hailed it for its power, its thrills, and its gripping style, and recognized Ketchum as a master of suspense. Now, Jack Ketchum is back to frighten us again with…Red!

It all started with a simple act of brutality. Three boys shot and killed an old man’s dog. No reason, just plain meanness. But the dog was the best thing in the old man’s world, and he wasn’t about to let it pass. He wanted justice, and he’d make sure the kids paid for what they did, even if it cost him his life. They picked the wrong old man to mess with. And as the fury and violence escalate, they’re about to learn that…the hard way.

She Wakes - $1.49

Greece. Ancient land of mystery, legend and myth. It is here that businessman Jordan Chase visits an historic tomb, only to experience a dark vision of the future. And it is here, amidst the beauty of the landscape, that Lelia, a gorgeous but dangerous woman, befriends a group of tourists...to lure them into a nightmare of pain and terror. She lives to seduce and destroy, to feed off her human prey. Lelia is more than myth, more than superstition. Lelia is deadly.

[ZodWallop]

Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan is $1.99 at Amazon US.

Celeste Ng and Liane Moriarty’s enthralling dissection of suburbia meets Shirley Jackson’s creeping dread in this “wickedly funny, unnerving puzzle box of a novel” (Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will) about the downward spiral of a Long Island community after a tragedy exposes its residents’ depths of deception.

Welcome to Maple Street, a picture-perfect slice of suburban Long Island, its residents bound by their children, their work, and their illusion of safety in a rapidly changing world.

But menace skulks among this exclusive enclave. When the Wilde family arrive, they trigger their neighbors’ worst fears. Dad Arlo’s a gruff has-been rock star with track marks. Mom Gertie’s got a thick Brooklyn accent, with high heels and tube tops to match. Their weird kids cuss like sailors. They don’t fit with the way Maple Street sees itself.

Maple Street’s Queen Bee, Rhea Schroeder—a lonely professor repressing a dark past—initially welcomed Gertie, but relations plummeted during one summer evening, when the new best friends shared too much, too soon. By the time the story opens, the Wildes are outcasts.

As tensions mount, a sinkhole opens in a nearby park, and Rhea’s daughter Shelly falls inside. The search for Shelly brings a shocking accusation against the Wildes. Suddenly, it is one mom’s word against the other’s in a court of public opinion that can end only in blood.

[salty-horse]

All of the sales I flagged today are Amazon only. Odd.

A repeat: Falling Angel by by William Hjortsberg is also on sale. I finally grabbed it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

All of the sales I flagged today are Amazon only. Odd.

A repeat: Falling Angel by by William Hjortsberg is also on sale. I finally grabbed it.

I picked that one up a while ago. But haven't yet read it. I saw the movie, Angel Heart a while ago. But have only hazy memories of it.

[ZodWallop]

Ghost Story by Peter Straub is $1.99 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US. Very highly recommended. Straub is one of my favorite writers and I'd say Ghost Story is his best (sorry Koko!).

#1 New York Times bestselling author Peter Straub’s classic tale of horror, secrets, and the dangerous ghosts of the past...

What was the worst thing you’ve ever done?

In the sleepy town of Milburn, New York, four old men gather to tell each other stories—some true, some made-up, all of them frightening. A simple pastime to divert themselves from their quiet lives.

But one story is coming back to haunt them and their small town. A tale of something they did long ago. A wicked mistake. A horrifying accident. And they are about to learn that no one can bury the past forever...

[Desertway]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Ghost Story by Peter Straub is $1.99 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US. Very highly recommended. Straub is one of my favorite writers and I'd say Ghost Story is his best (sorry Koko!).

Ooh! Also a Straub fan and it's been many years since I read the paperback. Picking it up for a re-read. Thanks!

[salty-horse]

Bunny by Mona Awad is ~$2 (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon.com)

"We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?"

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Ghost Story by Peter Straub is $1.99 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US. Very highly recommended. Straub is one of my favorite writers and I'd say Ghost Story is his best (sorry Koko!).

Koko is my favorite by Straub, but Ghost Story is a close second.

[salty-horse]

Cross-posted to SF&F thread.
A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files is $2 (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon)
First in a series.

In Gemma Files’s “boundary-busting horror–fantasy debut,” former Confederate chaplain Asher Rook has cheated death and now possesses a dark magic (Publishers Weekly). He uses his power to terrorize the Wild West, leading a gang of outlaws, thieves, and killers, with his cruel lieutenant and lover, Chess Pargeter, by his side.

Pinkerton agent Ed Morrow is going undercover to infiltrate the gang, armed with a shotgun and a device that measures sorcerous energy. His job is to gain knowledge of Rook’s power and unlock its secrets. But there is someone else who has Rook in her sights: the Lady of Traps and Snares, a bloodthirsty Mayan goddess who will stop at nothing to satisfy her own desires.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Cross-posted to SF&F thread.
A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files is $2 (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon)
First in a series.

I have an omnibus of these books. I really need to read them. They sound fun.

[Number9]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Ghost Story by Peter Straub is $1.99 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US. Very highly recommended. Straub is one of my favorite writers and I'd say Ghost Story is his best (sorry Koko!).

I picked it up. It will be my first Straub book not counting The Talisman and Black House. 👍🏻

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Number9

I picked it up. It will be my first Straub book not counting The Talisman and Black House. 👍🏻

I LOVE King and Straub. But wasn't wild about The Talisman.

I tend to prefer horror to fantasy, which is why I prefer Clive Barker's shorts to his novels and why I prefer It to the Dark Tower books or The Stand.

[ZodWallop]

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Gord Rollo is $2.99 at Amazon US (why Kindle exclusive? It isn't even in Kindle Unlimited?).

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

Charter fishing boat captain, Miguel Santora, is an honest man who’s in serious trouble. He’s in over his head, owing money and allegiance to a slimeball mafia boss named Alberto Tonelli, who runs the shadier sections of Brooklyn with an iron fist. As payback, he’s forced to let Tonelli and his goons have access to his boat, the Amada Maria, to drop some of their enemies’ dead bodies into the Atlantic Ocean, chained to concrete cinder blocks.

THIS TIME THINGS ARE DIFFERENT…

Miguel’s life goes from bad to worse, as Tonelli and his massive henchman, Hugo Taft, show up unannounced, with yet another body in need of disposal. Only this time, the man destined to be tossed overboard is still alive. He’s been beaten and tortured, but he’s still breathing. Helping these thugs in the past was morally wrong, but Miguel knows that assisting the mobsters this time means becoming an accomplice to murder. But how can Miguel refuse Tonelli’s orders without becoming a casualty of these ruthless men himself?

THE HORROR HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN…

Victor Matheson, the condemned man, is someone who harbors many secrets, and he’s far less helpless than anyone aboard the Amada Maria knows. Before finally being thrown overboard, chained to the heavy concrete block, he confides in Miguel that he is ‘undrownable.’ This revelation is only the beginning of a strange adventure that will see Miguel tested to the very limits of his sanity as he tries to uncover the truth of who this mysterious man really is. His search will take him from the docks of Brooklyn’s East River to the small coastal New England town of Newburyport, where a secret race of horrific creatures and a century’s old curse foretold in the fantastical stories of H. P. Lovecraft are preparing to unleash Hell on Earth.

So, $2.99 seems to be the regular price for this one. I'm posting it because I started reading the book yesterday and so far it is terrific.

I've been getting Gord's books since Leisure released his first book, but shamefully I hadn't read one yet. I'm not sure if the current read is the exception or the rule. ButI am really enjoying it so far.

[ZodWallop]

Following in the old man's footsteps: Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill is $2.99 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

I tend to love King's novella collections. The novella is a great length for a horror tale.

A collection of four chilling novels, ingeniously wrought gems of terror from the brilliantly imaginative, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman, Joe Hill.

"One of America’s finest horror writers" (Time magazine), Joe Hill has been hailed among legendary talents such as Peter Straub, Neil Gaiman, and Jonathan Lethem. In Strange Weather, this "compelling chronicler of human nature’s continual war between good and evil," (Providence Journal-Bulletin) who "pushes genre conventions to new extremes" (New York Times Book Review) deftly expose the darkness that lies just beneath the surface of everyday life.

"Snapshot" is the disturbing story of a Silicon Valley adolescent who finds himself threatened by "The Phoenician," a tattooed thug who possesses a Polaroid Instant Camera that erases memories, snap by snap.

A young man takes to the skies to experience his first parachute jump. . . and winds up a castaway on an impossibly solid cloud, a Prospero’s island of roiling vapor that seems animated by a mind of its own in "Aloft."

On a seemingly ordinary day in Boulder, Colorado, the clouds open up in a downpour of nails—splinters of bright crystal that shred the skin of anyone not safely under cover. "Rain" explores this escalating apocalyptic event, as the deluge of nails spreads out across the country and around the world.

In "Loaded," a mall security guard in a coastal Florida town courageously stops a mass shooting and becomes a hero to the modern gun rights movement. But under the glare of the spotlights, his story begins to unravel, taking his sanity with it. When an out-of-control summer blaze approaches the town, he will reach for the gun again and embark on one last day of reckoning.

[Paperbackstash]

The July Valancourt Sales - we get three of them this time

Gillian Freeman's THE LEADER (1964)
Stephen Gilbert on THE LANDSLIDE (1943)
Stephen Gregory's THE WAKING THAT KILLS