FREE/BARGAIN - Horror/Supernatural

[radbaddude]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Koko by Peter Straub is $2 at Amazon (only?)

The current cover, in a word, sucks. Don't let that put you off an excellent book.



A better cover:

damn, back to 11.99 now.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by radbaddude

damn, back to 11.99 now.

Wow. Blink and you miss it. eReaderIQ still thinks it's on sale.

[salty-horse]

Growing Things and Other Stories by Paul Tremblay is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

A masterful collection featuring nineteen pieces of short fiction, Growing Things is an exciting glimpse into Paul Tremblay’s fantastically fertile imagination.

In “The Teacher,” a Bram Stoker Award nominee for best short story, a student is forced to watch a disturbing video that will haunt and torment her and her classmates’ lives.

Four men rob a pawn shop at gunpoint only to vanish, one-by-one, as they speed away from the crime scene in “The Getaway.”

In “Swim Wants to Know If It’s as Bad as Swim Thinks,” a meth addict kidnaps her daughter from her estranged mother as their town is terrorized by a giant monster . . . or not.

Joining these haunting works are stories linked to Tremblay’s previous novels. The tour de force metafictional novella “Notes from the Dog Walkers” deconstructs horror and publishing, possibly bringing in a character from A Head Full of Ghosts, all while serving as a prequel to Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. “The Thirteenth Temple” follows another character from A Head Full of Ghosts—Merry, who has published a tell-all memoir written years after the events of the novel. And the title story, “Growing Things,” a shivery tale loosely shared between the sisters in A Head Full of Ghosts, is told here in full.

From global catastrophe to the demons inside our heads, Tremblay illuminates our primal fears and darkest dreams in startlingly original fiction that leaves us unmoored. As he lowers the sky and yanks the ground from beneath our feet, we are compelled to contemplate the darkness inside our own hearts and minds.

[ZodWallop]

The Drowning God by James Kendley is $0.50(!) at Amazon (only ).

This has been on my TBR for a while. I've read Kendley's Weird Tales/Lovecraft homage novella In The Red and enjoyed it.

The Drowning God, a paranormal thriller by James Kendley, is one of 30 projects selected out of 4,563 submissions for Harper Voyager's new digital-first expansion -- release date July 28, 2015!Detective Tohru Takuda faces his own tragic past to uncover modern Japan's darkest secret--The Drowning God.
Few villagers are happy when Takuda comes home to investigate a foiled abduction, and local police enlist powerful forces to shut him out. Takuda sacrifices his career and family honor to solve the string of disappearances in the dark and backward valley of his youth, but more than a job is at stake. Behind the conspiracy lurks the Kappa, a monstrous living relic of Japan's pagan prehistory. Protected long ago by a horrible pact with local farmers and now by coldly calculated corporate interests, the Kappa drains the valley's lifeblood, one villager at a time.
Takuda and his wife, Yumi, are among the few who have escaped the valley, but no one gets away unscarred. When Takuda digs into the valley's mysteries, Yumi's heart breaks all over again. She wants justice for her murdered son, but she needs an end to grief. Even if Takuda survives the Kappa, the ordeal may end his marriage.
With Yumi's tortured blessing, Takuda dedicates his life to ending the Drowning God's centuries-long reign of terror. He can't do it alone. A laconic junior officer and a disarmingly cheerful Buddhist priest convince Takuda to let them join in the final battle, where failure means death--or worse. The journey of these three unlikely warriors from uneasy alliance to efficient team turns THE DROWNING GOD's mystery into an adventure in friendship, sacrifice and courage.

[Dr. Drib]

Wasn't aware of In the Red, so I borrowed the KU.

But I purchased The Drowning God, for 50 cents.

Thank you!

[ZodWallop]

In The Red is pretty short, so not a lot to it. But I enjoyed it.

[salty-horse]

The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice is $5 on Amazon.com

[Paperbackstash]

Valancourt's new sales

The Cook by Harry Kressing - Amazon Link

The Cook opens with Conrad, nearly seven feet tall, gaunt, and dressed all in black, arriving on his bicycle in the town of Cobb. He quickly secures a job as cook for the wealthy Hill family, winning their hearts and stomachs with his delectable dishes, and before long he has everyone around him eating out of his hand. But Conrad has a sinister, inscrutable plan in view, and after becoming master of their palates, next may be their souls . . .

A mouth-watering blend of delicious black humor and Kafkaesque horror story, The Cook (1965) is a dark fable "beginning in a vein of innocent fairy tale and ending with satanic revels" (The Observer). Long out of print, this cult classic returns in a new edition featuring Milton Glaser's iconic dust jacket art from the first edition.

Childgrave by Ken Green - Amazon Link

When photographer Jonathan Brewster’s four-year-old daughter Joanne tells him about her new invisible friends, he doesn’t think too much about it. But then he sees them for himself: weird and uncanny images of the dead appearing in his photographs. The apparitions seem to have some connection to Childgrave, a remote village in upstate New York with a deadly secret dating back three centuries. Jonathan and Joanne feel themselves oddly drawn to Childgrave, but will they survive the horrors that await them there?The third novel by Ken Greenhall (1928-2014), whose works are receiving renewed attention as neglected classics of modern horror, Childgrave (1982) is a slow-burn chiller that ranks among Greenhall’s best.“Writing in Shirley Jackson’s precise, sharp, chilly prose, Greenhall delivers a slippery book that can’t be pinned down, all about spectral photography, little dead girls, snowbound small towns, and the disquieting proposition that maybe God is not civilized.” - Grady Hendrix, author of Paperbacks from Hell“A very well-orchestrated, eerie tale.” - Publishers Weekly

[Paperbackstash]

I read the Cook from a library borrow. It is weird. Sort of a fairy tale type mix to me. Not bad but not something I'd reread.

[ZodWallop]

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes is $3 at Amazon (only) Nevermind. Ended already!

This one and Dead Silence have been on my watch list for a little bit.

A crew must try to survive on an ancient, abandoned planet in the latest space horror novel from S.A. Barnes, acclaimed author of Dead Silence.

An abandoned plant. A hidden past. A deadly danger.

Psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray has dedicated her life to the study and prevention of Eckhart-Reiser syndrome (ERS)—the most famous case of which resulted in the brutal murders of twenty-nine people. It's personal to her, and when she's assigned to a small exploration crew who recently suffered the tragic death of a colleague, she wants to help. But as they begin to establish residency on an abandoned planet, it becomes clear that the crew is hiding something.

Ophelia's crewmates are far more interested in investigating the eerie, ancient planet and unraveling the mystery behind the previous colonizers' hasty departure than opening up to her.

That is, until their pilot is discovered gruesomely murdered. Is this Ophelia’s worst nightmare starting—a wave of violence and mental deterioration from ERS? Or is it something even more sinister?

Terrified that history will repeat itself, Ophelia and the crew must work together to figure out what’s happening. But trust is hard to come by…and the crew isn’t the only one keeping secrets.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

Valancourt's new sales

The Cook by Harry Kressing - Amazon Link


Childgrave by Ken Green - Amazon Link

Thanks for that! I'll percolate a while on The Cook before I buy.

I have Childgrave and Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall. But not yet Hell Hound.

Since I like the lurid old covers, here are the covers for those two.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Thanks for that! I'll percolate a while on The Cook before I buy.

I have Childgrave and Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall. But not yet Hell Hound.

Since I like the lurid old covers, here are the covers for those two.

Thanks for those covers. I remember seeing them at some used bookstores, but I have not yet read those two authors.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Thanks for those covers. I remember seeing them at some used bookstores, but I have not yet read those two authors.

They're the same author. Elizabeth was originally published under a pen name.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

They're the same author. Elizabeth was originally published under a pen name.

Thanks.

[ZodWallop]

Children of the Night by Dan Simmons is $2 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

New cover is awful. I mean, I've seen self published books with better covers.

An evil legacy comes to life in this classic and ultimately human novel about believable vampires, featuring a brand-new introduction by Dan Simmons. Children of the Night will take you to a place that no one knows—yet all of us fear.

In a desolate orphanage in post-Communist Romania, a desperately ill infant is given the wrong blood transfusion—and flourishes rather than dies. For immunologist Kate Neuman, the infant's immune system may hold the key to cure cancer and AIDS. Kate adopts the baby and takes him home to the States. But baby Joshua holds a link to an ancient clan and their legendary leader—Vlad Tsepes, the original Dracula – whose agents kidnap the child. Against impossible odds and vicious enemies– both human and vampire – Kate and her ally, Father Mike O'Rourke, steal into Romania to get her baby back.