Thursday, February 9, 2012

50 Kindle Horror Books Written By Women

This year, I never planned anything special for Women in Horror Recognition Month. My posts lately have been pretty sporadic (Sorry about that!) because I've been really busy lately, so I didn't think I could commit to a month-long project. But I wanted to write at least one post for Women in Horror Recognition Month this year, so I bring you this post.

Last year I interviewed several women horror authors (the list of interviews is here) and have decided to do another literature-related post. I think it would be great if every horror fan read a horror book written by a woman this month. And since I'm Kindle-obsessed, I decided to make a list of horror titles written by women available for Kindle. I'm sure they're also available for Kobo, Nook, or whatever your e-reader of preference. So pick one that interests you and get reading!

Suffer the Flesh by Monica J. O'Rourke
$3.99
144 pages

Zoey Masterson didn’t know what pain was before, but she’s learning fast. Kidnapped off the Manhattan streets and whisked away from the safe, normal world she once knew, she finds herself the victim of one reprehensible man’s vision. 

Forced to witness the depravities of the seedy underworld where lust, rape, torture, and mutilation are a way of life, stripped of clothing, pride, and spirit, Zoey must play their games, bear their torture—but for how long? Somehow she must learn to survive the daily perversions … but how can Zoey survive? How could anyone?
 

Somewhere between ecstasy and pain, learn to Suffer the Flesh.

Also check out Jasmine & Garlic.

For Emmy by Mary SanGiovanni
$2.99
107 pages

Sometimes no matter how vigilant you are, you can't keep loved ones save. Dana McCluskey and her father know very well that there can be dangers around every corner. They wanted to keep Emmy safe. But it is impossible to see some dangers coming. And there are those corners that you'd never see, out-of-the-way places just beyond our grasp where loved ones can get very lost — and the danger there is very real indeed.

Also check out Thrall.

The Neighborhood by Kelli Owen
$2.99
105 pages

A missing girl. A found fingertip. A puddle of blood without a body. --- A small town neighborhood full of rumors and imagination through the eyes of its youth. Their world is a combination of grass stains and dried mud—the badges of childhood, that often look like blood in the right light. 

Also check out Waiting Out Winter.

The Fear Report by Elizabeth Massie
$4.99
450 pages

Originally published by Bloodletting Press, this edition is illustrated by Cortney Skinner, features a new introduction, and contains thirty-two stories, including her Bram Stoker Award winner (“Stephen”) and two stories that were not in the Bloodletting edition. Massie’s fiction is known for its quality of strangeness, off-beat humor, deceiving simplicity, and haunting prose.  

Also check out Afraid, Sundown, Abed, Sineater and Wire Mesh Mothers.

AfterAge by Yvonne Navarro
$2.99
360 pages

A plague of vampirism has crept across the country, reducing once-thriving cities to ghost towns. In Chicago, a few scattered survivors hide behind the fortified walls of office buildings and museums, raiding deserted stores for dwindling supplies of clothing and food.

Meanwhile a hungry vampire population also struggles for survival as their prey grows scarce, forcing them to capture alive the last remaining humans as breeding stock for the blood farms that will ensure their future.

Now a small band of humans makes a despearate last stand against their vampire masters, fighting back with the only weapon that can kill the dead... 

Also check out Mirror Me.

Deathwatch by Lisa Mannetti
$2.99
176 pages

In Dissolution, Stuart Granville is a would-be medical student from the South who's been expelled for drinking and believes he's heading north to Hyde Park, New York to tutor twin girls. Instead, he discovers that his charges, Abby and Eleanor, have never been to school of any kind. They are also Siamese twins and their father, a doctor with grandiose dreams, means to separate them surgically. He intends to take advantage of Stuart's expertise and vulnerability; but unbeknown to both men, the supernatural force in the house has an agenda--and a will--of its own.

In The Sheila Na Gig, Tom Smith is on a ship in steerage and bound for New York from his native Ireland after facing down the constraints imposed by his family, overcoming the loss of his first love, circumventing his grandmother's wiles and occult knowledge, and trying to save his younger, mentally challenged sister, Delia, from both witchcraft and sexual abuse.


Also check out The Gentling Box.

The Lucid Dreaming by Lisa Morton
$2.99
94 pages

Ashley, a twentysomething California girl, is a postpunk who would rather be called Spike and who worries about money, her family, and freeway traffic. She’s also a violent paranoid schizophrenic living in a state facility west of Los Angeles, her disorder kept under control by confinement and the drug Prolixin.

One day Spike is shocked to find her cell door open and so she ventures out, only to find the walls smeared with blood and the staff missing or dead. She escapes and ventures into a world that’s been driven mad by waking nightmares, where she’s now the sanest person alive. Searching for answers, Spike embarks on a road trip that will lead her from Beverly Hills to a nightmarish Texas compound to the highest office in the land...

Also check out The Samhanach.

A House Divided by Deborah LeBlanc
$2.99
340 pages

Keith Lafleur, Louisiana's largest and greediest building contractor, thinks he's cut the deal of a lifetime. The huge old, two-story, clapboard house is his for the taking as long as he can move it to a new location. It's too big to move as it is, but Lafleur's solution is simple: divide it in half. He has no idea, though, that by splitting the house he'll be dividing a family- a family long dead, a family that still exists in the house, including a mother who will destroy anyone who keeps her apart from her children. 

Also check out Family Inheritance, Grave Intent, Water Witch, Morbid Curiosity, White Hot, Bottom Feeder and The Wolven.

Eternal Sunset by Sèphera Girón
$2.99
248 pages

Vanessa moves away to college after an extended break of hard living, casual sex, and dabbling in the occult. But little does she know what fate has in store for her where she accepts a gift from her new friend: an ancient book that holds the secret to eternal life...

Prodigal by Melanie Tem
$2.99
204 pages

Her brother Ethan is dead. then why does he visit and why does he leave the doors open for Lucy and her sisters -- doors that whisper of the place that claimed Ethan's body and mind?

"Don't be afraid, Lucy."

The world of sleepy houses and glimmering summer lawns is losing its hold on Lucy Brill. Her parents don't have the answers - they don't even have the questions. ethan has changed everything. Ethan, whose drug-racked body lies in the morgue...Ethan, who beckons Lucy to follow.

"Welcome, Lucy, Welcome."

Lucy will follow, blinded by light, her head filled with anger. lucy Brill is going away...to the place that took her brother's life, where evil waits with open arms. 

When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom
$2.99
217 pages

Sally Ann is a bright and bubbling farm girl, still caught in the thrill of a brand-new husband and a shining future ahead. When a careless exploration leaves her trapped underground, she learns to live again in the absence of everything she once knew. Even driven by love and light, Sally Ann finds the deepest darkness within herself in When Darkness Loves Us.

Old Martha Mannes has been a part of Morgan, Illinois since her birth. The whole town knows her as the dim-witted woman who was born without a nose, but Martha’s mind wasn’t always a blank slate. Unlocking the monster buried deep in her memories may bring back the sparkling child she once was…or it may send those around her crashing down into the nightmares of a little girl gone wrong.

A reprinting of Elizabeth Engstrom’s first book, this two-novella collection twists together the beauty and horror underlying the seeming simplicity of small town life.

Also check out Lizzie Borden.

The Safety of Unknown Cities by Lucy Taylor
$4.99
284 pages

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel from the Horror Writers Association! Val leads a very nomadic life. She travels from one city to another, from one bed to another, in search of a 'new' thrill -- something that will fill the void inside of herself. From whispers and gossip, Val learns of a place called the 'City,' a place that makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like Little House of the Prairie. Val becomes obsessed with finding this place and sampling all it has to offer.

Also check out Unspeakable and Other Stories and The Silence Between the Screams.

House of Fallen Trees by Gina Ranalli
$2.99
266 pages

"Two men have the carcass." These words, heard over a crackling telephone line, change writer Karen Lewis's life for the worse. Months earlier, her brother went missing in the small rural town of Fallen Trees, Washington. And now she finds out he willed his half of a bizarre bed and breakfast to her. "Two men have the carcass." Is this ominous phrase enough to draw her into the mystery of Fallen Trees? Is the answer to her brother's disappearance located there? Or is it just a trap, something designed to draw her into a nightmare world and break her sanity? What horror awaits Karen in the House of Fallen Trees? 

Also check out Chemical Gardens, Suicide Girls in the Afterlife, Brainfused Colorwheel, Peppermint Twist, Praise the Dead, Mother Puncher, Sky Tongues, Unearthed and Wall of Kiss.

Descent by Sandy DeLuca
$4.95
211 pages

In the ’70s Julia accompanied a mad man on an unforgettable road trip from Providence to Miami. She encountered demons, decadence and death. She was helpless and subservient as pain and blood became a fact of her life. She finally escaped from that hell on earth. However, the demons and the dead followed her throughout her life. For twenty-one years they came to her in dreams. They manifested onto her painter’s canvas and they called to her from the darkness.

When another murder occurs, true madness begins to unfold. Guilt, longing and terror erupt. A secret caller lures Julia to her descent, haunting and tempting her until she realizes that she must confront her past and perhaps the Devil himself.


Also check out Darkness Conjured, Into the Red, Paths of Destiny and From Ashes.

How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend by Linda Addison
$4.99
112 pages

Who doesn’t need to know How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend? From the first African-American to receive the HWA Bram Stoker award, this collection of both horror and science fiction short stories and poetry reveals demons in the most likely people (like a jealous ghost across the street) or in unlikely places (like the dimension-shifting dreams of an American Indian). Recognition is the first step, what you do with your friends/demons after that is up to you.


In Silence Sealed by Kathryn Ptacek
$4.99
320 pages

In Silence Sealed by Kathryn Ptacek first appeared in 1987. It is a brilliant period piece, evoking that brief, shining decade that produced the great Romantics in England. It also produced the Gothic Novel, a precursor to the modern horror novel. Ptacek's lamia sisters are monsters, incredibly sensual monsters who first seduce and then destroy victims. Only this time the men they are after are England's greatest poets — Byron, Shelley and Keats.

Also check out Gila.

Guises by Charlee Jacob
$5.99
288 pages

Delirium's second collection by Charlee Jacob features 7 short stories and 3 brand new novelettes. This new collection showcases her unique talents as one of the premier storytellers of the genre. 

Also check out Dread in the BeastUp, Out of Cities That Blow Hot and Cold, This Symbiotic Fascination, Soma, Still, Vestal and Geek Poems.

Dead in the Water by Nancy Holder
$7.93
428 pages

The shipwrecked, vacationing passengers of the ill-fated freighter, Morris, are picked up by the H.M.S. Pandora and sail into a cruise of metaphysical terror, madness, and death.

Search and Destroy by Nancy A. Collins
$2.99

Sonja Blue is back! In a world full of sparkling vampires, it's time someone finally brought the hurt! Before there was Sookie Stackhouse, Anita Blake, or even Buffy, there was Sonja Blue, the Stoker Award-winning tough-as-nails, wisecracking vampire/vampire slayer. Just as Iggy Pop set the tone for the Punk Revolution, Sonja Blue blazed the trail for the multitude of urban fantasy heroines that would follow her. And now she's back with a vengeance in Search And Destroy, her first original short story in 10 years. Homeless people are disappearing from the suburban No Man's Land known as The Scrub, and Sonja Blue is there to find out why--and put an end to it as only she can.

Also check out A Dozen Black Roses.

Child of the Night by Nancy Kilpatrick
$2.99
244 pages

Child of the Night is the first book in the Power of the Blood world.

Carol Robins is vacationing in Bordeaux, France trying to recover from the tragic failure of her marriage and the possibility that she has been infected with a fatal disease. At a small sidewalk café she meets the enigmatic Andre and her life changes forever in a brutal and shocking way. Andre is not a man but a vampire, cruel, intent on making Carol his next kill, and she has to find a way to save herself.


Carol’s bargain with the devil leads to her being dragged further and further down into the murky world of darkness, leaving her at the mercy of the merciless blood drinker. Suddenly, the impossible happens, and both mortal and immortal are swept to the edge of madness. Her one thought becomes an obsession: escape Andre and this nest of vampires!

But soon Carol is forced to return to the lair of the undead Andre because now more than just her life is on the line. In a final tension-packed life-or-death confrontation, Carol is desperate to prevent the disastrous outcome that both she and Andre foresee as inevitable. 

Donor by Elena Hearty 
$4.24
224 pages

Richard is a modern vampire who likes to eat in. That's why he always keeps a fresh victim trapped in his home. All of his captives eventually die; Lenore hopes to be the first to escape. 

Life at Richard's is short but never dull. Not with Richard's vampire friend, Paul, constantly popping in. Paul loves toying with Richard's victims before they die. But is Paul getting too attached to his plaything? His human servant, Charles, certainly thinks so. Charles is next in line to be turned and wants to eliminate the competition. 

If Charles's schemes don't kill Lenore, then Richard's hunger surely will. Lenore has a plan to survive, but someone will have to die in her place. She now has something terrible in common with her captor: she must kill in order to live.

Voice of the Blood by Jemiah Jefferson
$6.99
288 pages

The ordinary life of a grad student was so boring for Ariane. She was desperate for some change, some excitement to shake things up. She had no idea she was only one step away from a whole new world—a world of darkness and decay, of eternal life and eternal death. But once she fell prey to Ricari she would learn more about this world than she ever dreamed possible. More than anyone should dare to know . . . if they value their soul. 

Also check out Wounds, Fiend, A Drop of Scarlet and Mixtape for the Apocalypse.

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite
$6.39
387 pages


Launching the Abyss imprint for Delacorte, this stylishly written, daringly provocative first novel plays on the appeal of vampires as romantic antiheroes.
In Missing Mile, North Carolina, in search of supple young flesh and thirsting for blood, three beautiful vampires--Molochai, Twig, and Zillah--follow vampires Nothing and Ann on a mad, illicit road trip south to New Orleans. 

Also check out Drawing Blood, Wormwood, Are you Loathsome Tonight? and Exquisite Corpse.

Mama's Boy and Other Stories by Fran Friel
$4.99
280 pages

The Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella “Mama’s Boy” is the cornerstone of this 14-story collection from author Fran Friel and Apex Publications. A man whose mother’s demented love for him has turned him from an innocent boy to a serial killer to a near-comatose mental patient opens his world to a psychologist determined to reach him as a way of dealing with her own mother’s battle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But is she helping, or is there more damage to be done?

In “Mashed,” a son’s simple request for potatoes with his birthday dinner opens up a world of past fears and childhood torments for his mother, while the flash fiction story “Close Shave” presents a horrifically funny solution to an everyday women’s issue.

From mother and son to broader family ties, Friel explores the bonds of human connection into every dark turn. The humorous yet wickedly creepy “Under the Dryer” begins as a tale told by the family dog and ends in a bloodbath; “Special Prayers,” perhaps the most disturbing offering in the collection, exposes a family secret of abuse and power; and the tragically soft and beautiful “Orange and Golden” explores the purest form of the human-animal bond as the sun sets on a natural disaster.

Also check out Beach of Dreams.

Regret by Gabrielle Faust
$2.99
140 pages

 Humanity is renowned for placing the blame for their most unspeakable actions in the palms of their "demons." It would seem that for every crime, every indecency there is a minion of the Underworld assigned to it. The lucky ones balance precariously on the edge of damnation, always managing at the last minute to halt their impending doom. The unlucky ones succumb entirely or, in Marcus Glenfield's case, find themselves following a much darker path than they ever could have imagined. After a strangely brutal twist of fate, Marcus becomes his own inner demon, that of the Demon of Regret. As he begins his new life as a tempter and collector of mortal souls, his path of damnation unfortunately crosses with that of Sonnellion, the Demon of Hatred, Cresil, the Demon of Slovenliness, Vetis, the Tempter of the Holy and finally Belial himself, the Prince of Wickedness. Through each of his interactions, Marcus gleans valuable insight into the purpose of his fellow demons within the greater hierarchy of existence, assisting his personal mission to collect the one soul that continues to preoccupy his every thought. However, will the wisdom of Hell's ancient minions be enough to save him from a deadly encounter with Belial or does Hell have another plan for Marcus altogether?

Barbed Wire Hearts by Cate Gardner
$4.99
199 pages

"A hand poked from the soil like a pale flower…"

Eddie Stock's heart dislodges from his chest, drops to his bowels and dribbles down his thighs when the girl he likes laughs at him. Well the girl he likes and his entire school year. Finding himself in a forest, which has mysteriously sprouted about his town, Eddie meets a man named Ghoate.

Ghoate collects hearts. They hang from his ceiling and they rot within his jars. Ghoate also collects minions and it appears Eddie is his latest.

Elsewhere in the forest, a dead girl is waking. Rose Lovering's heart wasn't strong enough to allow her to live and isn't weak enough to end this living death.

Can Rose help Eddie regain his heart and save their town? And, can Eddie save her?

Also check out Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits and Theatre of Curious Acts.

Engines of Desire: Tales of Love and Other Horrors by Livia Llewellyn
$6.99
214 pages

Death and pleasure. Freud’s Todestrieb, his statement that “libido has the task of making the destroying instinct innocuous, and it fulfills the task by diverting that instinct to a great extent outwards....The instinct is then called the destructive instinct, the instinct for mastery, or the will to power.” Few authors have spun stories of Thanatos and Eros as skillfully and powerfully as Livia Llewellyn.

In his introduction to this volume, Laird Barron writes “Scant difference exists between exquisite pleasure and pain.” An orphan girl with a mind for anthracite falls into the hands of a cult worshiping an entombed god. In the Pacific Northwest, evergreens lull prepubescent girls into their trunks to serve as wombs. A suburban housewife troubled by her present encounters the sixteen-year-old girl she ached to touch in her dreams. These ten stories promise to indulge the reader’s sensibilities, their fears and desires.

Blanket of White by Amy Grech
$4.50
146 pages

Blanket of White - True love knows no bounds.

Crosshairs - A young boy learns the perils of hunting fare game firsthand.

Prevention - Murderous twins help their dear mother into and out of trouble.

Perishables - A nuclear fallout survivor finds sustenance in an unlikely place.

Plus two more never before published storied by Amy Grech. A total of fourteen dark tales in all!

Also check out The Act of Deception.

Widow by Billie Sue Mosiman
$3.99
356 pages

NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR SUPERIOR NOVEL.

First her husband killed their children, then himself. Now she's on her own, and she's bent on making sure it never happens to another woman. It's too late for her…she's already damaged. Yet when she stops the evil she's felt compelled to commit, the murders continue. Someone is a copycat, pinning crimes on her, stalking her, teasing her with his devious plan. She can't make him stop. There may be no way out of the trap she's created out of loss, out of desperation.

There's another problem--she's falling in love with the detective who is in charge of tracking her down. Life is a complex series of paradoxes, a spiral of fear and murder where nothing is as it seems.

Also check out Legions of the Dark, Rise of the Legend and Hunter of the Dead.

Facade by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
$5.99
400 pages

Originally published by Dell Abyss in 1993.

Thomas fell in love with the Oregon Coast while filming his signature role as Anthony Short. Then his estranged daughter, Heather, died there, and Thomas fled.

He’s returned now, not to solve his daughter’s murder, but to see if he can live with himself and his past.

Only someone leaves mysterious notes, signed Your Daughter, and birds die on his porch. Strangers report a man in a cloak who looks just like Thomas, but the fans who follow him everywhere don’t see anyone.

But Thomas knows something strange is going on. Then more people die and Thomas realizes he holds the key to it all. He can solve the crisis, if he only dares…

Also check out Sins of the Blood.

Nightmare by S.K. Epperson
$3.99
284 pages

On a remote ranch deep in the Flint Hills at a clinic for women diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, patients are dying in extremely violent ways. The staff has invited Dr. Bryan Raleigh and his team, along with his journalist brother, David, to write about the clinic, and from the moment of their arrival they begin unwillingly to unravel secrets about the family who owns the ranch, including a strange blood ritual practiced by the hemophiliac son and even more bizarre rites performed by the grotesque, voyeuristic wife of the clinic's director. Soon David and the others begin to suspect the rude, imperious woman who never leaves the third floor may be somehow responsible for the deaths of traumatized patients dying one by one, and the closer they get to the truth, the bigger the threat becomes to their own safety.

Also check out Green Lake and The Neighborhood.

A Twisted Ladder by Rhodi Hawk
$10.62
541 pages

Psychologist Madeleine LeBlanc has spent her whole career trying to determine the cause of her father's schizophrenia. She always felt that she could unravel its origins and cure the man who left her and her brother, Marc, to practically raise themselves on the Louisiana Bayou. But when Marc takes his own life on a fishing boat in the middle of Bayou Black, Madeleine embarks on a journey into her family history---to a time when the antebellum era was crumbling, and the line between servant and master was starting to fade. And the more she pries the more she reveals her family’s dark past, rife with conjured demons and river magic gone awry. Madeleine’s only hope to save herself is to face the ghosts of the past, the dangers of the present, and the twisted ladder that links them all together.

Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan
$9.19
430 pages

Built on the Upper West Side, the elegant Breviary claims a regal history. But despite 14B's astonishingly low rental price, the recent tragedy within its walls has frightened away all potential tenants . . . except for Audrey Lucas.

No stranger to tragedy at thirty-two—a survivor of a fatherless childhood and a mother's hopeless dementia— Audrey is obsessively determined to make her own way in a city that often strangles the weak. But is it something otherworldly or Audrey's own increasing instability that's to blame for the dark visions that haunt her . . . and for the voice that demands that she build a door? A door it would be true madness to open . . .

Also check out The Keeper and The Missing.

The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff
$2.99
320 pages

Baird College's Mendenhall echoes with the footsteps of the last home-bound students heading off for Thanksgiving break, and Robin Stone swears she can feel the creepy, hundred-year-old residence hall breathe a sigh of relief for its long-awaited solitude. Or perhaps it's only gathering itself for the coming weekend.

As a massive storm dumps rain on the isolated campus, four other lonely students reveal themselves: Patrick, a handsome jock; Lisa, a manipulative tease; Cain, a brooding musician; and finally Martin, a scholarly eccentric. Each has forsaken a long weekend at home for their own secret reasons.


The five unlikely companions establish a tentative rapport, but they soon become aware of a sixth presence disturbing the ominous silence that pervades the building. Are they the victims of a simple college prank taken way too far, or is the unusual energy evidence of something genuine---and intent on using the five students for its own terrifying ends? It's only Thursday afternoon, and they have three long days and dark nights before the rest of the world returns to find out what's become of them. But for now it's just the darkness keeping company with five students nobody wants and no one will miss.

Also check out The Price, The Unseen and Book of Shadows.

Ghosts and Other Lovers by Lisa Tuttle
$5.87
143 pages

The introduction begins, "I'm fascinated by ghosts, and entertain all sorts of theories about what they really are. That hauntings are caused by the uneasy dead, by spirits unable to find rest, seems to me the least likely explan- ation. . . ." Veteran fantasy and horror author Lisa Tuttle has assembled thirteen of her imaginative inquiries into the nature of ghosts and the people they visit, covering territory from gothic romance to the just plain creepy. Incisive, sexy, and unsettling, Ghosts and Other Lovers should appeal to both fans of classic ghost stories and those seeking bold psychological fantasy.
Also check out My Pathology.

Silk by Caitlin R. Kiernan
$10.41
368 pages

Spyder Baxter is the patron saint of the alienated and lost. She invites them into her mesmerizing world of ritual and ceremony, blood and fire...a realm of vengeful gods, of exiled spirits harboring the dark secrets of Hell-and the darker secrets of Heaven. But is she their guardian angel-or a much more terrifying force sent not to redeem, but to destroy? 

Also check out The Red Tree, Low Red Moon, Daughter of Hounds, Threshold and Murder of Angels.


A Book of Tongues: Volume One of the Hexslinger Series by Gemma Files
$9.95
280 pages

Two years after the Civil War, Pinkerton agent Ed Morrow has gone undercover with one of the weird West's most dangerous outlaw gangs-the troop led by "Reverend" Asher Rook, ex-Confederate chaplain turned "hexslinger," and his notorious lieutenant (and lover) Chess Pargeter. Morrow's task: get close enough to map the extent of Rook's power, then bring that knowledge back to help Professor Joachim Asbury unlock the secrets of magic itself.

Magicians, cursed by their gift to a solitary and painful existence, have never been more than a footnote in history. But Rook, driven by desperation, has a plan to shatter the natural law that prevents hexes from cooperation, and change the face of the world-a plan sealed by an unholy marriage-oath with the goddess Ixchel, mother of all hanged men. To accomplish this, he must raise her bloodthirsty pantheon from its collective grave through sacrifice, destruction, and apotheosis.

Caught between a passel of dead gods and monsters, hexes galore, Rook's witchery, and the ruthless calculations of his own masters, Morrow's only real hope of survival lies with the man without whom Rook cannot succeed: Chess Pargeter himself. But Morrow and Chess will have to literally ride through Hell before the truth of Chess's fate comes clear-the doom written for him, and the entire world.

Breeding Ground by Sarah Pinborough
$5.75
356 pages

Life was good for Matt and Chloe. They were in love and looking forward to their new baby. But what Chloe gave birth to isn’t a baby. It isn’t even human. It’s an entirely new species that uses humans only for food—and as hosts for their young.

As Matt soon learns, though, he is not alone in his terror. Women all over town have begun to give birth to these hideous creatures, spidery nightmares that live to kill—and feed. As the infestation spreads and the countryside is reduced to a series of web-shrouded ghost towns, will the survivors find a way to fight back? Or is it only a matter of time before all of mankind is reduced to a…Breeding Ground.

Also check out Feeding Ground, The Taken, The Reckoning, Tower Hill and The Hidden. 

Seed by Ania Ahlborn
$0.99
169 pages

In the vine-twisted swamps of Louisiana, the shadows have teeth.

Jack Winter has spent his entire life running from something no one else can see. His childhood is his darkest secret, but after a near fatal accident along a deserted road, the darkness he was sure he’d escaped rears its ugly head… and smiles.

But this time, he isn’t the only one who sees the soulless eyes of his past. This time, his six-year-old daughter Charlie leans into his ear and whispers: "Daddy, I saw it too."

And then she begins to change.

Faced with reliving the nightmares of his childhood, Jack watches his daughter spiral into the shadows that had nearly consumed him twenty years before.

But Charlie isn’t the only one who’s changing.

Jack never outran the darkness. It’s been with him all along.

And it’s hungrier than ever.

A new breed of dark fiction: the subtlety of Seed will haunt you, and the end will wickedly satisfy.


Badass Zombie Road Trip by Tonia Brown
$3.99

Jonah has seven days to find his best friend’s soul, or lose his own,
dragging a zombie across the country with a stripper who has an agenda of her own,
while being pursued for a crime he didn’t commit...
...and dealing with Satan.

2,000 miles. Seven days. Two souls.
One zombie.
Satan.

Also check out Lucky Stiff

Frightliner & Other Tales of the Undead by Colleen Drippe' Karina Fabian
$2.99
59 pages

When Jay Carlson has a run in with a strange, dark truck on a lonely road, his life goes south. He sees things that others don't see. He learns things he wishes he could forget, and he is drawn into an ancient battle he wouldn't have believed in even a day in the past. This time, even country music and the open road can't save him. Join authors Colleen Drippe' and Karina Fabian as they take you to the darkest places on the road. Also includes two extra stories and an excerpt from the novel Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator by Karina Fabian, available now from DAMNATION BOOKS.

Also check out Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator.

Dead Spell by Belinda Frisch
$1.99
198 pages

Harmony Wolcott's darkest secret has clawed its way back from the grave and is haunting her.

Afraid to ask for help, Harmony searches for answers in the wreckage of her childhood home where the truth is buried under the rubble of a family plagued by mental illness. 


Dead Spell is about a ghost with a past and a girl who would die to forget it.

Also check out Crisis Hospital: Dark Tales from the Ward, the World, and the Bedside.

Come Closer by Sara Gran
$8.99
180 pages

In this sparsely constructed and compellingly succinct gem of a novel, Gran's heroine leads a normal life until things suddenly and mystifyingly go wrong. Amanda does hear noises and experience bizarre situations, yet as a vague but tantalizing feeling of unease settles in, Amanda's fear feeds her needs and desires. Gran's premise, that we accept the impossible, for to do otherwise is to foolishly court disaster, informs the subtle tension beneath this deliciously wicked tale. A short book, it is nonetheless long on style, thanks to Gran's talent for quickly and convincingly portraying Amanda's reluctant terror, abject denial, and, finally, resigned acceptance of the malevolent force commandeering her life. 

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand
$4.76
281 pages

Cass Neary made her name in the 1970s as a photographer embedded in the burgeoning punk movement in New York City. Her pictures of the musicians and hangers on, the infamous, the damned, and the dead, got her into art galleries and a book deal. But 30 years later she is adrift, on her way down, and almost out. Then an old acquaintance sends her on a mercy gig to interview a famously reclusive photographer who lives on an island in Maine. When she arrives Downeast, Cass stumbles across a decades-old mystery that is still claiming victims, and into one final shot at redemption.

Also check out Illyria

Sympathy for the Dead by P.D. Cacek 
$4.99
196 pages

Sympathy for the Dead is an outstanding collection of short stories by a Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Award winner.

Feed by Mira Grant
$7.99
609 pages

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

NOW, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them. 


Also check out Deadline, Blackout and Countdown.

Voracious by Alice Henderson 
$10.41
320 pages

Madeline Keye’s gift—to touch someone and see flashes of the past—has set her apart from family and friends. She finds sanctuary in the wilderness, until a backcountry hike in Glacier National Park turns into a hunt—with her as the prey. Because something that’s not human is out there. And it’s hungry.

Also check out Useful Information and Simone.

Drowned Sorrow by Vanessa Morgan
$8.95 pages
191 pages

Megan Blackwood has just lost her only son in a terrible accident. Now she has come to Moonlight Creek with her teenage daughter Jenna, hoping a change of scenery might help to put her life and that of her daughter back together.

But something odd is going on in Moonlight Creek.

When rain falls over the village, its inhabitants commit grisly murders, leaving the place deserted with the first rays of sunshine.

Beneath the lake’s surface, an eerie presence watches … and waits …. Waits to reveal a tragic past drowned in mystery and fear. One that doesn’t bode well for visitors.

By the time Megan realizes that her life, as well as that of her daughter, is in danger, it may be too late to escape.


Also check out The Strangers Outside.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill 
$7.49
211 pages

Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, the sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House. Unaware of the tragic secrets which lie there, wreathed in fog and mystery, it is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral that a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black - and her terrible purpose.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Free
134 pages

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion." A summer evening's ghost stories, lonely insomnia in a moonlit Alpine's room, and a runaway imagination--fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism, and the origins of life--conspired to produce for Marry Shelley this haunting night specter. By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic masterpiece, Frankenstein. Written in 1816 when she was only nineteen, Mary Shelley's novel of "The Modern Prometheus" chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, Frankenstein remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.

Also check out The Last Man.

15 comments:

Vanessa Morgan said...

Oh, wow, what a spectacular post. All of those books look fabulous. And thanks so much for including my book too; nice surprise :)

The Scream Queen said...

Saw the name of your post, and immediately thought of Seed! I was happy to see it here...it was such an awesome read. I'll have to check out some of the others.

Ellen Datlow said...

I tried posting this once and it didn't take. I'll try one more time>
Kaaron Warren, excellent Australian horror writer of Slights, which is on Kindle, but also Mistification, Walking the Tree, and the collections The Grinding House and Dead Sea Fruit.

Unknown said...

This is an amazing list. Got this one bookmarked now. :)

Amy Grech said...

Thanks for the mention!

Yvonne Navarro said...

Thanks a million for mentioning AfterAge! And if vampires don't do it for you, Mirror Me is also out on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Me-ebook/dp/B005J102OO/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1330014449&sr=8-3 (as well as just released as an audiobook). :o)

Livia Llewellyn said...

Thanks for mentioning my collection! Also, I second Ellen Datlow's mention of Kaaron Warren - she's a phenomenal writer.

Kathryn Meyer Griffith said...

This list is great! I've read it and noted a bunch of them for me to get and read. Thank you Melissa! I'm familiar with a few of the authors but love to get new ones for my list, too. Warmly, author and 2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS FINALIST NOMINEE for her romantic end-of-the-world horror novel THE LAST VAMPIRE-Revised Author's Edition, Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Anonymous said...

Check out Winterborn, by A.D. Roland. It's a horror novel by a female author, available on Kindle!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/kcp/tos.html#stos-bookmark

DA Chaney said...

I agreed with what The Scream Queen said, about Ania Ahlborn's "Seed" book. Glad to see it made the list. I added a lot of samples to my Kindle off this list.

Darkeva said...

Excellent post, Little Miss Zombie!! Also, just wanted to say your interview series last year was FANTASTIC and I've linked to several of the interviews you did for my coverage this year; again, this is a fantastic list, and a great contribution to the Women of Horror month movement :-)

Darkeva

Jemiah said...

Proud to be among such great company!

Midnyte Reader said...

Amazing list. You are the only other person I know who has heard of Silk. I have that one and have to get to it. I'll have to check out a few others on this list too.

Monika said...

looking for an interesting book about zombies (except dramas) based on video games like on this website http://www.flashshed.com any1 wanna help me with this ?:)

Lory said...

You guys like horror games ? check this out http://www.flashshed.com