Dive into chilling stories recommended by the master of horror!
FICTION BEUKES
Broken Monsters / Lauren Beukes
Detective Gabi Versado, seasoned by years in Homicide, faces an unprecedented horror in Detroit, a city plagued by decay. Clayton Broom, a failed artist shattered by life, channels his broken dreams into grotesque creations of flesh and bone. As Detroit crumbles, Broom’s twisted vision of beauty turns the city into a hunting ground, where he seeks to “make you whole again.”
Available as an eBook and audiobook on hoopla and Libby.
FICTION BLATTY
The Exorcist / William Peter Blatty
Based on reported events of a child’s demonic possession in the 1940s, this is the story of 11-year-old Regan MacNeil, whose sudden disturbing, and often violent, behavior drives her desperate mother to seek help from two Catholic priests—men who will risk everything, including their own souls, to free the girl from the ancient malevolent force possessing her.
Available as an eBook and audiobook on hoopla.
FICTION BRADBURY
Something Wicked This Way Comes / Ray Bradbury
A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree-show’s smoke, mazes, and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes—and the stuff of nightmare.
Available as an eBook and audiobook on hoopla.
FICTION CARSON
The Chill / Scott Carson
In upstate New York, beneath the Chilewaukee reservoir’s dark waters, lies a drowned village sacrificed for Manhattan’s water supply in the early 20th century. Though the politicians insisted it was for the greater good, the local families, some of whom never truly left, were forced out. A century later, an inspector overseeing the neglected dam witnesses something inexplicable. It becomes clear that more than just the village was left behind; a dark prophecy is resurfacing. As the waters rise, the demand for a fresh sacrifice emerges, and those who remember must confront the chilling consequences.
HOOPLA
The Deep / Nick Cutter
A global plague called the “Gets” erases memory, starting small and progressing until victims forget vital functions, with no cure in sight. A potential solution, “ambrosia,” has been discovered deep in the Marianas Trench. A special research lab, Trieste, was built to study the plague, but now the station’s scientists are incommunicado. A daring team must descend into the dark, perilous depths to investigate the station’s silence and uncover the mysteries of the trench—where they may face an unimaginable evil.
Available as an audiobook on hoopla.
FICTION CUTTER
The Troop / Nick Cutter
Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip. The boys are a tight-knit crew. For the most part, they all get along and are happy to be there. But for some reason, he can’t shake the feeling that something strange is in the air this year. It comes to them in the night. An unexpected intruder, stumbling upon their campsite like a wild animal. He is shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry. Within his body is a bioengineered nightmare, a horror that spreads faster than fear. One by one, the boys will do things no person could ever imagine.
Available as an audiobook on hoopla and Libby.
SCIENCE FICTION FINNEY
Invasion of the Body Snatchers / Jack Finney
On a quiet fall evening in the peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovers an insidious, horrifying plot. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms are taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, friends, family, the woman he loves, and the entire world as he knows it.
FICTION KATSU
The Hunger / Alma Katsu
The Donner Party’s westward journey is plagued by misfortunes—depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and mysterious deaths—driving the travelers to madness. As long buried secrets surface and dissent escalates to murder, the group cannot escape tragedy or the sense that something is stalking them. Suspicions arise about a curse from Tamsen Donner, rumored to be a witch, or their ill-fated route. As members disappear, survivors wonder if a malevolent force awaits them in the mountains or if the true evil has been within them all along. Blending the supernatural with history, The Hunger explores the dark extremes of human nature.
Also available as an audiobook on Libby.
FICTION MITCHELL
Slade House / David Mitchell
Near a British pub, in a narrow alley, lies the mysterious Slade House. Every nine years, its eerie residents, a peculiar brother and sister, invite someone lonely or different—a teenager, a policeman, a college student—inside. At first, guests are reluctant to leave; later, they find they can’t. Spanning five decades, this novel unfolds a reality-warping haunted house story, where those who uncover the truth of Slade House discover it too late. David Mitchell crafts an intricately woven tale that blurs genres and delivers a chilling, unexpected conclusion.
Available as an eBook and audiobook on Libby.
FICTION OLDE HEUVELT
Hex / Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Black Spring, a quaint Hudson Valley town, is cursed by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th-century woman with her eyes and mouth sewn shut. She roams freely, haunting homes and standing by children’s beds. The townspeople know that if her eyes are opened, catastrophic consequences will follow. To contain the curse, the town is virtually quarantined with high tech surveillance. However, frustrated teenagers defy the rules and expose the haunting online, leading the town into a spiral of dark, medieval practices. Once settled in Black Spring, no one ever leaves—alive.
FICTION PERCY
Red Moon / Benjamin Percy
They live among us—neighbors, mothers, lovers—but they change. Claire Forrester discovers her difference when government agents kill her parents. Patrick Gamble becomes a hero after surviving a plane ride that leaves him the only passenger alive. Chase Williams, sworn to protect the U.S. from a hidden menace, is becoming what he vowed to destroy. Controlled by laws, violence, and drugs, the threat looms as the night of the red moon approaches. A battle for humanity is about to begin, unleashing a world beyond recognition.
Available as an audiobook on hoopla.
FICTION STROUD
Niceville / Carsten Stroud
Rainey Teague disappears on his way home from school, literally vanishing into thin air. He’s there one moment and gone the next, captured on security cameras. After he is found, the nightmare only gets deeper, especially for detective Nick Kavanaugh and his wife, Kate, a family practice lawyer. They have all been drawn into a shadow world between life and death—a world where a man killed on Friday night is in a duel on Sunday, where an armed robbery triggers a disastrous cascade of events that ricochets across twenty different lives, and where Nick and Kate will come face to face with the ancient force of anger and evil that lurks beneath Niceville.
FICTION TREMBLAY
A Head Full of Ghosts / Paul Tremblay
The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when 14-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s bizarre outbursts and subsequent descent into madness. As their home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight for a reality television show.
Available as an eBook and audiobook on hoopla.
LP: October 2024
