National Network for Equitable Library Service

A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona in this "utterly terrifying and wholly immersive . . . story about generational trauma, colonization, systemic oppression, and the horror at the heart of motherhood" (Library Journal, starred review). "Castro is one of the most exciting genre authors on the scene right now, and this might be her most powerful book yet."--Paste (Most Anticipated Horror Novels of 2023). Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter.

Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend wasn't one of them. Especially not a new friend who's been dead for a century. Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya's normal life might actually be worse. She's embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she's pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend - even a dead one - is just what she needs. But Anya's new B.F.F. isn't kidding about the "forever" part.

Living forever isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Hearts can still break, looks can still fade, and money still matters, even in eternity. The ghosts, zombies, and demons in this collection are all shockingly human, and they’re ready to spill their guts. Vanity, love, and tragedy are all candidly explored as the unfulfilled desires of the dead are echoed in the lives of modern-day immigrants. Story-by-story, the line between ghost and human, life and death, becomes increasingly blurred. There’s a courtesan from 17th century China who, try as she might, just can’t manage to die.

Tear is both a horrifyingly deformed Bildungsroman and a bristling reclamation of female rage. Blurring the real and the imagined, this lyric debut novel unflinchingly engages with contemporary feminist issues and explores the detrimental effects of false narratives, gaslighting, and manipulation on young women.

Professor Nada Marjanovic, professor of Sanskrit at the University of Zagreb, has spent more than twenty years translating an obscure text on the vetala, a parasitic, vampire-like being that possesses the bodies of his victims. When her mentor and collaborator in the Indian city of Pune dies, she finds herself face-to-face with the undead that the text describes, an evil which long ago killed her fiancé - and set her on the path of an obsessive scholarly revenge. She must rely on her intellect, mythic lore, and even dreams to piece together the mystery of the manuscript.

It's the summer of 1990, and Crystal Beach in Ontario has lost its beloved, long-running amusement park, leaving the lakeside village a virtual ghost town. It is back to this fallen community that Bailey Enrica Martin must return to live with her overbearing mother after dropping out of university and racking up significant debt. But an economic downturn, mother-daughter drama, and Generation X disillusionment soon prove to be the least of Bailey's troubles: a mysterious and salacious force begins to dog her; inexplicable sounds in the night and unimaginable sites spotted in the periphery.

Deep rooted secrets. A twisted family history. And a house that will never let go. Eleanor lives with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize a familiar person's face. It causes stress. Acute anxiety. It can make you question what you think you know. When Eleanor walked in on the scene of her capriciously cruel grandmother, Vivianne's, murder, she came face to face with the killer--a maddening expression that means nothing to someone like her.

These thirteen stories are our own lives, inside out. A boy's summer romance doesn't end in that good kind of heartbreak, but in blood. A girl on a fishing trip makes a friend in the woods who's exactly what she needs, except then that friend follows her back to the city. A father hears a voice through his baby monitor that shouldn't be possible, but now he can't stop listening. A woman finds out that the shipwreck wasn't the disaster, but who she's shipwrecked with. A big brother learns just what he will, and won't, trade for one night of sleep.

A heartwarming story of friendship and demonic possession. The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since the fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act ... different. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby.

Disturbing. Original. Terrifying. The 'master of horror' is back with the chilling tale of what lurks in the walls of an abandoned hospital. In this abandoned hospital, pain lives on ... and it wants revenge. St Philomena's military hospital has been abandoned for over three years. Now Lilian Chesterfield, who works for one of the most successful building companies in England, is in charge of developing it into a luxury housing complex. But as soon as she and her colleagues start work in the Jacobean-style mansion, their dream turns into a nightmare.