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Rob Crowther

 

Bookseller Bio

Rob Crowther (R.J. Crowther Jr.) is a horror connoisseur, SF fan, writer, and long-time bookseller with a special place in his haunted heart for the strange, baroque and bizarre. 

Rob's Feature Nightmare — Here you'll find our horror expert Rob's favorite frightful reads.

 

 


 

Books: 
Staff Pick Badge
Christmas and Other Horrors: A winter solstice anthology By Ellen Datlow (Editor), Garth Nix, Josh Malerman, Alma Katsu, Stephen Graham Jones Cover Image
$27.99
ISBN: 9781803363264
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Titan Books - October 24th, 2023

CHRISTMAS AND OTHER HORRORS: A WINTER SOLSTICE ANTHOLOGY

Bolt your doors and keep your fireplace blazing as the longest night approaches because you’re on the naughty list this year! Ellen Datlow, the Queen of Horror Anthologies, delivers a sack of terror and dread in CHRISTMAS AND OTHER HORRORS: A WINTER SOLSTICE ANTHOLOGY. Here you’ll find chilling new stories by masters of horror and dark fantasy Alma Katsu, Christopher Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, Tananarive Due, Josh Malerman, Richard Kadrey, Cassandra Khaw, and more. Ghosts, ghouls, Krampus, golems, Schnabelperchten, Mari Lwyd, and most unwelcome guests are just some of the nightmares coming for you. This tome is proof that fear is the gift that keeps on killing. - R.J. Crowther Jr.


Black River Orchard By Chuck Wendig Cover Image
$29.99
ISBN: 9780593158746
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - September 26th, 2023

BLACK RIVER ORCHARD by Chuck Wendig 

Seven unnatural apple trees with roots in blood-drenched history twist from the soil of an orchard that's like Eden after the fall. The apples tempt the residents of the small town of Harrow with the sweetness of forbidden knowledge, enhance their strength and beauty, but infect them with an insatiable appetite, unleashing their darkest desires and violent impulses. As the townsfolk transform into more-is-less of themselves, the claustrophobic dread bursts into body horror and rage – rage at small town tribalism, indigenous persecution and rigid constraints on identity. Underneath its brilliant, glistening red skin, BLACK RIVER ORCHARD is a parable about gnawing out the seeds of evil in the pith of our souls and the courage it takes to prune away the malignant parts of ourselves. – R.J. Crowther Jr. 


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Don't Fear the Reaper (The Indian Lake Trilogy #2) By Stephen Graham Jones Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9781982186609
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: S&S/Saga Press - September 26th, 2023

DON’T FEAR THE REAPER by Stephen Graham Jones

There are rules for slasher horror sequels – they must up the gore, stakes and body count, and deliver a twist that upends what you thought you knew. Stephen Graham Jones ups them all in DON’T FEAR THE REAPER, then burns the rulebook and rips out your heart. Four years after the massacre that turned Indian Lake into a Bay of Blood, Jade Daniels, the reluctant final girl extraordinaire, gets out of prison just in time for a Friday the 13th showdown with another serial killer. Dark Mill South, an Indigenous slasher with a meat hook for a hand is gutting folks like elk during hunting season. Rumor has it, he’s seeking revenge for the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota men in 1862. But is this really why he is hunting humans? Why do the crime scenes copycat kills from slasher films? Can Jade’s obsession with horror movies help her outmaneuver him? After all the trauma and strength that came from her rebirth, Jade knows it’s not enough to be the final girl; you must fight to the death to protect the ones you love. A thrilling meditation on revenge and refusing to be a victim. – R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Pallbearers Club: A Novel By Paul Tremblay Cover Image
$27.99
ISBN: 9780063069916
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: William Morrow - July 5th, 2022

THE PALLBEARERS CLUB by Paul Tremblay

THE PALLBEARERS CLUB – A MEMOIR A NOVEL is a haunting punk rock dirge that will drive a stake through your heart. Lie to me, it sings, that I may know the truth about love and death and the graveyard of our former selves. When Art Barbara, a disabled outcast, brings together a family of misfits to serve at the funerals of the lonely dead, his grim enterprise attracts the attention of Mercy Brown, a Goth girl who feeds off the living, at least in his head. Mercy becomes Art’s muse – loving, mocking, morbid, an old soul bound to a young one who grows old too soon. When Mercy finds Art’s memoir wrapped up in a bow, she can’t help but add her own liner notes, in a dueling narrative contradicting what Art thought was real. A heartbreaking vampire(?) novel unlike any you’ve read before, THE PALLBEARERS CLUB will seize you by the throat and drain you dry.

 R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Stormbringer: The Elric Saga Part 2 (Elric Saga, The #2) By Michael Moorcock, Michael Chabon (Foreword by) Cover Image
By Michael Moorcock, Michael Chabon (Foreword by)
$29.99
ISBN: 9781534445710
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: S&S/Saga Press - April 12th, 2022

STORMBRINGER: THE ELRIC SAGA vol. 2 by Michael Moorcock (gloriously illustrated)

I can’t overstate the impact that Michael Moorcock’s ELRIC OF MELNIBONE saga had on me growing up. It was my Star Wars, my Lord of the Rings, all rolled into one decadent, twisted, plane of the Multiverse. Elric was my gateway drug to fantasy. That grim, albino emperor, with his living black sword that drinks souls like a vampire and feeds some of that stolen life to its cursed wielder, was the first antihero I ever fell in love with. So, sail with me to the shores of ancient Melniboné, conjure the dark sorceries of that lost empire, and choose your side in the eternal war between the Lords of Chaos and Order. You may not return, but you will be transformed. – R.J. Crowther Jr. 

Note: This is the second of three volumes that present the complete Elric saga. The third volume, THE WHITE WOLF, will be published 10/22/22.


Don't Fear the Reaper (The Indian Lake Trilogy #2) By Stephen Graham Jones Cover Image
$27.99
ISBN: 9781982186593
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: S&S/Saga Press - February 7th, 2023

DON’T FEAR THE REAPER by Stephen Graham Jones

There are rules for slasher horror sequels – they must up the gore, stakes and body count, and deliver a twist that upends what you thought you knew. Stephen Graham Jones ups them all in DON’T FEAR THE REAPER, then burns the rulebook and rips out your heart. Four years after the massacre that turned Indian Lake into a Bay of Blood, Jade Daniels, the reluctant final girl extraordinaire, gets out of prison just in time for a Friday the 13th showdown with another serial killer. Dark Mill South, an Indigenous slasher with a meat hook for a hand is gutting folks like elk during hunting season. Rumor has it, he’s seeking revenge for the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota men in 1862. But is this really why he is hunting humans? Why do the crime scenes copycat kills from slasher films? Can Jade’s obsession with horror movies help her outmaneuver him? After all the trauma and strength that came from her rebirth, Jade knows it’s not enough to be the final girl; you must fight to the death to protect the ones you love. A thrilling meditation on revenge and refusing to be a victim. – R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Fervor By Alma Katsu Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9780593328330
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons - April 26th, 2022

THE FERVOR by Alma Katsu

Master storyteller Alma Katsu (THE HUNGER, THE DEEP), spins a scintillating web of terror in her new historical horror novel, THE FERVOR. Demons from Japanese folklore, and a seething plague of spiders that drive you mad, pale before the evils of the internment camps, where 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were incarcerated during WWII. A thrilling, must-read for horror fans, chilling reminder of the real, persistent horrors of racism, and a testament to the healing power of compassion and empathy. The past was never more now. - R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Elric of Melniboné: The Elric Saga Part 1 (Elric Saga, The #1) By Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman (Foreword by) Cover Image
By Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman (Foreword by)
$29.99
ISBN: 9781534445680
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: S&S/Saga Press - February 15th, 2022

ELRIC OF MELNIBONÉ: THE ELRIC SAGA VOL. 1 by Michael Moorcock, Forward by Neil Gaiman

I can’t overstate the impact that Michael Moorcock’s ELRIC OF MELNIBONE saga had on me growing up. It was my Star Wars, my Lord of the Rings, all rolled into one decadent, twisted, plane of the Multiverse. Elric was my gateway drug to fantasy. That grim, albino emperor, with his living black sword that drinks souls like a vampire and feeds some of that stolen life to its cursed wielder, was the first antihero I ever fell in love with. So, sail with me to the shores of ancient Melniboné, conjure the dark sorceries of that lost empire, and choose your side in the eternal war between the Lords of Chaos and Order. You may not return, but you will be transformed. – R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Goblin: A Novel in Six Novellas By Josh Malerman Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780593237823
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - January 11th, 2022

GOBLIN by Josh Malerman

In the grand tradition of Ray Bradbury’s THE OCTOBER COUNTRY, six tales of terror and wonder await you in the town of GOBLIN. You’ll visit the house of a ghost hunter where the greatest fear is fear itself, and it just might be the death of you, a zoo where the zookeeper gets in touch with his inner animal, a magic show where the price of admission is…everything, and a hedge maze grown on sorrow with a secret heart. These and other tourist attractions are guaranteed to delight even the most discriminating voyeurs of damnation. Come on in! People are dying to stay here. -- R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Only Good Indians: A Novel By Stephen Graham Jones Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9781982136468
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: S&S/Saga Press - January 26th, 2021

THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones

A blood-curdling creature feature, revenge tale, and meditation on the clash between Native American “old ways” and modern pressures, THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS is one of the best horror novels I’ve ever read. Four friends from the Blackfeet Tribe break the taboo of hunting Elk on land reserved for their tribal elders, and desecrate the hunt by killing a pregnant cow. Ten years later, a vision foretells the savage retribution that will come in the form of the Elk Head Woman, who wreaks revenge through physical and psychological trauma. Beyond the gore, it’s a heart-wrenching tale of guilt, regret, and what it means to be a man and a “good Indian.” Outstanding! – R.J. Crowther Jr.


The Bright Lands By John Fram Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9781335457738
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Hanover Square Press - July 6th, 2021

THE BRIGHT LANDS by John Fram

The small town of Bentley, Texas is built on cults – the cult of football with its high school gods beneath the stadium lights, the cult of masculinity bleached a sickly white, and an older cult that has made a bargain with a beast. Joel, the former quarterback, fled Bentley in shame after suffering humiliation when he was outed as gay, but is forced to return when his younger brother, Dylan, goes missing. After Dylan is found brutally murdered, Joel discovers it’s just the tip of a supernatural iceberg - a secret the town patriarchs will kill to protect. Something has been feeding on Bentley’s boys for generations, growing fat on hatred, shame, and sexual predation. As the book roars to its shocking conclusion, Joel must solve a riddle we must ask ourselves - how do you defeat a demon nursed on the monsters in us all? A riveting debut. Highly recommended! – R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Deep By Alma Katsu Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780525537922
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons - February 23rd, 2021

THE DEEP by Alma Katsu

In Alma Katsu’s riveting historical horror novel, THE HUNGER, she took readers on a trail of terror with the Donner Party. Now, in THE DEEP, Katsu goes full steam into the Titanic disaster, conjuring up the haunting tale of survivor, Annie Hebbley, who spent four years in an insane asylum after the tragedy. Peel back the gilt, elegant veneer of the Titanic’s opulence, and you’ll find a beautifully written Gothic novel, with all the heartache and chilling atmosphere of Wuthering Heights. A voice from the sea sings to passengers, luring them to their death. A spiritualist believes an evil presence wants to destroy the ship. Doomed love resurfaces in impossible resurrections, with Annie at the center of the supernatural maelstrom. Drifting through the story like ice bergs with so much beneath the surface are the very real horrors of PTSD, the terrible bias against women when it comes to mental health, and the evil of unbridled egos that value their inflated image more than human lives. A mesmerizing tale of the terrible things we do for love. Five White Stars!  –R.J. Crowther Jr.


The Loop By Jeremy Robert Johnson Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781534454309
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: S&S/Saga Press - August 10th, 2021

THE LOOP by Jeremy Robert Johnson

THE LOOP is mind-blowing body horror amped up to max. It’s Cronenberg meets Halloween III with a philosophy. Lucy, an adopted kid from Peru, and Bucket, a Pakistani immigrant, find kinship as outcasts in a small white town. After they witness a shocking act of violence in their classroom, they discover that the enhancement chips in the brains of privileged kids have been hacked by a psychotic test subject. A signal activates the chips, triggering savage outbursts, while causing tumors that invade the brains of the hosts. The grotesque, infectious mutations cause a bio-apocalypse, and as the horror hurricane hits Category 5, Lucy has an epiphany born of trauma and desperation – what good is survival if you lose your humanity? – R.J. Crowther Jr.


Survivor Song: A Novel By Paul Tremblay Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9780062679178
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - July 6th, 2021

SURVIVOR SONG by Paul Tremblay 

After a lifetime of saturating my brain with horror stories and movies, it takes a vivid, intimate tale to dig into my vitals. Paul Tremblay's SURVIVOR SONG did that in spades, and there were many times while reading this eerily prescient novel (which was written a year before the coronavirus outbreak) that my heart was pounding against my ribs from the relentless tension, and I had to get up and walk around to keep my nerves from fraying. A not-zombie novel about a pandemic caused by a rabies-like virus, which turns the infected into raging berserkers, the power of the story lies not in the gore, but in its agonizing immediacy. When Natalie, who is eight-and-a-half months pregnant, gets bitten and infected, she enlists the help of her best friend, Dr. Ramola (Rams) Sherman, who was her college roommate before becoming a pediatrician. We join the race to save Natalie's baby as the world implodes around them, and eavesdrop on the voice log Natalie records so her child will know who she was in case she doesn't survive. The heartbreaking recordings provide a soundtrack for the end of the world, and confront us with the terrible question – how bad does it have to get before bringing a child into the world is an act of cruelty? How does hope measure against the inability to protect them? Natalie and Rams are richly nuanced and live and breathe on the page, making all they suffer gnaw on your heart. While bleak, there is hope, but for a terrible price. "Give 'til it hurts" isn't a catchphrase, it's the prix fixe.  – R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Trick 'r Treat Omnibus By Michael Dougherty Cover Image
$29.99
ISBN: 9781681160436
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Legendary Comics - September 22nd, 2020

Trick 'r Treat: Sam's 10th Anniversary Collection 

Michael Dougherty's "Trick 'r Treat" is arguably the greatest horror anthology movie since Stephen King's "Creepshow," and Sam (Samhain), the monstrous little trickster and enforcer of the rules of Halloween, has become a modern horror icon. Ten years after it was first released, the art in this graphic novel adaptation has been gloriously restored, and collected in a beautiful new hardcover edition, which also includes all the later tales of Sam's wicked adventures. The black-humored, twisted tales are reminiscent of EC Comics' "Tales from the Crypt," where well-deserved revenge is a dish best served cold, and undead trick-or-treaters, werewolves, and Sam all feast on the meal. I've waited years for this collection to rise from the grave, and the magnificent result was well worth the wait. It's perfect for those who keep Halloween in their hearts all year long!  – R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Deep By Alma Katsu Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780525537922
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons - February 23rd, 2021

THE DEEP by Alma Katsu

In Alma Katsu’s riveting historical horror novel, THE HUNGER, she took readers on a trail of terror with the Donner Party. Now, in THE DEEP, Katsu goes full steam into the Titanic disaster, conjuring up the haunting tale of survivor, Annie Hebbley, who spent four years in an insane asylum after the tragedy. Peel back the gilt, elegant veneer of the Titanic’s opulence, and you’ll find a beautifully written Gothic novel, with all the heartache and chilling atmosphere of Wuthering Heights. A voice from the sea sings to passengers, luring them to their death. A spiritualist believes an evil presence wants to destroy the ship. Doomed love resurfaces in impossible resurrections, with Annie at the center of the supernatural maelstrom. Drifting through the story like ice bergs with so much beneath the surface are the very real horrors of PTSD, the terrible bias against women when it comes to mental health, and the evil of unbridled egos that value their inflated image more than human lives. A mesmerizing tale of the terrible things we do for love. Five White Stars!  – R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The City in the Middle of the Night By Charlie Jane Anders Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780765379979
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Tor Books - February 11th, 2020

THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT by Charlie Jane Anders

The worlds of night and day collide in a narrow borderland, the only place where humans can survive on a tidally locked planet. One hemisphere burns in perpetual light, and the other is a frozen hellscape where there be monsters. But the “monsters” in the dark are an ancient, indigenous culture, and as Sophie knows too well, the real monsters are us. When Sophie, from the night side, falls in love with Bianca, a privileged woman from the day side who makes revolution a sport, she’ll risk everything for a battle not her own, and must decide if their stolen world deserves to exist at all. A tale of the borders that divide us, environmental crisis, and the horrors perpetrated on the “alien” due to anthropocentrism and our cultural blinders. Hope lies in facing our fears and ugly ambitions to create a world in balance, diverse and whole. One of the best, most thought-provoking SF novels I’ve read in years!

-- R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Flowers over the Inferno (A Teresa Battaglia Novel #1) By Ilaria Tuti, Ekin Oklap (Translated by) Cover Image
By Ilaria Tuti, Ekin Oklap (Translated by)
$16.95
ISBN: 9781641291255
Availability: Backordered
Published: Soho Crime - March 24th, 2020

FLOWERS OVER THE INFERNO by Illaria Tuti

A body posed, pale, naked in the deep, dark woods, eyes missing, while a scarecrow dressed in the victim's clothes, looks upon the sight of horror that leads to The School. A weathered homicide detective with shocking red hair, Superintendent Tessa Battaglia knows this is just the first meticulously executed tableau in a gallery of atrocities. As she races to stop a killer born and bred for violence, her own mortal coil is slowly winding down as she battles early onset dementia. By saving others, Tessa saves herself, but how long until the sharp tool of her mind grows dull? In this beautifully written debut thriller about monsters and their makers, author Ilaria Tuti has created a tough, intelligent, and heartbreakingly flawed detective, who leads us into the midnight forest of the soul in order to shine a light on what keeps us human. 5/5 stars!

-- R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Hiding Place: A Novel By C. J. Tudor Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781524761028
Availability: Backordered
Published: Ballantine Books - January 14th, 2020

The Hiding Place by C.J. Tudor

There's a new dark star among the authors of psychological thrillers. Her name is C.J. Tudor, and The Hiding Place is killer. If Jim Thompson and Shirley Jackson had a love child, it might look like this hardboiled, Gothic-suspense nightmare, white-knuckled and swaddled in dreadful atmosphere. Summoned by a message that "it's happening again," Joe returns to the small town of his childhood, seeking revenge against the forces that destroyed his kid sister. He moves into a house where a mother killed her son before taking her own life, scrawling "Not my son" in blood after murdering the boy. Joe knows a new generation of kids will share his sister's fate if he can't defeat the darkness of the hiding place. Complicating matters is, Gloria, a blonde bombshell enforcer, who's tracked Joe down to ruthlessly collect his gambling debts, and picks off Joe's enemies to save him for herself. A pit of lies swallows Joe as he fights to stop history from repeating itself, but the lies he tells himself are the blackest hole of all. Thriller and horror fans will love this gripping tale, which packs a chilling double-twist that ties it like a bow.

--R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel By Paul Tremblay Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780062679116
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - July 2nd, 2019

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Terror goes domestic in this gripping home-invasion thriller from the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS. When the four cultists of the apocalypse capture seven-year-old Wen and her two fathers, they give the family a horrifying ultimatum: sacrifice one of their own, or the world will end. The reluctant captors, brought together by cataclysmic visions, compulsively check death-watches that count down to extinction. The invaders are all-too human, desperate and frayed, trapped like Abraham and Isaac in the Biblical tale. Pressure-cooker tension builds as the family fights to survive, forcing the cultists to appease God with gruesome determination. A television reveals the horrors unleashed upon the world, but is the family’s defiance of God breaking the seven seals, or is awful coincidence greasing the cultists’ wheels? Would you sacrifice your family to save the world, if refusal meant there’d be no world to save at all? Tremblay is a master of ambiguity, and if you like safe books, this one’s not for you. CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD is a gut-punch of a novel, where believing is seeing, not the other way around.

—R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Hunger By Alma Katsu Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780735212534
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons - March 5th, 2019

THE HUNGER by Alma Katsu

Alma Katsu serves up a gourmet meal of historical horror in her chilling novel, THE HUNGER. An uninvited guest will join you and the Donner Party, feeding on your isolation, despair, and suffering. Make sure you sample the cold cuts marinated in fear, and save room for dessert, which of course is you. Beautifully told and impeccably researched, THE HUNGER will have you scrambling for more of Katsu’s savory tales. - Rob


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The Chalk Man: A Novel By C. J. Tudor Cover Image
$8.99
ISBN: 9780593359013
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Ballantine Books - May 25th, 2021

THE CHALK MAN by C.J. Tudor

A grisly murder in the past draws a chalk line around the future of four twelve-year-old boys, and Nicky, the only girl in their “Losers’ Club.” In this stunning debut thriller by C.J. Tudor, Eddie (Munster) meets the “Chalk Man” in 1986. The teacher, who suffers from albinism, helps Eddie save a girl’s life after a horrific accident at an amusement park, and inspires a secret code of chalk stick-figure men. When a series of chalk man clues lead to the dismembered body of a girl in the woods, the Chalk Man is assumed to be the killer. But thirty years later, the fab five are brought together by letters containing chalk figures that suggest the wrong man paid for the crime, and as Eddie tells us, children have their secrets. Fans of Stephen King’s “The Body” (Stand by Me), IT, and S.E. Hinton’s THE OUTSIDERS, will love the intimate characterization of the kids. Eddie’s hoarding and fetishism as an adult, show how PTSD can blossom into a poisoned garden. The grue is thick, the plot riveting. This haunting book will linger on the blackboard of your mind.  –R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Sleeping Beauties: A Novel By Stephen King, Owen King Cover Image
$20.99
ISBN: 9781501163418
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Scribner - September 18th, 2018

SLEEPING BEAUTIES by Stephen King and Owen King

The Aurora virus sweeps across the world like a sleeping curse of apocalyptic scale, leaving only the men awake to fend for themselves. Strange cocoons enshroud the women struck by the curse, and woe to the man who tries to free them from their pupal state. If disturbed, the infected women attack in savage rage. Evie Black, imprisoned for murder, is immune to the curse, can communicate with animals, and exhale magic moths. Some men view her as a savior, others as witch, who religious zealots cannot suffer to live. Is Evie (the dark Eve) Maleficent or Moses, as she offers women a promised land free of toxic masculinity? A vicious, timely fairy tale that will keep you up at night. -- R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Little Heaven: A Novel By Nick Cutter Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9781501104237
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Gallery Books - July 11th, 2017

LITTLE HEAVEN by Nick Cutter

Cormac McCarthy meets Stephen King in Nick Cutter’s off-the-rails fourth horror thriller, set in the backwoods of New Mexico. In 1965, an assassin, a bounty hunter, and a hired-gun named Micah, made an unholy truce in lieu of killing each other, and went to rescue an abducted child from a religious cult. In Little Haven, the evil they faced was both human and monstrous, including a preacher like Jim Jones channeling the Old Ones, and an eldritch Big Bad stitched from carcasses. The trio of rescuers were cursed by what they found there, echoing the horrors of “The Monkey’s Paw.” Fifteen years later, Micah’s daughter goes missing, forcing him to reunite with his partners in perdition, and return to Little Haven for a final showdown. A gruesome, poetic yarn with a rip-roaring finish.  -- R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Secrets of the Weird By Chad Stroup, Anthony Rivera (Editor) Cover Image
$20.85
ISBN: 9781940658803
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
(This book cannot be returned.)
Published: Grey Matter Press - July 11th, 2017

SECRETS OF THE WEIRD by Chad Stroup

If Clive Barker and William S. Burroughs spawned a love child, you’d discover her secret self in Secrets of the Weird. We meet Trixie, a transgender woman on the streets of Sweetville, desperate to earn enough cash to finish her transition. The city Trixie haunts is a nightmare Pleasure Island, roamed by punks, prostitutes, and neo-Nazis, frosted with a heavy dose of the drug, Sweet Candy. A hive-mind of gaunt mutants, nicknamed Withering Wyldes, whose sexless husks emerge from chemical cocoons, take obsession with body image to morbid extremes. The Angelghoul leads a cannibal cult to “Consumption Enlightement,” holding up a black mirror to mindless consumerism. Identical twin narcissists with an investment empire, turn their appetites on each other like a self-consuming snake. In this funhouse of mirrors, Trixie finds true love, falling for a straight-edge punk who wants to save the world. She hides the flesh she loathes from him, fearing rejection. When a dwarf surgeon offers Trixie her final solution, she’ll have to decide if the knife is her friend or foe.  Stroup’s writing is beautiful; his visons dangerous. “Reassign, realign, redefine.”


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Mapping the Interior By Stephen Graham Jones Cover Image
$12.99
ISBN: 9780765395108
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Tordotcom - June 20th, 2017

MAPPING THE INTERIOR by Stephen Graham Jones

Junior is his father’s son, and that’s a tragedy, in this terrifying and heart-wrenching story, which serves as a dark mirror to Native American culture, and the living-dead casualties of reservation life.  After the death of his father, twelve-year-old Junior helps his mother raise his mentally disabled brother, and struggles to be a man as only a child can. In fugue states, he is visited by the ghost of his father, a fancydancer adorned with feathers and a porcupine quill bustle. But heritage can be a prison as well a skin, and a terrible resurrection isn’t far behind. The living feed the dead by repeating their sins. A legacy of addiction gives birth to a monster. As Junior becomes the suspect of unnatural crimes, he will have to choose whose skin he’s willing to walk in. This brilliant story cut deep and made me shed some tears.  -- R.J. Crowther Jr.


HEX By Thomas Olde Heuvelt Cover Image
Unavailable to Order
ISBN: 9780765378811
Availability: Out of Print
Published: Tor Books - April 4th, 2017

HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

The town-in-a-fishbowl trope swirls with fresh blood, in the grizzly ghost story of Katherine van Wyler, who was executed for witchcraft in the 1600s. With her eyes and lips sewn shut save for one corner of her mouth, Katherine’s ghost wanders Black Springs in a playback loop. Anyone who hears her whisper is driven to kill. The residents are trapped by Katherine’s curse, which compels those who leave to commit suicide. To protect their secret shame from the outside world, the residents have set up their own surveillance state, with a puritanical code as ruthless as the witch trials. When a group of local teens try to leak the story, and one of them tortures the witch after years of physical abuse, they discover that the witch is the lesser of two evils. The greater evil wears the mask of “the public good.” All it takes is a whisper to burn down the world. –R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Beauty and the Beast, The (MinaLima Edition): (Illustrated with Interactive Elements) By Gabrielle-Suzanna Barbot de Villenueve, MinaLima (Illustrator) Cover Image
$32.50
ISBN: 9780062456212
Availability: Backordered
Published: Harper - January 31st, 2017

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST by Gabrielle-Suzanna Barbot de Villenueve, illustrated by MinaLima

Just in time for Disney’s release of their live-action musical version of Beauty and the Beast, a tale as old as time arrives in a glorious new, unabridged edition. Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima, the graphic artists behind the MinaLima design studio, were responsible for many of the props in the Harry Potter movies. As with their previous editions of Peter Pan and The Jungle Book, they’ve made a new edition of a classic, a classic in its own right. Originally published in 1740 as La Belle et la Bête, De Villenueve’s story of a young woman’s courage, and a love that sees beneath the surface to the beauty in the beast, comes to life with stunning illustrations, a map of Beauty’s French city, a 3D fold-out of the Beast’s castle, a spinning ring, pop-up windows, and lovely ornaments. A must-have for book lovers who cherish beautiful books.


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Six Wakes By Mur Lafferty Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780316389686
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Orbit - January 31st, 2017

SIX WAKES by Mur Lafferty

And Then There Were None meets Alien in this locked-room, SF-thriller, which grips you from the first scene in the frozen depths of space. On the generational starship, Dormire, Maria bolts awake in a cloning vat, her core-self freshly imprinted after she was killed. Five other crewmates have been brutally murdered, and their new incarnations awake near their own floating corpses. The artificial gravity is off, the ship is far off course, and the A.I. that runs the ship is starting to reboot. The cloning machine that saved Maria has been sabotaged, so if someone kills her now, there’s no coming back. One of the Dormire’s crew is the murderer; problem is, all of them have blood on their hands. Two thousand hibernating souls will never revive if she doesn’t stop the killer before she dies again.


Disappearance at Devil's Rock: A Novel By Paul Tremblay Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780062363275
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - March 14th, 2017

DISAPPEARANCE AT DEVIL'S ROCK by Paul Tremblay

Elizabeth Sanderson knows true horror when her teenage son goes missing, and her son’s friends have made a pact to hide a terrible secret. Is the apparition with black-hole eyes the ghost of her son, Tommy? Who keeps leaving pages of his diary on the floor? In this chilling tale of the seductive power of evil, and the willful loss of innocence, the Devil’s strength lies in silence. Tremblay is a master of misdirection, playing Three-card Monte with the reader’s wits. Just when you think you’ve finally solved the mystery, the supernatural boiled away to the dregs of human evil, Tremblay uncorks a shocking revelation that will leave you doubting all your assumptions. Fans of Stranger Things will love this riveting novel, by the Bram Stoker Award winning author of HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS. –R.J. Crowther Jr.


The Devourers: A Novel By Indra Das Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781101967539
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - February 21st, 2017

THE DEVOURERS by Indra Das

Once in a great while, a novel comes along with such wondrous storytelling, such lush, vivid prose, that it swallows you whole and spits you out transformed. Das’ The Devourers is that rarest of books. We meet Alok Mukherjee, a closeted historian, as he is seduced in the seething, spicy-sour markets of Kolkata by a stranger who claims to be half-werewolf, born of a shapeshifting rapist and Cyrah, a Mughal prostitute. Alok is seduced by the stranger’s stories, which come to life with hallucinatory vividness, carrying Alok back to 17th century India. The stories are the journals of Cyrah and the stranger’s father, filled with guilt, the lust for vengeance, the beautiful, gruesome transformative power of the shapeshifters, and the universal hungers for love, to create, and to shed our social skins. The shapeshifters tear off their skins to reveal a purer self, beyond race, beyond gender, or binary sexuality. There is real horror here, but even the most gruesome scenes are suffused with sensuality, reminiscent of Anne Rice’s early novels. Alok is liberated by the stranger’s stories, but liberation rips with the teeth of love and tragedy. I was up ‘til dawn devouring The Devourers, and woke with the scents of blood, musk, and sandalwood in my nose, not to mention tears in my eyes. Astounding.

– R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Stranded: A Novel By Bracken MacLeod Cover Image
Unavailable to Order
ISBN: 9780765382443
Availability: Out of Print
Published: Tor Books - August 29th, 2017

STRANDED by Bracken MacLeod

The chills cut through you like daggers of ice in Bracken MacLeod’s STRANDED, a brilliant tale of Arctic horror with echoes of John Carpenter’s The Thing and the historical tragedy of the H.M.S. Terror. What starts off as a survival thriller veers into nightmare territory as Noah Cabot, deckhand of the Arctic Promise, watches his crewmates succumb to a bizarre illness after a storm sends the ship into a preternatural fog. Ice locks in the ship and paranoia grips the crew, who soon begin to see things that shall not be revealed. Noah and the strongest of the crew head across the ice, after they catch sight of a structure in the distance. They pray their trek through the frozen waste will lead to their rescue, but what they find is a puzzle as dreadful as their secret selves, with a signpost up ahead -- “this way lies madness.” –R.J. Crowther Jr.


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All the Birds in the Sky By Charlie Jane Anders Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780765379955
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Tor Books - April 11th, 2017

ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY by Charlie Jane Anders

Once Upon A Time a girl spoke with the birds, and a boy-genius built a wrist watch that could turn back time. Broken and outcast, they met and fell in love, aliens not from other worlds but from society, and more importantly, aliens within their own skins. So begins the journey of Patricia and Laurence, who respectively join tribes of witches and scientists bent on saving our world from destruction. Science and Magic have different ideas of what salvation means, and the war between them may destroy all they hope to save. As they grow into their skins, so too grow their powers. Patricia, healer, shape-shifter and sometimes assassin harnesses the power of nature. Laurence develops inter-dimensional quantum tunneling, with the hope of implementing the “10 percent solution,” to send refugees from our world to an alternate reality. Burning in the ashes of this apocalyptic story are live coals of profound philosophy and keen observations about humanity, conveyed with Anders’ perfect-pitch ear for dialog, sharp wit and flashes of absurdity. Fans of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians will love this debut novel by the managing editor of io9.

- R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories By China Miéville Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9781101884782
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - June 7th, 2016

THREE MOMENTS OF AN EXPLOSION by China Miéville

With Three Moments of an Explosion, Miéville has earned his place in the pantheon of short fiction fantastical writers, joining such dark luminaries as Harlan Ellison, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clive Barker. The twenty-eight windows into the weird you’ll find in this collection offer bizarre, wondrous, and terrifying vistas, some as vast in scope as the space between the stars; others claustrophobic as a padded cell. In “Polynia,” airborne icebergs overshadow London and coral reefs sprout from buildings in Brussels as man-besieged Nature returns the favor. In “After the Festival,” participants in a modern shamanistic ritual don the heads of severed animals, and to their horror lose control of their inner beasts. “Säcken” pits two women’s love against a hungry sack that devours souls as a chilling punishment. There’s more, so much more, in this mind-expanding brood of dangerous visions, but be warned, they strike with fangs of philosophy. Miéville’s revelations made me gape in awe.

-R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Scarlet Gospels By Clive Barker Cover Image
$12.99
ISBN: 9781250136138
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: St. Martin's Paperbacks - October 3rd, 2017

THE SCARLET GOSPELS by Clive Barker

The Scarlet Gospels is a phantasmagoric masterpiece, a revelation writ in dripping red grotesqueries. Grand tableaux of beautiful terror and terrible beauty form the chapter and verse of Barker’s revelation, which tells the tale of Pinhead, his most famous creation, as the Hell Priest starts a war and sets his sights on godhood. Harry D’Amour, a battlescarred occult detective, is forced to make a devil’ s bargain with the Cenobite: chronicle the Hell Priest’s gospel like a modern Dante, or witness the death of everyone he loves. Weaving through this gospel, binding it together, are surprising cords of love and humanity, which celebrate the power of diversity. Clive Barker owes much to William Blake and Bosch, but Poe too is evident in this symphony of horror, with “The Conqueror Worm” serving as the chorus: “That motley drama--oh, to be sure, it shall not be forgot!... And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot.” If you have any doubts about Barker’s vision, The Scarlet Gospels will make you a convert. - R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The Deep: A Novel By Nick Cutter Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781501144837
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Gallery Books - August 16th, 2016

THE DEEP by Nick Cutter

What Ridley Scott did for outer space, Nick Cutter does for the ocean, in his iron lung of a horror novel, The Deep. A devastating plague is ravaging humanity, scarring its victims’ skin with ulcers like mold spots before eroding their minds like Alzheimer’s disease. Eight miles down in the Mariana trench, a research station built to harvest a “miracle cure” goes silent. A submersible rises to the surface, containing the partially regenerated body of a mutilated scientist. Luke Nelson takes the plunge to investigate what happened to the research team, which was headed by his brilliant, narcissistic brother. We descend with Luke into a permanent midnight of relentless claustrophobia, body horror and madness, hitting bottom in a monster maelstrom where regenerative medicine is the disease. Fans of hardcore horror—this grue is for you.

- R.J. Crowther Jr.


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The House of Small Shadows By Adam Nevill Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9781250068811
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: St. Martin's Griffin - July 21st, 2015

THE HOUSE OF SMALL SHADOWS by Adam Neville

Glassy-eyed antique dolls huddle in a Gothic parlor like dead children holding court at a mad tea party. Marionettes with too-wide eyes wave their withered arms as animal armies created by a mad taxidermist fight eternal wars beneath a veil of dust. These are just some of the wonders Catherine encounters when she’s sent to appraise the holdings of Red House for auction. The offerings are priceless, but less so than her soul, which like her sanity is really on the table as the ghosts of the past place bids on her life. Catherine is every bit as haunted as the mansion, plagued by memories of a series of unsolved child abductions that left her with a chilling imaginary friend who may hold the key to escaping Red House. With every page the dread builds, the atmosphere weighs like lead, and the climax will grip your heart in an icy, porcelain hand. - R.J. Crowther Jr.


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American Elsewhere By Robert Jackson Bennett Cover Image
$31.19
ISBN: 9780316200202
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Orbit - February 12th, 2013

AMERICAN ELSEWHERE by Robert Jackson Bennett

Welcome to Wink, a small town trapped in a Norman Rockwell nightmare, where only some of the Ozzie-and-Harriet residents are human. After ex-cop Mona Bright loses her father, she inherits a house in Wink that belonged to her mother, who committed suicide when Mona was a child. Mona soon discovers Wink can’t be found on any maps, but faded, family photos offer clues on how to get there. Wink straddles “the bruise”--a breach into a sea of cosmic horror, which ruptured during an early experiment in quantum physics, and is awful proof of Nietzsche’s infamous warning--“If you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you.” American Elsewhere peels back reality layer by layer, and takes us on a joyride from uneasiness to terror along with a host of strange and moving characters.

– R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Doctor Sleep By Stephen King Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9781451698855
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Scribner - June 10th, 2014

DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King

The sins of the father are visited upon the son, and thanks to “the shine” the ghosts of the past are dragged into the present in Stephen King’s thrilling, chilling sequel to The Shining. Doctor Sleep is a parable about self-enslavement – to alcohol, to memories, to the spark of life itself – and sometimes the only way to break free of those shackles is to shake hands with the Angel of Death. More than ghosts, Dan Torrance fears he’ll turn into his father, so he does karmic penance as a hospice caregiver. Dan becomes a psychic midwife for the dying, helping their troubled souls cross-over with the shining, earning him the nickname Doctor Sleep. Contacted by a girl who eclipses his power, Dan is drawn into a war against the True Knot, a tribe of soul-sucking nomads who prey on “Shiners.” Doctor Sleep gives a whole new meaning to “passing the torch.” It had me flipping pages with abraded fingers.

– R. J. Crowther Jr.


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The Six-Gun Tarot (Golgotha #1) By R. S. Belcher Cover Image
$9.99
ISBN: 9780765367518
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Tor Fantasy - March 25th, 2014

THE SIX-GUN TAROT by R.S. Belcher

This brilliant debut novel is a western fantasy that turns on steampunk cogs greased with lots of grue. We ride into the story with fifteen-year-old Jim, who carries the eye of his dead father in his pocket –a jade prosthetic crafted by Chinese sorcery.  Jim and his horse nearly die as they ride across the desert, but are rescued by Mutt, a Native American shape-shifter.  Mutt leads them to the mining town of Golgotha, where a Lovecraftian god is rising to undo creation (with a little help from a certain fallen angel).  Joining the battle to save the world are an undying sheriff who was hanged three times and has the scars to prove it, a woman with the blood of Lilith in a vial around her neck, a Mormon minister with an “unnatural” secret, and a taxidermist who knows death far too intimately. Every chapter is named after a Tarot card which, when interpreted, informs the narrative.  I’m putting all my chips on The Six-Gun Tarot making the short list for the World Fantasy Award. 

– R.J. Crowther Jr.


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Breed: A Novel By Chase Novak Cover Image
$22.87
ISBN: 9780316198585
Availability: Not in Stock, Available for Special Order
Published: Mulholland Books - September 10th, 2013

BREED by Chase Novak

Breed is a terrifying tale of gothic body horror, a fairy tale seen through the lens of David Cronenberg.  Alex and Leslie are beautiful and wealthy, and live in a historic New York townhouse, but more than anything they desire a child.  They’ve spent a fortune on infertility treatments, and Leslie grows despondent as every effort fails.  In a final act of desperation, they travel to Slovenia and undergo experimental gene therapy.  The treatment turns them into animals in heat, but once the animal is unleashed, there’s no going back.  Leslie gives birth to twins, who we meet ten years later, trapped inside their dilapidated home.  Every night, the twins are locked in their rooms, terrified by the bestial sounds coming from downstairs.  Flesh gives way to fur, reason starts to slumber, and when mommy says, “I’ll eat you up,” you better believe her.  Nightmare of the Year Award.

– R.J. Crowther Jr.