Cirrus@Austlit

When Bette and Jay’s lives crash headlong into the alluring, lethal underworld of the city’s vampires, they’re not afraid, but rather fascinated: could this subculture of hunters and predators, villains and heroes, finally be somewhere that they fit in?

'Seventy-year-old Gerald Forsyth dreads Halloween. Every year, on October 31st, a lone child has knocked on his door—a nightmarish reminder of a tragedy from his past. As each Halloween came and went, Gerald has been able to keep his door locked and the monstrous memory at bay, but the ravages of emphysema have left him a disgruntled and feeble-minded old man.

'When a new hospice nurse named Kelli arrives unexpectedly to replace his regular nurse on Halloween night, Gerald is caught unaware and before he can warn her, Kelli invites the threat into his home. The horrors that unfold will be no trick and the only treat the child will accept is the old man’s soul. Before the night ends, Gerald will have no choice but to bring his dark secret into the light.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (2021 ed.).

"Almond-eyed celestial, the filial daughter, the perfect wife. Quiet, submissive, demure. In Black Cranes, Southeast Asian writers of horror both embrace and reject these traditional roles in a unique collection of stories which dissect their experiences of 'otherness, ' be it in the colour of their skin, the angle of their cheekbones, the things they dare to write, or the places they have made for themselves in the world. Black Cranes is a dark and intimate exploration of what it is to be a perpetual outsider."--Publisher's description.

'Thomas is no ordinary man. To live, he must devour human flesh. His habitual existence is one of killing and feeding and taking on the physical characteristics of his victims. Thomas tries to fit in with the rest of humanity, but when his beautiful neighbor, Stephanie deceives him and turns out to be a monster just like him, he decides to discover his heritage and take revenge. Little does he know that there are many other “Fleshers” out there hiding in the shadows of the world and they are at war with each other.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'Jessica Newman's tragic childhood has come back to haunt her. Her father, a Catholic deacon she hasn't seen since he was found not guilty of her mother's death during an exorcism ritual, has turned up dead in Scotland, with a wound to the head. Forced to take her family to Scotland and deal with her father's estate — a derelict mansion in the Grampian Ranges. Jessica begins to question her mother's death and the role her father played in it. The house and its dark basement — could provide more answers than she bargained for.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'David Brewer is trying to keep his family alive in a world torn asunder by a biblical apocalypse. Yet there is salvation, in the guise of a stranger who offers survivors sanctuary. All David and his family have to do is declare their faith in God's final, and bloody, plan.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Time-Ball Tower of Tempuston houses the worst criminals in history. Given the option of the death penalty or eternal life, they chose eternal life. They have a long time to regret that choice.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'No one in Willow Street pays it any notice, not the disgruntled Campbell family next door, not Alice Cowley and her suicidal daughter, or Mr. and Mrs. Markham down the road. Not even Darryl, the loner at number seventy, who is abnormal himself, thinks much about it. It is just the old Kemper House, forgotten and abandoned.

'Until it makes itself known.

'When the stench of death wafts from Kemper House through Willow Street, and comes to the attention of recent resident and newspaper reporter, Ben Traynor, it starts a chain of horrors that brings Kemper House's curse into their own homes and leads others direct to its door. Kemper House not only haunts its neighbours, it infects them with an evil that traverses time and reality itself.'

Source: Author's Blurb

'Growing up on a crumbling plantation at the beginning of the 20th century can profoundly shape an imagination and when I grew up and went away to university in New Orleans, I realised my imagination wasn't the only weird thing about me. My family's reaction to my wild new life almost killed me. The way back to feeling alive was stranger than even I expected. Now I want to tell you all about it.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Where do you hide if the forces out to destroy you can find you anywhere? For three students on the run from cruel sorcerers, discovering an answer to that question is a matter of life and death.

In horror movies, the last girl is the one who triumphs where others have failed. But in real life, what if the reward for surviving for centuries is nothing but an endless chance to lose everything over and over again?

A story of two vampires, very different from one another: Blake, the capricious, charming leader of the most powerful vampire pack in the city, and Ash, the broken debutante gripped by a bloodlust she can’t control.

A tale of memory, violence, loss, and the gleeful manipulative wickedness of the games vampires play with those around them.

Roads and Crosses follows two vampire hunters as they navigate the aftermath of the shattering events of Mary Borsellino's Origins and Overtures.

In 1999, Ella arrives at her Denver school with a cache of weapons and a plan to use them. Years later, from a hell different than she ever imagined, she recounts tales of other violent women in a series of letters to a little sister forced to grow up in the shadow of the Cobweb massacre.

In 1952, Sally and Amy, a strange girl with a secret, run away to hitch-hike around Australia. They navigate a landscape scarred by old memories and tragedy as they search for a safe place that feels like home.

In 2011, Charlotte, a music journalist on tour with a band, uncovers stories of loss and hope.

Demons, fallen soldiers, hunters, rock and roll stars are among the cast of characters thrown together into a web of legacies and second chances. The result could never be anything but The Devil's Mixtape.

Source: Publisher's Blurb