14-year-old Caleb and his younger sister Emily stumble upon an enigmatic collection of abandoned dolls in their new home's eerie basement. As Emily's obsession with the dolls intensifies, an unsettling aura envelops their lives. Are those doll eyes truly following Caleb's every move? Is there a malevolent force lurking within, desperate to communicate a haunting message? Are the dolls mere playthings, or are they vessels of a maleficent power that hungers for more?
In the town of Maplewood, Halloween brings the Pumpkin carving contest. Lara, a determined carver, and her friend Eddie craft a spooky pumpkin. As they explore the town's festivities, they stumble upon a cursed pumpkin. Ignoring the warnings, they use it for Lara's contest entry. But as celebrations unfold, the pumpkin transforms into a monster, threatening the town.
Prepare to be chilled to the bone... In the heart of holiday enchantment, a sinister secret lurks. Join Sarah as she unravels the eerie mysteries of Frosty Falls Mall. Beneath the veneer of holiday cheer, something unsettling stirs. Laughter of children takes a haunting turn, and the warm holiday lights cast shadows that whisper of secrets. Above, in the inky darkness, something mysterious takes flight. Are you ready to unwrap the secrets of this chilling Yuletide horror?
Corpses mark surrealism's path through the twentieth century, providing material evidence of the violence in modern life. Though the shifting group of poets, artists, and critics who made up the surrealist movement were witness to total war, revolutionary violence, and mass killing, it was the tawdry reality of everyday crime that fascinated them. Jonathan P. Eburne shows us how this focus reveals the relationship between aesthetics and politics in the thought and artwork of the surrealists and establishes their movement as a useful platform for addressing the contemporary problem of violence, both individual and political. In a book strikingly illustrated with surrealist artworks and their sometimes gruesome source material, Eburne addresses key individual works by both better-known surrealist writers and artists (including André Breton, Louis Aragon, Aimé Césaire, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Max Ernst, and Salvador Dalí) and lesser-known figures (such as René Crevel, Simone Breton, Leonora Carrington, Benjamin Péret, and Jules Monnerot). For Eburne "the art of crime" denotes an array of cultural production including sensationalist journalism, detective mysteries, police blotters, crime scene photos, and documents of medical and legal opinion as well as the roman noir, in particular the first crime novel of the American Chester Himes. The surrealists collected and scrutinized such materials, using them as the inspiration for the outpouring of political tracts, pamphlets, and artworks through which they sought to expose the forms of violence perpetrated in the name of the state, its courts, and respectable bourgeois values. Concluding with the surrealists' quarrel with the existentialists and their bitter condemnation of France's anticolonial wars, Surrealism and the Art of Crime establishes surrealism as a vital element in the intellectual, political, and artistic history of the twentieth century.
The frightening yet comic clown is one of the best and most enduring characters in literature, theater, television, and film. Across the centuries, from Shakespeare's Porter in Macbeth to Edgar Allan Poe's "Hop-Frog," or Stephen King's Pennywise, horror and comedy have blended to create the perfect recipe for entertainment. This volume gives an in-depth analysis of the clown horror genre, including essays by revered horror scholars such as Kevin Wetmore, Dale Bailey, Kim Hester Williams, Jennifer K. Cox, and Joanna Parypinski. Their essays cover topics such as nostalgia, race, class, and new portrayals of the scary clown as zombies or phantoms. It also offers interviews with actors and directors working in the clown horror genre: Eoghan McQuinn (Stitches), Kevin Kangas (Fear of Clowns), and Jaysen Buterin (Kill Giggles). Some of fiction's most terrifying creations--like the Killer Klowns, Captain Spaulding, Art the Clown, Krusty, Frowny, the Joker, and Twisty--jig through these pages of analysis and deconstruction, asking what these many iterations of scary clowns have to say about our society and its fears.
For Sophie, small town life has never felt small. With her four best friends—loving, infuriating, and all she could ever ask for—she can weather any storm. But when Sophie’s beloved Acadia High School marching band is selected to march in the upcoming Rose Parade, it’s her job to get them all the way to LA. Her plan? To persuade country singer Megan Pleasant, their Midwestern town’s only claim to fame, to come back to Acadia to headline a fundraising festival. The only problem is that Megan has very publicly sworn never to return. What ensues is a journey filled with long-kept secrets, hidden heartbreaks, and revelations that could change everything—along with a possible fifth best friend: a new guy with a magnetic smile and secrets of his own.
Falling in love with the perfect man leads a young woman into a terrifying trap in this “addictive and intriguing” psychological thriller (Linda Huber, bestselling author of Baby Dear). When Freya meets Kane, he charms her off her feet and whisks her away into his lavish life. Falling in love with him is a dream come true. But as time goes by, his subtle manipulations escalate into something far worse. And as her new life becomes increasingly intolerable, Freya realises escape is out of reach. Kane is deeply controlling, dangerous, and unpredictable. And he’s convinced that Freya has done him wrong. She knows that when she least expects it, he will make good his promise to exact revenge. Freya is no fool, but will she ever be free?
Women confront lies, secrets, and threats, in these four gripping psychological novels from a British master of suspense! This collection of four novels from acclaimed author Patricia Dixon includes: The Other Woman Rowan’s days of being the other woman and waiting patiently for Alex are almost over. He’s left his wife, and Rowan is finally within touching distance of her happy ever after. But when Alex is involved in a terrible accident, facts begin to emerge that cast doubt on everything. And soon, Rowan’s own family is in grave danger, in this turbulent psychological suspense spanning from England to coastal France. Over My Shoulder When Freya meets Kane, he charms her off her feet and whisks her away into his lavish life. Falling in love with him is a dream come true. But as time goes by, his subtle manipulations escalate into something far worse in this “addictive and intriguing” thriller (Linda Huber, bestselling author of Baby Dear). #MeToo Inspired by true events. When Billie receives a desperate letter from the man she loves, convicted of a crime he swears he didn’t commit, she teams up with a private detective to find evidence that would set him free. Meanwhile, his accuser struggles to cope after an ordeal that’s left her traumatized and isolated, and Billie’s faith in his innocence is beginning to waver. There may be two sides to every story, but there’s only one truth . . . Blame After a killer is released from prison, a new spate of murders rocks the small village of Elkdale. It seems that Frankie, a woman who’s worked hard to escape the memory of the one night that changed her life forever, is being targeted for revenge—but who is blaming her, and why? “An excellent piece of psychological fiction.” —Book Rant Reviews
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes our view of the world. This magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate and author of Never Let Me Go is “an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures ... a poignant meditation on love and loneliness” (The Associated Press). • A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick! Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
