Don’t forget to visit our horror e-book list for more affordable horror novels to download.

The Darker Side of OZ: As Dorothy awakes in Oz there’s no sunshine in Munchkin country, just a twisted race enslaved by the Eastern witch, and a crooked path of yellow bricks she has to take to themysterious Emerald City, a place ridden with sinister secrets. To return home, the orphan girl treks the magical land, which is sometimes beautiful, but often deadly, seeking the help of the great wizard of Oz.

Journeying through a vast land of unusual sights, she finds strange friends, encounters amazing countries and macabre creatures, trying to overcome whatever stands in her way…and if Dorothy finally reaches the Emerald City, she may find more than she bargained for. To get back to Kansas, the young girl must survive the dangers of Oz, find the mysterious great wizard, and most of all, avoid the dead-lands of the West where the evil witch, Outika breeds her carniverous pets…

Night Fighters: There was no Moon the night the war changed.

It’s 1942, and as Bomber Command’s casualties mount, the British Government turns to the secretive K Department and its new weapon. A clandestine squadron, composed of pilots with an unusual medical condition that allows them to see in the dark…

A condition that inspired the myth of vampires.

Publisher Untreed Reads is having a Halloween horror sale this October. Digital books like Benson Phillip Lott’s Pumpkin 2: Carve or Be Carved are as low as $0.79!

Visit the Untreed Reads’ blog for more details, and don’t forget to check our eBook download list for more affordable titles.

Jackie Sterling is used to getting everything she’s wanted. Pretentious, self-centered and thinking she’s better than everyone else, she’s quick to put people in their place and make them feel small. After all, she’s beautiful and should be adored.

When Jackie finds herself at a local pumpkin patch just before Halloween, her tolerance for those around her reaches a fever pitch. However, she’s about to learn a very deadly lesson from a force that’s no stranger to getting its point across…and it’s got a terrible plan for Jackie.

The days of overpriced hardcovers and limited editions are over for me. I’ve moved on to cheap Kindle books. I’m going to keep a list of affordable horror novel downloads for eReaders here. The first entry is M.R. Gott’s Where the Dead Fear to Tread.

The novel is currently $4.99 (paperback or download) via Amazon. You can visit the author’s website for more info at Wherethedeadfeartotread.blogspot.com.

A police officer and a serial killer search separately for a missing child while running a malevolent labyrinth populated by creatures they never knew existed.

Former prosecutor William Chandler, disgusted with his past inaction,spills the blood of those who victimize children to correct the ills he sees in the world. A self-admitted serial killer and uncomfortable with his actions, Chandler attends the funerals of those whose lives he has taken in an effort to retain a true understanding of the nature of violence.

The carnage left in his wake is investigated by Detective Kate Broadband, who becomes progressively more comfortable with the corpses left by Chandler. Envying the power she sees in him, she pursues Chandler as each search for Maria Verde, a missing eight-year-old girl.

As Chandler and Broadband draw closer to discovering what happened to
Maria they are forced to confront The Devourer, an unnatural being trafficking in stolen children.

Where the Dead Fear to Tread is a tale of hard-boiled macabre, bridging numerous genres to reveal a story of horror, crime and revenge.

Our good friend John Everson is back with a new book called The Pumpkin Man. I haven’t received my copy yet, but if this is like his other books then you can expect a bloody and violent novel.

The Pumpkin Man will be available this October, but you can pre-order it starting today.

After her father’s gruesome murder, Jenn needed a place to get away from it all with some friends, to take her mind off her grief. The empty seaside cottage she inherited seemed perfect. Jenn didn’t know that the cottage held arcane secrets, mysteries long hidden and best left alone.

She didn’t realize until it was too late that the old books and Ouija board she found there really do hold great power. And it was only after her friend’s headless body was discovered that she knew the legend of the local bogeyman was no mere legend at all. An evil has been unleashed, a terrifying figure previously only spoken of in whispers. But now the whispers will become screams. Beware. THE PUMPKIN MAN!

How to Make Your Own Zombies will be available on September 1, 2011 and is available for pre-order now from such online retailers as Amazon.

Durick served as the special make-up effects supervisor on Greg Lamberson’s Slime City Massacre and DefTone Pictures Studios’ recent indie zombie film The Final Night and Day. In the book, Durick covers all facets of film production, from concept and development through production, post production, and marketing. Filming the Undead: How to Make Your Own Zombie Movie is heavily illustrated and features sample storyboards, screenplay pages, and make-up tutorials.

Check out a sneak peek below!

If I had allowed the collector in me to take over, I would’ve became a great candidate to star on an episode of Hoarders. So I decided to stop collecting action figures and books, and only allow myself the pleasure of keeping DVDs.

I still read, I just don’t allow myself to keep a lot of books around. Perhaps a few of you reading this have taken advantage of my free Horror Yearbook giveaways, where I clean out all my old paperbacks and give them away to our readers (one coming soon). Buying books and giving them away can be expensive, so I eventually broke down a bought a Kindle. It’s a great way to start collecting novels again because it takes up zero space.

A lot of horror books, like Remy Porter’s zombie novel Dead Beat ($1 on Amazon), are cheap for the Kindle, and some are free. Greg Lamberson’s Personal Demons, the first book in the Jake Helman series, is free until August 22nd. That’s one month before the third book, Cosmic Forces (pictured) arrives on bookshelves.

If you own an eReader, this is a great way to jump into the series. Jake Helman is Constantine-like ex-cop who battles the supernatural. In Cosmic Forces, Helman takes on a mythological creature named Avademe which has been controlling world affairs for centuries. Lamberson reports that the fourth book in the series, Tortured Spirits, has already been completed for October 2012 publication.

So you better hurry and download your free copy of Personal Demons from any online book dealer today!

Publisher Creeping Hemlock/Print is Dead has released three new zombie books; Pray to Stay Dead by Mason James Cole, Scavengers by Nate Southard, and World in Red by John Sebastian Gorumba. Read on for more details from the cute and cuddly Creeping Hemlock co-founder, RJ Sevin.

“Pray To Stay Dead reads like a lost seventies Grindhouse flick,” says Print is Dead editor, RJ Sevin. “It’s dedicated to George A. Romero, Tobe Hooper, and Jack Ketchum, and with good reason—it’s got a gritty nastiness that calls to mind seventies cinema and a literary tone that evokes the very best that horror fiction has to offer.

“Scavengers is, for my money, the most exciting zombie novel since Keene’s The Rising. It’s got a ton of heart and a relentless drive that just doesn’t stop, and we can’t wait to see what Nate does next.

“World In Red is, quite simply, one of the most savage horror novels I’ve ever read. Gorumba has taken to inscribing signed copies with a simple warning, Prepare to Despair, and you should—there haven’t been many horror novels this exhausting, this bleak, and this well-written. If it had come out in the eighties, it would be considered a Splatterpunk masterpiece today.”

All three books are available on Amazon (click links above) or wherever books are sold!

At some point, while worrying over the copyedited manuscript of the next book (11/22/63, out November 8th), I started thinking—and dreaming—about Mid-World again. The major story of Roland and his ka-tet was told, but I realized there was at least one hole in the narrative progression: what happened to Roland, Jake, Eddie, Susannah, and Oy between the time they leave the Emerald City (the end of Wizard and Glass) and the time we pick them up again, on the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis (the beginning of Wolves of the Calla)?

There was a storm, I decided. One of sudden and vicious intensity. The kind to which billy-bumblers like Oy are particularly susceptible. Little by little, a story began to take shape. I saw a line of riders, one of them Roland’s old mate, Jamie DeCurry, emerging from clouds of alkali dust thrown by a high wind. I saw a severed head on a fencepost. I saw a swamp full of dangers and terrors. I saw just enough to want to see the rest. Long story short, I went back to visit an-tet with my friends for awhile. The result is a novel called The Wind Through the Keyhole. It’s finished, and I expect it will be published next year.

It won’t tell you much that’s new about Roland and his friends, but there’s a lot none of us knew about Mid-World, both past and present. The novel is shorter than DT 2-7, but quite a bit longer than the first volume—call this one DT-4.5. It’s not going to change anybody’s life, but God, I had fun.

– Steve King

Each year, the Horror Writers Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement in the field of horror writing, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror work Dracula. Since 1987, the approximately 500 members of the HWA have recommended, nominated and voted on the greatest works of horror and dark fantasy of the previous calendar year, making the Stokers the most prestigious award in the field of horror literature.

Currently the awards are presented in eight categories: Novel, First Novel, Long Fiction, Short Fiction, Fiction Collection, Anthology, Non-fiction, and Poetry Collection. The organization’s Active members will select the winners from this ballot, and the awards will be presented this year at a gala banquet as part of HWA’s Stoker Weekend, held June 16-19, 2011 in Long Island.

This year’s nominees in each category are:

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL

HORNS by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
ROT AND RUIN by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster)
DEAD LOVE by Linda Watanabe McFerrin (Stone Bridge Press)
APOCALYPSE OF THE DEAD by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle)
DWELLER by Jeff Strand (Leisure/Dark Regions Press)
A DARK MATTER by Peter Straub (Doubleday)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A FIRST NOVEL

BLACK AND ORANGE by Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Bad Moon Books)
A BOOK OF TONGUES by Gemma Files (Chizine Publications)
THE CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES by Lisa Morton (Gray Friar Press)
SPELLBENT by Lucy Snyder (Del Rey)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN LONG FICTION

THE PAINTED DARKNESS by Brian James Freeman (Cemetery Dance)
DISSOLUTION by Lisa Mannetti (Deathwatch)
MONSTERS AMONG US by Kirstyn McDermott (Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears)
THE SAMHANACH by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books)
INVISIBLE FENCES by Norman Prentiss (Cemetery Dance)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN SHORT FICTION
RETURN TO MARIABRONN by Gary Braunbeck (Haunted Legends)
THE FOLDING MAN by Joe R. Lansdale (Haunted Legends)
1925: A FALL RIVER HALLOWEEN by Lisa Mannetti (Shroud Magazine #10)
IN THE MIDDLE OF POPLAR STREET by Nate Southard (Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology)
FINAL DRAFT by Mark W. Worthen (Horror Library IV)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN FICTION COLLECTION

OCCULTATION by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
BLOOD AND GRISTLE by Michael Louis Calvillo (Bad Moon Books)
THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY by Stephen Graham Jones (Prime Books)
FULL DARK, NO STARS by Stephen King (Simon and Schuster)
A HOST OF SHADOWS by Harry Shannon (Dark Regions Press)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN ANTHOLOGY (EDITING)

DARK FAITH edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon (Apex Publications)
HORROR LIBRARY IV edited by R.J. Cavender and Boyd E. Harris (Cutting Block Press)
MACABRE: A JOURNEY THROUGH AUSTRALIA’S DARKEST FEARS edited by Angela Challis and Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
HAUNTED LEGENDS edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas (Tor)
THE NEW DEAD edited by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Griffin)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN NONFICTION

TO EACH THEIR DARKNESS by Gary A. Braunbeck (Apex Publications)
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE by Thomas Ligotti (Hippocampus Press)
WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE by Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman (Citadel)
LISTEN TO THE ECHOES: THE RAY BRADBURY INTERVIEWS by Sam Weller (Melville House Publications)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN POETRY COLLECTION

DARK MATTERS by Bruce Boston (Bad Moon Books)
WILD HUNT OF THE STARS by Ann K. Schwader (Sam’s Dot)
DIARY OF A GENTLEMAN DIABOLIST by Robin Spriggs (Anomalous Books)
VICIOUS ROMANTIC by Wrath James White (Needfire Poetry)

Angel of Vengeance is the novel that inspired the TV show, Moonlight [Editor's note: Not Moonlighting], which has been unpublished until now. I have not seen the show, but just based on how the author talks about the two, it seems that the novel is the grittier, more uncompromised version of the story. It makes sense since this is the original version. Things were romanticized a bit more for the television audience. With Angel of Vengeance we are given a vampire hard boiled noir tale of addiction, seduction, and deceptions, just to name a few of the compelling components that keeps this story going at a fast pace, and keeps you interested every step of the way.

Mick Angel is a somewhat jaded vampire private detective. He certainly doesn’t live by convention rules, but he has adopted a brand of justice that he lives by. Mick doesn’t hurt women or children and doesn’t kill anyone unless they truly deserve it. He is a vampire and has to get by somehow, so as he sees it, those who deserve to die might as well also be his blood supply. When he was turned Mick was terrified of the monster that he became. To keep his demons at bay, he lives by his code; in that way he’s kind of the Dexter Morgan of vampires.

Mick is approached by a burlesque dancer by the name of Reesa Van Der Cleef. She immediately catches her eye. Her vibrant, fiery red hair, classy and confident persona, and her straight forward attitude, speak to him. It’s beyond an attraction, he feels he was never truly been in love before now. Mick knows that no good can come of this, that he will just end up hurting her. Still, he is completely consumed by her.

Mick agrees to help Reesa. Her 14-year old sister went missing and the cops have dismissed it as just another runaway. Reesa is desperate to find her so Mick gets to work on the case. Mick has to get through a big shot Hollywood producer, a bitchy stripper, and a hot headed drug dealer before he can sort through all of the lies and get to the truth. By the time he does though he might be too far in not to face a fate similar to Reesa’s sister‘s.

Intertwined between the modern day story is the origins of Mick’s vampirism. This heavily revolves around the one who turned him, his lover; the ever so beautiful, yet conniving, Coraline. From the first night he met her she was trouble, he was just too infatuated with her to realize it. This part of the story is set in the 1940’s, a time which came to define Mick. This makes the hard boiled noir style all the more fitting. Mick is faced with a crippling heroin addiction as well as a perhaps even more crippling addiction to Coraline. As time goes on she becomes set on getting whatever she desires, whether that be money, drugs, or revenge. Betrayal is just a part of the game to her.

Coraline is the perfect femme fatal. She’s seductive, convincing, but completely out for herself in the end. She’s not just a “bad guy” though, she’s a fully realized characters with good and bad; the bad just happens to prevail over the good. For the most part we see her through Mick’s eyes. I enjoyed the differentiation the storyline gave the reader through these moments, it made us understand Mick better and why he has become the way he is. It ends up playing extreme importance of the current story as well although it doesn’t seem that way at first.

The ending is really what leaves the reader with a lasting impact. It ends with quite a bang, revealing the hidden truth amongst all of the lies, trickery, and elaborate rouses that Mick has been fed. It’s very clever and near impossible to predict. The ending wraps up all of the themes of the book perfectly, exposing a darkness that exits both in humans and vampires.

Angle of Vengeance is a terrific blending of genres, bringing the gritty style and themes of hard boiled novels to the vampire film, the two making something more morbid, vengeful, and cynical. It’s far darker than Moonlight, but if you ask me this is a step in the right direction. There are no apologies for what Mick is, he’s a ruthless killer. There is an method to the madness though, for others sometimes you have to question their motives. They all seem to be very selfish, not caring who is hurt because of them, giving us a thrilling questioning of just how flawed humanity is. Of course, most vampires are just as guilty. At least they’re supposed to be monsters though.

Written By: L.J. Smith
Grade: B

The Forbidden Game is a compelling supernatural book series by Vampire Diaries’ author, L.J. Smith.” I have to say it took me awhile to get in to The Hunter, the first novel in the series. The first 50 pages I was mostly disinterested, but wanted to give the book a chance. The biggest issue that held the beginning back were the characters. I didn’t dislike any of them, but most of them seemed kind of bland at first glance. I wasn’t sure if I really felt for them or could experience the story through their eyes the way I should. Once it got in to the game itself and the supernatural element kicked in, it became much more intriguing and exciting.

A young kind-hearted teenage girl, Jenny, buys a mysterious game from Julian, a painfully beautiful guy with the deepest blue eyes she has ever seen. The game is simply a white blank box, she really has no idea what it holds. Jenny’s having a party for her long time boyfriend, Tom, and all of their friends are eager to play the game. Jenny agrees even though she has a horrible feeling that it will only bring trouble.

Of course, she’s right. They all agree that they know the game is real and are putting their lives at risk by playing even though they don‘t truly believe this. Once they begin playing they are transformed in to the game itself. Each person has to face their worst nightmare. If they can get through each one they will be able to go back home, but if they die in the game they die in real life. There’s a time limit and if they don’t get through it in time they’ll be stranded in this house for eternity.

Julian is the shadow man, the one in control of this entirely different physical world. The shadow men are described as the worst of all monsters; vampires, werewolves, even evil elves (which are featured in one of the nightmares) being nothing but happy fairy tales in comparison. Julian fell in love with Jenny some time ago and has been studying her and her friends for years. He has set out to make her his for all eternity, whether she comes willingly or not. If she doesn’t win the game she is stuck with the shadow man that she believes to be the devil himself.

There is a good comparison of good and evil between Jenny and Julian. Even to her friends, Jenny is really viewed as the envision of all that is good and pure. Julian is the exact opposite; evil itself. He glees in others pain and suffering, he is enticed by seeing his trickery played out, and he is possessive and self-righteous enough to believe that Jenny belongs to him no matter what she says about it. Jenny is overwhelmingly attracted to him and even in his most sinister and hurtful moments she has to remind herself of what he is, constantly fighting against the temptation. Julian longs for every hesitation, every moment he can steal away from her, not only because he knows he’s getting closer but because he has an irresistible power over her. The real significance in the opposite nature of their relationship is showing that nothing is completely black or white. Julian is supposed to be pure evil and while he does essentially torture the woman he claims to love so much, he still can’t bare the thought of something happening to her even if it means he can exert his power. Likewise, Jenny shows a fierceness in her, showing that she can play Julian’s game; possibly even better than him.

From the beginning I could tell Julian was going to be an enticing and thrilling character. While it took me longer to warm up to Jenny she proves to be very dynamic, determined, and intelligent, often exiting horrendous situations and beating the nightmares because she thinks her way out of it, figuring out how to face them head on. One of Jenny’s friends, Dee, was probably the strongest character aside from Julian. She is strong-willed, never giving up no matter the circumstances. Her attitude and drive is what keeps them going in many cases. Not all of the characters are strong. Most are well enough put together that they work, but the boyfriend, Tom, was probably one of the weakest. There’s not all that much to him and it makes it hard to believe that there is this love so strong between Jenny and him. Although, that probably only helps the reader wonder about what might happen if she were to give in to Julian.

What really drew me to the book was experimenting with the nightmare world. A Nightmare On Elm Street being my favorite movie, it’s no surprise that the line of fiction and reality represented in living out ones nightmares, when it’s no longer “just a dream”, would attract me to it. Of course, the game itself is another line of fiction and reality connected to the nightmare world. Considering how disturbing ones worst nightmare can be, not only having to live through them and feel the pain that is inflicted on you, but also to face them head on, can be something hard to wrap your mind around. The nightmares were inventive, extremely diverse, and threw us in to a completely chilling environment. Through the nightmares we also got to know the characters, the varying things that scare people and how something so little can escalate in your mind and become the most terrifying thing imaginable. Everything that appears to them in the game, comes from their own mind subconsciously, their inner most thought used against them.

Seth-Grahame Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is being called the “hottest project in Hollywood right now”.

Fox won a long bidding war with Paramount, Universal and Summit for the rights to turn the book into a film. The script has already been written by Smith, with producer Tim Burton and director Timur Bekmambetov aiming for 2012 release date. The movie will begin production in March.

Smith’s other book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is also being adapted into a film by Lionsgate, with Natalie Portman set to star.

Book Synopsis

Abraham Lincoln’s learns at an early age that his mother was killed by a supernatural predator. This provokes his bloody but curiously undocumented lifelong vendetta against vampires and their slave-owning allies. The author’s decision to reduce slavery to a mere contrivance of the vampires is unfortunate bordering on repellent, but at least it does distract the reader from the central question of why the president never saw fit to inform the public of the supernatural menace. Grahame-Smith stitches hand-to-hand vampire combat into Lincoln’s documented life with competent prose that never quite manages to convince. – Publishers Weekly

Detective Jake Helman’s troubles continue in Greg Lamberson’s The Jake Helman Files, the follow-up to his 2004 novel Personal Demons (read review). The Jake Helman Files: Desperate Souls trade paperback arrives from Medallion Press on October 1, 2010, with two more volumes, Cosmic Forces and Tortured Spirits planned for 2011 and 2012.

“This is my big, ongoing project,” says Lamberson, whose werewolf novel The Frenzy Way (read review) was published in June. “I originally wrote Personal Demons as a screenplay back in 1989, but the story was way too big for the kind of budget I’m able to raise as an indie filmmaker. I revisited the tale more than a decade letter, expanding its scope. A small press published the book as a limited edition hardcover in 2004, and as a small press trade paperback in 2005. I wanted to go to a series then, and started developing additional stories, but didn’t see any point in writing them until I had a mass market deal.”

After battling the mysterious billionaire Nicholas Tower and the serial killer known as The Cypher, reluctant hero Jake Helman finds himself caught in a one-man war against the undead in the streets of Manhattan. The Jake Helman Files mixes noir and super natural elements delivering the first worthy anti-hero since Hellblazer.

“Jake is different from other characters who battle the supernatural because I make him suffer,” explains Lamberson. “When you have a continuing character in any series, readers know he isn’t going to die, and the character moves on to his next adventure. Jake endures severe emotional and physical trauma in each book, and he wears those scars forever. By the end of the series, he’s going to be a real mess.”

Audible.com has acquired the audio book rights for Personal Demons and Desperate Souls, and on Saturday, September 11th, Medallion is hosting a unique “online, interactive book signing” for Desperate Souls. Readers who register for the event will communicate with Lamberson via webcam, chat room, or traditional email, and he’ll personalize a copy of the book to them, which Medallion will ship; purchase of the book is required as part of the registration process.