Others: Mixed Stephen King has brought together nineteen of his most unsettling short pieces--bizarre tales of dark doing and unthinkable acts from the twilight regions where horror and madness take on eerie, unearthly forms...where noises in the walls and shadows by the bed are always signs of something dreadful on the prowl. The settings are familiar and unsuspected--a high school, a factory, a truck stop, a laundry, a field of Nebraska corn. But in Stephen King's world any place can serve as devil's ground...if the time of night is propitious, and the forces of darkness are strong, and the victims are caught just slightly off their guard...
Genres: fantasy, horror, mystery
Lists: …
Stephen King
2018 · 576 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Leaning negative"An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories. An eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City's most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad. As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King's propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can."-- An eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City's most popular citizens: Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson orders a quick and very public arrest. The case seems ironclad, especially when Anderson and the district attorney are able to add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. But Maitland has an alibi, and it turns out his story has incontrovertible evidence of its own. How can two opposing stories be true? -- adapted from publisher info
What made the match, strongest first
Sarah Pinsker
2024 · 5 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveOn the set of a kitschy reality TV show, staged scares transform into unnerving reality in this spooky ghost story from multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Sarah Pinsker. “Don’t talk to day about what we do at night.” When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin’s ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she's truly been deceiving and hiding from all along—is herself. Eerie and empathetic, Haunt Sweet Home is a multifaceted, supernatural exploration of finding your own way into adulthood, and into yourself.
What made the match, strongest first
Nuzo Onoh
2024 · 1 review
Others: PositiveA powerful Nigeria-set tale of possession, malevolent ghosts, family tensions, secrets and murder from the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement and 'Queen of African Horror'. Bata, an eleven-year-old girl tormented by nightmares, wakes up one night to find herself standing sentinel before her cousin's door. Her skin, hair, and eyes have turned a dazzling white colour, which even the medicine-man can't heal. Her cousin is to get married the next morning, but only if she can escape the murderous attack of a ghost-bride, who used to be engaged to her groom. Through the night, Bata battles the vengeful ghost and finally vanquishes it before collapsing. On awakening, she has no recollection of the events. And when the medicine-man tries to exorcise the entities clinging to her body as a result of her supernatural possession, Bata dies on the exorcism mat. There begins her journey. She is taken into Ibaja-La, the realm of dead brides, by Mmuọ-Ka-Mmuọ, the ghost-collector of the spirit realm. There she meets the ghosts of brides from every culture who died tragically before their weddings; both the kind and the malevolent. Bata is given secret powers to fight the evil ghost-brides before being sent back to the human realm, where she must learn to harness her new abilities as she strives to protect those whom she loves.
What made the match, strongest first
Kosoko Jackson
2025 · 400 pages · 1 review
Others: NegativeFrom award-winning and USA Today bestselling author Kosoko Jackson comes his adult fantasy debut, a stand-alone novel blending of art history, time- and globe-hopping adventure, and dark horror and fantasy about ten cursed paintings and the lengths people will go to collect them, destroy them…or be destroyed. ?A picture is worth a thousand nightmares. A struggling painter, Lewis Dixon is shocked when the British Museum shows an unusual interest in his art. While he’s always felt there’s something powerful about what he puts on canvas, he also felt there was something disturbing just under the surface—especially as he was compelled to make a painting of a painting—one that he has a connection the object of his art is one of the ten paintings his great-grandfather created over a hundred years ago. Only Lewis’s version is surreal…and maybe just a touch horrific. Still, he accepts the invitation, only to find not a curated show, but a to see if he not only has the magic necessary to enter the paintings, but also the strength to escape them. Because unbeknownst to Lewis, there is power in his art, just as the ten paintings carry with them both immense eldritch abilities and a terrible curse—making them, perhaps, the most valuable works of art in the world. And Lewis has been asked to destroy them all. With orders from a mysterious museum official, Evangeline, and partnered with an alluring agent in her employ, Noah Rao, Lewis must plunge into a world of black markets, gothic magic, ancient history, and unspeakable terror to save those unlucky enough to call any of the paintings their own, and to hopefully locate the tenth painting in the series, long missing, the powers of which are suspected to be most devastating of all…
What made the match, strongest first
Sheridan Le Fanu
1871 · 86 pages · 3 reviews
Others: MixedFirst published as a serial in The Dark Blue (1871–72), Carmilla is narrated by a young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla, later revealed to be Mircalla, Countess Karnstein (Carmilla is an anagram of Mircalla). The character is a prototypical example of the lesbian vampire, expressing romantic desires toward the protagonist. The novella notably never acknowledges homosexuality as an antagonistic trait, leaving it subtle and morally ambiguous. The story is often anthologised, and has been adapted many times in film and other media.
What made the match, strongest first
Zoraida Córdova
2021 · 336 pages · 11 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positive"Perfect for fans of Alice Hoffman, Isabel Allende, and Sarah Addison Allen, this is a gorgeously written novel about a family searching for the truth hidden in their past and the power they've inherited, from the author of the acclaimed and "giddily exciting" (The New York Times Book Review) Brooklyn Brujas series"-- The Montoyas know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low or empty, or why their matriarch won't ever leave their home in Four Rivers, even for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. When Orqu©Ưdea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. Instead Orqu©Ưdea is transformed, leaving them with more questions than answers. Seven years later, her gifts have manifested in different ways for Marimar, Rey, and Tatinelly's daughter, Rhiannon, granting them unexpected blessings. But a hidden figure begins to tear through their family tree, picking them off one by one as it seeks to destroy Orqu©Ưdea's line. The four descendants travel to Ecuador-- to the place where Orqu©Ưdea buried her secrets and broken promises and never looked back. -- adapted from jacket
Loved itin the short form I find he hits it out of the park every time it's so hard to compress that character work and compress it with a punch and a story that delivers and time and time again in the short form Stephen King never lets you down and he showed that early on in his career with this book of short stories called night shift and it is still one of my favorite collections of all time every story in it is an absolute Banger
MixedI'm gonna put night shift in good to start just because it's a collection and there's some stuff that works and there's some stuff that doesn't
Not a fannight shift was a battle I read this as a buddy read so I felt I really had to finish it was a struggle it was one of the hardest reading experiences of my life because of just how bad it was
