Japanese Horror Fiction

A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundations resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company. It’s the perfect venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends, brought back together to celebrate a wedding. A night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare as secrets get dragged out and relationships are tested. But the house has secrets too. Lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.

In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs, paintings come alive, deadly spectral brides haunt the living and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: 'rokuro-kubi', whose heads separate from their bodies at night; 'jikininki', or flesh-eating goblins; and terrifying faceless 'mujina' who haunt lonely neighbourhoods.

Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, listeners will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries on more than 50 individual creatures.

“Congratulations, you’ve won the lottery!” shouts the angel Prapura to a formless soul. The soul hasn’t been kicked out of the cycle of rebirth just yet - he’s been given a second chance. He must recall the biggest mistake of his past life while on "homestay" in the body of 14-year-old Makoto Kobayashi. It looks like Makoto doesn’t have a single friend, and his family don’t seem to care about him at all. But as the soul begins to live Makoto’s life on his own terms, he grows closer to the family and the people around him and sees their true colors more clearly.

In Ghostly Japan collects 12 ghostly stories from Lafcadio Hearn, deathless images of ghosts and goblins, touches of folklore and superstition, salted with traditions of the nation. While some of these stories contain nightmare imagery worthy of a midnight creature feature, others are not ghostly or ghastly at all. "Bits of Poetry" offers an engaging study on verse, and "Japanese Buddhist Proverbs" explains the meaning of several aphorisms based on Japanese cultural references.

In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the resumes pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention - Yamasaki Asami - a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. But she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be.

Would you dare to challenge yourself to a spooky night of haunted stories that'll make your hair stand on end? That shiver that runs down your spine might be just chills of the night, or maybe something else has come to visit you? In any case, make yourself comfortable and prepare to sink your teeth into this haunting collection of Japanese Scary Ghost Stories. If something terrible befalls you this night, then don't find me. You have been warned....

After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen—Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss.

"ALICE CROWLEY'S EROTIC STORIES ALWAYS HAVE SURPRISE ENDINGS!" ~ Hwk "I LOVED THE IMAGINATION OF THIS AUTHOR!" ~ Satisfied Kindle Reader "ALICE CROWLEY IS ONE OF OUR GREATEST LIVING WRITERS!" ~ G. Taylor Jane is a naughty, dirty nurse who works for a plastic surgery clinic in Los Angeles. One day she and her friend Roxy witness a tentacle monster mutant manhandling a lady at the beach, an event which inspires a massive group session where everyone joins in for some exhibition. Later, Jane heads to work and tends to a paranormal patient. Only her patient is no normal man. He has something ...

Vampires: murderous creatures in the shape of humans, they stalk the night feeding on the blood of innocents. Seemingly immortal, they can be destroyed only by the use of a stake through the heart, severing of their heads, or exposure to sunlight. By the year AD 12,090, vampires have ruled the Earth for almost 300 years, and it is only these weaknesses that have kept these foul monsters from totally overrunning the world. But what happens when those rules no longer apply?

The picturesque coastal town of Florence was known for millennia as a pleasure resort for the Nobility. As retribution for their decadence, the cruel and beautiful vampire inhabitants were "punished," driven out more than a thousand years ago by a solitary traveler in black. Only one—Baron Meinster—refused to leave, only to be thrown to the waves by the mysterious assassin. Summoned to contemporary Florence by Su-in, sister of a murdered village girl, the enigmatic Vampire Hunter D discovers a vampire curse ravaging the town's human inhabitants.

Four years ago, five kids started a game. Not all of them survived. Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors—Owen, Madeline, Emerson, and Dax—have reunited for one strange and terrible reason: they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead. Together they return to the place where their friendship ended with one goal: find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished—an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions.

The strange kid at school, the odd woman in the apartment building, the troublesome man at work. Such people exist everywhere, in everyone’s lives. All it takes is a word for it to start. An unsettling question, a bizarre remark, or even a kind apology. Once their hooks sink in, the cracks form. Darkness floods into the recesses until nothing else remains, and then...Sirens, screaming, dull thuds on the pavement. They have always existed. They just are. And when they show up, people die.

When her cozy hometown is visited by death, Emma's investigative skills are enlisted by a secretive ghost. But with the uncooperative spirit holding so much back, and with the handsome local doctor pressing Emma for answers, will she ever get to the bottom of the case? Or will the Hollow be forever haunted by the secrets of the past?

地球上の全生命滅亡まで30年……。全地球規模のプロジェクトが始動した!グレースは、真っ白い奇妙な部屋で、たった一人で目を覚ました。

サロト・サル――後にポル・ポトと呼ばれたクメール・ルージュ首魁の隠し子、ソリヤ。貧村ロベーブレソンに生まれた、天賦の「識(ヴィンニャン)」を持つ神童のムイタック。

ポアロのもとに届いた予告状のとおり、Ａで始まる地名の町で、Ａの頭文字の老婆が殺害された。現場には不気味にＡＢＣ鉄道案内が残されていた。まもなく、第二、第三の挑戦状が届き、Ｂの地でＢの頭文字の娘が、Ｃの地でＣの頭文字の紳士が殺され……。新訳でおくる、著者全盛期の代表作。（解説　法月綸太郎）

「君を殺す」――復讐の誓いと訣別から、半世紀。政治家となったソリヤは、理想とする〈ゲームの王国〉を実現すべく最高権力を目指す。

真冬の欧州を走る豪華列車オリエント急行には、国籍も身分も様々な乗客が乗り込んでいた。奇妙な雰囲気が漂う車内で、いわくありげな老富豪が刺殺体で発見される。偶然乗り合わせたポアロが捜査に乗り出すが、すべての乗客には完璧なアリバイが……ミステリの魅力が詰まった名作の新訳版。（解説　有栖川有栖）

東京都荒川区の超高層マンションで起きた凄惨な殺人事件。