Showing results by publisher "Valancourt Books" in All Categories

Years earlier, John Tracker fled the insanity of his family and their house, a centuries-old monstrosity that his grandfather Theophilus rigged full of hallucinatory tricks and vicious death traps designed to capture the Devil. Now middle-aged, John receives word that the place is to be demolished to make way for a freeway, and he decides to revisit it with his girlfriend Amy Griffith before its destruction. But when a blizzard traps them inside the house, they will be forced to contend with the dangers hidden within: strange time-shifts, murderous traps, and more.

After Edward, a rising young author, pens a savage review of the new novel by the world-famous O.M. Tyrell, he is surprised to receive an invitation to visit the old man at his villa in the south of France. The night of their meeting, Tyrell dies, and soon after, Edward's career mysteriously starts to soar as he earns fame, fortune and critical acclaim. But despite his achievements, Edward seems haunted, even tormented.

Gerard Sorme thinks the key to a more meaningful life lies in an expansion of human consciousness, and he believes that one way to expand it is through sexual experiences. He sets out to record in diary form his sexual encounters with various women: the middle-aged Gertrude, her teenage niece Caroline, and Diana, the wife of a mad composer determined to adapt Varney the Vampire into an opera. But Sorme finds his beliefs and ideas challenged when he meets the fascinating and dangerous Caradoc Cunningham.

This collection of 18 short tales, a novelette, and a short novel takes the listener inside the dark imagination of Elizabeth Engstrom, author of acclaimed horror classics like When Darkness Loves Us. In these stories, you will hear about a woman asked to be complicit in her own mother’s death, a grandmother with a macabre hobby, a bizarre, phallic-shaped flower that portends evil for a married couple, a father whose son is caught up in a sinister government experiment. These are weird and unsettling tales that will linger with the listener.

One of the preeminent writers of weird fiction, Robert Aickman is celebrated for his unsettling and often ambiguous "strange stories", but he once wrote that "those, if any, who wish to know more about me, should plunge beneath the frivolous surface of The Late Breakfasters," his only novel, originally published in 1964.

Deep in the darkest part of the Norwegian woods stands Dead Man's Cabin, where 110 years ago a madman slew his sister and her lover, throwing their decapitated corpses in a nearby lake before drowning himself to join them in death. Ever since, the cabin has been cursed, and anyone who spends the night there is possessed by the killer's spirit and infected with his madness.

After the death of their infant son, Hal and Rowan Graham decide to leave the mad bustle of London and move to a quiet country refuge. And the rustic village of Moorstone seems perfect. Too perfect? Lying beneath a hill capped by an enormous stone, Moorstone hides mysterious secrets. Why does such a small town need such a large insane asylum? Why do the village's elderly residents leave everything they own to young newcomers they barely know? And why is everyone so friendly, so handsome, and so preoccupied with Hal and Rowan's health?

What Wendy Ross wants is simple - to live and love openly as a modern, independent woman. The problem is that according to her birth certificate her name is Roy Clark and she is a boy. Mistreated by her father, who is appalled at having such a child, misunderstood by her sister, whose clothes she has stolen, and committed to a mental hospital where she is mistaken for a homosexual, Wendy finally gets her chance to escape when she turns 21 and inherits a small legacy.

J. B. Priestley (1894-1984) was a versatile and prolific novelist and playwright, but in The Other Place (1953), he shows an unexpected talent, proving himself a master of the weird tale. In "The Grey Ones", Mr. Patson visits a psychiatrist after he becomes convinced that a race of demons masquerading as men are plotting the overthrow of the human race...but what if he's not insane? In "Guest of Honour", a banquet speech becomes a horrifying affair when the keynote speaker realizes his audience is made up of monstrous and menacing creatures.

Young Chris Callaway finds escape from the diagnosis of his terminal illness in the company of vampires, but he soon discovers that "life" among the undead holds its own set of terrors.

Set against the seedy backdrop of 1960s Tangier, The Wrong People (1967) is the story of Arnold Turner, a repressed English schoolmaster on holiday in Morocco, where he meets Ewing Baird, a wealthy American expat with a dark secret. Ewing lavishly entertains him and even provides him with a young lover, but as Arnold becomes more and more involved with Ewing he realizes only too late that he has been lured into a dangerous trap - and his only chance of escape is by helping Ewing to carry out a sinister plan.

When Michael Blumlein's debut collection The Brains of Rats first appeared, it marked the arrival of a major new talent, earning widespread acclaim from mainstream critics as well as genre stalwarts Peter Straub, Harlan Ellison, Pat Cadigan and many others.

World War III left the world in ruins, but now a new society has sprung up from the ashes, ruled by an unseen dictator who believes a system of strict equality is the best way to prevent future strife. Too much beauty, intelligence, or personality is severely frowned upon. Those who run afoul of the Dictator are punished, sometimes with death and sometimes with a more mysterious and terrible fate, being "emptied".

"But come back soon", the sign said. Obviously it was a lie. The people in the grocery store just wanted to make sure he couldn't buy the spice he needed to make the recipe he'd selected for that night (recipes must be followed exactly). Obviously they wanted him to eat out...to meet the waitress, Marta, to see her horrible, unspeakable, unbearable ugliness. It was obvious to him: her maimed, twisted face was the living desire to be dead. He had to help Marta be dead.

Having escaped being burnt at the stake, the reluctant sorcerer Fursey is back in this sequel, trying to make a quiet life for himself as a grocer in the realm of King Ethelwulf. But when his old enemies seize his wife, Fursey resolves to embrace evil and return to Ireland to reclaim her. Along the way, he'll have to contend with bloodthirsty Vikings, a melancholy vampire, an alcoholic wizard, a lovesick cow, and Satan himself, who is more determined than ever to get his hands on Fursey's soul.

When Woodsley, a young English painter, arrives in Barbados and finds no lodging available, he thinks himself fortunate to be invited to stay at Eltonsbrody, a mansion belonging to the eccentric widow Mrs Scaife. But behind the locked doors of the house’s disused rooms lurk terrible secrets, and soon strange and blood-curdling events begin to unfold. The tension builds towards a shocking and unforgettable conclusion, when the full horror of Eltonsbrody will be revealed.

For two centuries, the body of Sir Martin Railstone, poet, artist, and libertine, has lain undisturbed in its crypt, amidst rumours that important artistic works of genius are buried with him. The Church of England has refused to allow the opening of the tomb, believing that Railstone was a murderer and dabbler in the black arts, and that anything buried with him must be diabolical in nature.

Returning home through a bog late one night, 16-year-old Dick Dodds passes a trail that for some reason sends a chill up his spine. He feels the same inexplicable terror the next day when he explores the trail further and meets a girl, Helen Johnson, who saw something that looked like a man with no arms or legs moving and gliding across the landscape.

Sir Charles Ravenstreet, in his mid-50s, is unmarried, childless, and lives only for his work in the fast-paced world of business. When he is forced out of his job to make room for someone younger, Sir Charles finds himself at a loose end and facing the dismal prospect of an empty future.

Colonel Macready thinks his bookish seventeen-year-old son Fergus is too soft, so he enlists the help of his manly chauffeur, Fred Carrington, to help whip the boy into shape. But the sweaty afternoons in the harness room above the garage take a turn the Colonel hadnt foreseen when Fergus and Freds boxing sessions lead first to friendship, and then to something more . . .