NYT bestselling author Wong takes readers to a whole new level with his latest dark comic sci-fi thriller, set in the world of John Dies at the End and This Book is Full of Spiders Dave, John and Amy recount what seems like a fairly straightforward tale of a shape-shifting creature from another dimension that is stealing children and brainwashing their parents, but it eventually becomes clear that someone is lying, and that someone is the narrators. The novel you're reading is a cover-up, and the "true" story reveals itself in the cracks of their hilariously convoluted, and sometimes contradictory, narrative.

Working at a dead-end retail job in the middle of nowhere can be hard. The long hours. The helpless customers. The enormous eldritch horror living deep below the building… As the only full-time employee at the twenty-four hour gas station at the edge of town, Jack has pretty much seen it all. But when he decides to start an online journal documenting the bizarre day-to-day occurrences, he unwittingly attracts the attention of much more than just a few conspiracy theorists. With the body count steadily on the rise and a dark, ancient force infecting the dreams of everyone around him, Jack will do everything in his power to stay out of the way and mind his own business. After all, he’s just a gas station clerk. It’s not like he’s getting paid enough to wage battle against the nightmarish aberrations plaguing his community. Besides, he already has his hands full attempting to manage all those mysterious lawn gnomes, the mutant raccoons, and the charming phantom cowboy who lives in the bathroom. Based on the award-winning creepypasta by GasStationJack, Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One is a love letter to the pioneers of classic horror tailored to a generation that grew up in the era of smartphones and WiFi.

New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin’s hilarious and horrifying John Dies at the End series continues with If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe. If the broken neon signs, shuttered storefronts, and sub-standard housing didn’t tip you off, you’ve just wandered into the city of “Undisclosed”. You don’t want to be caught dead here, because odds are you just might find yourself rising from the grave. That hasn’t stopped tourists from visiting to check out the unusual phenomena that hangs around our town like radioactive fallout. Interdimensional parasites feeding on human hosts, paranormal cults worshipping demonic entities, vengeful teenage sorcerers, we’ve got it all.Did I mention the possessed toy? It’s a plastic football-sized egg that’s supposed to hatch an adorable, colorful stuffed bird when a child “feeds” it through a synchronized smartphone app. What’s actually inside is an otherworldly monstrosity that’s enticing impressionable wayward youth into murdering folks and depositing their body parts inside the egg as if it’s a hungry piggy bank to trigger the end of the world.That’s where Dave, John, and Amy come in. They face supernatural threats so the rest of us don’t have to—and sometimes even earn a couple of bucks to so do. But between the bloody ritual sacrifices and soul-crushing nightmares, our trio realizes this apocalypse is way above their pay grade.

.Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle investigates of the notorious Dozier Boys School--the true story behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys--and the contentious process to exhume the graves of the boys buried there in order to reunite them with their families. The Arthur G. Dozier Boys School was a well-guarded secret in Florida for over a century, until reports of cruelty, abuse, and "mysterious" deaths shut the institution down in 2011. Established in 1900, the juvenile reform school accepted children as young as six years of age for crimes as harmless as truancy or trespassing. The boys sent there, many of whom were Black, were subject to brutal abuse, routinely hired out to local farmers by the school's management as indentured labor, and died either at the school or attempting to escape its brutal conditions. In the wake of the school's shutdown, Erin Kimmerle, a leading forensic anthropologist, stepped in to locate the school's graveyard to determine the number of graves and who was buried there, thus beginning the process of reuniting the boys with their families through forensic and DNA testing. The school's poorly kept accounting suggested some thirty-one boys were buried in unmarked graves in a remote field on the school's property. The real number was at least twice that. Kimmerle's work did not go unnoticed; residents and local law enforcement threatened and harassed her team in their eagerness to control the truth she was uncovering--one she continues to investigate to this day. We Carry Their Bones is a detailed account of Jim Crow America and an indictment of the reform school system as we know it. It's also a fascinating dive into the science of forensic anthropology and an important retelling of the extraordinary efforts taken to bring these lost children home to their families--an endeavor that created a political firestorm and a dramatic reckoning with racism and shame in the legacy of America.

Journalist and former Allure editor Sable Yong debuts with a sharp-toothed and hilarious essay collection about beauty and vanity, examining their stigmatization in the cultural zeitgeist, and how to shift the focus to use both for powerful tools for self-exploration, interpersonal connection, and cultural change. The beauty industry has a single mandate: be hot. In the same week that you might be encouraged to try curtain bangs, contouring, bleached eyebrows, laser facials, buccal fat removal, fillers, and “non-invasive” facelifts, you’re simultaneously absorbing mantras about self-care, body positivity, empowerment, and loving yourself just as you are. Overwhelmed yet? Fear not. Die Hot with a Vengeance delves into the machinations of this multi-billion-dollar industry, offering readers an expert analysis of its inner workings with the precision of a scalpel and the humor of a stand-up comedian. Along the way, Yong sets off to answer some of the biggest questions of our time: How do you break through the noise of beauty and wellness culture’s endless optimization protocols? How can you find actual authenticity in a world of performative artifice? Can the antidote to aging be found in a jar, tube, or at the end of a syringe? Do blondes really have more fun? Using Yong’s many years of experience as a beauty editor to unlock the industry’s myriad secrets, Die Hot with a Vengeance gives beauty and vanity a neutralizing make-over. At its best, beauty is so much more than an aesthetic; it’s an inspirational mindset. It’s a playfulness inherent to the practice of self-expression. And yet it’s difficult to engage playfully when it feels like beauty is an ever-moving target. We’re all subject to societal expectations surrounding beauty and vanity, enough so that breaking through the capitalist pressures can feel impossible. Yong argues that while the mandate may be for us to be hot, the beauty industry thrives on us absorbing its teachings so it can keep us in a constant feedback loop of appearance-based anxiety, forever perpetuating unattainable standards. Flipping that imperative, Yong’s debut collection poses the most important question of all: How do you discover your value of beauty so you can free yourself from the loud and bullshitty noise of all these entities telling you that you’re not good enough? Digging deep into our most pervasive and questionable beauty trends and conventions, Die Hot with a Vengeance offers an incisive yet wry dissection of one of our most enduring cultural addictions. Irreverent, side-splittingly funny, and astute, the book is as amusing as it is insightful, an instant classic for beauty-readers and aspirant hotties alike.

AS SEEN IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, THE UK'S NO.1 FORENSIC ECOLOGIST LOOKS AT HER MOST HIGH-PROFILE AND INTERESTING CASES...'I love puzzles, and finding answers is the only truly enjoyable part of what I do.'Professor Patricia Wiltshire is a forensic ecologist, her days spent at crime scenes collecting samples, standing over dead bodies in a mortuary, or looking down her microscope for evidence.Working at the interface of where the criminal and natural world interact, Patricia has been involved in some of the most high-profile murder cases. Now, through a study of her most infamous, and fascinating cases - including the murder of Sarah Payne, and the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman - Patricia will show us how she finds the answers to some of the worst crimes imaginable. Not only does she help the police solve crimes and give answers to the most bemusing circumstances, she can help to exonerate the innocent and enable confessions from the guilty.In The Natural History of Crime we join Patricia in putting the puzzle together, teasing the evidence out of her cases and showing us all how life and death have always been, and always will be, intertwined. Nature has given us a messy, imperfect world, but her job is to help make sense of it when we need it to most.

HE IS ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING CHARACTERS IN ALL OF LITERATURE. AT LAST THE EVOLUTION OF HIS EVIL IS REVEALED. Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him. Hannibal’s uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle’s beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki. Lady Murasaki helps Hannibal to heal. With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. But Hannibal’s demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn. He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death’s prodigy.

Haunting of Hill House meets found-footage horror in this edge-of-your-seat thriller that explores the power of family ties and the trauma that lurks there. When Sophia Galich was twelve, she starred in her older sister Layla’s amateur horror movie Vermillion, which recorded raw footage of her very real reactions to scenes her sister concocted in their old Californian house on the coast―Cashore House. In the years after the film’s release, Sophia’s relationship with her sister became more strained, while her memories of the now-infamous house fueled her nightmares. Vermillion amassed an army of fanatical fans who speculated about the film’s hidden messages, and it was rumored that Layla made a pact with the devil―her soul in exchange for fame and arcane knowledge. Sophia dismissed this as gossip…until Layla disappeared. Now, Sophia must study the trail of clues Layla has left behind, returning to the very place where it all began. As she gets closer and closer to Cashore House’s haunted heart, she must once again confront the ghosts of her childhood. But the house won’t reveal its secrets without a fight.

A witty, spectacular, and timely tale of modern-day witches waging war on the patriarchy, from fan favorite Kirsten Miller, the author of The Change and Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books. There are places on earth where nature’s powers gather. Girls raised there are bequeathed strange gifts. A few have powers so dark that they fear to use them. Such a place is Wild Hill, on the tip of Long Island. For centuries, the ghost of a witch murdered by colonists claimed the beautiful and fertile Wild Hill…until a young Scottish woman with strange gifts arrived. Sadie Duncan was allowed to stay. Five generations of Sadie’s descendants called Wild Hill home, each generation more powerful than the last. Then, in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, the last of the Duncans, once prophesized to be the most powerful of their kind, abandoned their ancestral home. One of them, Brigid Laguerre moved to California and turned her dark gift into fame and fortune. Her sister, Phoebe, settled on a ranch in Texas, where women visit in secret for her tonics and cures. Phoebe’s daughter, Sybil, has become a famous chef. Seemingly powerless, Sibyl has never been told of the Duncan bloodline. Now Brigid, Phoebe, and Sibyl have been brought to Wild Hill to discover their family legacy. The Old One, furious at the path mankind has taken, has chosen three powerful witches to turn the tide. The Duncans will fulfill their destinies—but only if they can set aside their grievances and come together as a family.