Manhunt author Gretchen Felker-Martin is back with Black Flame, a historical horror about one woman's deadly obsession with a haunted film, perfect for fans of Midsommar and Night Film.Ellen, a deeply closeted lesbian spends all her time in solitude, restoring films at a failing archive in New York City.When a group of German academics present her with a print of an infamous exploitation film believed to have been destroyed during the Holocaust, Ellen finds herself forced to confront her own repressed sexuality. And the more she works on the restoration, the more obsessed she becomes over its depictions of occult practices and queer debauchery.She’s soon convinced that the acts portrayed in the film are not fiction, but reality. And they’re happening to her…

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want. Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does. Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.

From the Hugo award-winning author Naomi Kritzer comes a tense portrait of a future we desperately hope to escape. O Lord, deliver us. Doctor Liz has just been acquitted for performing the last abortion in North Dakota when she's kidnapped. They're not just any kidnappers, but a fundamentalist cult, deep in the rural west, without respect for law or decency, and in desperate need of an OB/GYN. Guarded, isolated, without access to the outside world, Liz nevertheless is treated with respect as the only doctor on the compound, but she is very aware of what happened to the last obstetrician they kidnapped. She must escape, and bring help to the girls trapped at the compound, if it's the last thing she does.

Filled with scientific acuity and existential challenges in the tradition of Ghost in the Shell and Frankenstein, this medical fantasmagoria is a disorienting look into the consciousness and will have you questioning the future of human evolution. New life begins at the cellular level, but when that cell contains restless mitochondria, it will aspire to be much more than just a speck in a petri dish. Parasite Eve was the basis of the hugely popular video game of the same name and has been cinematized in Japan, where the novel’s smashing success helped set off a horror boom that has only been intensifying ever since. When Dr. Nagashima loses his wife in a mysterious car crash, he is overwhelmed with grief but also an eerie sense of purpose; he becomes obsessed with the idea that he must reincarnate his dead wife. Her donated kidney is transplanted into a young girl with a debilitating disorder, but the doctor also feels compelled to keep a small sample of her liver in his laboratory. When these cells start mutating rapidly, a consciousness bent on determining its own fate awakens from an eonic sleep.

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil - literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul - it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.

An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams... But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.This ebook is an official release by me, qntm from the SCP Foundation wiki! PM me if you require confirmation. This ebook collects all of my Antimemetics Division SCP-055, SCP-2256 and the complete serials There Is No Antimemetics Division and Five Five Five Five Five.

A wild, bomb-throwing teenage revenge plot that skewers the cults of consumerism and the body beautiful.Ananda Devi's protagonist is tormented at school because of her weight, and haunted by the sister whom her father believes she devoured in the womb. This, she thinks, is how he accounts for her enormous she is not one but two.Her father is gleefully devoted and plies her with increasingly indulgent feasts; at school her fellow students and even teachers seek to humiliate her with an almost demonic insistence; in the midst of all this she struggles to see who she is beyond the world’s perceptions of her and her size.When she gets an unexpected, heady taste of the other pleasures of the body, she briefly feels the radiant possibility of another kind of life. But the great eye of the mob turns on her once more and she devises one drastic, final, self-destroying way to turn the tables on her persecutors and the whole unjust world.In Hungering, Devi deploys keenly lyrical prose to stage a revenge plot with dark humor that tears apart the hypocrisies around how we talk about bodies, women, beauty, obsession, and consumption, and how society consumes, obsesses over, and vilifies the Other.

Spirit away with a whimsical fantasy filled with dark magic and flirty, polyamorous romance. Cursed to haunt the river running through the magical spa town where she drowned, Gisela is a water nymph who dreams of returning to the living world and the family she left behind. All it takes to regain her humanity is a kiss from a mortal...but everyone sees her as a monster. And then there’s Kazik, the brooding, interfering, spirit-hunting grandson of a local witch. He's determined to rid the world of unholy creatures like Gisela. After Kazik botches Gisela’s exorcism, she strikes up a deal. She won’t tell the other spirits that he’s losing his magic, if he agrees to play matchmaker and helps her get a kiss. But Gisela’s plan goes awry when Kazik also falls for the devilishly handsome young man that she sets her heart on—someone who could be linked to Gisela’s troubled past. Finely crafted with a magical setting, this delectable quest through the spirit world is an enchanting read for fans of queer romantasy.

Maren Yearly doesn’t just break hearts, she devours them. Since she was a baby, Maren has had what you might call "an issue" with affection. Anytime someone cares for her too much, she can’t seem to stop herself from eating them. Abandoned by her mother at the age of 16, Maren goes looking for the father she has never known, but finds more than she bargained for along the way. Faced with love, fellow eaters, and enemies for the first time in her life, Maren realizes she isn’t just looking for her father, she is looking for herself. The real question is, will she like the girl she finds?

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story. There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine. Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Center convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer," Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

An unforgettable debut, For Human Use is a twisted tale of modern love that bends every genre, sears itself into your brain, and presents a horrific romantic comedy unlike anything you’ve ever read before.Modern dating is dead. Finding a human connection online has become impossible. Enter a dating app that matches people with dead bodies. Somehow, it has taken the world by storm. Millions of users are convinced that life with a corpse presents a better alternative to conventional relationships.  Flailing against Liv’s popularity, venture capital superstar Tom Williamson—whose company is funding Liv —isn’t buying it. Mostly because dating an embalmed cadaver, let alone monetizing it, is obscene. Believing that Liv is the future, Auden White, the insufferable “visionary” behind the app begins demanding more and more funding, quickly making enemies with Tom. It's no secret that Tom struggles with people, dead or alive, but when he has a chance meeting with the woman who knows Auden (and his secrets) best, Mara Reed, he realizes everything is about to change for all three of them. With Liv’s userbase growing by the day, the need for cadavers rapidly increases. Humanity might not want to connect with other living, breathing people anymore, but they do want to connect with something. What could go wrong?

John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love. Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.

PRAISE FOR BLACKJACK + MOONSHINE "Sirius’s Blackjack and Moonshine is a humid, horrific and sexy southern gothic romp that’s sure to leave you thirsty for more than just root beer. Blossoming with lush descriptions that jump off the page, Bee and Jessie’s tale of crossroads bargains, bad bets and dark hearts offer up a devilish good time." - Wendy Dalrymple, author of White Ibis THE DEVIL IS GOING TO SET JESSIE FREE. On a hot Southern morning, Jessie Livingston signed away his soul to a crossroads devil who made him an offer he could not refuse. Now Jessie’s voice is dropping, his chest is flattening, and there are hairs sprouting on his chin. He is becoming the man he always wanted to be seen as. Meanwhile, the only thing the devil, Bee, asks for in return is to come collect his due in Jessie’s bedroom every Sunday. Yet, if there is one thing about the devil, it is that he is never satisfied. Bee is determined to push Jessie until he breaks. From Texas to Louisiana in a whirlwind of playing cards, tumbling dice, and flashing casino lights--Jessie finds himself struggling against the snare while falling deeper into iniquity. Yet, when an offer of salvation extends its hand, will he be willing to abandon his only desire to take it? **Includes exclusive short story, SLICK AS THE DEVIL ON SUNDAY.

The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James that first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly magazine (January 27 - April 16, 1898). In October 1898 it appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London. A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate... An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them. Excerpt: I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days - found myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house.

Crypt of the Moon Spider is a dark and dreamy tale of horror, corruption, and identity spun into the stickiest of webs. Years ago, in a cave beneath the dense forests and streams on the surface of the moon, a gargantuan spider once lived. Its silk granted its first worshippers immense faculties of power and awe. It’s now 1923 and Veronica Brinkley is touching down on the moon for her intake at the Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy. A renowned facility, Dr. Barrington Cull’s invasive and highly successful treatments have been lauded by many. And they’re so simple! All it takes is a little spider silk in the amygdala, maybe a strand or two in the prefrontal cortex, and perhaps an inch in the hippocampus for near evisceration of those troublesome thoughts and ideas. But trouble lurks in many a mind at this facility and although the spider’s been dead for years, its denizens are not. Someone or something is up to no good, and Veronica just might be the cause.

London, 1857. Meet Jaf, a young street urchin who survives an encounter with an escaped tiger in the city’s East End and stumbles into a job with its owner, Mr. Jamrach, a collector and seller of wild animals. Commissioned by Jamrach to find and capture a mysterious, exotic creature, Jaf joins a whaling ship bound for the South Seas and begins a wonder-filled voyage of discovery. But when disaster befalls the crew, Jaf ’s journey becomes a desperate survival tale that pushes love, friendship and humanity to their outermost limits. Beautifully written and utterly spellbinding, Jamrach’s Menagerie conjures the smells, sights and flavours of the 19th century, from the squalor of Victorian London to the lush islands of the Dutch East Indies. A great, salty, historical adventure, with an extraordinary story of love and sacrifice at its core, this is an astonishing literary achievement.

Librarian Note: An older cover for this edition can be found here: 05-Jul-1999. De Profundis is Wilde's eloquent and bitter reproach from prison to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. He contrasts his behaviour with that of his close friend Robert Ross who became Wilde's literary executor. The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a deeply moving and characteristically generous poem on the horrors of prison life, which was published anonymously in 1898. This collection also includes the essay The Soul of Man under Socialism and two of his Platonic dialogues, The Decay of Lying and The Critic as Artist.