Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer. 2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher. 2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed? Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.

Penpal began as a series of short and interconnected stories posted on an online horror forum. Before long, it was adapted into illustrations, audio recordings, and short films; and that was before it was revised and expanded into a novel! How much do you remember about your childhood? In Penpal, a man investigates the seemingly unrelated bizarre, tragic, and horrific occurrences of his childhood in an attempt to finally understand them. Beginning with only fragments of his earliest years, you'll follow the narrator as he discovers that these strange and horrible events are actually part of a single terrifying story that has shaped the entirety of his life and the lives of those around him. If you've ever stayed in the woods just a little too long after dark, if you've ever had the feeling that someone or something was trying to hurt you, if you remember the first friend you ever made and how strong that bond was, then Penpal is a story that you won't soon forget, despite how you might try.

Fans of Stephen King, Jack Kilborn, and Blake Crouch… prepare to meet the Devil. In the vine-twisted swamps of Louisiana, the shadows have teeth. Jack Winter has spent his entire life running from something no one else can see. His childhood is his darkest secret, but after a near fatal accident along a deserted road, the darkness he was sure he’d escaped rears its ugly head… and smiles. But this time, he isn’t the only one who sees the soulless eyes of his past. This time, his six-year-old daughter Charlie leans into his ear and whispers: Daddy, I saw it too. And then she begins to change. Faced with reliving the nightmares of his childhood, Jack watches his daughter spiral into the shadows that had nearly consumed him twenty years before. But Charlie isn’t the only one who’s changing. Jack never outran the darkness. It’s been with him all along. And it’s hungrier than ever. A new breed of dark fiction: the subtlety of Seed will haunt you, and the end will wickedly satisfy.

St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys. Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania. Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future... a family. Then, late one stormy night, a group of men arrive at their door, one of whom is badly wounded, occult symbols carved into his flesh. His death releases an ancient evil that spreads like sickness, infecting St. Vincent's and the children within. Soon, boys begin acting differently, forming groups. Taking sides.Others turn up dead.Now Peter and those dear to him must choose sides of their own, each of them knowing their lives — and perhaps their eternal souls — are at risk. The Exorcist meets Lord of the Flies, by way of Midnight Mass, in Boys in the Valley, a brilliant coming-of-age tale from award-winning author Philip Fracassi.

"I am ready to join the Sisterhood of Viggy after reading The Rotting Room. Time to take my vows, now that I've novitiated on this awe-inspiring novel, and commit myself to a lifelong calling of reading whatever Parr Hampton writes." —Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your EyesSister Rafaela, a newcomer to the cloistered Sisters of Divine Innocence, yearns for redemption from her horrific past. However, her new abbey, bound by a vow of silence and a disturbing burial ritual, hides its own sinister secrets. When a mysterious stranger arrives and dies soon after, her body resists decomposition, sparking fevered claims of sainthood among the nuns… but Rafaela suspects something far darker. As the abbey teeters on the edge of madness, Rafaela and local priest Father Bruno race to uncover whether the Sisters of Divine Innocence are graced by a divine miracle—or consumed by unspeakable evil. "Hampton delivers a masterclass in narrative restraint, yet refuses to pull her punches. By taking its vows alongside The First Omen, Immaculate, and Suspiria, The Rotting Room ascends to horror literature heaven." —Nick Roberts, author of The Exorcist's House and Mean Spirited“Dreadfully atmospheric and alluringly oppressive, The Rotting Room is a testament to the heart of religious horror, Viggy Parr Hampton’s writing irresistibly smooth like gothic butter.” —Mona Kabbani, author of The Color of Blood

On holy ground it rests, a strange, windowless brothel built upon the ashes of a church. No one who works there believes in the rantings of the insane priest, Father Patrick. Not when he warns of the coming apocalypse, and certainly not when he speaks of a tidal wave of blood coming to wash away the sinners. No one believes him… except Candy. For only Candy has experienced the grim terrors that dwell within the basement. Only Candy has glimpsed hell in a maddening vision that almost drove her mad. And only Candy can prevent the end… of everything. Packed with his signature outrageous sex and violence, And By God’s Hand You Shall Die is the latest supernatural shocker from David Sodergren, the twisted mind behind The Forgotten Island and Maggie’s Grave. This time, you haven’t got a prayer!