Recommendations based on "This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness"

The satirical work in which a senior devil tutors a junior devil in a series of sly but increasingly frustrated letters.

“Barker’s the best thing to happen to horror fiction for many moons. . . [he] never fails to deliver the compelling prose and relentless horror his readers expect.” —Chicago Tribune The classic tale of supernatural obsession from the critically acclaimed master of darkness—and the inspiration for the cult classic film Hellraiser From his scores of short stories, bestselling novels, and major motion pictures, no one comes close to the vivid imagination and unique terrors provided by Clive Barker. The Hellbound Heart is one of Barker’s best—a nerve-shattering novella about the human heart and all the great terrors and ecstasies within its endless domain. It is about greed and love, desire and death, life and captivity, bells and blood. It is one of the most frightening stories you are likely to ever read. Frank Cotton's insatiable appetite for the dark pleasures of pain led him to the puzzle of Lemarchand's box, and from there, to a death only a sick-minded soul could invent. But his brother's love-crazed wife, Julia, has discovered a way to bring Frank back—though the price will be bloody and terrible . . . and there will certainly be hell to pay.

Andrew Vachss's implacable private eye has a new client, Strega. She wants Burke to find an obscene photograph—and that search will take him into the ocean that flows just beneath the city, an ocean whose currents are flesh and money, the anguish of children and the pleasure of twisted adults. It is a place that Burke can visit only at the risk of his sanity and his life. But between the power of Strega and his own sense of justice, there is no turning back.In Strega one of our most acclaimed crime writers gives us a thriller that might have been imagined by Dante. For this is a tour of hell with no stops left out, conducted by a novelist who writes with the authority of the damned.

A Gloriously Spooky Horror-fantasy Story From Joseph Delaney, The Internationally Multi-million Bestselling Author Of The Spook's Apprentice Crafty Halted, His Heart Lurching With Fear, His Mouth Dry. There Were Bare Footprints In The White Snow, And Each One Was Smeared With Red, As If The Owner Of Those Clawed Feet Had Stepped In A Puddle Of Blood . . . Crafty And His Friends Have Already Faced Dozens Of Horrifying Aberrations During Their Time As Castle Gate Grubs - Assistants To The Mysterious Guild Of Gatemancers, Who Fight Against The Terrifying Shole. But The Real Battle Is Only Just Beginning. New And More Dangerous Aberrations Are Appearing All The Time, And Worse Yet, It Seems Someone From Within The Castle Is Helping Them Attack. And When An Old Enemy Returns To Give Crafty A Disturbing Warning, It Seems Time Might Be Running Out For All Of Them . . .

This gripping historical novel is based on the true story of Eyam, the "Plague Village," in the rugged mountain spine of England. In 1666, a tainted bolt of cloth from London carries bubonic infection to this isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners. A visionary young preacher convinces the villagers to seal themselves off in a deadly quarantine to prevent the spread of disease. The story is told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Anna Frith, the vicar's maid, as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. As the death toll rises and people turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna emerges as an unlikely and courageous heroine in the village's desperate fight to save itself.

From the international bestselling author of The Girl with All the Gifts comes a wildly original and enthrallingly dark medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before – a fable of twisted folklore, macabre magic, and the strangest of found families. "A masterpiece of medieval dark fiction." – Christopher Buehlman, author of Between Two Fires "A wild fever dream – monstrous and beautiful." – Seanan McGuire, author of Every Heart a Doorway Eleven hundred and some years after the death of Christ, in the kingdom that had but recently begun to call itself England, I, Once Was Willem, rose from the dead to defeat a great evil facing the humble village of Cosham. The words enclosed herein are true.   I speak of monsters and magic, battle and bloodletting, and the crimes of desperate men. I speak also of secret things, of that which lies beneath us and that which impends above. By the time you come to the end of this account you will know the truth of your own life and death, the path laid out for your immortal soul, your origin and your inevitable end.   You will not thank me. "It's been a long time since a book has reached out and just entirely enveloped me in its world the way Once Was Willem did. Astounding, and I loved every moment of it." – RJ Barker, author of The Bone Ships

Santa Claus, my dear old friend, you are a thief, a traitor, a slanderer, a murder, a liar, but worst of all you are a mockery of everything for which I stood.You have sung your last ho, ho, ho, for I am coming to take your head. I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide...The author and artist of The Child Thief returns with a modern fabulist tale of Krampus, the Lord of Yule and mortal enemy of Santa Claus.One Christmas Eve in a small hollow in Boone County, West Virginia, struggling songwriter Jesse Walker witnesses a strange spectacle: seven devilish figures chasing a man in a red suit toward a sleigh and eight reindeer. When the reindeer leap skyward taking the sleigh, devil men, and Santa into the clouds, screams follow. Moments later, a large sack plummets earthward, a magical sack that will thrust the down-on-his luck singer into the clutches of the terrifying Yule Lord, Krampus. But the lines between good and evil become blurred as Jesse's new master reveals many dark secrets about the cherry-cheeked Santa Claus, and how half a millennium ago, the jolly old saint imprisoned Krampus and usurped his magic.Now Santa's time is running short, for the Yule Lord is determined to have his retribution and reclaim Yuletide. If Jesse can survive this ancient feud, he might have the chance to redeem himself to his family, to save his own broken dreams...and help bring the magic of Yule to the impoverished folk of Boone County.

Now an HBO® Series from J.J. Abrams (Executive Producer of Westworld), Misha Green (Creator of Underground) and Jordan Peele (Director of Get Out)The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy.Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.

Leland Gaunt probes the limits of people's desires when he moves to Castle Rock, Maine, opens his shop Needful Things, and sets a high price on love, hope, and the human soul.

YA. Fantasy fiction. 'The moment of danger is close. Very soon our enemies will be here.' As danger increases, the Spook sends his apprentice, Tom, to be trained by another spook whose methods are harsh and tough. But faced with a powerful water witch, Tom's new master makes a fatal mistake, leaving Tom to face his enemies alone. Can the Spook get there in time to save Tom? Together can they beat such terrible dark power? And will the Spook's own mistakes give final victory to the dark? The fifth chilling tale in the Wardstone Chronicles, the series that inspired the forthcoming movie The Seventh Son, starring Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes and Julianne Moore.