These are stories that will scare you and keep you from sleeping, if they are done right. It was a dark and stormy night… You can also check out these subcategories:
angels & devils | comedy | fairy tale/folklore | ghosts & haunted houses | gothic | litrpg | lovecraftian/cthulhu | man-made horrors | monsters | mythic | noir | occult | post-apocalyptic | psychic talents | psychological | shifters | splatterpunk | vampires | weird horror | werewolves | witches | zombies
Note: these books are currently sorted by release date, with newest first.
Word Count: 58841
Summary: "In range alone, Richard Thomas is boundless. He is Lovecraft. He is Bradbury. He is Gaiman." —Chuck Palahniuk With a Foreword by Brian Evenson In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted fourteen stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin.
- A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip.
- A set of twins find they have mysterious new powers when an asteroid crashes in a field near their house, and the decisions they make create an uneasy balance.
- A fantasy world is filled with one man’s desire to feel whole again, finally finding love, only to have the shocking truth of his life exposed in an appalling twist.
- A father and son work slave labor in a brave new world run by aliens and mount a rebellion that may end up freeing them all.
- A clown takes off his make-up in a gloomy basement to reveal something more horrifying under the white, tacky skin.
Word Count: 22000
Summary: All Jet wants is a fun night out at the club he’s finally old enough to get into. Okay, not all -- he also wants mystery, adventure, love, college tuition, and a new best friend who isn’t too busy to spend time with him. But he wasn’t expecting any of those to find him at Club Nox. And he definitely wasn’t expecting a gorgeous stranger to offer him his heart’s desire in exchange for ... his actual heart? What kind of crazy deal is this? And what does the alluring Darken mean when he says it’s too late for Jet to change his mind? Why can’t Jet take off the heart-shaped pendant? Darken feels a little guilty about tricking the cute goth boy at the club into taking on his curse. But what choice did he have? Any one person can only wear the heart pendant for so long before it drains them, and he’s served his three years. As curses go, this one honestly isn’t so bad. And maybe Jet will let Darken sweeten the deal with a few kisses. He isn’t sticking around now that he’s free, though. And he definitely isn’t falling in love again. That’s what got him into this mess in the first place. Soon Jet realizes Darken told him the truth: Jet has made a bargain he can’t escape. Does he even want to, if Darken is part of the package? If only human hearts were as easy to win as magical ones...
Word Count: 120000
Summary: A woman with the strength to rebel. A shapeshifter who wears the souls of the dead. Together, they face a lethal enemy. Em helped create it. Now she must craft its defeat. In a city owned by industrialists, Em sells her magic to make ends meet. The extraction procedure is brutal and potentially deadly. Desperate for change, she joins an underground resistance movement to weaponize her magic and stop the abuse of workers. Meanwhile, a mysterious voice wakes Ruk from a decades long slumber and compels him to become human. He wants to break free but is torn between his shapeshifter instincts and the needs of the soul that sustains him. On streets haunted by outcasts and predatory automatons, a new danger emerges – an ever-growing corruption of magic and science. Em and Ruk must put aside their differences and pursue it – each for their own reasons. What they discover will forever change their lives… Or end them. The Eternal Machine is set in a 19th Century alternative reality Australian city, where magic and science are equally valid disciplines.
Word Count: 70000
Summary:
Word Count: 132,220
Summary: Bobby Gene is a man who stands out even among his people. Guided by the knowledge of his heritage as a backwoods shaman and more perceptive than many, he's grown to be a valuable asset to those he knows. While he isn't surprised to be the first to know when the woods around him begin to show clues that something isn't right, he doesn't expect just how much these omens and signs will prove to foretell something far more sinister to come. Soon strange dreams and inexplicable encounters have him questioning everything he knows- and then the people who live in his woodland Appalachian community begin to disappear. It's his job to protect and guide the others, what will he do when he's the only thing between them and the end of life as they know it?
- Horror
- Horror - LGBTQ+
- Horror - Monsters
- Horror - Mythic
- Horror - Occult
- Horror - People of Color
- Horror - Psychic Talents
- Horror - Psychological
- Horror - Weird Horror
- Paranormal
- Paranormal - LGBTQ+
- Paranormal - Magical Beings
- Paranormal - Monsters
- Paranormal - People of Color
- Paranormal - Psychic Talents
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Aliens
- Sci Fi - Alternate / Parallel Reality
- Sci Fi - First Contact
- Sci Fi - LGBTQ+
- Sci Fi - Multiverse
- Sci Fi - People of Color
- Sci Fi - Science Fantasy
- Sci Fi - Weird Sci Fi
Word Count: 88000
Summary: Claustrophilia is a genre-bending sci-fi Gothic that dives deep into the psyche’s need for love and control while exploring the darker side of human (and non-human) relationships. After the tragic death of his entire family, Thomas lives under a conservatorship overseen by his lover, Ethan. But Ethan’s job keeps him away. Isolated in the family’s decaying Connecticut mansion, Thomas lives a monotonous life under the watchful eye of a live-in security firm until one day, he discovers an alien hiding on the grounds of his estate. Confronted with the challenge of helping to save an alien species from extinction, Thomas must overcome the forces that control him in his own home. In a world where reality is not always what it seems, and trust is a double-edged sword, one wrong move could turn his whole world upside down… again.
Word Count: 26000
Summary: Jealous angels with no genitals discover the passion and ecstasy that humans experience through sex. In revenge, the frustrated but impotent celestial beings banish the men to the wilderness. Will the women save the human race, or will they become the mothers of great evil?
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Comedy
- Fantasy - Dark Fantasy
- Fantasy - Mythic
- Fantasy - Mythpunk
- Fantasy - Paranormal
- Fantasy - Weird Fantasy
- Fantasy – Gods and Heroes
- Horror
- Horror - Angels & Devils
- Horror - Mythic
- Horror - Weird Horror
- Paranormal
- Paranormal - Angels & Devils
- Paranormal - Comedy
- Paranormal - Dark
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Theological
Word Count: 81000
Summary: As a private eye closes in on her city's secrets, there are those who will go to any lengths to stop her. After the horrific events of our last chapter, Jacqui's in a medical predicament. If she wants to stay free from the Spadros crime syndicate, she has to find the cure for her condition - and time's running out. But just when Jacqui thinks she's found what she's after, she finds herself instead in a much bigger - and deadlier - situation. She's getting closer to discovering what mechanisms really lie beneath the city. And the Red Dog Gang isn't the only one who wants her stopped. Warning: on-screen death, captivity, child murder, terror, blood, bad language, smoking.
Word Count: 119000
Summary: Enter the world of Mulgara, where conquerors and ghouls and sordid necromancers await. "In The Scrolls of Sin, David Rose paints a fully realized fantasy realm with ingenious plotting, complex characterization, and cleverly lush language. It's also viscerally involving. The collection is so steeped in the sin of the title that it plunges the reader into a sordid otherworld of corruption, treachery, violence, torture, lust, murder, and dark magic — though not without fleeting moments that grope toward something like tenderness and redemption." --- Matt Cardin, author of To Rouse Leviathan
Word Count: 36000
Summary: INK (NOUN) Five definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) A colored fluid used for writing 2) The action of signing a deal 3) A black liquid ejected by squid 4) Publicity in the written media 5) A slang word for tattoos Ink features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Alternate History
- Fantasy - Comedy
- Fantasy - Contemporary
- Fantasy - Dark Fantasy
- Fantasy - Faery & Fae
- Fantasy - Fairy Tale / Folklore
- Fantasy - Heroic
- Fantasy - High & Other World
- Fantasy - Historical
- Fantasy - Knights & Castles
- Fantasy - LGBTQ+
- Fantasy - Low Fantasy
- Fantasy - Magical Realism
- Fantasy - Paranormal
- Fantasy - People of Color
- Fantasy - Romance
- Fantasy - Slipstream
- Fantasy - Sword & Sorcery
- Fantasy - Urban & Magical Beings
- Fantasy - Weird Fantasy
- Fantasy – Gods and Heroes
- Horror
- Horror - Angels & Devils
- Horror - Comedy
- Horror - Fairy Tale/Folklore
- Horror - Ghosts & Haunted Houses
- Horror - Gothic
- Horror - LGBTQ+
- Horror - Man-Made Horrors
- Horror - Monsters
- Horror - Occult
- Horror - Post-Apocalyptic
- Horror - Psychic Talents
- Horror - Psychological
- Horror - Shifters
- Horror - Vampires
- Horror - Weird Horror
- Horror - Werewolves
- Horror - Witches
- Paranormal
- Paranormal - Angels & Devils
- Paranormal - Comedy
- Paranormal - Dark
- Paranormal - Ghosts & Haunted Houses
- Paranormal - LGBTQ+
- Paranormal - Magical Beings
- Paranormal - Monsters
- Paranormal - Psychic Talents
- Paranormal - Reincarnation
- Paranormal - Romance
- Paranormal - Shifters
- Paranormal - Vampires
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Aliens
- Sci Fi - Alternate / Parallel Reality
- Sci Fi - Artificial Intelligence
- Sci Fi - Comedy
- Sci Fi - Dystopian & Post-Apocalyptic
- Sci Fi - Hard Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - LGBTQ+
- Sci Fi - Mutants
- Sci Fi - Near Future
- Sci Fi - Nowpunk
- Sci Fi - Romance
- Sci Fi - Slipstream
- Sci Fi - Social
- Sci Fi - Soft
- Sci Fi - Utopian
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: What would you do to protect what’s yours? Donnie’s whole world changed the day he met Nate at The Stop, a cruising spot outside a small Texas town. Nate saw him, knew him, cared for him, and then one day, in an incomprehensible act of violence, Nate was taken from him. Broken but not beaten, Donnie steps into Nate’s role at The Stop with one goal in mind: find the man who murdered his lover and see justice served no matter the cost. “Breathless and brutal, THE STOP is an unflinching Texas revenge noir awash in moral complexity and the coded lives and languages of the marginalized. W. Dale Jordan’s insistent, riveting prose and imminently relatable cast of characters, force the reader to confront the inconvenient reality of who society chooses to preserve and defends against who is abandoned to slip through the cracks.”--Mark Wheaton, author of Emily Eternal "THE STOP by W. Dale Jordan is raw and honest and gripping. In this exciting suspense/revenge tale, Jordan explores an aspect of gay culture that is often overlooked, but he does so with compassion and a lack of judgement that humanizes his characters to a thrilling degree."--Mark Allan Gunnells, author of 2B and BEFORE HE WAKES
Word Count: 60,000
Summary: Queer Handmaid's Tale meets hyper-capitalist dystopia. Nonbinary, queer main character BREEDER is set in a distant but bleakly familiar future, where each person exists to repay Units to the violent Corporation. But girls and women can only be Breeders in this world, and can only repay the Corporation through reproduction. Is the price of survival worth the cost of submission? Will Meadows is a seemingly average fifteen-year-old Westie, who lives and works in Zone F, the run-down outermost ring of the Corporation. In the future state of the Corp, a person’s value comes down to productivity: the right actions win units, the wrong ones lose them. If Will is unlucky and goes into unit debt, there’s only one place to go: the Rator. But for Zone F Breeders, things are much worse—they’re born into debt and can only accrue units through reproduction. Every day in Zone F is a struggle, especially for Will who is fighting against time for access to an illegal medical drug, Crystal 8. Under the cover of night, Will travels to the Gray Zone, where life is less regulated and drugs—and people—are exchanged for gold. There, Will meets Rob, a corrupt member of the Corporation running a Breeder smuggling operation. Will also meets Alex, another teen whom he quickly recognizes as a Breeder in disguise. Suddenly, Will has an illicit job and money, access to Crystal, and a real friend. As the pair grows closer, Alex shares her secret: she is part of the Response, an uprising to overthrow the Corporation. Caught up in the new friendship, Will and Alex become careless as the two covertly travel into Zone B for a day of adventure. Nothing goes as planned and Will’s greatest fear is realized. Will his true identity be revealed?
Word Count: 41000
Summary: When the Action Girls, a trio of wannabe starlets from Hollywood, land a jungle adventure show, they think it’s their dream come true. But instead, they’re trafficked to the Congo for a sinister purpose. In the heart of Africa, a cult of mad scientists harbors a mad ambition: to create a new species of human-ape hybrid, mating human women with chimpanzees. But their experiments are failures, so they need to bring a steady supply of women to their jungle compound to keep their twisted fantasy alive. Will the Action Girls escape their bizarre and terrifying ordeal? Or will they fulfill the cult’s warped vision of humanity’s future to become broodmares birthing inhuman monsters? Find out in Jungle Jitters, a story not for the faint-hearted, the easily offended, or anyone who thinks human-ape hybrids are a good idea.
Word Count: 63000
Summary: "You can't keep running from your past, especially when it has four legs and fangs." In the exciting second installment of Tales of a Gay Witch, we return to Jason and his friends six months later as they are coming to terms with the events of last year. Jason thought he could move on with his life after Damien left in search of information about his mother, after finding out she might be alive after all, but is struggling to adjust to life without him. He is persuaded to go out and meet up with his friends at his favorite night club 1470 West, where he meets a handsome young man named Mickey. That same night, Jason is informed by Detective Miller, now a good friend of his, to be on the lookout for Jo’s ex-husband Rex, who might be coming their way. There have been a number of sexual assaults and murders targeting young lesbian women up in northern Ohio, and Rex is suspected of being involved. Jo’s ex-husband was always a nasty, abusive piece of work, but to make things worse Rex is a werewolf and an alpha to boot. It’s up to Jason to rally his friends again, as he is tasked with protecting the people he cares about, before it’s too late…
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: The debut collection from Kev Harrison, author of THE BALANCE, this tome brings together tales of ghosts in the machine, folkloric creatures let loose, abandoned places and dystopian nightmares. Containing thirteen stories - three of which are previously unpublished, with three others never before available in print, take your first tentative step onto the PATHS BEST LEFT UNTRODDEN.
Word Count: 70000
Summary: Jacqui faces her biggest mystery yet - and her greatest fear. A drive-by shooting leaves Jacqueline Spadros with little remaining support for the life she's built apart from her estranged husband Tony. As evidence grows that the Hart Family is behind the attacks, which up to now have been laid on the doorstep of the notorious Red Dog Gang, Tony brings formal charges against the Harts before the Commission. Jacqui wants to stop the Red Dog Gang and learn the truth about Charles Hart's obsession with her. But the truth is stranger than she ever imagined. And what she learns changes everything. This is chapter 7 of a 13-part future steampunk noir series. Please begin with The Jacq of Spades and read the books in order.
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: No one wants to be fooled, but that’s what Frankenstein did to you all. Victor's words were the mere ravings of a coward and madman. The truth is a fickle mistress. I was the one that raided the graveyards and robbed the dead of their terrestrial remains. It was I who pursued your creation across continents when you hadn't the spine to see to it yourself. It was I who held my begotten son in my hands that day. Frankenstein took the glory, took the fame, and horded the money from our misfortunes. The time for my retribution has come.
Word Count: 30000
Summary: There are creatures lurking in our world. Obscure creatures long relegated to myth and legend. They have been sighted by a lucky—or unlucky—few, some have even been photographed, but their existence remains unproven and unrecognized by the scientific community. These creatures, long thought gone, have somehow survived; creatures from our nightmares haunting the dark places. They swim in our lakes and bays, they soar the night skies, they hunt in the woods. Some are from our past, and some from other worlds, and others that have always been with us—watching us, fearing us, hunting us. These are the cryptids, and Systema Paradoxa tells their tales. * * * 1942. Gallup, New Mexico. Marine recruiters have come to town looking to fill their ranks with a secret weapon against the Axis powers—what would become Navajo Code Talkers—but not everyone supports the prospect of young native men going off to war. When one new recruit is found dead, and a rancher's cattle are mutilated, whispers of witchcraft and skinwalker filter through the town and interest in enlisting wanes. Is there evil afoot, or is that just what opponents to the cause want everyone to think? Whether guided by magic, mischief, or malevolence, without a doubt, nothing is as it seems…
Word Count: 111,000
Summary:
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Alternate History
- Fantasy - Contemporary
- Fantasy - Dark Fantasy
- Fantasy - Heroic
- Fantasy - LGBTQ+
- Fantasy - Low Fantasy
- Fantasy - New Adult
- Fantasy - Weird Fantasy
- Fantasy - Young Adult
- Fantasy – Gods and Heroes
- Horror
- Horror - Man-Made Horrors
- Horror - Mythic
- Horror - Weird Horror
- Horror - Young Adult
- Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Alternate / Parallel Reality
- Sci Fi - Alternative History
- Sci Fi - Apocalyptic Fiction
- Sci Fi - Dystopian & Post-Apocalyptic
- Sci Fi - Immortality
- Sci Fi - LGBTQ+
- Sci Fi - Military
- Sci Fi - Near Future
- Sci Fi - New Adult
- Sci Fi - Realistic
- Sci Fi - Science Fantasy
- Sci Fi - Singularity
- Sci Fi - Social
- Sci Fi - Space Exploration
- Sci Fi - Superheroes & Villains
- Sci Fi - Time Travel
- Sci Fi - Transhuman
- Sci Fi - Utopian
- Sci Fi - Weird Sci Fi
- Sci Fi - Young Adult
Word Count: 4000
Summary: Who expects a haunted doll to be such a nuisance? When Dare’s dog discovers an abandoned doll on their doorstep, Dare assumes it’s nothing more than a lost toy… until it begins to talk. After the doll offers up a string of bad suggestions and unhelpful advice, Dare is left wondering if the isolation of lockdown has finally proved too much. Struggling to get rid of the bad-tempered toy, Dare has no idea that this not-quite-scary fiend will accidentally change everything. With a dash of humour, this queer cosy-horror short story is a fun, quirky tale – perfect for readers who like the idea of being scared more than the reality of it.