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Author of 37 New York Times Best Selling Thrillers
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Suffer the Children
Dell,
1977
A novel of
unnatural passion and supernatural terror.
One hundred
years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle.
And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst
in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea.
Now something
peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The Children are disappearing,
one by one. An evil History is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified
child has ended her silence with a scream that began a hundred years ago.
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Punish
the Sinners
Dell,
1978
The dark
rapture of a medieval terror has come back to claim the young and innocent
one by one . . . by one.
Italy, 1252:
Inquisition. Accusation. Fear. Torture. The guilty and the innocent dying
for sins real and imagined, in the flames of the burning stake...
Neilsville,
1978: Peter Balsam has come to this sleepy desert town to teach its youth,
and finds a mystery of mounting horror. Something is happening to the
young girls of St. Francis Xavier High School--something evil. In bloodlet
and terror a suicide contagion has swept the town...while a dark order
of its holy men enacts a secret medieval ritual.
Is hysteria
manipulating these innocent children into violent self-destruction? or
has a supernatural force, a thirteenth-century madness, returned to...Punish
the Sinners.
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Cry
for the Strangers
Dell,
1979
And the Little
Children Shall Lead Them, from Terror...to Terror...to Terror.
Could such
a lovely little town hold something so evil?
Clark's Harbor
was the perfect coastal haven, jealously guarded against outsiders. But
now strangers have come to settle there. And a small boy is suddenly free
of a frenzy that had gripped him since birth...
His sister
is haunted by fearful visions... And one by one, in violent, mysterious
ways the strangers are dying. Never the townspeople. Only the strangers.
Has a dark bargain been struck between the people of Clark's Harbor and
some supernatural force?
Or is it
the sea itself calling out for human sacrifice? A howling, deadly...Cry
for the Strangers.
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Comes
the Blind Fury
Dell,
1980
A child cried
out...in torment. In terror. From out of the past, from out of the mists,
a terrible vengeance is born.
Amanda: A
century ago, a gentle blind girl walked the cliffs of Paradise Point.
Then the children came—taunting, teasing—until she lost her
footing and fell, shrieking her rage to the drowning sea...
Michelle:
Now Michelle has come from Boston to live in the big house on Paradise
Point. She is excited about her new life, ready to make new friends...until
a hand reaches out of the swirling mists—the hand of a blind child.
She is asking for friendship...seeking revenge...whispering her name...
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When
the Wind Blows
Dell,
1981
Out of the
night, out of the past, the terror comes...When the Wind Blows
The children
were waiting. Waiting for centuries. Waiting for someone to hear their
cries.
Now nine-year-old
Christie Lyons has come to live in the house on the hill—the house
where no children have lived for fifty years.
Now little
Christie will sleep in the old-fashioned nursery on the third floor.
Now Christie's
terror will begin...When the Wind Blows the children must die!
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The
God Project
Bantam,
1982
Something
is happening to the children of Eastbury, Massachusetts...Something that
causes healthy babies to turn cold in their cribs. Something that strikes
at the heart of every parent's darkest fears. Something unexplained that
is taking the children, one by one.
Sally Montgomery
has just lost her beautiful little baby girl. Lucy and Jim Corliss, bitterly
divorced, have been reunited by the sudden disappearance of their son.
An entire town waits on the edge of panic for the next child to be taken.
They all know there must be a reason for the terror.
But no one
ever expected...The God Project.
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Nathaniel
Bantam,
1984
From the
blood of the past, evil rises to seek undying vengeance...
Prairie Bend.
Brilliant summers amid golden fields. Killing winters of razorlike cold.
A peaceful, neighborly village, darkened by legends of death?
Who is Nathaniel?
For a hundred
years, the people of Prairie Bend have whispered the name in wonder and
fear. Some say he is simply a folk tale—a legend created to frighten
children on cold winter nights. Some swear he is a terrifying spirit returned
to avenge the past. And soon...very soon...some will come to believe that
Nathaniel lives still—darkly, horrifyingly real.
Nathaniel.
For young
Michael Hall, newly arrived in isolated Prairie Bend after having lost
his father to a sudden tragic accident, Nathaniel is the voice that calls
him across the prairie night...the voice that draws him into the shadowy
depths of the old, crumbling barn where he has been forbidden to go...the
voice—chanting, compelling—he will follow faithfully beyond
the edge of terror...Nathaniel.
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Brainchild
Bantam,
1985
La Paloma...once
home to a proud Spanish heritage...now a thriving modern community high
in the California hills...where a boy named Alex is about to become the
instrument of a terrible, undying vengeance...
Alex needs
a miracle.
Alex Lonsdale
was one of the most popular kids in La Paloma. Until the horrifying car
accident. Until a brilliant doctor's medical miracle brought him back
from the brink of death.
Now Alex
has come back.
He seems
the same. But in his eyes there is a terrible blankness. In his heart
there is a coldness. And if his parents, his friend, his girlfriend could
see inside his brain, if they could see his dreams, they would be terrified.
Now the people
must die.
One hundred
years a go in La paloma a terrible deed was done; a cry for vengeance
pierced the night. In dark and secret places in La Paloma that evil lives
still, that vengeance waits. Waits for Alex Lonsdale.
Waits for
the ...Brainchild
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Hellfire
Bantam,
1986
Pity the
dead.
For one hundred
years the old mill has stood silent, its dread secrets locked away and
barred from view. Still, the people of Westover, Massachusetts, remember—remember
and whisper of that fateful day when horrifying flames claimed eleven
innocent lives. The day the mill's iron doors slammed shut—forever.
Pray for
the living.
Now, Westover
is a sleepy town tucked away beyond the Interstate, all but forgotten.
Now, the last of the once-powerful Sturgess family dreams of reopening
the mill. Now Philip Sturgess is about to unlock the doors to the past...and
unleash an elemental fury. For beyond those doors, padlocked for so many
years, deep within the dark, abandoned building, a terrible vengeance
waits.
A vengeance
conceived in...Hellfire.
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The
Unwanted
Bantam,
1987
Cassie Winslow
is sixteen.
Cassie has
just lost her mother in a terrible accident. Now Cassie, lonely and frightened,
has come across the country to live with the father she barely knows and
his new family in tiny False Harbor on Cape Cod.
For Cassie,
the strange, unsettling dreams that come to her suddenly in the dead of
night are merely the beginning. For very soon, Cassie Winslow will come
to know the terrifying powers that are her gift.
And in the
village of False Harbor, nothing will ever be the same...
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The
Unloved
Bantam,
1988
The House:
Lush and
deceptively tranquil, with its pristine beaches and blossoming vegetation,
the island basks in splendid isolation off the South Carolina coast. Here,
where sudden storms unleash the murderous rage of wind and sea, stands
the Devereaux mansion, a once-great plantation house now crumbling amid
ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Here, Marguerite Devereaux, fifty
and childless, has cast off her dreams to care for her aged, demanding
mother.
The Family:
Now, for
the first time in twenty years, Kevin Devereaux has returned home to this
secluded place with his wife and two children. They have come to visit
Kevin's mother—hated, frightening Mother, with her slash of red lipstick,
mask of bone-white powder, and a tongue that has always cut to Kevin's
heart...and into his darkest nightmares. She said she was ill—but
is that the real reason the old woman summoned the son she has not seen
in so many years?
The Horror:
Suddenly,
horribly, Mother dies inside the locked nursery. And now there will be
no escape. For now, all the secrets of this once-proud southern family
emerge like tortured spirits from the sinister past to wrap their evil
around the unsuspecting children. Until, in the shadowed corridors and
dust-covered rooms of this decaying old house, they learn the true terror
of The Unloved.
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Creature
Bantam,
1989
To the Tanner
family, Silverdale beckons as a marvelous opportunity. For here, in this
serene picture-postcard-pretty town nestled high in the majestic Rockies,
a job promotion awaits Blake; new friends and activities beckon Sharon.
And in the windswept mountain air, their shy, nature-loving son, Mark,
will have the ideal opportunity to overcome the physical frailty an illness
has caused.
Silverdale.
It is the perfect town. Even Silverdale High School seems perfect--a model
school where well-behaved students make their parents and teachers proud.
And the football team never—ever—loses.
But soon,
too soon, Sharon Tanner will come to doubt the sanctuary of her family's
perfect new surroundings. Too soon she will begin to suspect the things
she cannot yet know:
The secret
rituals masked as science to which Silverdale's innocent children are
unwittingly subjected...
The hidden
places in deep cellars where steel gleams coldly against the dark—the
steel of cages built to contain an unimaginable evil...
The sudden
violence that turns a loving child murderous...
Soon—perhaps
too late—Sharon Tanner will realize that beneath Silverdale's perfect
facade a terrible presence watches...and waits. Through sleepless, fear-racked
nights she will listen to an eerie cry of unfathomable rage and pain.
A wail so horrifyingly unearthly it could belong to no living thing, animal
or human, she has ever known.
And then,
with crushing suddenness, Sharon will know—know that within Silverdale,
perhaps within her own home, a monstrous evil is harbored, and evil so
unspeakable it has no name except...Creature.
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Second
Child
Bantam,
1990
Secret Cove.
Ruggedly beautiful and remote, bordered by dark woods and deserted beaches,
this postcard-perfect village harbors the mansions of the wealthy—families
who have summered in splendid seclusion at Secret Cove for generations.
Here, one hundred years ago, on the night of the annual August Moon Ball,
a shy and lovely servant girl committed a single, unspeakable act of violence—an
act so shocking its legacy lives still.
And now,
long after the horror of that night has faded to a tale whispered by children
around summer camp fires, an unholy terror is about to be reborn.
Now, one
family is about to feel the icy hand of supernatural fear—as Melissa
Holloway, shy and troubled and just thirteen years old, comes to know
the blood-drenched secret that waits behind a locked attic door... For
in the dead of night a Secret Cove sleeps unaware, a soul-chilling presence
slowly begins to enact a terrifying vengeance.
Second Child:
It is unspeakable evil merely Melissa's nightmares made horrifyingly real?
Is it the manifestation of deadly fury risen from the grave? Or is the
heart-stopping horror soon to be unleased in Secret Cove something even
more insidious--something unimaginably evil...and alive?
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Sleepwalk
Bantam,
1991
Borrego,
New Mexico. A peaceful little desert town. Except for one thing. Somebody
here hates teenagers.
Hates them.
These troublemakers, these rebels, have to be controlled.
Silenced.
Forever.
Now he has
discovered an insidious way to strike back at them. In their sleep. In
their waking hours. Anytime. He is a madman with terrifying powers. And
soon, he will draw Borrego's children beyond the brink of night...
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Darkness
Bantam,
1991
The Andersons
left the town at the edge of the swamp long ago, never meaning to return.
There was something not quite right about the vast cruel lowlands of Villejeune...something
murky, menacing, hostile...an influence too malevolent to be natural.
But the Andersons' dream of a new life in Atlanta faded away with Ted's
lost job and sixteen-year-old Kelly's emotional problems. Now, hoping
a change of scenery might help their troubled daughter put her life back
together, Ted and Mary Anderson have decided to come home. Home to Villejeune.
But something
waits for them.
Something
evil.
Far from
the prying eyes of civilization, beyond the reach of human law, a mysterious
unknowable society lives by its own rules. They have their own customs,
their own ceremonies and blood rites—dark rituals of altars and infants,
of candle, spirit and knife. Now the Andersons' return has completed a
circle of destiny begun long ago. Now they must face a deadly drama of
unholy ceremony and secret horror, of ancient greed preying upon young
life, of unutterable depravity. For, like the other children of Villejeune—children
without mercy, without tears—Kelly Anderson is about to be drawn
into a darkness so terrible it spares no life, no soul...
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Bantam,
1992
They call
it The Academy.
Housed in
a secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged and picturesque Pacific
coast, it is a school for special children. Children gifted—or cursed—with
extraordinary minds. Children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence
even more brilliant than their own—and unspeakably evil. For within
this mind a dark, ingenious plan is taking form. A hellish experiment
meant to probe the ultimate limits of the human brain.
Computer
whiz kid Adam Aldrich lives for his exploration of virtual reality. Lured
ever deeper into his video fantasy world, he does not imagine that his
reality will soon become a living nightmare. Until the moment he sees
the blinding light. Adam's fate will be called a tragic midnight accident.
But is it something far worse?
Amy Carlson,
serious and shy, is fascinated by human behavior. But when she volunteers
for an experiment in choice making, she unknowingly narrows her own options.
When Amy's fate is sealed, will it be suicide—or murder?
For Josh
MacCallum, brilliant but lonely, Amy's cry for help leads to a frightening
knowledge. Soon Josh will suspect that Amy's desperate plea comes from
the depths of darkness, from a blackness so horrifying that not even he
with his genius-lever IQ could envision it. Soon Josh will uncover the
terrifying truth about The Academy.
And he will
come to understand that no one will believe him. Not unless he can pit
his young mind against an intellect so powerful, so evil, so cunning,
that nothing can resists its seductive invitation—into the shadows...
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Guardian
Fawcett,
1993
A telephone
ringing in the dead of night signals the beginning of a journey into fear
as Mary Anne Carpenter, newly separated and struggling to raise her two
children alone, hears the shocking news: two thousand miles away, her
friends, the Wilkensons, are suddenly, inexplicably dead, their only child,
Mary Anne's godchild, abruptly orphaned. Even as Mary Anne rushes to embrace
her young charge the disturbing questions mount. Was it merely a chance—though
tragic—mishap that took these lives? Or was it murder?
Soon Mary
Anne will begin to suspect an even more sinister force at work. For Joey
Wilkenson, a sad and silent adolescent, seems to harbor secrets beyond
her most nightmarish imaginings.
Soon, as
early winter closes in on the majestic, lonely spot where the Wilkensons
have built their beautiful ranch, transforming the mountain landscape
into a forbidding place of blinding storms and dangerous darkness, Joey's
sly secretiveness, his volatile temper, begin to turn Mary Anne's tender
feelings to icy fear.
And soon,
as a series of horrific murders draws ever closer to her young family—killings
that suggest some raging animal, or worse, and defy solution by a desperate
police force—Mary Anne begins to know the true meaning of terror.
In Guardian,
the forces of nature and the forces of evil combine chillingly in a complexly-woven
novel of psychological suspense, as a peaceful haven becomes a prison
where, alone in the howling winter whiteness, Mary Anne Carpenter must
guard her children against an unseen, ever more insatiable killer—a
killer who is closer than she thinks...
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The
Homing
Fawcett,
1994
It will be
the sweetest kind of homecoming for Karen Spellman. After years of living
in Los Angeles, the pretty, young widow and her two daughters are leaving
urban chaos behind to return to the lush countryside of Karen's childhood:
Pleasant Valley, a verdant, fertile place where Karen will rediscover
not only the bounty of the land, but love. For Karen is going home to
marry her high school sweetheart.
But something
sinister awaits the Spellmans. Something as primal as nature itself. Something
so hideous it seems not earthly, but spawned in hell. For here, long ago,
amid placid rolling fields, a shadowy menace once stalked the innocent.
Dormant, it waits or summer's heat to shimmer over the valley in a suffocating
wave, waits for the arrival of its perfect victim.
And now,
with the dizzying descent of a nightmare, Karen's homecoming will become
a confrontation with terror, as she struggles to protect her vulnerable
daughters from a menace that seems to rise from the very earth itself,
like a swarm of insects stirred in the frenzy of a monstrous homing a
malign, preternatural force that must satisfy its gruesome thirst for
its unsuspecting prey...
John Saul
weaves a dark web of psychological suspense and all-consuming evil in
a novel as richly atmospheric, as riveting and chilling, as any he has
ever produced.
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Black
Lightning
Fawcett,
1995 Also
available as an audio book
For five
years Seattle was seized in the terrifying grip of a monster as black
as evil itself. A sadistic serial killer methodically lured his victims
to grisly deaths in order to satisfy a twisted passion for life, leaving
a trail of mutilated bodies across the nation.
For five
years journalist Anne Jeffers stuck to this gruesome story like a shadow
through the killer's capture, trial and appeal doggedly keeping the wheels
of justice churning toward the electric chair, despite the prisoner's
reasoned claims of innocence.
Then came
the day of execution. The police and the public, especially Anne, thought
the five-year nightmare was over.
But it was
just beginning...
Someone or
something is murdering again, mirroring a sociopath's lurid desire to
hold life in the palms of his hands. Despite mounting doubts, Anne Jeffers
is determined to prove that the guilty man was indeed executed. Yet what
she finds is a sinister, powerful force that defies even death. Now pure
evil has taken a new form, and it longs for Anne....
In Black
Lightning, John Saul strikes with a novel as electrifying as a jagged
bolt from a pitch-dark sky, proving once again that he is a genius at
both nail-biting suspense and the spine-tingling macabre.
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The Blackstone Chronicles, The Serial
Novel
Ballantine,
1997
Go
to the Ballantine Books Web site for The
Blackstone Chronicles
From the top of Blackstone's highest hill the old Blackstone Asylum casts
its shadow over the village. Built in the 1890s, the Asylum has stood
vacant for decades. But now, the wrecker's ball is about to strike, smashing
into stone--and unleashing a terrible evil, an unholy fear long locked
within these walls. Soon, strange gifts will begin to appear on the doorsteps
of Blackstone's finest citizens. Each bears a mysterious history. Each
brings a horrifying power to harm. Each reveals another thread in the
suspensefully woven web of The Blackstone Chronicles.
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The
Presence
Ballantine,
1998
A
strange archaeological discovery. Secret medical experiments on
an island paradise. A scientific theory torn from today's headlines.
Beyond
the sparkling Hawaiian beaches, masked by the deceptive beauty of the
rainforest, evil awaits sixteen-year-old Michael Sundquist and his mother,
Katharine, an anthropologist who has come to the Islands to study the
unusal skeletal remains unearthed on the volcanic flanks of Haleakala,
Maui.
Yet
far below the black depths of the pacific a mysterious substance snakes
through undiscovered fissures in the ocean floor, as nature itself seems
to portend the terror to come.
Then,
with the sudden, unexplained death of Michael's friend, a disturbing truth
dawns: the corporation that is funding Katharine's dig has a far greater
investment than she ever imagined--an investment in medical terror.
And her son may be part of their hideous grand plan...
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The
Right Hand of Evil
Ballantine,
1999
When
the Conways move into their ancestral home in Louisiana after the death
of an estranged aunt, it is with the promise of a new beginning.
But the house has a life of its own. Abandoned for the last forty
years, surrounded by thick trees and a stifling sense of melancholy, the
sprawling Victorian house seems to swallow up the sunlight. Deep
within the cold cellar and etched into the very walls is a long, dark
history of the Conway name--a grim bloodline poisoned by suicide, strange
disappearances, voodoo rituals and rumors of murder. But the
family knows nothing of the soul-shattering secrets that snake through
generations of their past. They do not know that terror awaits them.
For with each generation of the Conways comes a hellish day of reckoning...
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Manhattan Hunt
Club
Ballantine, 2001
MANHATTAN HUNT CLUB You are
invited you to descend to chilling new depths of darkness-and discover
a secret, savage world that exists beneath our very feet. The promising
future of New York City college student Jeff Converse has suddenly been
shattered by a nightmarish turn of events. Falsely convicted of a brutal
crime, Jeff sees his life vanishing before his eyes. But someone has other
plans for Jeff, in a far deadlier place than any penitentiary. He finds
himself beneath the teeming streets of Manhattan, in a hidden landscape
of twisting tunnels and forgotten subterranean chambers. Here, an invisible
population of the homeless, the desperate, and the mad has carved out
its own shadow society. But they are not alone. The pitch-dark tunnels
and abandoned subway stations are haunted by the unmistakable sounds of
predators in search of game. Someone has made this forsaken civilization
beneath the city a private killing ground…and the hunt is on. Trapped
in a treacherous underground maze, cut off at every turn by ragged gangs
of sinister "gamekeepers," and stalked relentlessly by unseen hunters,
Jeff faces overwhelming odds in the race to reach salvation and elude
capture. With no weapon but his wits, and an unimaginable threat lurking
around every dark corner, Jeff must somehow move heaven and earth to escape
from a living hell. |
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Nightshade
Ballantine,
2000
Nightshade is the terrifying story of an innocent teenager who must confront the
sins of the past-and a corrupting evil that threatens to consume his entire
world.... Fifteen-year-old Matthew Moore seems to have it all: a loving
mother, Joan; a caring stepfather, Bill, who treats Matt like has own
son; residence at a sprawling estate in New Hampshire; and a growing relationship
with the most beautiful girl at school. All signs point to a bright future.
Until fate intervenes. A sudden fire leaves Matt's ailing grandmother
homeless. After moving in with the family, the caustic Emily insists on
re-creating the bedroom of her deceased daughter, the favored child who
died tragically more than a decade ago. Joan and her older sister had
always shared an uneasy bond-and a shameful secret that would forever
join them...even from beyond the grave. Then Matt's life insidiously begins
to change. He starts to smell his aunt's pungent perfume, so strong and
immediate that it is as if she has returned from the dead. At night, he
finds himself haunted by nightmares of unimaginable terror. While his
grandmother drives a wedge between his once devoted parents, Matt transforms
from a gregarious teenager to a hostile one, tortured by chilling memories
and prone to fits of rage. Then a shocking tragedy shatters the family
beyond repair, propelling Joan and Emily into a final, explosive confrontation...a
showdown in which old wounds will be viciously torn open-and a horrific
shadow from the past will spring an implacable life of its own, clawing
toward Matt with the ferocious inevitability of death itself. |
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Midnight Voices
Ballantine, 2002
MIDNIGHT VOICES What
if insidious evil flourished in the one place where you feel most safe?
The chilling answers comes fro New York Times bestselling master of
suspense John Saul-in a new novel that reminds you there is no place
like home…for sheer terror. The sudden, tragic death of her husband
leaves Caroline van alone in New York City to raise an eleven-year-old
son and a twelve-year-old daughter on little money and even less hope.
But then she meets and marries handsome, successful Anthony Fleming,
who wins her heart and embraces her children. When Caroline settles
her family into Anthony's spacious apartment on Manhattan's Central
Park West, her fears of an uncertain future give way to a sense of abundant
happiness. But soon, new terrors will come home to roost. In the luxurious,
exclusive building named The Rockwell. Midnight voices whisper of a
cruel and hungry presence that also calls the Rockwell home. First Caroline's
daughter begins to suffer from recurring nightmares of strangers in
her room at night. Then her son insists that a neighbor's recently deceased
child isn't dead at all-but being held captive somewhere in The Rockwell.
And when Caroline discovers a startling secret about Anthony's past,
it seems she, too, is falling victim to the creeping paranoia infecting
her family. Should she doubt her perfect husband, their kindly fellow
tenants, or her own sanity? Does someone-or something-in her new home
have sinister designs on the Caroline and her children? Is her new life
charmed or cursed? Ste; across the threshold of The Rockwell-and into
the dark realm of John Saul…in a spine tingling novel that will haunt
you wherever you live. |
Black Creek Crossing
Ballantine, 2003
Black
Creek Crossing The dark history and dire secrets of a peaceful
small town are summoned from the shadows of the past. Unholy forces are
stirred from long slumber to monstrous new life. And two young misfits
discover the chilling art of turning persecution into retribution. With
these eerie ingredients, bestselling master John Saul once again works
his unique brand of sinister magic to conjure an unforgettable tale of
unspeakable terror. For most of her young life, fifteen-year-old Angel
Sullivan has been on the outside looking in, enduring the taunts of cruel
schoolmates and the angry abuse of a bitter father. Then Angel’s family
moves to the quaint town of Roundtree, Massachusetts—where a charming
home is available, a promising job awaits Angel’s unemployed father, and
most of all, the chance to make a brand-new start beckons to the shy,
hopeful teenager. But when she is shunned by her new classmates, Angel
falls deeper into despair. Until she meets Seth Baker, a fellow outcast—and
a fateful kinship is forged. It’s Seth who tells Angel about the legacy
of murder that hangs over her family’s home—and the whispered rumors that
something supernatural still dwells there. Uncertain whether the stories
are true, and desperate to escape the torment of their daily lives, Angel
and Seth devote themselves to contacting whatever restless soul haunts
the dark recesses of Black Creek Crossing. But once they have begun, there
is no turning back. Guided by an anguished and vengeful spirit, they uncover
the shocking events and centuries-old horrors, that lay buried beneath
the placid veneer of Roundtree. And along with the ghastly revelations
comes a terrifying power—one that feeds upon the rage of the victimized,
turning the basest impulses and most dangerous desires into devastating
weapons,. Now, the closer Angel and Seth are pushed toward the edge by
their tormentors, the deeper they descend into the maelstrom of dark forces
they’ve unleashed…and the more unspeakable the hour of reckoning will
be. |
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Perfect
Nightmare
Ballantine, 2005
If you
open your house to strangers, who knows who might come in? And what
they might be after? Or who? Now, ponder the unthinkable, and surrender
to your darkest dread, as sinister storyteller extraordinaire John Saul
weaves a heart-stopping tale of lurking terror and twisted intent.
Every
parent's nightmare becomes reality for Kara Marshall when her daughter,
Lindsay, vanishes from her bedroom during the night. The police suspect
the girl is just another moody teenage runaway, angry over leaving her
school and friends behind because her family is moving. But Lindsay's
recent eerie claim-that someone invaded her room when the house was opened
to prospective buyers-drives Kara to fear the worst: a nameless, faceless
stalker has walked the halls of her home in search of more than a place
to live.
Patrick Shields
recognizes Kara's pain-and carries plenty of his own since he lost his
wife and two children in a devastating house-fire. But more than grief
draws them together. Patrick, too, senses the hand of a malevolent stranger
in his tragedy. And as more people go missing from houses up for sale,
Patrick's suspicion, like Kara's, blooms into horrified certainty.
Someone is
trolling this peaceful community-undetected and undeterred-harvesting
victims for a purpose no sane mind can fathom. Someone Kara and Patrick,
alone and desperate, are determined to unmask. Someone who is even now
watching, plotting, keeping a demented diary of unspeakable deeds . .
. and waiting until the time is ripe for another fateful visit. |
IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT
Ballantine Books, 2006
IN THE
DARK OF THE NIGHT Summer vacation becomes a season in hell for an
ordinary family who unwittingly stir something invisible, insidious, and
insatiable from its secret slumber-unleashing a wave of horror only the
darkest evil could create, that only a master of spine-tingling terror
like John Saul could orchestrate. For deep in the shadows in the dark
of the night lurks something as big as life . . . and as real as death.
It has waited
seven years for someone to come back to the rambling lakeside house called
Pinecrest, which has stood empty since its last owner went missing. For
upscale Chicago couple Dan and Merrill Brewster, the old midwestern manse
is an ideal retreat, and for their kids, Eric and Marci, it's the perfect
place to spend a lazy summer exploring. Which is how Eric and his teenage
friends discover the curious cache of discarded objects stowed in a hidden
room of Pinecrest's carriage house. The bladeless hacksaws, shadeless
lamps, tables with missing legs, headless axe handle, and other unremarkable
items add up to a pile of junk. Yet someone took the trouble to inventory
each worthless relic in a cryptic ledger. It has all the makings of a
great mystery-whispering, coaxing, demanding to be solved.
But the more
the boys devote themselves to restoring the forgotten possessions and
piecing together the puzzle behind them, the more their fascination deepens
into obsession. Soon their days are consumed with tending the strange,
secret collection-while their nights become plagued by ever more ghastly
dreams, nightmares that soon seep into reality. And when a horrifying
discovery surfaces, so does the chilling truth-about the terrifying events
that rocked the town seven years before, the mysterious disappearance
of Pinecrest's last resident, and a twisted legacy with a malevolent life
of its own . . . and a bottomless hunger for new victims. |
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DEVIL'S LABYRINTH
Ballantine Books, 2007
After
his father's untimely death sends fifteen-year-old Ryan McIntyre into
an emotional tailspin, his mother enrolls him in St. Isaac's Catholic
boarding school, hoping the venerable institution with a reputation
for transforming wayward teens can work its magic on her son. But troubles
are not unknown even at St. Isaac, where Ryan arrives to find the school
awash in news of one student's violent death, another's mysterious disappearance,
and growing incidents of disturbing behavior within the hallowed halls.
Things
begin to change when Father Sebastian joins the faculty. Armed with
unprecedented knowledge and uncanny skills acquired through years of
secret study, the young priest has been dispatched on an extraordinary
and controversial mission: to prove the power of one of the Church's
most arcane sacred rituals, exorcism. Willing or not, St. Isaac's most
troubled students will be pawns in Father Sebastian's one-man war against
evil-a war so surprisingly effective that the pope himself takes notice
of the seemingly miraculous events unfolding an ocean away.
But
Ryan, drawn ever more deeply into Father Sebastian's ministrations,
sees-and knows-otherwise. As he witnesses with mounting dread the transformations
of his fellow pupils, his certainty grows that forces of darkness, not
divinity, are at work. Evil is not being cast out . . . something else
is being called forth. Something that hasn't stirred since the Inquisition's
reign of terror. Something nurtured through the ages to do its vengeful
masters' unholy bidding. Something whose hour has finally come to bring
hell unto earth. |
FACES OF FEAR
Ballantine
Books, 2008
Beauty
may be only skin deep, but to the denizens of Beverly Hills and Bel
Air, it means the world. Fifteen-year-old Alison Shaw may not be beautiful,
but she doesn't really care: she'd much rather read a good book than
primp in front of a mirror anyway. But Alison's mother, Risa, knows
that beauty can be a key to success, and she wishes only the best
for her daughter. Be careful what you wish for.
When
Risa marries a widowed plastic surgeon and moves Alison from Santa
Monica to Bel Air, everything changes; everywhere mother and daughter
look, their new world is filled with beautiful people, many of whom
have benefited from the skills of Alison's new stepfather, the charismatic
Conrad Dunn, who is certain he can turn Alison into a vision of beauty.
Risa is delighted by Conrad's assurances-and drawn to his cool confidence
and deep-set eyes. Reluctantly, Alison agrees to undergo the first
procedure, and her transformation begins. But soon Alison discovers
a picture of Conrad's first wife, who killed herself after being disfigured
in a car accident. To Alison's horror, she notices a resemblance between
the image in the photo and the work her stepfather is doing on her.
Though Risa refuses to acknowledge the strange similarity, Alison
becomes increasingly frightened. Digging further into her stepfather's
murky past, Alison uncovers dark secrets-and even darker motives-involving
a string of grim murders that began even before she was born. And
when at last she catches sight of what she will soon be seeing in
her own mirror, she knows her worst fears are fast becoming her reality.
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House
of Reckoning
Ballentine,
2009
After
the untimely death of her mother while she is still in her early teens,
Sarah Crane is forced to grow up quickly-in order to help tend her
family's Vermont farm and look after her grieving father, who's drowning
his sorrow in alcohol. But their quiet life together is shattered
when her father is jailed for killing another man in a barroom brawl,
and injuring Sarah in a drunken car crash.
Left
in the cold care of a loveless foster family and alienated at school,
Sarah finds a kindred spirit in classmate Nick Dunnigan, a former
mental patient still plagued by voices and visions. And in eccentric
art instructor Bettina Phillips, she finds a mentor eager to nurture
her talent for painting.
But
within the walls of Bettina's ancestral home, the mansion called Shutters,
Sarah finds something altogether different and disturbing.
Monstrous images from the house's dark history seem to flow unbidden
from her paintbrush-images echoed by Nick's chilling hallucinations.
Trapped for ages in the shadowy rooms of Shutters, the violence and
fury of long-dead generations has finally found a gateway from the
grave into the world of the living. And Sarah and Nick have found
a power they never had: to take control, and take revenge. . |
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