Shadows in Summerland

Adrian Van Young

Summary

“An extraordinary novel sure to enchant readers of Sarah Waters as well as those looking for a thrilling and transporting gothic tale.” —Julia Fierro, author of The Gypsy Moth Summer The author of The Man Who Noticed Everything, an award-winning collection of short stories, presents his debut work of full-length fiction, “a witty and disturbing horror novel . . . as if Henry James had written an issue of Tales from the Crypt” (Bennett Sims, author of A Questionable Shape). Loosely based on the lives of spirit photographer William H. Mumler and his wife, Shadows in Summerland transports readers to 1859 Boston, where those who promise access to the otherworldly—mediums, spiritualists, and psychics—are celebrated. This embrace of illusion and intrigue provides the perfect hunting ground for con artists and charlatans—men like William Mumler. When William teams up with Hannah, a shy young girl who sees and manifests the dead, they are welcomed into the drawing rooms of the city’s elite. But the couple’s newfound fame and fortune draw grifters and rogues into their circle, including someone who will bring the afterlife closer to them than they could ever imagine. Spanning three decades, Shadows in Summerland “recalls an era no less gullible than the present one . . . Van Young’s prose skillfully illuminates his gothic tale of greed, obsession, and murder” (Publishers Weekly). “A fabulous and weird addition to the contemporary fantastic.” —Laird Barron, author of Black Mountain

Available since: 09/08/2020.

Print length: 384 pages.

Other books that might interest you

The Tindalos Asset

Caitlin R. Kiernan

A rundown apartment in Koreatown. A Los Angeles winter. A strung out, worn out, wrecked, and used government agent is scraped up off the pavement, cleaned up, and reluctantly sent out into battle one last time.Ellison Nicodemo has seen and done terrible things. She thought her only remaining quest was for oblivion. Then the Signalman comes calling. He wants to learn if she can stop the latest apocalypse. Ellison, once a unique and valuable asset, can barely remember why she ever fought the good fight.Still, you don't say no to the Signalman, and the time has come to face her fears and the nightmare forces that almost destroyed her. Only Ellison can unleash the hound of Tindalos . . .

Show book

Magda

S. E. England

The dark and twisted community of Woodsend harbors a terrible secret-one tracing back to the age of the Elizabethan witch hunts, when many innocent women were persecuted and hanged.But there is a far deeper vein of horror running through this village; an evil that, once invoked, has no intention of relinquishing its grip on the modern world. Rather, it watches and waits with a focused intelligence, leaving ward sister Becky and police officer Toby constantly checking over their shoulders and jumping at shadows.Just who invited in this malevolent presence? And is the demonic woman who possessed Magda back in the sixteenth century the same one now gazing at Becky whenever she looks in the mirror?You may need to sleep with the lights on after listening to this . . . Are you ready to meet Magda in this final installment to the trilogy? Are you sure?

Show book

Best Tales of the Apocalypse

D. L. Snell, Bobbie Metevier

Fourteen of the best horrifying tales of the end of the world, collected in one anthology. 
 
Best Tales of the Apocalypse is full of the best short stories and novellas of the sub-genre. There are gods and monsters, Lovecraftian creatures and viruses that wipe out life as we know it. Read about colliding continents, nuclear war, and technology gone awry with darker, more insidious things you haven’t yet imagined. 
 
Edited by D. L. Snell and Bram Stoker Award–winner Joe McKinney, this collection contains 14 shattering tales by some of the genre’s first and final scribes. Here, the world doesn’t just end once. These are the horsemen, the trumpeting angels. Their words are the bowls of wrath, dumped again and again. This is the book that’s been centuries in the making. The Final Book. And the choir’s singing one last Psalm. The End is the best part. 
 
Featuring works from: 
 
Joe McKinney, Tim Curran, J.F. Gonzalez, Michael Oliveri, David Conyers, Lee Moan, Rebecca Day, Derek J. Goodman, Lyn C.A. Gardner, Ian Randal Strock, Michael Sellars, Dario Ciriello 
 
Daniel R. Robichaud, Ian Rogers, and Patrice Sarath.

Show book

Little Apples

Ricky Monahan Brown

An aspiring writer of gothic fiction and his wife move upstate when financial crisis hits New York City. Their destination ― a house that was once the height of modernity and the orchard that they establish there. As the couple begin a new life, crisis continues to stalk them. Astrid is slowly consumed by her beloved apple trees. The police are joined by the local community in investigating a headline missing person case, and nothing is quite as it seems. Then, when the pair seem to have established their own personal Eden, they must confront the ungodly powers gathering in the roots of the surrounding forests.  Ricky Monahan Brown's  Little Apples  has all the aromatic flavour of the modern Gothic: sharply tart amid rot and decay. This dark and wry tale explores some of the strangest manifestations ever to be found growing at the heart of a contemporary marriage.

Show book

Dead America: The Second Week -...

Derek Slaton

Before the invasion of Seattle can commence, Spokane must be pacified. With manpower at a premium, the newly promoted Captain Kersey must employ risky tactics if his men are to survive the day.

Show book

First Love Last Rites

Ian McEwan

Somerset Maugham Award winner: Dark early fiction by the author of Nutshell—“A splendid magician of fear” (The Village Voice Literary Supplement).   Taut, brooding, and densely atmospheric, the stories here show us how murder can arise out of boredom, perversity from adolescent curiosity—and how sheer evil can become the solution to unbearable loneliness.   These short fiction pieces from the early career of the New York Times–bestselling and Man Booker Prize–winning author of Atonement and On Chesil Beach are claustrophobic tales of childhood, twisted psychology, and disjointed family life as terrifying as anything by Stephen King—and finely crafted with a lyricism and an intensity that compels us to confront our secret kinship with what repels us.   “A powerful talent that is both weird and wonderful.” —The Boston Sunday Globe   “Ian McEwan’s fictional world combin[es] the bleak, dreamlike quality of de Chirico’s city-scapes with the strange eroticism of canvases by Balthus. Menace lies crouched between the lines of his neat, angular prose, and weird, grisly things occur in his books with nearly casual aplomb.” —The New York Times

Show book