Other books that might interest you

• 

  Mother Doll - A Novel

  Katya Apekina

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Zhenia is adrift in Los Angeles, pregnant with a baby her husband doesn't want, while her Russian grandmother and favorite person in the world is dying on the opposite coast. She's deeply disconnected from herself and her desires when she gets a strange call from Paul, a psychic medium who usually specializes in channeling dead pets, with a message from the other side. Zhenia's great-grandmother Irina, a Russian Revolutionary, has approached him from a cloud of ancestral grief, desperate to tell her story and receive absolution from Zhenia. 
   
   
   
  As Irina begins her confession with the help of a purgatorial chorus of grieving Russian ghosts, Zhenia awakens to aspects of herself she hadn't been willing to confront. But does either woman have what the other needs to understand their predicament? Or will Irina be stuck in limbo, with Zhenia plagued by ancestral trauma, and her children after her? 
   
   
   
  Ferociously funny and deeply moving, Mother Doll forces us to look at how painful secrets stamp themselves from one generation to the next. Katya Apekina's second novel is a family epic and a meditation on motherhood, immigration, identity, and war.

  Show book

• 

  Black Dove

  Colin McAdam

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In a tall and narrow house, on a stained and busy street, live twelve-year-old Oliver and his father, a story-loving writer. Haunted by the ghost of his alcoholic mother, Oliver finds comfort in his father's impromptu tales: the Black Dove, an elusive flower that gives strength; the girl who consumes it as she battles attackers and yearns for happier realms. Stories where lonely souls keep searching despite their losses and grief. 
   
   
   
  Running from a bully one night, Oliver hides in a junk shop owned by an enigmatic man. Soon, instead of hiding in the janitor’s closet after school, Oliver spends afternoons in the shop, a cavernous place full of storied oddities and grubby wonders where creatures rise up from the basement. A snake in the shape of a boy. A hunter named Night, part panther, part hound, who proves to Oliver that the world holds invisible wonder. 
   
   
   
  Wanting to forget his mother, afraid of his own genes, constantly harassed by bullies, Oliver joins the shop owner in experimenting with dangerous forms of genetic editing. Meanwhile, he meets the girl from across the street, and their friendship grows in a neighborhood where magic is real, where murderers gather, and where the darker consequences of fantasies play out.

  Show book

• 

  Annabel Lee

  Edgar Allan Poe

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Title: Annabel Lee 
  Author: Edgar Allan Poe 
  Narrator: Not included / Various Public Domain Recordings Available 
  Original Publication: 1849 
  Public Domain: Yes 
  Series Placement: Timeless Terrors No. 61 
  Description: 
  Annabel Lee is Edgar Allan Poe’s final completed poem — a haunting ballad of love so powerful it defies even death. Set in a “kingdom by the sea,” the narrator recounts a romance with the beautiful Annabel Lee, a bond so pure and radiant that even celestial powers grow jealous. What follows is a tragic tale of loss, longing, and eternal devotion, as the speaker clings to the memory of his beloved despite the grave’s cold claim. 
  Poe weaves together the gothic and the ethereal, transforming grief into lyrical beauty. The sea becomes both a backdrop and a specter — its tides echoing the relentless pull of memory and the undying heartbeat of the narrator’s love. 
  A cornerstone of American Romanticism, Annabel Lee endures as one of literature’s most poignant meditations on love’s refusal to fade, reminding us that some bonds remain unbroken, “in this kingdom by the sea.”

  Show book

• 

  Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr...

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  “I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.” 
  Narrator RJ Bayley and Audiobook Empire have once again teamed up to bring you another Gothic classic from Bayley's Bookshelf.  
  Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde explores the bifurcated nature of one man's psyche and the turmoil it can bring upon society, in a time when such things were not fully understood.

  Show book

• 

  The Cask of Amontillado - A...

  Edgar Allan Poe

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  REVENGE HAS A VOICE—AND IT’S CALLING YOUR NAME! Welcome to the world of The Cask of Amontillado—a bone-chilling tale of deception, terror, and cold-blooded vengeance. Step into the twisted mind of Montresor, a man consumed by hatred, whose thirst for revenge will leave you breathless. FEEL your pulse quicken as he lures his unsuspecting victim INTO THE DARK, suffocating catacombs, where the air thickens with every breath. The walls close in as the tension builds—each step drawing you closer to an UNIMAGINABLE FATE. With every sentence, Poe’s genius will send chills down your spine, pulling you deeper into a nightmare of his creation. The haunting imagery, the merciless suspense— it’s a rollercoaster of pure fear. LISTEN NOW, and let the terror of The Cask of Amontillado grip you, DRAGGING YOU DEEPER into a world of cold, calculated horror. This is NO ordinary story—it’s a descent into madness that WILL haunt you long after the final word. DARE YOU FACE THE DARKNESS?

  Show book

• 

  The Water Child

  Mathew West

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  What the sea takes for its own can never return… 
  Portugal, 1754. Cecilia Lamb knew being a sea captain’s wife would mean a life of waiting and watching the horizon for her husband’s ship. But John has been gone longer than any voyage should last. Everyone else has given up hope of his return. But she knows in her bones that he is not lost. Gone, but not lost. 
  Barely able to tear her eyes from the shimmering sea, she feels drawn to the sun-baked shoreline, and amid the bustle of the docks she feels certain that her husband will come back to her. Though along with that feeling is another sense – that something darker is coming. As she sickens, she doesn’t know what the next tide will bring – but she begins to fear as well as crave her husband’s homecoming. 
  Soon, even on dry land, Cecilia can feel the pull of the ocean at her feet, the movement of the tides within her. Warning, seduction or promise, she cannot tell, but one thing is certain – the sea holds many secrets, and some of them are too powerful to ever be drowned. 
  In this latest work of fiction by Mathew West, the supernatural and gothic elements intertwine to create a thrilling narrative that will leave readers on the edge of their seats. The Water Child, a top pick among thrillers, delves into the darkest corners of the human psyche, exploring the horror that can arise from the depths of despair and longing. 
  For fans of George Bellairs (Surfeit of Suspects), Dana Cameron (Pack of Strays), Margery Allingham (Flowers for the Judge), Jess Kidd (The Night Ship), and Elizabeth Macneal (The Burial Plot). 
  HarperCollins 2023

  Show book