‘Deliciously creepy’ NEW SCIENTIST

Fear never dies?

Featuring stories from Susan Barker, J K Chukwu, Bridget Collins, Mariana Enríquez, Michel Faber, Lewis Hancox, Emilia Hart, Ainslie Hogarth, Robert Lautner, Adorah Nworah, Irenosen Okojie, Lucy Rose, Lionel Shriver, James Smythe, Lavie Tidhar, Francine Toon, Evie Wyld and Louisa Young.

These stories from eighteen master storytellers will curdle your blood, haunt your dreams and redefine terror.

From a hungry young woman who is not what she seems, to a boy who has taken his mother’s advice a little too seriously; from disfigured girls willing to pay any price to fit in, to an immigrant who cannot escape his tormentor in his new home country; from a new home with a sinister secret, to the discovery that a long-dead parent’s corpse is perfectly preserved decades later; this collection plumbs the depths of the psyche and dredges up some very modern horrors.

READERS ARE OBSESSED

‘Stunning’

‘Well-plotted and horrifying’

‘Visceral, creepy, gory? stays in your head long after reading them’

‘It’s so satisfying to turn to the next story in an anthology like this and be pretty confident it’s going to be a banger? bravo’

‘Spine-tingling? I was gripped and it kept me up at night as I just wanted to read one more story’

‘Often unusual, always unique? a wildly eclectic cornucopia of horror’

The woman never goes by the same name.
She never stays in the same place too long.
She never ages. She never dies.
But those around her do.

When two grieving strangers meet by chance in Osaka airport they uncover a disturbing connection. Jake’s best friend and Mariko’s twin brother each died, 6,000 miles apart, in brutal and unfathomable circumstances.

Each encountered a mesmerising, dark-haired woman in the days before their deaths. A woman who came looking for Mariko – and then disappeared.

Jake, who has carried his loss and guilt for a decade, finds himself compelled to follow the trail set by Mariko’s revelations. It’s a trail that weaves across continents and centuries, leading back to the many who have died – in strange and terrifying and eerily similar ways – and those they left behind: bewildered, disbelieved, yet resolutely sure of what they saw.

And, at the centre of it all, there is the same beguiling woman. Her name may have changed, but her purpose has never wavered, and as Jake races to discover who, or what she is, she has already made her next choice.

But will knowing her secret be enough to stop her?

—

‘Snags the reader in its claw and mesmerizes from page one’ Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch

‘Smart, taut and twisty … Deftly delivers the chills’ Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

These stories from eighteen masters of the craft will curdle your blood, haunt your dreams and redefine terror.

An exploited child worker in the silver mines of Bolivia finds an ally – but at what cost? A young woman’s workplace affair has terrifying repercussions when her lover’s wife dies. A sailor’s wife takes her communion with Nature a little too far?

From a hungry young woman who is not what she seems, to a boy who has taken his mother’s advice a touch too seriously; from disfigured girls willing to pay any price to fit in, to an immigrant who cannot escape his tormentor; from a new home with a sinister secret, to the discovery that a long-dead parent’s corpse is perfectly preserved decades later; this collection plumbs the depths of the psyche and dredges up some very modern horrors.

Featuring stories by: Susan Barker, J K Chukwu, Bridget Collins, Mariana Enríquez, Michel Faber, Lewis Hancox, Emilia Hart, Ainslie Hogarth, Robert Lautner, Adorah Nworah, Irenosen Okojie, Lucy Rose, Lionel Shriver, James Smythe, Lavie Tidhar, Francine Toon, Evie Wyld and Louisa Young.