The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 19 Read online

  A demon-hunting knight confronted a demonic Lilith in contemporary San Francisco in Demon Angel by “Melijean Brook” (Melissa Khan), the first in a new paranormal romance series.

  Demon’s Kiss was a Harlequin vampire romance by “Maggie Shayne” (Margaret Benson). The same author’s Immortal Desire contained the 2001 novel Destiny and a new novella.

  An investigative TV reporter discovered more than expected about an Eastern European criminal in Fangland, John Mark’s reworking of Dracula, while an Egyptian pharaoh was revived as a vampire in Las Vegas in Night Life by “Elizabeth Guest” (Suzanne Simmons Gunfrum).

  In Taken by the Night by Kathryn Smith, a vampire was on the trail of a murderer. The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason was the first in the “Gardella Vampire Chronicles”, about a female vampire-slayer, and CIA assassin Jaz Parks had a vampire boss in Once Bitten, Twice Shy and Another One Bites the Dust, both by Jennifer Rardin.

  Vampire bounty hunter Anna Strong featured in Jeanne C. Stein’s Blood Drive, a sequel to The Becoming. It was followed by The Watcher, in which Anna joined the eponymous group of supernatural enforcers.

  Vampire-killer Cat teamed up with a vampire bounty hunter named Bones in Halfway to the Grave, a paranormal romance in the “Night Huntress” series by Jeaniene Frost, and Shiloh Walker’s Hunters: Heart and Soul, a sequel to Hunting the Hunter, featured two linked novellas about a bounty hunter and vampires

  A journalist encountered two very different vampires in Catherine Mulvany’s Something Wicked, and a female psychologist became involved in the vampire underworld in Lynda Hilburn’s The Vampire Shrink. An undead female FBI agent was on the trail of a vampire slayer in Eternal by “V. K. Forrest” (Colleen Faulkner).

  A paranormal researcher teamed up with a sexy vampire professor in Real Vamps Don’t Drink O-Neg by Tawny Taylor, while a paranormal investigation business was under threat in Minda Webber’s humorous vampire romance Bustin’.

  A thousand-year-old vampire found her powers waning in The Vampire Queen’s Servant by Joey W. Hill, the first in the “Vampire Queen” series.

  A woman in nineteenth-century London was infected by a vampire’s blood in Susan Squires’ One with the Night, the first volume in a new series. It was followed by One with the Shadows.

  The undead Jon Hyde-Whyte tried to cure his vampirism in Dawn Thompson’s Regency romances Blood Moon and The Brotherhood, while Julia Templeton’s historical vampire romance Return to Me was set in the Scottish Highlands.

  A vampire opened a boutique in Texas in Gerry Bartlett’s Real Vampires Have Curves and its sequel, Real Vampires Live Large, and Delilah Devlin’s erotic vamprom Into the Darkness was set in New Orleans.

  Patrice Michelle’s Scions: Resurrection was the first in a new vampire romance trilogy. The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires was another paranormal romance by “Katie MacAlister” (Marthe Arends, aka “Katie Maxwell”).

  Anne Frasier’s Garden of Darkness was a sequel to Pale Immortal and once again featured haunted medical examiner Rachel Burton, who became involved in the public display of a mummified vampire and the discovery of a mass grave in Wisconsin.

  Claimed by Shadow was the second volume in Karen Chance’s vampire romance series featuring Cassie Palmer, while X-Rated Bloodsuckers was the second in Mario Acevedo’s humorous series about vampire detective Felix Gomez.

  Fanged & Fabulous, Michelle Rowen’s sequel to Bitten & Smitten, was about new vampire Sarah Dearly, while Richelle Mead’s Succubus on Top was the sequel to Succubus Blues and once again featured Seattle succubus Georgina Kincaid.

  Coyote shape-shifting mechanic Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson had to stop a vampire possessed by a demon in Blood Bound, the second in Patricia Briggs’ series after Moon Called.

  Dead Sexy, the sequel to Tall, Dark & Dead by “Tate Hallaway” (Lyda Morehouse), once again involved witch Garnet Lacey, her vampire boyfriends, the goddess Lilith, zombies and the FBI.

  Be Still My Vampire Heart by Kerrelyn Sparks was a sequel to How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire, while a witch and a vampire found themselves under a love spell in Michele Hauf’s Kiss Me Deadly.

  Michele Bardsley’s Don’t Talk Back to Your Vampire was the sequel to I’m the Vampire, That’s Why, again featuring undead single mother and librarian Eva LeRoy.

  Midnight Brunch was the sequel to Marta Acosta’s humorous vampire romance Happy Hour at Casa Dracula, Alexandra Ivy’s Embrace the Darkness was the second book in the “Guardians of Eternity” series, and Colleen Gleason’s Rises the Night was second in the “Gardella Vampire Chronicles”.

  The Queen of Wolves was the third volume in Douglas Clegg’s fantasy/vampire series The Vampyricon, and Half the Blood of Brooklyn was the third in Charlie Huston’s series about undead New York private investigator Joe Pitt.

  Raven Hart’s The Vampire’s Secret and The Vampire’s Kiss were the latest volumes in the “Savannah Vampire Chronicles” series that began with The Vampire’s Seduction.

  Jennifer Armintrout’s Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes to Ashes involved an attempt to turn the world into a vampire paradise.

  Beneath the Skin and In the Blood by “Savannah Russe” (Charlee Trantino) were the third and fourth books in the “Darkwing Chronicles”, while Tempted in the Night and Lord of the Night were the third and fourth volumes in the “Night Slayer” romance series by Robin T. Popp.

  Bled Dry and Sucker Bet were the third and fourth volumes in the “Vegas Vampires” series by Erin McCarthy (aka “Erin Lynn”). From the same writer, My Immortal and Demon Envy were other paranormal romances published under various pseudonyms.

  The half-undead Christopher Csejthe encountered drowned zombie vampires in New Orleans in Mark Wm. Simmons’ humorous Dead Easy, the fourth in the “Half Life” series.

  In the sixth “Betsy the Vampire Queen” novel, Undead and Uneasy, author Maryjanice Davidson threw everything into the long-awaited wedding, including the Wyndham Werewolves.

  Secrets in the Shadows and Shadows on the Soul were the latest titles in Jenna Black’s “Guardians of the Night” series. Meanwhile, The Devil Inside by the same author was the first volume in “Morgan Kinsley, Exorcist” series.

  The Wicked and The Cursed were the most recent volumes in the “Vampire Huntress Legends” series by L. A. Banks (Leslie Esdaile Banks).

  Lover Revealed and Lover Unbound were new books in the “Black Dagger Brotherhood” series by “J. R. Ward” (Jessica Bird), while Lynsay Sands continued her “Argeneau Vampires” series with Bite Me If You Can and The Accidental Vampire.

  A werewolf and a vampire fell in love with each other in Morgan Hawke’s Kiss of the Wolf, while a werewolf was pursued through New York by a hunter and a vampire in Melina Morel’s Devour.

  Touch of Madness was the sequel to C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp’s Touch of Evil, in which Kate Reilly and her werewolf boyfriend investigated the killing of young vampires. It was followed by Moon’s Fury.

  In Patricia Briggs’ Blood Bound, the follow-up to Moon Called, Coyote shape-shifting mechanic Mercy Thompson helped her undead friend Stefan deliver a message to an evil vampire/sorcerer.

  A pack of man-hungry female werewolves were searching for mates in Kimberly Raye’s Dead and Dateless, the second in the “Dead End Dating” vampire romance series. It was followed by Your Coffin or Mine?, in which a vampire match-maker became involved with a reality TV show.

  Keri Arthur’s Kissing Sin, Tempting Evil, Dangerous Games and Embraced by Darkness were the latest volumes in the “Riley Jenson, Guardian” series, about a half-vampire, half-werewolf hybrid employed by the US government.

  Kathy Love’s My Sister is a Werewolf was a sequel to Fangs for the Memories, while Chasing Midnight by Susan Krinard was about a female vampire meeting a werewolf in 1920s Greenwich Village.

  Carole Nelson Douglas’ Dancing with Werewolves was the first in a new mystery series featuring paranormal investigator Delilah Street and set in a Las Vegas controlled by werewolves.


  Having been outed as a shape-changer on national television, werewolf Kitty retreated to a mountain cabin in Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Takes a Holiday, the third in the series. Unfortunately, trouble followed in the shape of a werewolf hunter and a monstrous creature with blazing red eyes. This novel and the previous two books were collected by the Science Fiction Book Club in the omnibus volume, Long-Time Listener First-Time Werewolf. Kitty subsequently returned to Denver in Kitty and the Silver Bullet.

  The Silver Collar by Mathilde Madden was the first volume in the erotic “Silver Werewolves” series, published by Black Lace.

  A lycanthropic landscape architect was saved by a female werewolf from another dimension in New Moon by Rebecca York (Ruth Click). The same author was responsible for the paranormal romance Beyond Fearless, which featured nightclub psychic Anna Ridgeway in search of a Caribbean treasure.

  A series of murders threatened to expose lycanthropic supermodel Lou Kinipski in Ronda Thompson’s romance/mystery Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel, while Christina Dodd’s Scent of Darkness and Touch of Darkness were the first two books in the “Darkness Chosen” series about a family of cursed shape-shifters.

  Kresley Cole’s Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night was the third book in the “Immortals After Dark” romance series and involved a werewolf protecting the witch he had sworn vengeance upon.

  Awaiting the Fire was the third volume in Donna Lea Simpson’s werewolf romance series that began with Awaiting the Moon.

  For a Few Demons More by “Kim Harrison” (Dawn Cook) was the fifth volume about PI witch Rachel Morgan, who found herself being pursued by werewolves and demons trying to get hold of a magical artefact. The paperback edition added a bonus story set in the same series.

  A female doctor accidentally raised the spirit of a warrior shape-shifter in The Lure of the Wolf by “Jennifer St Giles” (Jenni Leigh Grizzle), the latest title in the “Shadowmen” series. From the same author, Silken Shadows was a paranormal romance in which psychic Gemini Andrews investigated a murder on a ship.

  Lucy Monroe’s Moon Awakening was the latest volume in the “Children of the Moon” werewolf historical romance series. Touch of the Wolfwas another werewolf romance novel by Karen Whiddon about “The Pack”, while Lori Handeland’s Hidden Moon and Thunder Moon were new titles in the “Nightcreatures” series.

  Although undoubtedly popular among a certain readership (which does not necessarily crossover into the rest of horror literature), it surely cannot be too long before the whole vampire/werewolf/paranormal/humorous/romance bandwagon implodes under its own weight and goes the way of horror’s “boom and bust” period of the 1980s.

  Without doubt, one of the most impressive debut novels of the year was Joe Hill’s remarkable Heart-Shaped Box, which concerned a malignant ghost bought over the Internet by an ageing heavy metal rock star with a ghoulish hobby. Beautifully published on both sides of the Atlantic by Morrow and Gollancz, the latter imprint’s first edition hardcover was a work of art in itself.

  Hill himself was profiled on both sides of the ocean in the March issues of The New York Times Magazine and The Times Books supplement.

  God’s Demon from artist and film concept-designer Wayne Barlowe was billed as a modern sequel to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It involved one Fallen Angel’s attempt to change his fate by rebelling against the forces of Hell to win his redemption.

  A woman working on an uncompleted biography of Isaac Newton discovered a connection between a series of seventeenth-century murders and a number of contemporary killings in Rebecca Stott’s mystery Ghostwalk.

  A recently purchased bed-and-breakfast appeared to have ghosts in Richard Taylor’s The Haunting of Cambria.

  The ghost of a teenage murder victim was prevented from moving on by a lonely fifteen-year-old boy in Christopher Barzak’s coming-of-age debut One for Sorrow, which the cover copy compared to The Catcher in the Rye.

  Steve Berman’s first novel, Vintage: A Ghost Story, involved a couple of disparate teenagers and the malevolent spirit of a boy who died in the 1950s.

  A woman had visions of murders in The Dark Gate by “Pamela Palmer” (Pamela Poulson), while Virginia Baker’s debut Jack Knife was a time-travel novel featuring Jack the Ripper.

  Adrian Phoenix’s debut A Rush of Wings was a serial killer/ vampire novel set in New Orleans.

  A first novel about a former boyfriend who would not stay dead, Uninvited was a young adult vampire romance by Amanda Marrone. Heather Brewer’s The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eighth Grade Bites was a first novel for young adults about a boy who was half-vampire.

  Lucy Swan’s short debut novel from Savoy Books, The Adventures of Little Lou, was set in David Britton’s “Lord Horror” mythos.

  There was more than a touch of Something Wicked This Way Comes to Will Elliott’s humorous and macabre The Pilo Family Circus, about a boy forced to join a centuries-old carnival that hid a terrible secret.

  Translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg, Let the Right One In (aka Lät den rätte komma in/Let Me In) by John Ajvide Lindquist was about a troubled young boy who discovered that the mysterious girl who lived next door was actually a 200-year-old vampire.

  Set in 1718, Clare Clark’s Gothic mystery The Nature of Monsters involved a pregnant maid working for an opium-crazed apothecary with a bizarre theory about the development of embryos.

  A woman made a bargain for eternal life in Miranda Miller’s having Mephistopheles, while a worker in a funeral home encountered something unexplainable in Alan Lightman’s Ghost.

  From publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Red Spikes was a collection of ten original stories by Australian writer Margo Lanagan, ostensibly aimed a younger readers.

  Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth was a novel-length poem about werewolves, written in blank verse.

  Published by Penguin Classics, a new deluxe edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein featured an Introduction by Elizabeth Kostova, John Polidori’s story “The Vampyre” and a fragment by Lord Byron.

  Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories, also from Penguin, contained the 1911 novel The hair of the White Worm, along with an Introduction and notes by editor Kate Hebblethwaite.

  From the same publisher, American Supernatural Tales edited by S. T. Joshi was an anthology of twenty-six classic stories from Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, Joyce Carol Oates, Edgar Allan Poe and others, along with an Introduction and suggested reading list by the editor.

  Gollancz’s impressive “Fantasy Masterworks” series reached its fiftieth volume under series editor Jo Fletcher with The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales. Containing fifty classic fantasy, horror and SF stories by Rudyard Kipling, the book also included an Introduction by Neil Gaiman and a historical Afterword by editor Stephen Jones.

  Edited by Rusty Burke, The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1: Crimson Shadows and Volume 2: Grim hands each collected sixteen stories and twelve poems covering the whole range of Howard’s fiction, including tales of Conan, Solomon Kane, Kull and Bran Mak Morn. Artists Jim and Ruth Keegan supplied a Foreword to the first volume and the disappointing black and white illustrations.

  Containing twenty-four collaborations and revisions between H. P. Lovecraft and other writers, The Horror in the Museum from Ballantine Books/Del Rey was an expanded and revised edition of the 1944 Arkham House volume, with a new Introduction by Stephen Jones, plus notes on the texts by S. T. Joshi and August Derleth from the 1970 printing.

  Paizo Publishing’s Planet Stories imprint brought back into print a number of important novels and collections by such authors as Michael Moorcock, C. L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, Robert E. Howard, Otis Adelbert Kline and others. Each paperback volume featured a new Introduction by contemporary writers, including Moorcock, Joe R. Lansdale, Samuel R. Delany, Suzy McKee Charnas, Ben Bova, C. J. Cherryh and Roy Thomas.

  In China Miéville’s inventive young adult novel Un Lun Dun, a young girl found herself in a surreal pa
rallel-London where inanimate objects and ideas had lives of their own. The book was nicely illustrated by the author himself.

  Neil Gaiman teamed up with Michael Reaves for Interworld, a novel about a fourteen-year-old boy who walked into an alternate reality filled with magic and multiple versions of himself.

  F. E. Higgins’ debut novel The Black Book of Secrets was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Award. It involved a young runaway in Dickensian times who worked for a mysterious pawnbroker.

  Set in 1906 London, a young girl had the ability to see the magical dark powers surrounding her father’s museum artefacts in R. L. LaFevers’ Theodosia Throckmorton and the Serpents of Chaos.

  A twelve-year-old girl inherited her horror writer uncle’s estate and teamed up with the eponymous skeletal detective to solve a suspected murder in Derek Landy’s Skullduggery Pleasant.

  Blood Beast and Demon Apocalypse were the fifth and sixth books in “The Demonata” series by “Darren Shan” (Darren O’Shaughnessy).

  A group of young people were involved with a writing contest held in a haunted mansion in Andrew Nance’s Daemon Hall, illustrated by Coleman Polhemus.

  Wishes went wrong for three children in Frances Hardinge’s Verdigris Deep (aka Well Wicked), while a small town was terrorized by bikers from Hell in Justine Musk’s Uninvited.

  A teenage boy discovered New York’s ghostly Underworld of the dead in Katherine Marsh’s The Night Tourist, loosely based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

  Dead girls related their stories in Wicked Dead #1: Lurker and #2: Torn, the first two volumes in a ghostly new series by Stefan Petrucha and “Thomas Pendleton” (Lee Thomas).

  A girl’s soccer team named the Weregirls found they had some powerful enemies in the first book in another new series, Weregirls: Birth of the Pack by Petru Popescu.

  Following on from Wuthering High, Cara Lockwood’s The Scarlet Letterman was the second in the “Bard Academy” supernatural romance series about a school where all the teachers were ghosts of famous authors.