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Bram Stoker Award Winners (horror)
Description: The Bram Stoker Awards are given by the Horror Writers Association in acknowledgment of superior achievement in the horror genre. Bookshare is pleased to offer the following titles awarded the Bram Stoker Award for best novel. #award
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The Devil Takes You Home
by Gabino IglesiasThis genre-defying, Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker award-winning thriller follows a father desperate to salvage what's left of his family—even if it means a descent into violence. Buried in debt due to his young daughter&’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel&’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won&’t return the same. The Devil Takes You Home is a panoramic odyssey for fans of S.A. Cosby&’s southern noir, Blacktop Wasteland, by way of the boundary-defying storytelling of Stephen Graham Jones and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR, Harper's Bazaar, Chicago Tribune, Vulture, Oprah Daily, CrimeReads, The Millions, and many more!An Edgar Award Finalist • A Bram Stoker Award Winner • A Shirley Jackson Award Winner • A Book of the Month Club Pick • An August Indie Next List Selection • An ABA Indie Bestseller
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
by Stephen Graham JonesWinner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest chilling novel that &“will give you nightmares. The good kind, of course&” (BuzzFeed) from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones.&“Some girls just don&’t know how to die…&” Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called &“a literary master&” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and &“one of our most talented living writers&” by Tommy Orange. Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw &“a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.&” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life. Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold. Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.
The Only Good Indians
by Stephen Graham JonesA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From USA TODAY bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a &“masterpiece&” (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition. Labeled &“one of 2020&’s buzziest horror novels&” (Entertainment Weekly), this is a remarkable horror story that &“will give you nightmares—the good kind of course&” (BuzzFeed).From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
Coyote Rage
by Owl GoingbackBram Stoker Award-Winning author Owl Goingback makes a triumphant return to horror and fantasy in this gripping new novel. Coyote is on a murderous hunt, leaving behind a trail of carnage. The shape-shifter is determined to kill the human representatives to the Great Council in Galun'lati, eliminating the rule of mankind in the New World. But Raven has overheard the Trickster's evil plan, and will do anything to protect Luther Watie and his daughter, Sarah Reynolds, even if it means turning his skin inside out. The forces of evil are aligning in two very different worlds. Can mankind be saved, or will creatures of fur and fangs once again reign supreme?
The Cabin at the End of the World
by Paul TremblayPaul Tremblay’s terrifying twist to the home invasion novel—inspiration for the upcoming major motion picture from Universal Pictures“Tremblay’s personal best. It’s that good.” — Stephen KingSeven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen, but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault.” Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”Thus begins an unbearably tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are entwined. The Cabin at the End of the World is a masterpiece of terror and suspense from the fantastically fertile imagination of Paul Tremblay.
Ararat
by Christopher GoldenArarat is the heart-pounding tale of an adventure that goes wrong...on a biblical scale.
When an earthquake reveals a secret cave hidden inside Mount Ararat in Turkey, a daring newly engaged couple are determined to be the first ones inside...and what they discover will change everything.
The cave is actually a buried ancient ship that many quickly come to believe is Noah’s Ark.
When a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses.
Inside the coffin they find an ugly, misshapen cadaver—not the holy man they expected, but a hideous creature with horns.
Shock and fear turn to horror when a massive blizzard blows in, trapping them thousands of meters up the side of a remote mountain.
All they can do is pray for safety. But something wicked is listening to their prayers...and it wants to answer.
The Fisherman
by John LanganIn upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.
A Head Full of Ghosts
by Paul TremblayA chilling thriller that brilliantly blends domestic drama, psychological suspense, and a touch of modern horror, reminiscent of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In, and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.
The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.
To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight. With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.
Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award
Blood Kin
by Steve Rasnic Tem2015 Bram Stoker Award Winner for Superior Achievement: Novel
Steve Rasnic Tem's new novel Blood Kin is set in the southern Appalachians of the U.S., alternating between the 1930s and the present day. It's a dark Southern Gothic vision of ghosts, witchcraft, secret powers, snake-handling, Kudzu, Melungeons, and the Great Depression.
Blood Kin is told from the dual points of view of Michael Gibson and of his grandmother Sadie. Michael has returned to the quiet Appalachian home of his forebears following a suicide attempt and now takes care of his grandmother-- old and sickly but with an important story to tell about growing up poor and Melungeon (a mixed race group of mysterious origin) while bedeviled by a snake-handling uncle and empathic powers she but barely understands.
In a field not far from the Gibson family home lies an iron-bound crate within a small shack buried four feet deep under Kudzu vine. Michael somehow understands that hidden inside that crate is potentially his own death, his grandmother's death, and perhaps the deaths of everyone in the valley if he does not come to understand her story well enough.
Doctor Sleep
by Stephen KingStephen King returns to the character and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance and the very special twelve-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.
On highways across America, a tribe of people called the True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless--mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, the True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the steam that children with the shining produce when they are slowly tortured to death.
Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel, where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant shining power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes "Doctor Sleep."
Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan's own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra's soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to this icon in the King canon.
A New York Times Bestseller
The Drowning Girl
by Caitlin R. KiernanIndia Morgan Phelps-Imp to her friends-is schizophrenic. Struggling with her perceptions of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about her encounters with creatures out of myth-or from something far, far stranger...
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.
Flesh Eaters
by Joe MckinneyBattered by three devastating hurricanes in a row, the Texas coast is flattened. But for the people of Houston--and soon all of America--the most terrifying events are just beginning. . .They Rise. . .Out of the flooded streets of Houston, they emerge from plague-ridden waters. Dead. Rotting. Hungry. And as human survivors scramble to their rooftops for safety, the zombie hordes circle like sharks. The ultimate killing machines.They Feed. . .Houston is quarantined to halt the spread of the zombie plague. Anyone trying to escape is shot on sight--living and dead. Emergency Ops sergeant Eleanor Norton has her work cut out for her. Salvaging boats and gathering explosives, Eleanor and her team struggle to maintain order. But when civilization finally breaks down, the feeding frenzy begins.They Multiply. . .Biting, gnawing, feasting--but always craving more--the flesheaters increase their ranks every hour. With doomsday looming, Eleanor must focus on the people she loves--her husband and daughter--and a band of other survivors adrift in zombie-infested waters. If she can't bring them into the quarantine zone, they're all dead meat.Praise for Joe McKinney and His Novels"A merciless, fast-paced and genuinely scary read that will leave you absolutely breathless." --Bram Stoker Award-winning author Brian Keene on Dead City"Compelling. . .with a lightning-fast pace. Earns its place in any library of living dead fiction." --New York Times Bestselling Author Jonathan Maberry on Apocalypse of the Dead
A Dark Matter
by Peter StraubThe incomparable master of horror and suspense returns with a powerful, brilliantly terrifying novel that redefines the genre in original and unexpected ways.The charismatic and cunning Spenser Mallon is a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion and demanding sexual favors of his young acolytes. After he invites his most fervent followers to attend a secret ritual in a local meadow, the only thing that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body--and the shattered souls of all who were present. Years later, one man attempts to understand what happened to his wife and to his friends by writing a book about this horrible night, and it's through this process that they begin to examine the unspeakable events that have bound them in ways they cannot fathom, but that have haunted every one of them through their lives. As each of the old friends tries to come to grips with the darkness of the past, they find themselves face-to-face with the evil triggered so many years earlier. Unfolding through the individual stories of the fated group's members, A Dark Matter is an electric, chilling, and unpredictable novel that will satisfy Peter Straub's many ardent fans, and win him legions more.
Audrey's Door
by Sarah LanganBuilt on the Upper West Side, the elegant Breviary claims a regal history. But despite 14B's astonishingly low rental price, the recent tragedy within its walls has frightened away all potential tenants . . . except for Audrey Lucas. No stranger to tragedy at thirty-two--a survivor of a fatherless childhood and a mother's hopeless dementia-- Audrey is obsessively determined to make her own way in a city that often strangles the weak. But is it something otherworldly or Audrey's own increasing instability that's to blame for the dark visions that haunt her . . . and for the voice that demands that she build a door? A door it would be true madness to open . . .
Duma Key
by Stephen KingMaster storyteller Stephen King&’s classic, terrifying #1 New York Times bestseller of what happens when the barrier between our world and that of the supernatural is breached.After a terrible construction site accident severs Edgar Freemantle&’s right arm, scrambles his mind, and implodes his marriage, the wealthy Minnesota builder faces the ordeal of rehabilitation, all alone and full of rage. Renting a house on Duma Key—a stunningly beautiful and eerily undeveloped splinter off the Florida coast—Edgar slowly emerges from his prison of pain to bond with Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick, elderly woman whose roots are tangled deep in this place. And as he heals, he paints—feverishly, compulsively, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. For Edgar&’s creations are not just paintings, but portals for the ghosts of Elizabeth&’s past…and their power cannot be controlled…
The Missing
by Sarah LanganA remote and affluent Maine community, Corpus Christi was untouched by the environmental catastrophe that destroyed the neighboring blue-collar town of Bedford. But all that will change in a heartbeat . . . The nightmare is awakened when third-grade schoolteacher Lois Larkin takes the children on a field trip to Bedford. There in the abandoned woods, a small, cruel boy unearths an ancient horror--a contagious plague that transforms its victims into something violent, hungry . . . and inhuman. The long, dark night is just beginning. And all hope must die as the contagion feeds--for the malevolence will not rest until it has devoured every living soul in Corpus Christi . . . and beyond.
Lisey's Story
by Stephen KingOne of King's most powerful books ever, the story of a writer's widow who must confront his demons after his death--a bookend to Bag of Bones, Lisey's Story is about the wellsprings of creativity, the temptation of madness, and the secret language of love.
Lisey Debusher Landon lost her husband, Scott, two years ago, after a twenty-five-year marriage of the most profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Scott was an award-winning, bestselling novelist and a very complicated man. Early in their relationship, before they married, Lisey had to learn from him about books and blood. Later, she understood that there was a place Scott went--a place that both terrified and healed him, that could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. Now it's Lisey's turn to face Scott's demons, Lisey's turn to go to Boo'ya Moon. What begins as a widow's effort to sort through the papers of her celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he inhabited. Perhaps King's most personal and powerful novel, Lisey's Story is about the wellsprings of creativity, the temptations of madness, and the secret language of love.
Winner of Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
Creepers
by David MorrellFive urban explorers meet up and begin preparations to break into the abandoned Paragon Hotel. But after finding their way inside, it becomes clear that they will get more than they bargained for.
Dread in the Beast
by Charlee JacobNovel which culls from the histories and mythologies of humankind. it follows the trail of the Mother Spirit of the worst that the world is capable of producing.
In the Night Room
by Peter StraubIn his latest soul-chilling novel, bestselling author Peter Straub tells of a famous children's book author who, in the wake of a grotesque accident, realizes that the most basic facts of her existence, including her existence itself, have come into question. Willy Patrick, the respected author of the award-winning young-adult novel In the Night Room, thinks she is losing her mind-again. One day, she is drawn helplessly into the parking lot of a warehouse. She knows somehow that her daughter, Holly, is being held in the building, and she has an overwhelming need to rescue her. But what Willy knows is impossible, for her daughter is dead. On the same day, author Timothy Underhill, who has been struggling with a new book about a troubled young woman, is confronted with the ghost of his nine-year-old sister, April. Soon after, he begins to receive eerie, fragmented e-mails that he finally realizes are from people he knew in his youth-people now dead. Like his sister, they want urgently to tell him something. When Willy and Timothy meet, the frightening parallels between Willy's tragic loss and the story in Tim's manuscript suggest that they must join forces to confront the evils surrounding them. From the Hardcover edition.
Lost Boy, Lost Girl
by Peter StraubA woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son -- beautiful, troubled fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill -- vanishes from the face of the earth. To his uncle, horror novelist Timothy Underhill, Mark's inexplicable absence feels like a second death. After his sister-in-law's funeral, Tim searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this mystery of death and disappearance. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother's suicide Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house on Michigan Street whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain. With lost boy, lost girl, Peter Straub affirms once again that he is the master of literary horror.
Winner of Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
The Night Class
by Tom PiccirilliFacing another semester of classes, Cal Prentiss moves into a new dorm unaware that a murder occurred there over the winter break. He discovers evidence of the unspeakable crime and becomes obsessed with finding the truth. As he gets closer to the heart of the mystery, Cal is surrounded by the supernatural and the grotesque--like the blood that appears on his hands when someone close to him dies.
2002 Bram Stoker Award winner.
American Gods
by Neil GaimanFirst published in 2001, American Gods became an instant classic--an intellectual and artistic benchmark from the multiple-award-winning master of innovative fiction, Neil Gaiman. Now discover the mystery and magic of American Gods in this tenth anniversary edition. Newly updated and expanded with the author's preferred text, this commemorative volume is a true celebration of a modern masterpiece by the one, the only, Neil Gaiman.
A storm is coming . . .
Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the magic day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life.
But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself.
Life as Wednesday's bodyguard, driver, and errand boy is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined-it is a job that takes him on a dark and strange road trip and introduces him to a host of eccentric characters whose fates are mysteriously intertwined with his own. Along the way Shadow will learn that the past never dies; that everyone, including his beloved Laura, harbors secrets; and that dreams, totems, legends, and myths are more real than we know. Ultimately, he will discover that beneath the placid surface of everyday life a storm is brewing-an epic war for the very soul of America-and that he is standing squarely in its path.
Relevant and prescient, American Gods has been lauded for its brilliant synthesis of "mystery, satire, sex, horror, and poetic prose" (Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World) and as a modern phantasmagoria that "distills the essence of America" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). It is, quite simply, an outstanding work of literary imagination that will endure for generations.
Nebula Award Winner
Winner of Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
The Traveling Vampire Show
by Richard LaymonThree friends are determined to see the Traveling Vampire Show, featuring the only known vampire in captivity, when it arrives in the summer of 1963. Janks Field, where the show will take place, has been declared off-limits because of its sinister history, but the three teens don't want to miss the performance... and their efforts yield far more than they ever imagined.
Bram Stoker Award winner in 2000.
Mr. X
by Peter StraubFor more than two decades Peter Straub has engrossed, entertained, and terrified us with his dazzling blend of cool artistry and mad, spine-tingling imagination. With Mr. X, the bestselling author of Ghost Story, The Talisman(with Stephen King), and The Hellfire Club takes us into the darkest dimensions of the human psyche and proves once again that he is without peer in the realm of psychological suspense and horror, a master storyteller whose unique and powerful gifts qualify him to be called the Edgar Allan Poe of our times. Mr. Xis Straub's original and startling take on the theme of the doppelgänger. Ned Dunstan's birthday is fast approaching, and every year on this date, Ned experiences a paralyzing seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious and malevolent figure in black whom Ned calls Mr. X. Ned has been drawn back to his hometown, Edgerton, Illinois, by a premonition that his mother, Star, is dying. Before she loosens her hold on life, she imparts to Ned the name of his father, never before disclosed, and warns him that he is in grave danger. Despite her foreboding, Ned's determination to learn as much as possible about his absent father ignites a series of extraordinary adventures that gradually reveal the heart of both his own identity and that of his entirely fantastic family: He discovers that he is shadowed by an identical twin brother who can pass through doors and otherwise defy the laws of nature; he becomes the lead suspect in three violent deaths; he investigates the secret shadow-world within Edgerton; he learns to "eat time" and remembers the one occasion when he and his sinister brother united into a single being. Finally, at the moment of battle, he must call upon everything he has learned to save his own life. Brimming with the author's trademark wit, understated eloquence, vibrant characters, and brilliant sense of pace, Mr. X displays Peter Straub at the top of his form.