The intoxication from a pint of vodka, the electric buzz from snorting cocaine, the warm embrace from shooting heroin--drinking and drugging provides the height of human experience. It's the promise of heaven on earth, but the hell that follows is a constant hunger, a cold emptiness. The craving to get high is a yearning as intense of any blood-thirsty monster. The best way to tell the truths of addiction is through a story, and dark truths such as these need a piece of horror to do them justice. The stories inside feature the insidious nature of addiction told with compassion yet searing honesty. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental deaths, and some of the most incredible names in horror fiction have tackled this modern day epidemic. A WICKED THIRST, by Kealan Patrick Burke THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE, by Jessica McHugh GARDEN OF FIENDS, by Mark Matthews FIRST, JUST BITE A FINGER, by Johann Thorsson LAST CALL, by John FD Taff TORMENT OF THE FALLEN, by Glen Krisch EVERYWHERE YOU'VE BLED AND EVERYWHERE YOU WILL, by Max Booth III RETURNS, by Jack Ketchum

Rose offers advice on cultivating seasonal friendships, long-distance relationships, special needs friendships, and more.

As a child in 1906, Arne Horsfall finds a sealed crate, addressed to a professor at a local college, that has fallen off a train. His father stores the object in the barn until the wayward professor can pick it up. But the crate operates like a Pandora's box on Arne and his mother; overcome with curiosity, they pry it open and unleash an evil spirit. Physically, the spirit looks like a mummified dark-skinned man--not, however, like a black man—and his mother recognizes it from the stories of her childhood as one of the huldufolk , the "unwashed children of Cain," evil and immortal. When the spirit awakens and escapes, Arne's life is changed forever. He senses them…waiting in the shadows. In the frozen pit of blackest hell, Death sleeps. Ravishing beyond words, evil beyond our darkest dreams of Satan, Her eyelids flutter. Rising from Her pit, She wakes her vampire brood—and frees them from their ancient graves. No, no one is safe, no one—from the unwashed Children of Eve.

Five little fiends, who each live in a statue and come out every day to enjoy the world around them, one day steal pieces of the world to admire, but give them back when they realize its beauty comes from being connected.

Emily finds the most amazing surprises in her garden at her dad's house, bringing incredible friendships that teach working and supporting each other. This book will support children in school and at home around friendships, spatial awareness, conflict resolution and sharing feelings. These are life skills every child needs to learn early to benefit there own confidence and self esteem and support others around them. A most read for all children!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A renowned authority on the secret world of opium recounts his descent into ruinous obsession with one of the world’s oldest and most seductive drugs, in this harrowing memoir of addiction and recovery. A natural-born collector with a nose for exotic adventure, San Diego–born Steven Martin followed his bliss to Southeast Asia, where he found work as a freelance journalist. While researching an article about the vanishing culture of opium smoking, he was inspired to begin collecting rare nineteenth-century opium-smoking equipment. Over time, he amassed a valuable assortment of exquisite pipes, antique lamps, and other opium-related accessories—and began putting it all to use by smoking an extremely potent form of the drug called chandu. But what started out as recreational use grew into a thirty-pipe-a-day habit that consumed Martin’s every waking hour, left him incapable of work, and exacted a frightful physical and financial toll. In passages that will send a chill up the spine of anyone who has ever lived in the shadow of substance abuse, Martin chronicles his efforts to control and then conquer his addiction—from quitting cold turkey to taking “the cure” at a Buddhist monastery in the Thai countryside. At once a powerful personal story and a fascinating historical survey, Opium Fiend brims with anecdotes and lore surrounding the drug that some have called the methamphetamine of the nineteenth-century. It recalls the heyday of opium smoking in the United States and Europe and takes us inside the befogged opium dens of China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. The drug’s beguiling effects are described in vivid detail—as are the excruciating pains of withdrawal—and there are intoxicating tales of pipes shared with an eclectic collection of opium aficionados, from Dutch dilettantes to hard-core addicts to world-weary foreign correspondents. A compelling tale of one man’s transformation from respected scholar to hapless drug slave, Opium Fiend puts us under opium’s spell alongside its protagonist, allowing contemporary readers to experience anew the insidious allure of a diabolical vice that the world has all but forgotten.

Dark fiction and horror with addiction as the theme. Novellas and Novelletes written by authors Caroline Kepnes, Kealan Patrick Burke, Gabino Iglesias, Mark Matthews, Mercedes M Yardley, and John FD Taff