"From a master of the short story, a collection that includes stories never before in print, never published in America, never collected and brand new- with the magnificent bones of interstitial autobiographical comments on when, why and how Stephen King came to write each story"--

Collection of 23 short stories--from classic horror to vampire thrillers, imitations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Raymond Chandler, a teleplay, and a non-fiction bonus, a heartfelt little piece on Little League baseball.

Finalist for the Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award, Dan Chaon's Best of 2017 pick in Publishers Weekly, one of Vol. 1 Brooklyn's Best Books of 2017, a BOMB Magazine "Looking Back on 2017: Literature" Pick, and one of Vulture's 10 Best Thriller Books of 2017. Jac Jemc's The Grip of It is a chilling literary horror novel about a young couple haunted by their newly purchased home Touring their prospective suburban home, Julie and James are stopped by a noise. Deep and vibrating, like throat singing. Ancient, husky, and rasping, but underwater. “That’s just the house settling,” the real estate agent assures them with a smile. He is wrong. The move—prompted by James’s penchant for gambling and his general inability to keep his impulses in check—is quick and seamless; both Julie and James are happy to start afresh. But this house, which sits between a lake and a forest, has its own plans for the unsuspecting couple. As Julie and James try to establish a sense of normalcy, the home and its surrounding terrain become the locus of increasingly strange happenings. The framework— claustrophobic, riddled with hidden rooms within rooms—becomes unrecognizable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall—contracting, expanding—and map themselves onto Julie’s body in the form of painful, grisly bruises. Like the house that torments the troubled married couple living within its walls, The Grip of It oozes with palpable terror and skin-prickling dread. Its architect, Jac Jemc, meticulously traces Julie and James’s unsettling journey through the depths of their new home as they fight to free themselves from its crushing grip.

"Contains the chilling bonus story 'Morality'"--Cover.

A collection of original horror and dark fantasy from the world's best writers, including Stephen King and John Ajvide Lindqvist Many of us grew up on The Pan Book of Horror Stories and its later incarnations, Dark Voices and Dark Terrors (The Gollancz Book of Horror), which won the World Fantasy Award, the Horror Critics' Guild Award and the British Fantasy Award, but for a decade or more there has been no non-themed anthology of original horror fiction published in the mainstream. Now that horror has returned to the bookshelves, it is time for a regular anthology of brand-new fiction by the best and brightest in the field, both the Big Names and the most talented newcomers including: - Ramsey Campbell - Peter Crowther - Dennis Etchison - Elizabeth Hand - Brian Hodge - Caitlin R. Kiernan - Stephen King - John Ajvide Lindqvist - Richard Christian Matheson - Reggie Oliver - Robert Shearman - Angela Slatter - Michael Marshall Smith - Lisa Tuttle A Book of Horrors will be the foremost in the field: an eclectic collection of the very best chiller fiction from across the world.

With the heart of Stand By Me and the genius horror of Christine, MILE 81 is Stephen King unleashing his imagination as he drives past one of those road signs . . . At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a boarded up rest stop, a place where high school kids drink and get into the kind of trouble high school kids have always gotten into. It's the place where Pete Simmons goes when his older brother heads off to the gravel pit to play 'paratroopers over the side'. Pete, armed with only the magnifying glass he got for his tenth birthday, finds a discarded bottle of vodka in the boarded up burger shack and drinks enough to pass out. That's why he doesn't notice a freshly mud-spattered station wagon (which is strange because there hadn't been any rain in New England for over a week) which veers into the Mile 81 rest area, ignoring the sign that reads 'closed, no services'. The driver's door opens but nobody gets out . . .

SIX SCARY STORIES SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY STEPHEN KING Winning stories from The Bazaar of Bad Dreams Hodder-Guardian competition The Number 1 bestselling writer Stephen King introduces and presents six gripping and chilling stories in this captivating anthology: WILD SWIMMING by Elodie Harper EAU-DE-ERIC by Manuela Saragosa THE SPOTS by Paul Bassett Davies THE UNPICKING by Michael Button LA MORT DE L'AMANT by Stuart Johnstone THE BEAR TRAP by Neil Hudson Stephen King discovered these stories when he judged a competition run by Hodder & Stoughton and the Guardian to celebrate publication of his own collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. He was so impressed with the entries that he recommended they were published together in one book. Reader beware: the stories will make you think twice before cuddling up to your old soft toy, dipping your toe into the water or counting the spots on a leopard...