Haunted Dreams is the first comprehensive study in English devoted to cultural representations of adolescence in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Jenny Kaminer situates these cultural representations within the broader context of European and Anglo-American scholarship on adolescence and youth, and she explores how Russian writers, dramatists, and filmmakers have repeatedly turned to the adolescent protagonist in exploring the myriad fissures running through post-Soviet society. Through close analysis of prose, drama, television, and film, this book maps how the adolescent hero has become a locus for multiple anxieties throughout the tumultuous years since the end of the Soviet experiment. Kaminer also directly addresses some of the pivotal questions facing scholars of post-Soviet Russia: Have Soviet cultural models been transcended? Or do they continue to dominate? The figure of the adolescent, an especially potent and enduring source of cultural mythology throughout the Soviet years, provides provocative material for exploring these questions. In Haunted Dreams, Kaminer employs a historical approach to reveal how fantasies of adolescence have mutated and remained constant across the Soviet/post-Soviet divide, focusing on violence, temporality, and gender and the body. Some of the works discussed present the possibility of salvaging the model of the heroic adolescent for a new society. Others, by contrast, relegate this figure to the dustbin of history by evoking disgust or horror, or by unmasking the tragic consequences that ensue from the combination of adolescence, violence, and fantasy.

A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope—the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman—through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships. Machado’s dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.

For years, Blessing McCall was haunted by her dreams ... a chilling dream of childhood, a single dreadful night, buried deep in her own memory. Blessing journeyed to New Orleans to unveil the secret of her own identity. But there, swirling in the color and magic of Mardi Gras, was a mask of mystery and fear. One man unlocked the passion in her heart. Another man -- like a shadow in the night -- sparked the terror in her soul ...

For years, Blessing McCall was haunted by her dreams . . . a chilling dream of childhood, a single dreadful night, buried deep in her own memory. Beyond that night lurked a forgotten past . . . and with the death of her mother, the truth was at last revealed. Blessing journeyed to New Orleans to unveil the secret of her own identity. But there, swirling in the color and magic of Mardi Gras, was a mask of mystery and fear. One man unlocked the passion in her heart. Another man -- like a shadow in the night -- sparked the terror in her soul . . .

Freed of the ancient ghost that pined for Melanie's love, the VanBuren family now faces a modern-day spirit with one terrifying obsession: she wants the children! Melanie and Gary must do all they can to keep Gina, Kyle and Nancy out of the clutches of evil. If they thought the horror was in the past they were sadly mistaken… Don’t miss this electrifying sequel to Ghost House! PRAISE FOR CLARE MCNALLY: “You won’t sleep after you read this one!” —The West Orange Times on Somebody Come and Play "A macabre imagination and a tight rein on your nerves are required for McNally's latest release.” —Publishers Weekly on Good Night Sweet Angel

When Edgar Allan Poe set down the tale of the accursed House of Usher in 1839, he also laid the foundation for a literary tradition that has assumed a lasting role in American culture. “The House of Usher” and its literary progeny have not lacked for tenants in the century and a half since: writers from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Stephen King have taken rooms in the haunted houses of American fiction. Dale Bailey traces the haunted house tale from its origins in English gothic fiction to the paperback potboilers of the present, highlighting the unique significance of the house in the domestic, economic, and social ideologies of our nation. The author concludes that the haunted house has become a powerful and profoundly subversive symbol of everything that has gone nightmarishly awry in the American Dream.

Sins Was the grass really greener for Ambrose Kerr? "I've never told a living soul any of that before…." Emilie stared up at Ambrose, as what he had told her reverberated in her mind. She hadn't really taken it all in—where on earth could he have come from to have lived like that…? He ran his hand through his thick black hair in an angry gesture. "God knows why I blurted it out to you. I wonder if you realize…I've given you a weapon that could destroy me…." Love can conquer the deadliest of Sins.