Simon Bestwick

Chilling supernatural horror and the police procedural collide in this absorbing tale of contemporary characters sucked into a web of mystery and fear. As local townsfolk in a northern city disappear masked men with sinister links to the past haunt the streets. Unconnected events begin to align as Detective Chief Inspector Renwick realises these mysterious figures have chosen targets and an even bigger plan. In the Lancashire town of Kempforth, people are vanishing. Mist hangs heavy in the streets, and in those mists move the masked figures the local kids call the Spindly Men. When two year old Roseanne Trevor disappears, Detective Chief Inspector Renwick vows to stop at nothing until she finds her. In Manchester, terrifying visions summon TV psychic Allen Cowell and his sister Vera back to the town they swore they’d left forever. And local historian Anna Mason pieces together a history of cruelty and exploitation almost beyond belief, born out of the horrors of war – while in the decaying corridors and lightless rooms of a long-abandoned hospital, something terrible is waiting for them all.

The Faceless

Gary McMahon

In these grim days, Britain has become overrun with a new menace. Violent, unmoved by compassion, shuffling heedlessly from one victim to the next, flooding the estates and terrorising the streets. Yes, it's zombies... Abaddon Books presents three of their finest Tomes of the Dead books, offering up bone-crunching, blood-chilling stories of survival horror in contemporary Britain. In Hungry Hearts, Rik Nutman races to rescue his wife from being murdered... and then from being murdered again. In Tide of Souls, three very different people are thrown together by the rising flood - and the hordes of the dead - to uncover a deep secret about the world. And in The Words of Their Roaring, small-time thief Gabe learns just how far he will go to make a living when the zombie apocalypse destroys society.

Three Bone-Crunching Tales of Zombies in Broken Britain

Brain-Eating Britain

Alice has returned to her old home town to put her life back in order. 378 Collarmill Road looks like an ordinary house. But sometimes, the world outside the windows isn’t the one you expect to see; sometimes you’ll turn around and find you’re not alone. An old flame of Alice’s – John Revell – reluctantly comes to her aid when the house begins to reveal its secrets. The hill on which it sits is a place of legends – of Old Harry, the Beast of Crawbeck; of the Virgin of the Height and the mysterious Red Man – and home to the secrets of the shadowy Arodias Thorne. Thorne’s influence seeps up through the ground, infiltrating Alice’s new home, and only she and John stand between Arodias and the rest of our world.

The Feast of All Souls

Andrew Hook

Have you ever been on a train going to a destination you don't want to reach? What about a train travelling through the night, where you are the only passenger in the carriage? Or maybe standing alone on a platform, waiting for a train you hope will come? Have you ever wondered about the history behind a train journey, or a station? How many people have travelled the line, or died during its construction? Has a shiver ever run up your spine as dead leaves scrape across the platform, propelled by a breath of wind on a quiet night? Have you ever wondered whether what you heard was a sigh, or a whisper, or just your imagination? There are many stories involving railroads, trains, stations, junctions and crossings. Stories about people journeying towards unknown futures that may involve life changing events, or death, or revelations. The 23 stories in this anthology play upon those fears and uncertainties. Each one explores the journeys we might take into horrific, supernatural or extraordinary futures. Guilt, unresolved desires and disbelief all play their part in creating vivid and disturbing nightmares from which there is no escape, or from which a frightening lesson is learned. The train awaits, ready to carry you along tracks that disappear into darkness. Somewhere out there are the horrors that we all imagine and hope will never happen. Enjoy the journey... Trevor Denyer July 2021

Railroad Tales

A series of micro-collections featuring a selection of peculiar tales from the best in horror and speculative fiction. From Black Shuck Books and Simon Bestwick comes Nine Ghosts, the twenty-fifith in the Black Shuck SHADOWS series.

Nine Ghosts

Helen Damnation's rebellion against the Reapers has spread. All across post-nuclear Britain, the fires of revolution are beginning to burn. But her old enemy Tereus Winterborn still intends to rule supreme, and has a new ally in Dr Mordake, the creator of Project Tindalos - now monstrously transfigured by the forces he unleashed at Hobsdyke. Their target is Helen's closest ally: the last Grendelwolf, Gevaudan Shoal. The worst tortures of all await him in the cells of the Pyramid. At Hobsdyke, in the tunnels beneath Graspen Hill, the legacy of the Night Wolves is waiting for him - along with secrets about Helen that threaten to tear both Gevaudan and the resistance apart. With the Reapers poised to strike at the first sign of weakness, a series of brutal killings breaks out behind rebel lines - and the evidence leads back to Gevaudan's door. With all those closest to Helen turning against her, she faces her greatest challenge yet as Winterborn begins his bid for ultimate power.

Wolf's Hill

IT’S NOT JUST THE WATERS RISING... Flash floods devastate Britain. But the terror is just starting, as an army of the living dead emerge from the waters to hunt down the survivors. For Katja, after a year held captive by a brutal vice ring, it’s a constant fight to stay alive, but also a chance to win her freedom. McTarn, an ex-soldier haunted by his past, is press-ganged into a mission to retrieve a scientist from an isolated village. When floods cut them off, he has to fight both the walking dead and his own demons to protect his men. Stiles is the man they sent McTarn to fetch. Although apparently insane, he may be McTarn and Katja’s only chance to halt the legions of the dead closing in on their refuge in the bleak Lancashire hills. And if they fail, death will be the least they have to suffer…

Tide of Souls

Breakwater by Simon Bestwick is a science fiction novelette about an engineer, who, with her late, marine biologist husband, designed an underwater research platform, and is caught up in the war between humans and mysterious creatures beneath the seas that are destroying coastal cities around the world. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.com original

Breakwater

Jasper Bark

BEWARE THE MARCH OF THE UNDEAD! The masters of flesh-munchingly, gut-wrenchingly, eyeball-poppingly great zombie fiction bring you three more of the best stand-alone books from their critically-acclaimed Tomes of the Dead line. TIDE OF SOULS: When flash-floods devastate Britain and an army of the undead rise from the waves, three broken people – escaped sex-slave Katja, burned-out soldier McTarn, and crippled biologist Styles – may hold the key to survival for the scattered few remaining. HUNGRY HEARTS: Rookie policeman Rick Nutman must fight through the bloody chaos of Leeds to get to his wife Sally. Daryl has always dreamed of being a serial killer, and Sally will be his first victim. Now Rick flees into the countryside with his undead wife, as Daryl seeks to be the only serial killer in history to kill the same woman twice. Can love overcome death? WAY OF THE BAREFOOT ZOMBIE: What do you want? Wealth? Power? Influence? The Way of the Barefoot Zombie can get it for you! On the private island of St. Ignatius, Caribbean business guru Doc Papa guides your steps as you learn to harness the hunger and soulless drive of the noble zombie, even walking among the creatures themselves. What can go wrong?

Simon Bestwick

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