Adriana gets a job sewing for Edith Head at Paramount' s costume department in the early 1940s. Adriana falls in love with a bit player named Rose and the two move in together. Living with a woman goes unnoticed as most people presume they areonly roommates. But as Adriana's career blossoms, society and life start to interfere and Adriana makes decisions that affect three generations of her family.1998: Adriana's granddaughter Laura has left LA on the heels of a failed relationship and a subsequently failed career in film development. She moves in with her grandmother in Baltimore to find some time and space to think. The problem is she always spent time here with her dearest friend and cousin Becca, who died suddenly in a car crash, leaving her 13-year-old daughter,Lizzie.Adriana, in her eighties and wrestling with the past is now suddenly responsible for Laura and Lizzie. In this compelling literary family drama, three lives twine together in the past and the present to take a closer look at how family, wanted or not, makes up who we are.

Kelley Armstrong, Kate Maruyama, Michael McBride, Taylor Grant, and Greg Chapman unleash the unsettled spirits of the past in five frightening stories collected by celebrated editor, author, and horror guru Brian James Freeman. THE WAY LOST by Kelley Armstrong The kids in Franklin don’t ask questions. Each Halloween, one of them disappears into the forest. Dale promised his mother he’d never go into the woods alone. But the kids in Franklin also lie. LA CALAVERA by Kate Maruyama The Día de los Muertos Festival at the Hollywood Cemetery used to be ours. Now, without Jasmine, it’s only right that I go one last time in her honor—before I let her go for good. . . . THE DEVIL’S DUE by Michael McBride Pine Springs, Colorado, has prospered for generations by honoring its traditions and its promises. Then one man refuses to do his civic duty—and the price he must pay is fatally steep. A THOUSAND ROOMS OF DARKNESS by Taylor Grant Samhainophobia: an irrational fear of Halloween. Phasmophobia: an irrational fear of ghosts. For Anne, these terrors are more rational than she knows. THE LAST NIGHT OF OCTOBER by Greg Chapman Every year, one little boy wearing a grotesque Frankenstein mask comes knocking at Gerald’s door. Gerald has always managed to avoid him . . . until this year.

We are pleased to present two tales of family misadventures penned by Kate Maruyama. SAFER Los Angeles is in lockdown, “Safer at home,” so Soledad, a college student, jumps at the opportunity to be live-in caretaker for Story, the son of an A-list celebrity. Solid pay and a change of scene are just what she needs in the pandemic. The parents are high maintenance, but she and Story form a quick bond. The dazzling lifestyle shows its dark underside when unsettling occurrences mount. Now it turns out the job that would set Soledad up for college might derail her life entirely if she decides to keep Story safer. FAMILY SOLSTICE The Massey family has a secret and Shea, the youngest, will be the last to find out exactly what’s in the basement. She’s been training hard for her 13th year when it will finally be her turn to perform the family duty of fighting. Her older siblings won’t tell her anything, but she’s excited and ready to take all comers. Even if they had, nothing could truly prepare her for what she has to face. These compelling explorations of dark family secrets fearlessly delve into some of today’s most relevant and troubling issues. In Safer, Maruyama explores what parents will do for a child, and what happens to outsiders in unsafe houses, while Family Solstice addresses the dangers of tradition, inheritance and the sins of the father.

YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY. MOVE TO HOLLYWOOD, SELL OUT, LOSE YOUR SOUL. The Collective is the new horror novel from Kate Maruyama, author of Bleak Houses.

Michael should be overjoyed by the birth of his son, but his wife, Sarah, won't let him touch the baby or allow anyone to visit. Greta, an intrusive, sinister doula has wormed her way into their lives, driving a wedge between Michael and his family. Every time he leaves the Harrowgate, he returns to find his beloved wife and baby altered. He feels his family slipping away, and as a malevolent force begins to creep in, Michael does what any new father would do--he fights to keep his family together. Kate Maruyama's debut novel, Harrowgate, is a chilling, richly detailed story of love, loss, and the haunted place that lies between.

When the Halloween Beyond stores appear across America, they intertwine the lives of three visitors in a web of mystery and magic. THE TALKING-BOARD by Lisa Morton: Can ancient magic exist in the modern world? When Kayla's sister Hailey went missing in the nearby Ghost Woods on Halloween night, the last person to see her was the solitary, elderly Brigid. Kayla, who has long suspected Brigid of being involved with Hailey's disappearance, dreads the first anniversary of her sister's vanishing even as her best friend Sophie urges her to put the past behind her. Halloween nears and Kayla pays a visit to the pop-up Halloween Beyond store, where an enigmatic clerk named Maeve convinces her to buy a talking-board. Kayla begins receiving messages which claim to be from Hailey, but is it actually something more sinister calling out from beyond the veil? NEW BLOOD by Lucy A. Snyder: Maddie is keen for Halloween, but when she moves to a strange coastal town, a Devils' Night party forces her to face eldritch dangers that threaten her entire family. A GENTLEMAN'S SUIT by Kate Maruyama: Halloween Beyond is magic. The store's inscrutable clerk finds Lex exactly the right costume which somehow makes people see the nonbinary Lex for who they really are. It's Lex's last Halloween at home before college, and it had better be good. When Lex's father, Beto, known locally as the King of Halloween adds an enormous animatronic Death on a boat to the collection in his elaborate front yard haunt, Halloween night takes a deadly turn.

A collection of new (previously unpublished) and classic ghost stories with a foreword by Colin Dickey and featuring stories by Reggie Oliver, Nugent Barker, Sybil Ward, Erckmann-Chatrian, Glen Hirshberg, M.R. James, PJ Manney, Alexander Pushkin, Lisa Morton, F. Marion Crawford, J. Lincoln Fenn, Elizabeth Gaskell, Kate Maruyama, Sabine Baring-Gould, Eddie Generous, Frances Power Cobbe, Tonya Hurley, H.G. Wells, Nicole Sconiers, Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Eric J. Guignard, Ramsey Campbell and Tod Goldberg.