Monster Mash

Vampires always seem to be popular, but what about the wolfman, Frankenstein and the mummy?

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong
In this Werewolf tale Elena is trying hard to be normal. She hates her strength, her wildness, her hunger for food, for sex, and for the nighttime chase and the kill. She wants a husband, children...even a mother-in-law. Or at least that's what she tells herself. And then the inevitable happens. The loyalty of her nature calls her home and into the fight, which tests just who Elena is: the wild woman or the wistful would-be human. The Women of the Otherworld series continues with Stolen.

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
Mercy Thompson's life isn’t exactly normal. Her neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she's fixing a VW bus for a vampire. But then, Mercy isn't exactly normal herself. While trying to live a normal existence, Mercy, a mechanic who’s a shape-shifter raised by werewolves, gets into trouble with the monsters she deals with on a daily basis. This series continues with Blood Bound.

World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of 30 million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time.

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
Business for Chicago’s only professional wizard in the phone book has been dead lately – and not even the undead variety. But just when it looks like he can't afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise. A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses – and the first two don't count. This is the second book in the Dresden Files series, which begins with Storm Front.

Ivy Cole and the Moon by Gina Farago
Ivy Cole has returned home to her North Carolina community with a special gift that erupts in howling on full-moon nights and makes her judge, jury and executioner. As Ivy says, "sometimes folks deserve a good killing." But this night, something wants her dead, as well.

It by Stephen King
Moving back and forth between 1958 and 1985, the story tells of seven children in a small Maine town who discover the source of a series of horrifying murders. Having conquered the evil force once, they are summoned together back to Derry, Maine, 27 years later when the cycle begins again, to face the nightmare without an end and the evil without a name. Also try The Cycle of the Werewolf and Cujo.

Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic work of Horror has the 200-year-old creature summoned from meditation in a Tibetan monastery to New Orleans in search of his creator, who is still alive and has made a new batch of genetic slaves. One of these slaves has become a serial killer, and Detective Carson O’Connor and her partner are on the case, but may not believe what’s really happening. Koontz’s Frankenstein trilogy continues with City of Night and Dead and Alive. Also try Watchers.

Ghoul by Brian Keene
Timmy Graco is looking forward to summer vacation, taking it easy and hanging out with his buddies. Instead his summer will be filled with terror and a life-and-death battle against a nightmarish creature that few will believe even exists. Timmy learns that the person who’s been unearthing fresh graves in the cemetery isn’t a person at all. It’s a thing. And it’s after Timmy and his friends. If Timmy hopes to live to see September, he’ll have to escape the...GHOUL. Also try The Conqueror Worms and Dead Sea.

The Missing by Sarah Langan
The remote and affluent Maine community Corpus Christi will be changed forever in a heartbeat... The nightmare is awakened when third-grade schoolteacher Lois Larkin takes the children on a field trip to Bedford. There in the abandoned woods, a small, cruel boy unearths an ancient horror – a contagious plague that transforms its victims into something violent, hungry...and inhuman.

To Wake the Dead by Richard Laymon
Four thousand years after her death, Amara, a former princess of Egypt and wife of Mentuhotep the First, escapes from her coffin in the Charles Ward Museum and walks the streets, free to satisfy her deadly, bloodthirsty cravings.

The Walking by Bentley Little
The dead are getting restless... Across the country, they have risen. And they seem to have a mission... The walking has begun... No one knows why they are walking. No one knows where they are going. And no one can stop them... They are here. Also try The Return.

Tales of H.P. Lovecraft by H.P. Lovecraft
The greatest Horror writer of the 20th century created the unimaginably horrible monster-god Cthulhu in his most famous work “The Call of Cthulhu,” which inspired generations of writers afterward. Cthulhu appeared in numerous other stories, but Lovecraft is also known for his horrific tales of Gothic New England madness and chaos. This collection is edited by Joyce Carol Oates; if you enjoy it, try any other work by Lovecraft.

The House of Cthulhu by Brian Lumley
This first novel in The Primal Lands series introduces the weird and wonderful world of Theem'hdra, an island continent of wonders and terrors, where brave men die terrifying deaths, awe-inspiring sorcerers hurl powerful magic at each other, and monsters abound. This is classic Lovecraftian horror from one of the masters of the form; also try Sorcery In Shad.

Gil’s All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez
Welcome to Gil's All Night Diner, where zombie attacks are a regular occurrence, and you never know what might be lurking in the freezer... Duke and Earl are just passing through Rockwood County when they stop at the Diner for a quick bite. They aren't planning to stick around – until Loretta, the eatery's owner, offers them $100 to take care of her zombie problem. Given that Duke is a werewolf and Earl's a vampire, this looks right up their alley. But the shambling dead are just the tip of a particularly spiky iceberg.

Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Adult Fiction)
Just days before an exhibition opens at the New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human…but the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders. Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who, or what, is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre? Also try the sequel Reliquary.

Greywalker by Kat Richardson
Following a savage, near-fatal attack, Seattle private detective Harper Blaine discovers that she has become a Greywalker and now has the ability to move between the ordinary world and a mysterious crossover zone populated by monsters. Also try the sequel: Poltergeist.

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator. Shelley's classic hints in part at the possible dangers inherent in the pursuit of pure science; it also portrays the injustice of a society that persecutes outcasts such as the "Monster." Disturbing and profoundly moving, Frankenstein has become part of our own mythology.

Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn
Celebrity werewolf and late-night radio host Kitty Norville prefers to be heard and not seen.So when she’s invited to testify at a Senate hearing on behalf of supernaturals, and her face gets plastered on national TV, she inherits a new set of friends, and enemies, including the vampire mistress of the city; an uber-hot Brazilian were-jaguar; and a Bible-thumping senator who wants to expose kitty as a monster. The Kitty Norville series continues with Kitty Goes to Washington.

Bad Magic by Stephan Zielinski
When an underground cell of supernaturally gifted misfits dedicated to fighting the unseen evil forces in the world uncovers a cult bent on taking over San Francisco, a preternatural battle is started that puts millions of innocent lives in jeopardy. The goal of the mysterious Vulture cult is simple: "Find the weak and dying. Peck out their eyes. Feed." But when members of the cell – which includes a synesthetic mage, a professor of archeology, a zombie dwarf and a potty-mouthed lycanthrope – catch cult members feeding on the terminally ill at an area hospice, the conflict that follows is both jaw-dropping and hair-raising.