by John Holt (2003)
When big corporate coal strip-mining interests begin to take over a ranching town in southeastern Montana, all hell breaks loose. It seems the land is fighting back: vast sage flats erupt in fire, massive storms blast down from all directions, rattlesnakes strike from out of nowhere, and an extinct buffalo wolf is heard howling in the night. One man tries to hold back the tide of disaster caused by corporate greed: Joe Graves, a rancher whose family has farmed this arid, harsh land for generations. Graves knows the land better than anyone, hunting and fishing its broad acres all of his life. He considers the land an extension of himself. What he doesn't know is that his father sold the mineral rights to the ranch-and Graves is about to find out that Dark Star (the corporate coal giant) is coming to claim those rights along with his water. What Dark Star doesn't realize is that it will have more than just a mere man to fight--the very elements are set against them.
Steve Jackson
Stranded miles from anywhere on a dark and stormy night, your only hope of refuge is the strange, ramshackle mansion you can see in the distance ... but entering the house hurls you into an adventure of blood-curdling terror.
Benjamin Hulme-Cross
While Mr. Blood, the Dark Hunter, is outside watching for a vampire, Edgar and Mary are locked in a chapel with the body the vampire is supposedly seeking.
Peter Bently
(Age 5-6) (K-1) This is an 18 page board book story for children, about friendship and how to become a good friend. Cleo the horse finds herself scared of the dark and fearful of monsters, when she tries to sleep in the shadows, noises and darkness of her new bedroom. How is she going to get through the first night in this very strange place?
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic tales blend the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; 'Lois the Witch', a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in 'The Old Nurse's Story' a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors. Whether darkly surreal, such as 'The Poor Clare', where an evil doppelganger is formed by a woman's bitter curse, or mischievous like 'Curious, if True', a playful reworking of fairy tales, all the stories in this volume form a stark contrast to the social realism of Gaskell's novels, revealing a darker and more unsettling style of writing.