In this gripping and terrifying horror story based on true events, the President's late son haunts the White House, breaking the spirit of what remains of the First Family and the divided America beyond the residence's walls.
The year is 1853. President-elect Franklin Pierce is traveling with his family to Washington, DC, when tragedy strikes. In an instant, their train runs off the rails, violently flinging passengers about the cabin. But when the great iron machine finally comes to rest, the only casualty is the President-elect's beloved son, Bennie, which casts Franklin's presidency in a pall of sorrow and grief.
As Franklin moves into the White House, he begins to notice that something bizarre is happening. Strange sounds coming from the walls and ceiling, creepy voices that seem to echo out of time itself, and visions of spirits crushed under the weight of American history.
But when First Lady Jane Pierce brings in the most noted Spiritualists of the day, the Fox sisters, for a séance, the barrier between this world and the next is torn asunder. Something horrible comes through and takes up residence alongside Franklin and Jane in the walls of the very mansion itself.
Only by overcoming their grief and confronting their darkest secrets can Jane and Franklin hope to rid themselves—and America—from the entity that seeks to make the White House its permanent home.
As a forensic psychiatrist at New York's leading institution of its kind, Dr. Lily Dominick has evaluated the mental states of some of the country's most dangerous psychotics. But the strangely compelling client she interviewed today-a man with no name, accused of the most twisted crime-struck her as somehow different from the others, despite the two impossible claims he made. First, that he is more than two hundred years old and personally inspired Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Bram Stoker in creating the three novels of the nineteenth century that define the monstrous in the modern imagination. Second, that he's Lily's father. To discover the truth-behind her client, her mother's death, herself-Dr. Dominick must embark on a journey that will threaten her career, her sanity, and ultimately her life. Fusing the page-turning tension of a first-rate thriller with a provocative take on where thrillers come from, The Only Child will keep you up until its last unforgettable revelation.
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Demonologist, called "smart, thrilling, utterly unnerving" by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, comes a spine-tingling supernatural thriller about a survivor of a near-death experience haunted by his beautiful, vindictive twin sister.He'll have to go to hell and back... Danny Orchard wrote a bestselling memoir about his near-death experience in a fire that claimed the life of his twin sister, Ashleigh, but despite the resulting fame and fortune he's never been able to enjoy his second chance at life. Ash won't let him. In life, Danny's charming and magnetic twin had been a budding psychopath who privately terrorized her family-and death hasn't changed her wicked ways. Ash has haunted Danny for twenty years and now, just when he's met the love of his life and has a chance at real happiness, she wants more than ever to punish him for being alive-so she sets her sights on Danny's new wife and stepson. Danny knows what Ash really wants is him, and he's prepared to sacrifice himself in order to save the ones he loves. The question is: will he make it back this time?
Fans of The Historian won't be able to put down this spellbinding literary horror story in which a Columbia professor must use his knowledge of demonic mythology to rescue his daughter from the Underworld.Professor David Ullman's expertise in the literature of the demonic-notably Milton's Paradise Lost-has won him wide acclaim. But David is not a believer. One afternoon he receives a visitor at his campus office, a strikingly thin woman who offers him an invitation: travel to Venice, Italy, witness a "phenomenon," and offer his professional opinion, in return for an extravagant sum of money. Needing a fresh start, David accepts and heads to Italy with his beloved twelve-year-old daughter Tess. What happens in Venice will send David on an unimaginable journey from skeptic to true believer, as he opens himself up to the possibility that demons really do exist. In a terrifying quest guided by symbols and riddles from the pages of Paradise Lost, David attempts to rescue his daughter from the Unnamed-a demonic entity that has chosen him as its messenger.
