LibGuides: Bram Stoker Awards: Novel (1987- )

Bram Stoker Awards
Superior Achievement in a Novel

2020-2029

WINNER

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Call Number: FIC JONES STEG O (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781982136451
Publication Date: 2020-07-14
Peter Straub's Ghost Story meets Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies in this American Indian horror story of revenge on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Four American Indian men from the Blackfeet Nation, who were childhood friends, find themselves in a desperate struggle for their lives, against an entity that wants to exact revenge upon them for what they did during an elk hunt ten years earlier by killing them, their families, and friends.
The Only Good Indians [E-Book] by Stephen Graham Jones
Call Number: FIC JONES STEG O Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781982136475
Publication Date: 2020-07-14
The Only Good Indians [Streaming audiobook] by Stephen Graham Jones
Call Number: FIC JONES STEG O Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781797105550
Publication Date: 2020

FINALISTS

The Deep by Alma Katsu
Devil's Creek by Keisling, Todd
Malorie by Josh Malerman
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Malorie [E-Book] by Josh Malerman
Call Number: FIC MALER JOS MA Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780593156865
Publication Date: 2020-07-21
Twelve years after Malorie and her children rowed up the river to safety, a blindfold is still the only thing that stands between sanity and madness. One glimpse of the creatures that stalk the world will drive a person to unspeakable violence. There remains no explanation. No solution. All Malorie can do is survive—and impart her fierce will to do so on her children. Don’t get lazy, she tells them. Don’t take off your blindfold. AND DON’T LOOK. But then comes what feels like impossible news. And with it, the first time Malorie has allowed herself to hope. Someone very dear to her, someone she believed dead, may be alive. Malorie has already lost so much: her sister, a house full of people who meant everything, and any chance at an ordinary life. But getting her life back means returning to a world full of unknowable horrors—and risking the lives of her children again. Because the creatures are not the only thing Malorie fears: There are the people who claim to have caught and experimented on the creatures. Murmerings of monstrous inventions and dangerous new ideas. And rumors that the creatures themselves have changed into something even more frightening. Malorie has a harrowing choice to make: to live by the rules of survival that have served her so well, or to venture into the darkness and reach for hope once more.

Mexican Gothic by Moreno-Garcia, Silvia
Call Number: Fiction M843m (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780525620785
Publication Date: 2020-06-30
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemi Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She's not sure what she will find--her cousin's husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemi knows little about the region. Noemi is also an unlikely rescuer: She's a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemi; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemi, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family's once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemi digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
Mexican Gothic [E-Book] by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Call Number: FIC MOREN SIL ME Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780525620792
Publication Date: 2020-06-30
Mexican gothic [streaming audiobook] by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Call Number: FIC MOREN SIL ME Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780593213872
Publication Date: 2020

WINNER

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Jones

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
Call Number: FIC JONES STEG MY (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781982137632
Publication Date: 2021-08-31
Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies...especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold. Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges...a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body.

FINALISTS:

The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo
The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro
Call Number: FIC CASTR V QU (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781787586031
Publication Date: 2021-06-22
When Belinda Alvarez returned to Texas for a friend's wedding, she didn't know it would be the site of the urban legend, La Reina de Las Chicharras--The Queen of The Cicadas. In life she was known as Milagros, a young farmworker who left her home in Mexico for the US in the 1950s to find work, only to be cruelly abused and horribly murdered. The town ignored the brutal crime, but the Aztec goddess of death heard her cries and allowed her to return to the land of the living to exact her terrible revenge. Now, decades later, as Belinda learns the truth about Milagros, she realizes the legend is all too real... and that she herself will soon play an important part in it.
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Call Number: FIC HENDR GRA FI (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593201237
Publication Date: 2021-07-13
In horror movies, the final girl is the one who's left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious, a victim and a hero. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her? Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she's not alone. For more than a decade she's been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette's worst fears are realized--someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again. But the thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife . . . they will never, ever give up.
The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
Call Number: FIC WENDI CHU BO (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780399182136
Publication Date: 2021-07-20
Long ago, Nathan Graves lived in a house in the country with his abusive father--and has never told his family what happened in that house. Long ago, Maddie Graves was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn't--and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures. Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania. Now Nate and Maddie are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver. And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own, and a taste for dark magic. This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family--and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this fight: their love for each other.

PRELIMINARY BALLOT:

Red X by David Demchuk
Children of Demeter by E. V. Knight
Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
Incarnate by Steve Stred

Children of Demeter by E. V. Knight
Call Number: FIC KNIGH EV CH (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781947879331
Publication Date: 2021-08-05
In 1973, a commune of almost twenty-five people?mostly women and children?disappeared overnight from the small town of West Burma, WI. What happened to the hippie Children of Demeter has remained a mystery until this day, which is what draws Sarah Bisset, a sociologist on sabbatical, to the place. With her personal life in ruins Sarah is more than happy to lose herself in the secrets of the isolated farmhouse, but soon those revelations have her questioning her own identity, and even her sanity. Is she prepared to navigate the labyrinth of lies and cover ups to expose the truth concealed inside Demeter House despite the consequences?
Whisper down the Lane by Clay Chapman
Call Number: FIC CHAPM CLAM WH (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781683692157
Publication Date: 2021-04-06
Two narratives--Richard in present day, settling into a quiet but pleasant life as a newly married art teacher; Sean in 1980s Virginia, when cult leaders, serial killers, and stranger danger are on the rise--converge around a few small lies that spiraled into a terrible tragedy. Thirty years later, it seems someone is out for revenge.
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
Call Number: FIC STARL CAI DE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250272584
Publication Date: 2021-10-05
Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man--one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to.

WINNER

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
Call Number: FIC IGLES GAB DE
ISBN: 9780316426916
Publication Date: 2022-08-02
Buried in debt due to his young daughter's illness, and his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel's cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on a near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won't return the same.

FINALISTS:

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
The Fervor by Alma Katsu
Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste
Daphne by Josh Malerman
Sundial by Catriona Ward

Daphne by Josh Malerman
Call Number: FIC MALER JOS DA (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593157015
Publication Date: 2022-09-20
It's the last summer for Kit Lamb: the last summer before college. The last summer with her high school basketball team, and with Dana, her best friend. The last summer before her life begins. But the night before the big game, one of Kit's players tells a ghost story about Daphne, a girl who went to their school many years ago and died under mysterious circumstances. Some say she was murdered, others that she died by her own hand. And some say that Daphne is a murderer herself. They also say that Daphne is still out there, obsessed with revenge, and will appear anytime someone thinks about her to kill again. After Kit hears the story, her teammates vanish, one by one, and Kit begins to suspect that the stories about Daphne are real...and to fear that her own mind is conjuring the killer. Now it's a race against time as Kit searches for the truth behind the legend and learns to face her own fears. Or else the summer of her lifetime will become the last summer of her life.

WINNER

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

FINALISTS

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
Call Number: FIC WENDI CHU BL (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593158746
Publication Date: 2023-09-26
Its autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there. Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red its nearly black. Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growingand become darker. This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and whats the harm if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful? Even if something else is buried in the orchard beside the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town. But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. Its harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.
Don't Fear the Reaper (Indian Lake trilogy #2) by Stephen Graham Jones
Call Number: FIC JONES STEG I2 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781982186593
Publication Date: 2023-02-07
Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted serial killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Call Number: FIC HANDR GRA HS (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593201268
Publication Date: 2023-01-17
Louise's parents have passed away, and she's returning to the small Southern town where she grew up to get their house ready to sell. It means she'll have to spend time with her younger brother-and their old grudges make that a terrifying prospect. But childhood hurts pale in comparison to the dangers posed by what still lives inside the house.

2010-2019

WINNER

A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

A Dark Matter : a novel by Peter Straub
Call Number: FIC STRAU PET D (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780385516389
Publication Date: 2010-02-09
On a Midwestern campus in the 1960s, a charismatic guru and his young acolytes perform a secret ritual in a local meadow. What happens is a mystery—all that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body and the shattered souls of all who were present. Forty years later, one man seeks to learn about that horrifying night, and to do so he’ll have to force those involved to examine the unspeakable events that have haunted them ever since.

FINALISTS

Horns by Joe Hill
Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
Dead Love by Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Apocalypse of the Dead by Joe McKinney
Dweller by Jeff Strand

Horns [Kindle] by Joe Hill
Call Number: FIC HILL JOE HO Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780061969461
Publication Date: 2010-02-16
After his childhood sweetheart is brutally killed and suspicion falls on him, Ig Parrish goes on a drinking binge and wakes up with horns on his head, hate in his heart, and an incredible new power which he uses in the name of vengeance.

WINNER

Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney

FINALISTS

A Matrix of Angels by Christopher Conlon
Cosmic Forces by Greg Lamberson
Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi
Not Fade Away by Gene O'Neill
The German by Lee Thomas

WINNER

The Drowning Girl by Bentley Little

FINALISTS

Bottled Abyss by Benjamin Kane Ethridge
NightWhere by John Everson
The Haunted by Bentley Little
Inheritance by Joe McKinney

WINNER

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Doctor Sleep [E-Book] (The Shining #2) by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE S2 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781476727660
Publication Date: 2013-09-24
Years ago, the haunting of the Overlook Hotel nearly broke young Dan Torrance’s sanity, as his paranormal gift known as “the shining” opened a door straight into hell. And even though Dan is all grown up, the ghosts of the Overlook—and his father’s legacy of alcoholism and violence—kept him drifting aimlessly for most of his life. Now, Dan has finally found some order in the chaos by working in a local hospice, earning the nickname “Doctor Sleep” by secretly using his special abilities to comfort the dying and prepare them for the afterlife. But when he unexpectedly meets twelve-year-old Abra Stone—who possesses an even more powerful manifestation of the shining—the two find their lives in sudden jeopardy at the hands of the ageless and murderous nomadic tribe known as the True Knot, reigniting Dan’s own demons and summoning him to battle for this young girl’s soul and survival...
Doctor Sleep [Streaming audiobook] (The Shining #2) by Stephen King; Will Patton (Narrated by)
Call Number: FIC KING STE S2 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781470345822
Publication Date: 2013-09-24

FINALISTS

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
Malediction by Lisa Morton
A Necessary End by Sara Pinborough and F. Paul WIlson
The Heavens Rise by Christopher Rice

NOS42A by Joe Hill
Call Number: FIC HILL JOE NO (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780062200570
Publication Date: 2013-04-30
Victoria McQueen has an uncanny knack for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. When she rides her bicycle over the rickety old covered bridge in the woods near her house, she always emerges in the places she needs to be. Charles Talent Manx has a gift of his own. He likes to take children for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the vanity plate NOS4A2. In the Wraith, he and his innocent guests can slip out of the everyday world and onto hidden roads that lead to an astonishing playground of amusements he calls Christmasland. The journey across the highway of Charlie's twisted imagination transforms his precious passengers, leaving them as terrifying and unstoppable as their benefactor. Then comes the day when Vic goes looking for trouble...and finds her way to Charlie. That was a lifetime ago. Now, the only kid ever to escape Charlie's evil is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx hasn't stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. On the road again, he won't slow down until he's taken his revenge. He's after something very special—something Vic can never replace. As a life-and-death battle of wills builds, Vic McQueen prepares to destroy Charlie once and for all—or die trying.
NOS4A2 [E-Book] by Joe Hill
Call Number: 2013
ISBN: 9780062200594
Publication Date: 2013-04-30
NOS4A2 [Streaming audiobook] by Joe Hill; Kate Mulgrew (Read by)
Call Number: FIC HILL JOE NO Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780062237743
Publication Date: 2013-04-30

WINNER

Blood Kin by Steve Rasnic Tem

FINALISTS

Suffer the Children by Craig DiLouie
Jade Sky by Patrick Freivald
Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk
The Vines by Christopher Rice

Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk
Call Number: FIC PALAH CHU B (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780385538039
Publication Date: 2014-10-21
Penny Harrigan is a low-level associate in a big Manhattan law firm with an apartment in Queens and no love life at all. So it comes as a great shock when she finds herself invited to dinner by one C. Linus Maxwell, a software mega-billionaire and lover of the most gorgeous and accomplished women on earth. After dining at Manhattan's most exclusive restaurant, he whisks Penny off to a hotel suite in Paris, where he proceeds, notebook in hand, to bring her to previously undreamed-of heights of gratification for days on end. What's not to like? This: Penny discovers that she is a test subject for the final development of a line of feminine products to be marketed in a nationwide chain of boutiques called Beautiful You. So potent and effective are these devices that women by the millions line up outside the stores on opening day and then lock themselves in their room with them and stop coming out. Except for batteries. Maxwell's plan for battery-powered world domination must be stopped. But how?
Beautiful You [E-Book] by Chuck Palahniuk
Call Number: FIC PALAH CHU B Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780385538046
Publication Date: 2014

WINNER

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

FINALISTS

The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker
The Deep by Michaelbrent Collings
The Cure by J. G. Faherty
Black Tide by Patrick Freivald

The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker
Call Number: FIC BARKE CLI SC (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250055804
Publication Date: 2015-05-19
The long-beleaguered detective Harry D'Amour, investigator of all supernatural, magical, and malevolent crimes faces off against his formidable, and intensely evil rival, Pinhead, the priest of hell. Barker devotees have been waiting for The Scarlet Gospels with bated breath for years, and it's everything they've begged for and more. Bloody, terrifying, and brilliantly complex, fans and newcomers alike will not be disappointed by the epic, visionary tale that is The Scarlet Gospels. Barker's horror will make your worst nightmares seem like bedtime stories. The Gospels are coming. Are you ready?
The Scarlet Gospels [streaming audiobook] by Clive Barker
Call Number: FIC BARKE CLI SC Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781427267238
Publication Date: 2015

WINNER

The Fisherman by John Langan

FINALISTS

Hard Light : a Cass Neary Crime Novel by Elizabeth Hand
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Johnes
Stranded : a Novel by Bracken MacLeod
Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay

WINNER

Ararat by Christopher Golden

FINALISTS

Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King
Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman
I Wish I Was Like You by S. P. Miskowski
Ubo by Steve Rasnic Tem

Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King; Owen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE SL (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781501163401
Publication Date: 2017-09-26
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare. One woman, the mysterious "Eve Black," is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Eve a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain? Abandoned, left to their increasingly primal urges, the men divide into warring factions, some wanting to kill Eve, some to save her. Others exploit the chaos to wreak their own vengeance on new enemies. All turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world.

WINNER

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
Call Number: FIC TREMB PAU CA (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780062679109
Publication Date: 2018-06-26
The Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Head Full of Ghosts gives a new twist to the home invasion horror story in a heart-palpitating novel of psychological suspense that recalls Stephen King's Misery, Ruth Ware's In a Dark, Dark Wood, and Jack Ketchum's cult hit The Girl Next Door.

FINALISTS

The Hunger by Alma Katsu
Glimpse by Jonathan Maberry
Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman
Dracul by Dacre Stoker and J. D. Barker

Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman
Call Number: FIC MALER JOS UN (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780399180163
Publication Date: 2018-04-10
Carol Evers is a woman with a dark secret. You see, every so often Carol descends into a death-like coma that she calls the Black Place. For two to four days her heartbeat slows way down, her breathing all but stops, and to the eyes of all she would appear dead as a doornail. Only two people know of her condition: her husband Dwight, and her former lover James Moxie--the most legendary outlaw the Trail has ever seen. Just before Carol can share her secret with a friend, she falls into the Black Place once again, only this time, Dwight begins preparations for her funeral two days hence, hoping to inherit her fortune. When a telegram arrives for Moxie, notifying him of the upcoming burial of his lost love, he rides out of retirement and hits the Trail once again, desperate to save Carol from a premature burial. Hot on Moxie's heels are threats both human and...other.

Dracul by Dacre Stoker; J. D. Barker
Call Number: FIC STOKE DAC DR (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780735219342
Publication Date: 2018-10-02
It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here ... A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen--a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen--and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning. A riveting novel of gothic suspense, Dracul reveals not only Dracula's true origin, but Bram Stoker's--and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them.

WINNER

Coyote Rage by Owl Goingback

FINALISTS

Inspection by Josh Malerman
The Worst is Yet to Come by S. P. Miskowski
Into the Ashes by Lee Murray
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

2000-2009

WINNER

The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon

FINALISTS

The Indifference of Heaven by Gary A. Braunbeck
Silent Children by Ramsey Campbell
The Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club by Brian A. Hopkins
The Deceased by Tom Piccirilli

WINNER

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods (American gods #1) by Neil Gaiman
Call Number: FIC GAIMA NEI A1 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780380973651
Publication Date: 2001-06-19
The story of an ex-con who is offered a job as a bodyguard for Mr. Wednesday, a trickster and a rogue. Shadow soon learns that his role in the man's schemes are far more dangerous and dark than he could have ever imagined.
American Gods [E-Book] : the Tenth Anniversary Edition (American gods #1) by Neil Gaiman
Call Number: FIC GAIMA NEI A1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780062109590
Publication Date: 2011-06-21
American Gods [Streaming Audiobook] : the Tenth Anniversary Edition (American gods #1) by George Guidall (Read by); Neil Gaiman
Call Number: FIC GAIMA NEI A1 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780062101914
Publication Date: 2011-06-21

FINALISTS

From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury
The Lost by Jack Ketchum
Black House by Stephen King & Peter Straub

Black House (Talisman #2) by Stephen King and Peter Straub
Call Number: FIC KING STE T2 Ebook (OverDrive)
Publication Date: 2001
Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer travelled to a parallel universe called The Territories to save his mother and her Territories "twinner" from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, WI. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to awaken those memories.When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed "The Fisherman" and Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. But is this merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams, if that is what they are, of robins' eggs and red feathers? It's almost as if someone is trying to tell him something. As that message becomes increasingly impossible to ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past, where he may find the soul-strength to enter a terrifying house at the end of a deserted track of forest, there to encounter the obscene and ferocious evils sheltered within it.

WINNER

The Night Class by Tom Piccirilli

FINALISTS

The Hour Before Dark by Douglas Clegg
From a Buick 8 by Stephen King
Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

From a Buick 8 [Kindle] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE FR Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780743211376
Publication Date: 2002-09-24
The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979, when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this one was ... wrong, just wrong. A few hours later, when Rafferty vanished, Wilcox and his fellow troopers knew the car was worse than dangerous -- and that it would be better if John Q. Public never found out about it. Curt's avid curiosity taking the lead, they investigated as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work, the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still life painting that breathes -- inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from. In the fall of 2001, a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his 18-year-old boy Ned starts coming by the barracks, mowing the lawn, washing windows, shoveling snow. Sandy Dearborn, Sergeant Commanding, knows it's the boy's way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers, and the secret begins to stir, not only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround him, but in Shed B as well.

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
Call Number: FIC PALAH CHU L (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780385504478
Publication Date: 2002-09-17
Ever heard of a culling song? It’s a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought. You can find one on page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, waiting to be picked up by unsuspecting readers. Reporter Carl Streator discovers the song’s lethal nature while researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and before he knows it, he’s reciting the poem to anyone who bothers him. As the body count rises, Streator glimpses the potential catastrophe if someone truly malicious finds out about the song. The only answer is to find and destroy every copy of the book in the country. Accompanied by a shady real-estate agent, her Wiccan assistant, and the assistant’s truly annoying ecoterrorist boyfriend, Streator begins a desperate cross-country quest to put the culling song to rest.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Call Number: FIC SEBOL ALI LO (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780316666343
Publication Date: 2002-07-03
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.
The Lovely Bones [Streaming audiobook] by Alice Sebold
Call Number: FIC SEBOL ALI LO Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780316145725
Publication Date: 2002
The Lovely Bones [CD] by Alice Sebold; Author (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction SE (Adult CD Audiobook)
ISBN: 9781600248429
Publication Date: 2009-09-30

WINNER

Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub

Lost Boy, Lost Girl by Peter Straub
Call Number: FIC STRAU PET LO (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781400060924
Publication Date: 2003-10-07
A woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son—beautiful, troubled fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill—vanishes from the face of the earth. To his uncle, horror novelist Timothy Underhill, Mark’s inexplicable absence feels like a second death. After his sister-in-law’s funeral, Tim searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help him unravel this mystery of death and disappearance. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother’s suicide Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house on Michigan Street whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.

FINALISTS

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King
Serenity Falls by James A. Moore
The Night Country by Stewart O'Nan
A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King; BookSource Staff (Compiled by)
Call Number: FIC KING STE DT5 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780606001366
Publication Date: 2006-02-01
In the extraordinary fifth novel in Stephen King’s remarkable fantasy epic, Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the forests of Mid-World. Their path takes them to the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis, a tranquil valley community of farmers and ranchers on Mid-World’s borderlands. Beyond the town, the rocky ground rises toward the hulking darkness of Thunderclap, the source of a terrible affliction that is slowly stealing the community’s soul. The Wolves of Thunderclap and their unspeakable depredation are coming. To resist them is to risk all, but these are odds the gunslingers are used to, and they can give the Calla-folken both courage and cunning. Their guns, however, will not be enough.
Wolves of the Calla [Streaming audiobook] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE DT5 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781508219163
Publication Date: 2003

WINNER

In the Night Room by Peter Straub

In the Night Room by Peter Straub
Call Number: FIC STRAU PET IN (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781400062522
Publication Date: 2004-10-26
Willy Patrick, the author of the Caldecott-winning young-adult novel In the Night Room, thinks she is losing her mind again. Two weeks before her second marriage, on her way home one day, Willy is drawn into the parking lot of a warehouse. Knowing that her daughter, Holly, is being held in that building, she wants to rescue her. But what she knows is impossible, for her daughter is dead. On the same day, author Timothy Underhill, struggling with a new book about a troubled young woman, is confronted with the ghost of his 9-year-old sister, April. Soon after, Underhill begins to receive eerie, fragmented e-mails that he finally realizes are from dead people whom he knew in his youth. Like his sister, they want to tell him something. When Willy and Timothy meet, they recognize each other, realizing that they must join forces to confront the evils surrounding them.

FINALISTS

The Wind Caller by P. D. Cacek
The Dark Tower by Stephen King
Deep in the Darkness by Michael Laimo

The Dark Tower by Stephen King; Michael Whelan (Illustrator)
Call Number: FIC KING STE DT7 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781880418628
Publication Date: 2004-09-21
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet have journeyed together and apart, scattered far and wide across multilayered worlds of wheres and whens. The destinies of Roland, Susannah, Jake, Father Callahan, Oy, and Eddie are bound in the Dark Tower itself, which now pulls them ever closer to their own endings and beginnings...and into a maelstrom of emotion, violence, and discovery.

WINNERS

Dread in the Beast by Charlee Jacob
Creepers by David Morrell

FINALISTS

Keepers by Gary Braunbeck
NOvember Mourns by Tom Piccirilli

WINNER

Lisey's Story by Stephen King

Lisey's Story by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE LI (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780743289412
Publication Date: 2006-10-24
Lisey lost her husband Scott two years ago, after a twenty-five year marriage of profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Scott was an award-winning, bestselling novelist and a very complicated man. Early in their relationship, before they married, Lisey knew there was a place Scott went—a place that both terrified and healed him, could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. Now it’s Lisey’s turn to face Scott’s demons, to go to that terrifying place known as Boo’ya Moon. What begins as a widow’s effort to sort through the papers of her celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he inhabited.
Lisey's Story [Streaming audiobook] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE LI Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781508219255
Publication Date: 2006

FINALISTS

Prodigal Blues by Gary A. Braunbeck
Ghost Road Blues by Jonathan Maberry
Headstone City by Tom Piccirilli
Pressure by Jeff Strand

WINNER

The Missing by Sarah Langan

FINALISTS

The Guardener's Tale by Bruce Boston
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
The Witch's Trinity by Erika Mailman
The Terror by Dan Simmons

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Call Number: FIC HILL JOE HE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780061147937
Publication Date: 2007-02-13
Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangman's noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet.

WINNER

Duma Key by Stephen King

Duma Key by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE DU (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781416552512
Publication Date: 2008-01-22
Renting a house on the Florida coast after suffering a crippling accident and ending his marriage, construction millionaire Edgar Freemantle creates works of art that lead him to discover unsettling elements from his landlady's enigmatic family history.
Duma Key [CD] by Stephen King; John Slattery (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction KI (Adult CD Audiobooks)
ISBN: 9780743569743
Publication Date: 2008-01-22

FINALISTS

Coffin County by Gary Braunbeck
The Reach by Nate Kenyon
Johnny Gruesome by Gregory Lamberson

1990-1999

WINNER

Mine by Robert R. McCammon

FINALISTS

Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale
Funland by Richard Laymon
Reign by Chet Williamson

Savage Season [E-Book] (Hap Collins & Leonard Pine #1) by Joe R. Lansdale
Call Number: FIC LANSD JOER SA Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780307776471
Publication Date: 2010

WINNER

Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon

Boy's Life by Sally Peters; Robert McCammon (Editor)
Call Number: FIC MCAMM ROBR BO (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780671742263
Publication Date: 1991-08-01
Zephyr, Alabama, is an idyllic hometown for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson—a place where monsters swim the river deep and friends are forever. Then, one cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake—and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face-to-face with a terrible, haunting vision of death. As Cory struggles to understand his father’s pain, his eyes are slowly opened to the forces of good and evil that surround him. From an ancient mystic who can hear the dead and bewitch the living, to a violent clan of moonshiners, Cory must confront the secrets that hide in the shadows of his hometown—for his father’s sanity and his own life hang in the balance…

FINALISTS

The M.D. by Thomas M. Disch
Needful Things by Stephen King
The Waste Lands by Stephen King
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons

Needful Things by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE NE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780670839537
Publication Date: 1991-10-01
The town of Castle Rock, Maine has seen its fair share of oddities over the years, but nothing is as peculiar as the little curio shop that’s just opened for business here. Its mysterious proprietor, Leland Gaunt, seems to have something for everyone out on display at Needful Things…interesting items that run the gamut from worthless to priceless. Nothing has a price tag in this place, but everything is certainly for sale. The heart’s desire for any resident of Castle Rock can easily be found among the curiosities…in exchange for a little money and—at the specific request of Leland Gaunt—a whole lot of menace against their fellow neighbors. Everyone in town seems willing to make a deal at Needful Things, but the devil is in the details. And no one takes heed of the little sign hanging on the wall: Caveat emptor. In other words, let the buyer beware…
Needful Things [E-Book] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE NE Ebook (OverDrive)
Publication Date: 2009
Needful Things [Streaming audiobook] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE NE Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781508217190
Publication Date: 2016

The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower #3) by Stephen King; Ned Dameron (Illustrator)
Call Number: FIC KING STE DT3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780452267404
Publication Date: 1992-01-01
Several months have passed since The Drawing of the Three, and in The Waste Lands, Roland’s two new tet-mates have become trained gunslingers. Eddie Dean has given up heroin, and Odetta’s two selves have joined, becoming the stronger and more balanced personality of Susannah Dean. But Roland altered ka by saving the life of Jake Chambers, a boy who—in Roland’s world—has already died. Now Roland and Jake exist in different worlds, but they are joined by the same madness: the paradox of double memories. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie must draw Jake into Mid-World and then follow the Path of the Beam all the way to the Dark Tower. There are new evils…new dangers to threaten Roland’s little band in the devastated city of Lud and the surrounding wastelands, as well as horrific confrontations with Blaine the Mono, the piratical Gasher, and the frightening Tick-Tock Man.
The Waste Lands [E-Book] (The Dark Tower #3) by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE DT3 Ebook (OverDrive)
Publication Date: 2010

WINNER

Blood of the Lamb by Thomas F. Monteleone

FINALISTS

Homecoming by Matthew Costello
Deathgrip by Brian Hodge
Hideaway by Dean R. Koontz
Children of the Night by Dan Simmons

WINNER

The Throat by Peter Straub

The Throat (Blue rose trilogy #3) by Peter Straub
Call Number: FIC STRAU PE B3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780307472236
Publication Date: 2010-08-10
Tim Underhill, now an acclaimed novelist, travels back to his hometown of Millhaven, Illinois after he gets a call from John Ransom, an old army buddy. Ransom believes there’s a copycat killer on the loose, mimicking the Blue Rose murders from decades earlier—he thinks his wife could be a potential victim. Underhill seeks out his old friend Tom Pasmore, an aging hermit who has attained minor celebrity as an expert sleuth, to help him investigate. They quickly discover that Millhaven is a town plagued by horrifying secrets and there is a twisted killer on the loose who is far more dangerous than they ever imagined. Expertly tying together the events of Koko and Mystery, The Throat proves Peter Straub to be the master of the suspense novel.

FINALISTS

Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
Blackburn by Bradley Denton
Drawing Blood by Popp Z. Brite
The Summoning by Bentley Little

WINNER

Dead in the Water by Nancy Holder

FINALISTS

The Alienist by Caleb Carr
From the Teeth of Angels by Jonathan Carroll
Insomnia by Stephen King
The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe

The Alienist by Caleb Carr
Call Number: Fiction C311a (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780679417798
Publication Date: 1994-03-15
The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler; a psychologist, or "alienist"; to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.
The Alienist [E-Book] by Caleb Carr
Call Number: OverDrive E-Book
ISBN: 9781588365408
Publication Date: 2006
The Alienist [Streaming Audio] by Caleb Carr
Call Number: OverDrive Audiobook
ISBN: 9780743584807
Publication Date: 1994

Insomnia [E-Book] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE INS Ebook (OverDrive)
Publication Date: 2009
Nightmares come to life for Ralph Roberts. Up all night, he's seeing some pretty strange things. No wonder he can't get back to sleep. Readers won't be able to either.

WINNER

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates

FINALISTS

Widow by Billie Sue Mosiman
Deadrush by Yvonne Navarro
Bone Music by Alan Rodgers

WINNER

The Green Mile by Stephen King

The Green Mile by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE GR (Adult fiction)
Publication Date: 1996
Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk “the Green Mile,” the lime-colored linoleum corridor leading to a final meeting with Old Sparky, Cold Mountain’s electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities over the years working the Mile, but he’s never seen anything like John Coffey—a man with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, condemned for a crime terrifying in its violence and shocking in its depravity. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecombe is about to discover the terrible, wondrous truth about John Coffey—a truth that will challenge his most cherished beliefs…
The Green Mile [Streaming audiobook] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE GR Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780743591676
Publication Date: 1999

FINALISTS

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
Crota by Owl Goingback
The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub

WINNER

Children of the Dusk by Janet Berliner & George Guthridge

FINALISTS

The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
Earthquake Weather by Tim Powers

WINNER

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Bag of Bones by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE B (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781982102494
Publication Date: 2018-09-04
Bag of Bones recounts the plight of forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan, who is unable to stop grieving following the sudden death of his wife Jo, and can no longer bear to face the blank screen of his computer. Now his nights are plagued by vivid nightmares, all set at the Maine summerhouse he calls Sara Laughs. Despite these dreams, or perhaps because of them, Mike returns to the lakeside getaway. There he finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, who will do anything to take his three-year-old granddaughter away from her widowed young mother. As Mike is drawn into their struggle, as he falls in love with both mother and child, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations, ever-escalating nightmares, and the sudden recovery of his writing ability. What are the forces that have been unleashed here--and what do they want of Mike Noonan?

FINALISTS

Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz
Darker Angels by S. P. Somtow
Fog Heart by Thomas Tessier

Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz
Call Number: FIC KOONT DEA M1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553106640
Publication Date: 1998-01-14
Christopher Snow is different from all the other residents of Moonlight Bay, different from anyone you've ever met. For Christopher Snow has made his peace with a very rare genetic disorder shared by only one thousand other Americans, a disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light. His life is filled with the fascinating rituals of one who must embrace the dark. He knows the night as no one else ever will, ever can—the mystery, the beauty, the many terrors, and the eerie, silken rhythms of the night—for it is only at night that he is free. Until the night he witnesses a series of disturbing incidents that sweep him into a violent mystery only he can solve, a mystery that will force him to rise above all fears and confront the many-layered strangeness of Moonlight Bay and its residents.

WINNER

Mr. X by Peter Straub

Mr. X by Peter Straub
Call Number: FIC STRAU PET MR (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780679401384
Publication Date: 1999-07-20
Ned Dunstan's birthday is fast approaching, and every year on this date, Ned experiences a paralyzing seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious and malevolent figure in black whom Ned calls Mr. X. Ned has been drawn back to his hometown, Edgerton, Illinois, by a premonition that his mother, Star, is dying. Before she loosens her hold on life, she imparts to Ned the name of his father, never before disclosed, and warns him that he is in grave danger. Despite her foreboding, Ned's determination to learn as much as possible about his absent father ignites a series of extraordinary adventures that gradually reveal the heart of both his own identity and that of his entirely fantastic family: He discovers that he is shadowed by an identical twin brother who can pass through doors and otherwise defy the laws of nature; he becomes the lead suspect in three violent deaths; he investigates the secret shadow-world within Edgerton; he learns to "eat time" and remembers the one occasion when he and his sinister brother united into a single being. Finally, at the moment of battle, he must call upon everything he has learned to save his own life.

FINALISTS

Darker Than Night by Owl Goingback
Hannibal by Thomas Harris
Low Men in Yellow Coats by Stephen King
Hexes by Tom Piccirilli

Hannibal (Hannibal Lecter #3) by Thomas Harris
Call Number: FIC HARRI THO L3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780385299299
Publication Date: 1999-06-08
You remember Hannibal Lecter: gentleman, genius, cannibal. Seven years have passed since Dr. Lecter escaped from custody. And for seven years he’s been at large, free to savor the scents, the essences, of an unguarded world. But intruders have entered Dr. Lecter’s world, piercing his new identity, sensing the evil that surrounds him. For the multimillionaire Hannibal left maimed, for a corrupt Italian policeman, and for FBI agent Clarice Starling, who once stood before Lecter and who has never been the same, the final hunt for Hannibal Lecter has begun. All of them, in their separate ways, want to find Dr. Lecter. And all three will get their wish. But only one will live long enough to savor the reward. . . .

1987-1989

WINNERS

Misery by Stephen King
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon

Misery [Kindle] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE MS Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9781101137925
Publication Date: 1988
Paul Sheldon, author of a series of historical romances, wakes up in a secluded farmhouse in Colorado with broken legs and Annie Wilkes, a disappointed and deranged fan, hovering over him with drugs, ax, and blowtorch and demanding he bring his fictional heroine back to life.
Misery [E-Book] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE MS Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781101137925
Publication Date: 1988
Misery [Streaming Audiobook] by Stephen King
Call Number: FIC KING STE MS Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781508217169
Publication Date: 2016

Swan Song [E-Book] by Robert McCammon
Call Number: FIC MCAMM ROBR SW Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781453231524
Publication Date: 2011-10-18
Swan is a nine-year-old Idaho girl following her struggling mother from one trailer park to the next when she receives visions of doom—something far wider than the narrow scope of her own beleaguered life. In a blinding flash, nuclear bombs annihilate civilization, leaving only a few buried survivors to crawl onto a scorched landscape that was once America. In Manhattan, a homeless woman stumbles from the sewers, guided by the prophecies of a mysterious amulet, and pursued by something wicked; on Idaho's Blue Dome Mountain, an orphaned boy falls under the influence of depraved survivalists and discovers the value of a killer instinct; and amid the devastating dust storms on the Great Plains of Nebraska, Swan forms a heart-and-soul bond with an unlikely new companion. Soon they will cross paths. But only Swan knows that they must endure more than just a trek across an irradiated country of mutated animals, starvation, madmen, and wasteland warriors. Swan's visions tell of a coming malevolent force. It's a shape-shifting embodiment of the apocalypse, and of all that is evil and despairing. And it's hell-bent on destroying the last hope of goodness and purity in the world. Swan is that hope. Now, she must fight not only for her own survival, but for that of all mankind.

FINALISTS

Live Girls by Ray Garton
Unassigned Territory by Kem Nunn
Ash Wednesday by Chet Williamson

WINNER

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter #2) by Thomas Harris
Call Number: FIC HARRI THO L2 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780312022822
Publication Date: 1988-07-15
A serial murderer known by a grotesquely apt nickname--Buffalo Bill-is stalking particular women. A young F.B.I. trainee is assigned to interview a mental patient--a brilliant psychiatrist and killer, for insights into the crime.

FINALISTS

The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale
Flesh by Richard Laymon
Stinger by Robert R. McCammon
Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
Black Wind by F. Paul Wilson

The Queen of the Damned (Vampire chronicles #3) by Anne Rice
Call Number: FIC RICE ANN V3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780394558233
Publication Date: 1988-09-12
Sequel to: The Vampire Lestat. Akasha, mother of all vampires, has been awakened from her 6,000 year sleep and elevates herself and her chosen son/ lover to the level of gods.

WINNER

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons

FINALISTS

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
In a Dark Dream by Charles L. Grant
Midnight by Dean R. Koontz
The Wolf's Hour by Robert R. McCammon

Geek Love [Kindle] by Katherine Dunn
Call Number: FIC DUNN KAT GE Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9781417574933
Publication Date: 1999-01-01
Here is the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities (with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes). Their offspring include Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious—and dangerous—asset. As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.
Geek Love [E-Book] by Katherine Dunn
Call Number: FIC DUNN KAT GE Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780307794482
Publication Date: 2011

Bram Stoker Awards

2020-2029

WINNER

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

FINALISTS

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Devil's Creek by Keisling, Todd

Malorie by Josh Malerman

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

WINNER

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Jones

FINALISTS:

The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

PRELIMINARY BALLOT:

Red X by David Demchuk

Children of Demeter by E. V. Knight

Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

Incarnate by Steve Stred

WINNER

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

FINALISTS:

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste

Daphne by Josh Malerman

Sundial by Catriona Ward

WINNER

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

FINALISTS

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

2010-2019

WINNER

A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

FINALISTS

Horns by Joe Hill

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Dead Love by Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Apocalypse of the Dead by Joe McKinney

Dweller by Jeff Strand

WINNER

Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney

FINALISTS

A Matrix of Angels by Christopher Conlon

Cosmic Forces by Greg Lamberson

Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi

Not Fade Away by Gene O'Neill

The German by Lee Thomas

WINNER

The Drowning Girl by Bentley Little

FINALISTS

Bottled Abyss by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

NightWhere by John Everson

The Haunted by Bentley Little

Inheritance by Joe McKinney

WINNER

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

FINALISTS

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

Malediction by Lisa Morton

A Necessary End by Sara Pinborough and F. Paul WIlson

The Heavens Rise by Christopher Rice

WINNER

Blood Kin by Steve Rasnic Tem

FINALISTS

Suffer the Children by Craig DiLouie

Jade Sky by Patrick Freivald

Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk

The Vines by Christopher Rice

WINNER

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

FINALISTS

The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker