It seemed like an easy way for Janice to make $500. Just spend a night alone in an empty, deserted house. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's only another one of Lyle's silly night games. Or is it?

A marathon: 26 miles and 385 yards. The greatest running test. Just finishing the race is enough for most runners. But not for Rod Claymore. He's out to win---whatever the cost.

It's Halloween night. The old Witherspoon house stands all alone in the dark, the last house on a dead-end street. Its only neighbors are thick woods and a moonlit graveyard. Not long ago, a grisly murder/suicide took place in the house. Now, it is said to be haunted. Haunted but no longer abandoned. Three years ago, Laura and Shannon moved in. They're young, pretty, friendly... and, best of all, generous with candy on Halloween. Tonight, they're getting ready for a costume party. Shannon is upstairs getting dressed and Laura is downstairs handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. It's a perfect Halloween night until Laura opens the door and finds herself facing a lone teenaged boy... a terrified boy who says: "Let me in! They're gonna get me!" And, for Laura and Shannon, the party begins. It's Halloween night and there are ghosts and goblins in the streets. And something much worse in the graveyard.*** From Publishers Weekly Laymon and Halloween. That sounds like a perfect mix, with the author of the gleefully malevolent The Traveling Vampire Show (Forecasts, Apr. 24) taking on the spookiest night of the year. But his fans know that Laymon can be erratic, sometimes delivering shocking yet emotionally astute entertainments, at other times turning in tangled terrors drenched in sex and gore. The latter, unfortunately, more closely describes his new novel, despite its fast, smart start, in which horror descends like a howling banshee on two young women dispensing candy to trick-or-treaters. A teen boy, Hunter, comes banging on Shannon and Laura's door, claiming he's being chased by a pack of naked adults-witches? Soon the house is under attack by nude sword- and axe-wielding maniacs. A local dad escorting a bunch of kids gets caught in the ensuing mayhem, which features numerous cuttings and, in time, the spectacle of Shannon and Laura stripped and trussed together in the local graveyard as the villains prepare for human sacrifice. Laymon ups the ante to supernatural horror by tossing in a homicidal spirit who's haunting Shannon and Laura's house, but that element only adds to the confusion already made rampant through frenzied racing and chasing by too many characters who don't grow from beginning to end, despite their ordeals. Laymon boasts an intensely loyal following, so this novel will likely sell out its limited print run, but while his fans will love the richly depicted seasonal setting and Laymon's ability to make pages riffle as if in high wind, they'll also sense that, ultimately, this is one sputtering jack o'lantern.

Pick one, grab, and run. Tony Matheson makes his living snatching purses. But one of these days he's going to grab the wrong one.

For Doreen this Saturday night is just like all the rest. She's Alone. But she knows that's the way it must be. And pity any person who tries to find out why.

A restlessness born of guilt and despair leads Ravi to embark on a journey that ends in the remote village of Khasak in the picturesque Palghat countryside in Kerala. A land from the past, potent with dreams and legends, enfolds the traveller in a powerful and unsettling embrace. Ravi is bewitched and entranced as everything around him—the villagers; their children whom he teaches in a makeshift school; the elders who see him as a threat; the toddy-tappers; the shamans—takes on the quality of myth. And then reality, painful and threatening, begins to intrude on the sojourner's resting place and Ravi begins to understand that there is no escape from the relentless dictates of karma... Often poetic and dark, always complex and rich, The Legends of Khasak, O.V. Vijayan's much-acclaimed first novel, translated into English by the author, is an extraordinary achievement

Kassandra comes from the sea, but she has no memory of saltwater, seagulls, or an incoming tide. She's never seen an ocean, never heard the thunder of surf. She's an exile, betrayed by her own family, sent as far from the sea as they could arrange--somewhere in the middle of Nebraska.Everything changes the day she drowns in Red Bear Lake, and discovers she can't really drown. Not in the way everyone else can. Then a two-thousand year old king wakes inside her head and turns out to be a prodigy with mathematics. Kassandra cries for the first time in her life, and learns that her tears are doorways for calling things from the sea. With clues from summoned sea-demons and the voices in her head, Kassandra sets out to find out what the hell is going on...and discovers she's a prisoner, trapped between a murderous grandfather who controls an army of the drowned dead, river witches who spy on her through the plumbing, and Ms. Matrothy, the Girl's Department Director, who's been trying to kill her since she was four.

Sea Throne is the sequel to Seaborn (Juno Books). Kassandra prepares for war against her grandfather, and is confronted on all sides. Nikasia, the daughter of the king's war-bard--who claims descent from Circe--seeks revenge for the murder of her father. A group of immortals bands together to take everything away, and Kassandra must take them on while holding her family together.

Product Description"From the first page of Seaborn, you are immersed. Chris Howard navigates a wild ride through a brilliantly edgy and richly atmospheric alter-world. Here is a fresh, formidable spin on fantasy, and Howard is a talent to watch out for. Seaborn will leave you spellbound." —Adele Griffin, author of where I want to be "Dark and atmospheric, Seaborn is an imaginative new entry in the world of paranormal fiction."—Liz Maverick, author of Wired, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2007"...a fresh and entertaining read and I fully expect we will be hearing more from Chris Howard in the future."—SciFiGuy"Fascinating read..." —Romantic Times 4 star review Corina Lairsey has just clawed her way free from one controlling relationship when she finds herself in another-only this guy, Aleximor, has really gotten under her skin. Literally. A 400-year-old sorcerer who gathers the drowned dead off the ocean's floor for the King of the Seaborn, he's inside her head and is wearing her body like a wetsuit. Corina desperately schemes to regain control of her self, fighting against time as Aleximor trades pieces of her life away in exchange for power over the path between the worlds of the living and the dead . . . Kassandra is the King of the Seaborn's granddaughter. She comes from the sea, but has spent her whole life in exile on the surface, struggling to control frightening powers she barely understands. She declares war on her murderous grandfather and manipulates her family, friends, oceanic royalty, and the US Navy to aid her- but Aleximor intends to use Kass to carry out his revenge against the entire Seaborn royal line. And she's also fallen in love-one more struggle for an already troubled soul.