Showing results for "Peter James" in Horror

Three muffled thuds ring from the partially filled grave of the newly wed girl. Only the verger hears them, and he dismisses the noise as his imagination. But over the next few days, others also hear faint sounds. An exhumation order is granted. Reporter Kate Hemingway sneaks into the small suburban churchyard when the coffin is opened, and the scene she witnesses is so horrific she can never forget it. As she starts work on the story, Kate finds herself caught up in a sinister and macabre cover-up.

Moving from the heart of the city to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for born townies, Ollie Harcourt, his wife, Caro, and their twelve-year-old daughter, Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House – a huge, dilapidated, Georgian mansion – they are filled with excitement. Despite the financial strain of the move, Ollie sees Cold Hill House as a paradise for his animal-loving daughter, a base for his web-design business and a terrific long-term investment.

The last time the dream came, Sam was seven years old, and that was the night her parents were to die. Twenty-five years later, Sam's nightmares are starting to come true once more. Now a successful TV commercials producer, juggling her roles of career woman, wife and mother, she attempts to shut them out.

Cold Hill House has been demolished to make way for a new housing estate. Luxury living at its best with high specification gadgets all thrown in - part exchange available for the right buyers. The first two families move in, and as soon as they do, the unearthly residents of Cold Hill begin to make themselves known. Nobody who moves into Cold Hill reaches their 40th birthday, and the old couple that have just arrived...let’s just say their days are numbered.

Charley has a strange feeling when she sees the idyllic mill house with its cluster of outbuildings, the lake and the swirling mill stream - a powerful sense of recognition, as if she has been there before. Except she knows she hasn't. After Charley and her husband, Tom, move into Elmwood Mill, sinister memories of a previous existence start to haunt her. Despite both their attempts to dismiss everything with rational explanations, the feeling turns to certainty as the memories become increasingly vivid and terrifying.

A relic buried. A secret watched. A warning unheeded. In this chilling tale by master of the supernatural M. R. James, the boundaries between legend and reality dissolve into coastal mist. A Warning to the Curious draws the listener into a bleak and beautiful world where ancient guardians still linger—and curiosity can awaken things best left undisturbed. A haunting meditation on the price of trespass, this is classic ghost storytelling at its most precise and unnerving.

Frannie is delighted when a chance meeting with a handsome man and his son leads to a romance. The fact that the relationship is marred by gruesome tragedies, she dismisses as an unsettling coincidence. But eventually she can no longer ignore the fact that she is the only thing linking these horrible events. Is it a murderous practical joke? Or worse?

In the Ocelot kingdom, shifters rule, and humans are nothing. As a princess, you’d think I lived a blessed life. But like all second-born children of shifter couples, I am a lowly human. The most I can hope for is that when my older sister takes the throne, she’ll consider me unimportant enough to let me marry for love. First, I have to get her to the throne. After a devastating betrayal by our father, I vow to get Camila the crown—now. To become queen, she must collect an amulet that contains secrets to the mating rituals of each feline clan.

A child's memory, a shadowed path, a glimpse of something that should not be. In A Vignette, M. R. James offers a final brushstroke of quiet terror—intimate, elusive, and disquietingly real. This short, unsettling piece lingers like a half-remembered dream, evoking the moment when the everyday slips into the uncanny. With masterful restraint and emotional undercurrent, James reminds us that the most chilling hauntings are those born in the mind—and never truly forgotten.

On a winter's night, as the old year slips silently into the new, shadows stir in forgotten corners, and the past refuses to rest. In The Experiment, M. R. James once again proves himself a master of quiet horror—where the chill creeps not from the cold, but from something far older, and far less forgiving. Subtle, strange, and unsettling, this is a tale that whispers its secrets, if you dare to listen. Perfect for a solitary listen by candlelight, just as midnight strikes.

A young orphan. A sprawling country estate. A distant relative with unsettling interests. This is a tale where quiet dread builds behind closed doors, and the line between scholarly pursuit and ancient ritual begins to blur. Twelve-year-old Stephen Elliott arrives at Aswarby Hall expecting safety—but the deeper he explores its halls, the more he senses that something watches from the shadows. Whispers of vanished children, strange dreams, and spectral figures at the window speak of a secret both chilling and deliberate.

A curious traveler. A forbidden tomb. A name best left unspoken. When Mr. Wraxall digs into the past of a long-dead Swedish nobleman, he unearths more than just history. Something stirs beneath the surface—something ancient, waiting, watching. Count Magnus is a masterpiece of restrained horror by M. R. James, where dread builds slowly and silence says more than screams. Atmospheric, eerie, and unforgettable.

There is no Number 13 at the hotel. At least, there isn't supposed to be. But when shadows stretch in the wrong direction and the architecture begins to forget its own shape, what starts as a quiet academic stay becomes something else entirely. Elegant, unsettling, and steeped in the unseen, Number 13 is M. R. James at his most refined—where the floorplan of reality folds, and one door too many stands ajar.

A gentleman stumbles upon a curious old diary—an innocent discovery, or the key to something far more disturbing? In The Diary of Mr. Poynter, M. R. James once again conjures an atmosphere thick with dread, beauty, and the uncanny. This is a tale where the most ordinary object can become a gateway to forces beyond reason, and where curiosity may lead to quiet terror. With James's trademark subtlety and scholarly unease, the story whispers rather than screams—unsettling the soul long after the final word. Haunting, intricate, and elegantly unnerving.

A new Latin master. A strange sentence. A figure at the window. When boys at a quiet English school begin seeing things that shouldn't be there—and writing things they don't understand—a mystery begins to unfold, darker than any textbook could explain. In A School Story, M. R. James blends scholarly detail with creeping dread to deliver a haunting tale of the past refusing to stay buried. Quiet horror with a bite.

A mournful cry, a well that echoes the past, and an invitation to remember the forgotten. In Wailing Well , M. R. James crafts a haunting tale of mystery and spectral terror, where the quiet of a rural landscape is disturbed by a cry from the past—an eerie wail that resonates through time. As James unearths the secrets buried in the forgotten well, he masterfully builds a sense of creeping dread and inevitable doom, reminding us that some things—once heard—can never be forgotten.

When Sammie made a discovery that could bring hope to all the survivors of the Black Flu, one man’s twisted greed turned that dream into a nightmare. He destroyed Safe Zone E and caused the deaths of thousands. After the destruction of her Zone, Sammie was voted in as leader of the former residents. She made them three promises: she would find them a new home; she would find her nemesis, Brian Crowe, and make him pay; and she would build a better future for her people. Sammie intends to keep these promises at any cost. Can the people of the UK find their Serenity?

For 15 years, Janet has been married to her devoted and boring husband, Trevor. But their marriage was not as simple as it seemed. Now Janet is on the road, hurtling towards another man, and another life. Has she found freedom, and the strength to escape Trevor’s dominating fetishes? Or is there something far more sinister waiting for her at the crematorium?

When an attack lands me in the spirit world, I’m determined to get back to my life and my lovers. My only solace in the strange place is my mother, who has the answers to questions I never got to ask in her lifetime. And though I long for the pieces to the puzzle of her death and my life, the most important question of all is.... How do I get out of here?