Listen Legally to Best Full Audiobooks in Fiction, Horror

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Title: Shoebox Train Wreck

Author: John Mantooth

Narrator: Craig Jessen

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-29-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

"The living haunt the dead..." These fifteen genre-bending stories are set against a backdrop of sudden violence and profound regret, populated by characters whose circumstances and longings drive them to the point of no return... and sometimes even further. A young girl takes a journey to see what is really hidden within the belly of an ancient water tower. A high school senior learns about defiance on a school bus and witnesses a tragedy that he won't soon forget. Six survivors in an underground bunker discuss the possibility of Armageddon being an elaborate hoax. Two brothers take a walk on the dark side of the wheat field and discover that some bonds are stronger than death. And in the title story, a former train conductor must confront the ghosts of his past while learning that it's not the dead who haunt the living, but the other way around. Traversing the back roads of the south and beyond, these stories probe the boundaries of imagination, taking the listener to the fringes of a society where the world looks different, and once you visit, you won't ever be the same.

Members Reviews:

One of the best collections of short stories I've read - bar none!

I don't usually read short story collections. There's usually one or two goodish stories and then the rest are filler. Not so with "Shoebox Train Wreck." Each and every story is a five-star winner.

I identified with so many of the characters in these stories. Mantooth does a superb job of bringing them to life. I also enjoyed the Alabama and Texas locales. And what's with the kudzu so prevalent throughout the book, just like it is in Mantooth's debut novelThe Year of the Storm? It's almost another character.

I especially liked the following stories:

A LONG FALL INTO NOTHING - What would I have done in Jake's place or in Fat Mae's?

THE WATER TOWER - I loved this story. Everything was just right. "If Heather put a little more effort into it, she could go forever without her mother seeing her."

WALK THE WHEAT - the extent to which brotherly love will go.

THE BEST PART - Does Danny really WANT to go back to the structured life in prison?

SAVING DOLL - "sometimes the choice you have is rotten no matter which way you go." Loved the ending to this (along with the beginning and middle).

But as I noted earlier in this review, all the stories are stellar. I will be keeping an eye open for more of Mantooth's work.

Oh, and the artwork at the beginning of each story was just the right touch.

Stephen King fans will love it!

"The living haunt the dead," and these stories haunt the reader. I thoroughly enjoyed this entire collection of stories that I would term "Southern Gothic." Mantooth's writing style brings to mind other favorites of mine, William Faulkner and Stephen King. In succinct and efficient language, he creates characters the reader will find familiar (because they could be people you know) then takes the reader along to watch as they slide into darker and darker circumstances. I cannot pick a favorite from the collection. My favorite is always the one that I just read. I will be re-reading these stories for a long time. And I don't think I'll ever again see a school bus without shuddering.

One of the best

It's easy to say Shoebox Train Wreck is a great collection. But what isn't easy to say is that it's one of the best I've read.

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Title: Legions of the Dark

Subtitle: Vampire Nations Chronicles, Book 1

Author: Billie Sue Mosiman

Narrator: Marshall Bean

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-15-13

Publisher: Billie Sue Mosiman

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

Della Cambian was a senior in high school when she was struck by the family curse; vampirism. With the aid of the ancient known as Mentor, and harried by an aging millionaire with dreams of immortality, Del must find a way to prevent an evil that could endanger every natural vampire on Earth.

And what kind of vampire should she be? Does she have the innate violence to be a Predator? Does the future hold nothing but fear and loathing? Or will she embrace the Natural life like her parents, like her brother, and try, someway, to live as human?

Members Reviews:

A Different Take on Vampire Mythos

What made the experience of listening to Legions of the Dark the most enjoyable?

I enjoyed learning about the author's imagination about vampire naturals, predators, and cravens. A unique twist on the vampire mythos.

What did you like best about this story?

I liked that it had several pairs of characters whose story lines weaved together nicely. Mentor was my favorite character. I look forward to hearing more about him in future books.

Have you listened to any of Marshall Beans other performances before? How does this one compare?

The narrator has a very deep, dark, rich voice. Adds a level of texture to the story telling.

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Title: The Gate

Author: Jason Brant

Narrator: Robert Martinez

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-13-13

Publisher: Jason Brant

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 69 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

Bryan Armstrong and Kyle Detwiler, two college students on the cusp of graduation, are the lucky winners of a contest to become interns on the paranormal television show The Specter Slayers. Their excitement turns to jubilation when they discover that they'll be aiding in the investigation of The Danver Church, one of the most haunted places in America.

Nestled in the remote mountains of Pennsylvania, the church is world renowned for the massacre that occurred there forty years earlier. Accompanied by best-selling horror author Katie Upshaw, they attempt to survive a dream job that quickly turns into a nightmare. The church, adorned with satanic symbols and imagery, is the home of things far worse than any of them could have imagined.

Members Reviews:

Weak version of a story that has already been done

What would have made The Gate better?

Better writing - I just felt this whole thing was lacking.

What was most disappointing about Jason Brants story?

I didn't care for the characters and the obvious caricature of the Ghost Hunters was rather lame. It didn't have enough substance - and perhaps sold as a young adult book my expectations would have been lowered. This story was R.L. Stein at very young reading level.

Did Robert Martinez do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

He did an OK job of characterization - with very different voices.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Gate?

Nothing needed to be edited out - however the story, detail, and characters needed to be developed more....a LOT more.

Any additional comments?

This story has been done before, and I was really hoping for more umph....I stuck through it just to see if it would get better. Unfortunately, it didn't.

Fantastic book

Any additional comments?

Had a lot of fun listening to this book, it reminded me in a lot of ways of shows like Fringe/Lost and also had a good humor and pace. Finished it pretty quickly but it was great.

A little let down at the end but still interesting

What started off as great potential left me a little disappointed at the end. Not quite as up to par as Jason's other books that I find very exiting.

Took the wrong path

This was set up to be a great haunted house / church story, but then the author had to go and ruin it by making it a other worldly monster story. Knew it was going downhill as soon as the author had a make a lame atheist vs religion event (in other words the atheist gets sees something that makes them question their religious - or lack of - views). Of course the author does not take into account that alternative realities has nothing to do with religious views.

So, instead of writing a cool ghost story the author turns the story into an alternate reality story with one larger monster chasing the characters from one place to another only to be chased by another large monster till the next large monster & then back to where they started (losing a few boring characters along the way). Then back to their reality - then for some reason one character is arrested and the other surviving characters don't say anything in his defense just so the author can make idiots of the police.

Dialogue repetitive, lame at some points, just filler.

Characters - stereotype, weakly developed, sometimes seem to be in the way of the story

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Title: Murgunstrumm & Others

Author: Hugh B. Cave

Narrator: Michael A. Slusser

Format: Unabridged

Length: 23 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-03-13

Publisher: Crossroad Press

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 23 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

Long before he became the author of polished romances for the slick magazines, of best-seller novels and firsthand-researched travel books, Hugh B. Cave wrote some of the most grisly and chilling horror stories every to appear in the pulps. Crawling forth from the Depression years - from the haunted pages of Strange Tales, Weird Tales, Ghost Stories, Spicy Mystery Stories, Black Book Detective, and elsewhere - Wildside presents an omnibus of vintage nightmares, twenty-six of the best horror tales of Hugh B. Cave.

This will be a Crossroad Press production.

Members Reviews:

Solid Pulp Horror stories

I would say that Hugh B. Cave was not a great innovator, but a solid and capable writer in the terse pulp fiction style. His fiction consists of vampires, voluptuous women, men of action, and the mad. His writing reminds one of pulp era tales of the criminal underworld, with quick paced action, smoking revolvers, and fists connecting squarely with jaws, but his antagonists tend to the supernatural and science fictional rather than your run-of-the-mill gangsters and gun molls. All in all an enjoyable collection of pulp horror tales.

This author is OBSESSED with women's boobs!!!

Absolutely every story has a pair of naked, white, trembling, (his words not mine) breast.

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Title: Nevermore

Subtitle: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe

Author: David Niall Wilson

Narrator: Gigi Shane

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-20-13

Publisher: Crossroad Press

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 38 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

On the banks of Lake Drummond, on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, there is a tree in the shape of a woman.

One dark, moonlit night, two artists met at the Lake Drummond Hotel, built directly on the borderline of North Carolina and Virginia. One was a young woman with the ability to see spirits trapped in trees and stone, anchored to the earth beyond their years. Her gift was to draw them, and then to set them free. The other was a dark man, haunted by dreams and visions that brought him stories of sadness and pain, trapped in a life between the powers he sensed all around him and a mundane existence attended by failure. They were Eleanore MacReady, Lenore, to her friends, and a young poet named Edgar Allan Poe, who traveled with a crow that was his secret, and almost constant companion, a bird named Grimm for the talented brothers of fairy-tale fame.

Their meeting drew them together in vision, and legend, and pitted their strange powers and quick minds against the depths of the Dismal Swamp itself, ancient legends, and time.

Once, upon a shoreline dreary, there was a tree. This is her story.

Members Reviews:

A Talented Writer of the Macabre

This is certainly one of the most captivating and creative accounts of Edgar Allen Poe and his Lenore, as well as the foundations for Poe's infamous poem, "The Raven". Filled with unexpected twists and turns that left me guessing until the very end, David Niall Wilson has proven himself to be an extraordinary storyteller with a keen gift for the macabre. The suspense throughout was spectacular and never did I feel a sense of prolonging. Wilson has put forth everything I could want from such a novel; extremely well-developed characters, suspense, intrigue, and a great deal of unpredictability. As a long time fan of Edgar Allen Poe, this is one of the rare creative endeavors that truly capture Poe's spirit and then goes beyond to create a mesmerizing story within a story. The narrator of this audio edition, Gigi Shane, is equally as talented. Her voice is rather deep and raspy, yet soft and gentle, which only enhances the ambiance of the story. Listening to her was as though I were enveloped in an old quilt; a bit frayed and rough on the edges but warm and comforting as it drew me in. Her narration was astounding and truly brought this novel life. My overall experience with this particular audiobook was astounding and I sincerely could not ask for anything more. I highly recommend this to any fan of the macabre and Edgar Allen Poe in particular....FIVE stars!

Edgar Allan Poe in his famous Poem, The Raven

Nevermore is story of a younger Edgar Allan Poe. In this story of how the Raven came to be, explores a possibility where Edgar Allan Poe meets Eleanor MacReady (aka Lenore)at The Lake Drummond Hotel. Both artist and writer are compelled to come to The Dismal Swamp.

With the accidental meeting between Lenore and Edgar Allan Poe, each discovered that they both have a gift. Lenore's gift as an artist is to free spirits that are trapped in objects. Edgar's gift (obviously) is to tell stories.

Lenore and Edgar are pawns in the battle of good vs. evil in this supernatural story. The author David Niall Wilson does an excellent job of keeping with the gothic writing style of Edgar Allan Poe.

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Title: Vampire's Artifact

Author: Vianka Van Bokkem

Narrator: Ali Cheff

Format: Unabridged

Length: 36 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-19-13

Publisher: Vianka Van Bokkem

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

My name is Nathan Jones and I am a vampire. Many years ago I was being chased by a vampire hunter. This hunter knew a lot about magic and when some of my vampire friends were hunting him as well; he lost his wooden stakes. The hunter found my coffin, but because he didn't have a wooden stake to kill me with, he decided to draw a powerful angel spell with his own blood.

Vampires are vulnerable to such spell and I could not get out of my coffin until a girl named Libby erased the drawing. I was finally free to go back to 1886 with an artifact that I found in Egypt many years ago to save my young brother from a murderer with Libby's help.

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Title: The Girl in the Basement

Author: Ray Garton

Narrator: Jarod Reizian Frank

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-12-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

Fifteen-year-old Ryan Kettering has spent his young life in a series of mostly abusive foster homes. But his luck has changed. Now hes in the Preston house, where he has a budding romance with fellow fosterchild Lyssa. But something strange is going on in the basement.

Maddy is a slow nine-year-old girl who is kept in the basement. Sometimes she talks in a gravelly adult voice. Sometimes she seems to know things about others that she couldnt possibly know...and predicts things that always come true. And sometimes people from the government come by to spend time with Maddy down in the basement.

Maybe Ryans luck hasnt changed as much as he thinks.

Members Reviews:

Don't waste a credit!

What a let down. I don't know if the author intended for this to be the beginning of a series but it sure seems so. It felt very incomplete at the end. The overall story is okay and narration is good.

A disturbing well-acted thriller

What made the experience of listening to The Girl in the Basement the most enjoyable?

Jarod did a great job with different character voices--especially the creepy demon voice!

Which character as performed by Jarod Reizian Frank was your favorite?

The Demon!

Any additional comments?

The choice to use a very young actor to narrate this book was risky, but, I think, a good one. It makes the main character more relatable to have the narrator match his actual age.

Garbage

This is poorly written, horribly narrated and I could only listen to the first few minutes. Could I have my credit back?

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Title: Dark Reckoning

Subtitle: A Steve Williams Novel, Book 1

Author: J. E. Taylor

Narrator: Brad Langer

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-12-13

Publisher: J.E. Taylor

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

A sadistic killer stalks the secluded college town of Brooksfield, New Hampshire. With bodies piling up and rumors of the murders being part of sacrificial hazing rituals, the FBI plants Special Agent Steve Williams in a fraternity at Brooksfield University.

His investigation takes a ninety degree turn into the bizarre when he's introduced to Jennifer, a clairvoyant co-ed who swears the killer isn't human. Steve considers the plausibility of the extraordinary, the unspeakable, even the inconceivable when his notebook starts bleeding cryptic messages. Messages that indicate Jennifer is at the heart of the darkness in Brooksfield.

When she describes her latest vision, a trail of violent deaths, including his, Steve asks the million-dollar question: Is Jennifer trying to help...or is she actually the one responsible?

*Warning: This book contains depictions of graphic violence that some readers may find offensive.

Members Reviews:

Terrific series.

I love the Steve Williams series. I didn't read them in order, but that wasn't a problem. I don't know how Ms. Taylor does it, but she wrote these books and they were fine as a stand alone. You knew there was more to the story, but that didn't take a thing away from the entire set. I just read this book, and it was great to be able to say 'ah ha' and 'how the heck did she tie these all together?

I really admire J.E. Taylor as a writer. I've read many of her books and will if it has her name on it, I'll read it.

This book is graphic in both sex scenes and the horror scenes, just a warning not a complaint. Throw in the terror of the occult/paranormal and you have an unforgettable story. J.E. Taylor has crafted a book that explains behaviors that you read about in the first books. Totally recommend the Steve Williams series. I'll definitely read them again!

5 stars

This is an awesome book.... and I read it on Halloween... scare the pee right out of you... can't wait to start the next..

More Agent Williams Please!

This was such an amazing book,the first of the Steve Williams novels and man oh man was this a book that I did not want to put down. It's a paranormal crime thriller that holds your attention from start to finish. I had read quite a few of J.E. Taylor's books as part of a book club and Agent Steve Williams was in a couple of them.His character so intrigued me that I had to read his story from the beginning which was this very book.This author had me hooked with her Night Hawk series and continues to draw me in with This series.She is a fabulous writer and I can't wait to read the next adventure that Agent Williams goes on.

intriguing!

One of the best novels I've read in a very long time! Unbelievably evil people, taken on by FBI agent Steve Williams...who by the way has some supernatural powers! With his new friends/family, who have powers of their own, you never know what might happen next. The entire Steve Williams series grabbed my interest completely from the first page, and as soon as I finished one book in the series, I was online ordering the next. My only complaint? I've finished them all now!

Dark Reckoning

I really enjoyed this book. The others were better, but still this was good. I chose this series after reading the 3 book series "Survival Games". Which were great.

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Title: The Sound of Midnight

Subtitle: Oxrun Station, Book 2

Author: Charles L. Grant

Narrator: Troy Duran

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-13-12

Publisher: Crossroad Press

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

Fiery lights are seen in the the small town of Oxrun Station. A series of strange murders, a group of odd, apparently possessed children terrorizing the adults of the town, all serve to make things interesting in the Chinese sense for toy-store-owner Dale and her beau, Vic, who find themselves drawn into a web of ancient intrigue, pitted against powers that were old when the New World was a big, empty garden. A wonderful sequel to The Oxrun Dead, and a perfect example of the quiet horror master storyteller Charles L. Grant was famous for.

Members Reviews:

The Master of Quiet Horror was starting to come into his own.

I introduced myself to Charles Grant's writing a little over a year ago. I started reading his novels in chronological order and The Sound of Midnight is his 2nd in a series that takes place in his twisted little town of Oxrun Station. For those of you that haven't discovered Grant yet, think of Stephen King's Derry where strange things always seem to happen. The Sound of Midnight was published in 1978 and his writing was progressively getting better with each novel. His atmospheric dread or "quiet horror", if you will, was always there. However, the problem that I have had with his writing, up until now, has been the helpless, dim-witted female characters and the annoying, chauvenistic male characters. Charles Grant's The Curse was a perfect example. His "Hour of the Oxrun Dead" still had it, but was better. With The Sound of Midnight, the female character is better yet, but the male character still holds on to some of those annoying characteristics.

With that out of the way, The Sound of Midnight is an eerie tale of mystery. Dale's parents were killed and left her a mom & pop toy store in Oxrun Station. Her boyfriend is a teacher at the local HS. One day, Dale is sitting by a pond in the park and is thunked in the head with a rock. She comes to and finds that one of the boys that frequents her toy store is face down in the pond with a few of his classmates looking on. This begins a string of strange deaths that take place and that involve fire and water. Dale and her boyfriend Vic find themselves in the middle of it and the local police chief isn't liking it. With no one to turn to and not knowing who they can trust, its up to the two to find out what is going on and what it has to do with the town's children before Dale and Vic end up being next.

As I've said, The Sound of Midnight is full of atmosphere that builds up in almost a hazy, dreamlike way. The characters still hold on to a little of those annoying characteristics that seem to be prevelent in many of the novels from the 1970s - helpless females that want to run away from every problem, chavenistic males that try to be way too funny and cute in everything they say, etc. But, to be fair, not nearly as much as Grant's earlier works. This helps the reader to be able to focus on the story and it is Grant's best one up to this point. I look forward to seeing his further progression as I go through his catalog of Oxrun tales.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Master of "quiet' horror

Oxrun Station--this is the second book in Charles Grant's Oxrun series. Right from the beginning, the atmosphere grabs you with an intensity so sadly lacking in many stories today. Grant's horror is certainly subtle by today's standards.

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Title: Animals

Author: John Skipp, Craig Spector

Narrator: John Lee

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-12-12

Publisher: Crossroad Press

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 28 votes

Genres: Fiction, Horror

Publisher's Summary:

Wild Things...

They've been with us forever - prowling the smoky roadhouse dives that are their watering holes and hunting grounds. Predators, lurking amidst the human herd.

Changing shape at will. Lusting for blood and meat they are gods in the wild. Gods in disguise. And they feed on the spark inside each of us.

Syd was just another lonely working class guy singing the steel-town blues. Then he met Nora. She's sensual, Erotic. Amoral. A creature of the night and she's luring Syd across the line that few can cross - and fewer survive: the line that separates man from beast.

This will be a Crossroad Press production.

Members Reviews:

Just how I like my werewolves!

If you're looking for some twilight-esque teen love drivel this isn't your book. Written solidly for mature audiences. The characters are fleshed out and believable. The prose is a little awkward but it works. Spots of intense violence and sex but the main story centers around the psyche of the characters. Gritty, believable and hard as nails. Definitely worth a look if you like your werewolves with a shot of tequila and a touch of leather clad madness.

Just discovered the books by Skipp and Spector

Any additional comments?

I havent read much horror. Despite being a great admirer of Stephen King and having read much if not most of his work, it seems rare for horror writers to be truly character based. These guys are clearly very King influenced (their vampire novel especially). I have the sense that you could leave the werewolves out of Animals and still have a worthwhile novel (though a less fun novel). I found Skipp and Spector completely by accident. I know nothing about splatterpunk. Frankly I could care less. I only want to read more of their work because theyre really good writers. They dont reinvent anything. They just take everything that has come before and almost have what could be the final word on whatever subject in the genre theyre doing. At least for their generation.

Ive heard over the years that writers dont like werewolves because there isnt much you can do with them. Theyre thematically shallow and there is just not as much you can do as opposed to, for example, vampires. Im not sure if I believe that or if creative types just havent been creative enough. Either way, Animals makes a clear point that you can do a hell of a lot of interesting work with werewolves.

Deliciously different

What made the experience of listening to Animals the most enjoyable?

I really enjoyed the narrator.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Animals?

I liked the unexpected twists and turns of the story. This was a very different werewolf story. When Vaughn came and collected Nora, I expected that Sid would go after her. Another memorable moment was finding out that Jane AND her grandmother AND her parents were werewolves. Didn't see that coming!

What about John Lees performance did you like?

His narration "took" me into the angst of the characters. I don't think I would've gotten the same impression if I had read the book.

Who was the most memorable character of Animals and why?

Sid, because he didn't know what was happening to him. Nora, because she was a crazy but tortured soul. And at the end, I actually felt for Vaughn, when he found his true love, only to have Nora make him kill her.