Ghosts Of Christmas Past

A present contains a monstrous secret. An uninvited guest haunts a Christmas party. A shadow slips across the floor by firelight. A festive entertainment ends in darkness and screams. Who knows what haunts the night at the dark point of the year? This collection of seasonal chillers looks beneath Christmas cheer to a world of ghosts and horrors, mixing terrifying modern fiction with classic stories by masters of the macabre. From Neil Gaiman and M. R. James to Muriel Spark and E. Nesbit, there are stories here to make the hardiest soul quail - so find a comfy chair, lock the door, ignore the cold breath on your neck and get ready to welcome in the real spirits of Christmas.

**Beverly Hills Book Award Finalist** A Holiday Journey Into Life...And Afterlife Based on Charles Dickens' character of the same name, the radiant spirit is given another chance to shine when it embarks on a spiritual adventure of its own to find meaning for its being.

From NY Times Bestselling Author, Angie Fox, a hauntingly fun holiday addition to the USA TODAY bestselling Southern Ghost Hunter series Southern girl Verity Long needs a Christmas miracle... Verity is ready to deck the halls, jingle some bells, and maybe, just maybe have a merry Christmas with her boyfriend’s stuffy family. Truly, if she doesn’t extend the proverbial olive branch to the overbearing Wydells, she’s afraid she’ll hit them over the head with it. But when her boyfriend’s mother pulls a shocking stunt, Verity finds herself with a big decision to make. And if that’s not enough, there’s an unexpected guest at her door. It’s the ghost of the woman who helped rescue Verity’s pet skunk three years ago that very night. And now she’s there to change Verity’s life as well. *A "between the books" stand-alone holiday story you don't want to miss!

From Rhys Bowen, the author of In Farleigh Field, comes the next Molly Murphy mystery: The Ghost of Christmas Past. Semi-retired private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is suffering from depression after a miscarriage following her adventure in San Francisco during the earthquake of 1906. She and her husband, Daniel, are invited for Christmas at a mansion on the Hudson, and they gratefully accept, expecting a peaceful and relaxing holiday season. Not long after they arrive, however, they start to feel the tension in the house’s atmosphere. Then they learn that the host couple's young daughter wandered out into the snow ten years ago and was never seen again. Molly can identify with the mother's pain at never knowing what happened to her child and wants to help, but there is so little to go on. No ransom note. No body ever found. But Molly slowly begins to suspect that the occupants of the house know more than they are letting on. Then, on Christmas Eve, there is a knock at the door and a young girl stands there. "I'm Charlotte," she says. "I've come home."

The Smith-and-Smith Paranormal Agency is back and this time they are asked to help a family named the DiMarco family rid themselves of unwanted guests for Christmas.Bill and Erica Smith come to the rescue of the DiMarco family but they get more than they bargained for as they try to help the DiMarco family and the spirits haunting their house, get the rest and peace they all so desperately need

Sixteen-year-old Nickolas is the only son of the man known to the world as Santa Claus. Constantly surrounded by the glitter and glitz of a Christmas season that never ends, and by enthusiastic, over-achiever elves who only appear to share his age, Nick wants nothing more than to escape the North Pole. To go where he can see the ocean instead of endless ice. He longs to attend a normal school with normal kids. He wants a real life. Though Christmas is a time of hope, of wonder and magic, it is also a time of strangeness. Of lurking shadows and unexplained occurrences. This year, when a ghost of Christmas Past is awakened, old secrets are unearthed. The bright candy shell skin of Nick's world is peeled away, revealing a much darker layer. He is not who--or what--he has been led to believe. And neither are those closest to him.