“A deeply researched and morbidly fascinating chronicle of one of America’s most notorious female killers.” ―The New York Times Book ReviewAn Amazon Charts bestseller.In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm.” Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace. When their bodies were dug up, they hadn’t merely been poisoned, like victims of other female killers. They’d been butchered.Hell’s Princess is a riveting account of one of the most sensational killing sprees in the annals of American crime: the shocking series of murders committed by the woman who came to be known as Lady Bluebeard. The only definitive book on this notorious case and the first to reveal previously unknown information about its subject, Harold Schechter’s gripping, suspenseful narrative has all the elements of a classic mystery―and all the gruesome twists of a nightmare.

Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

Ring Shout

Comfort Me With Apples is a terrifying new thriller from bestseller Catherynne M. Valente, for fans of Gone Girl and Spinning Silver. A Shirley Jackson Award finalist!A Locus Award finalist!. Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.. It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.. But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze..... But everything is perfect. Isn't it?

Comfort Me With Apples

In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies… a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming.Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach is her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life.But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Creatures that called sailors to their doom. That dragged them down and drowned them. That feasted on their flesh. The creature that she’s always longed to become: the mermaid.Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine, the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.

Chlorine

"Chokshi's tale is as sweet as a piece of fairy fruit, and just as wicked. Every bite is velvet, every swallow is gold, and the taste lingers like a fever dream." — V. E. Schwab, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue"A delightfully meta fairy tale. . . . Magic emanates from every exquisitely crafted sentence. . . . It feels like the best conjuring trick ever." — Charlie Jane Anders, Washington PostA sumptuous, gothic-infused story about a marriage that is unraveled by dark secrets, a friendship cursed to end in tragedy, and the danger of believing in fairy tales—the breathtaking adult debut from New York Times bestselling author Roshani Chokshi.Once upon a time, a man who believed in fairy tales married a beautiful, mysterious woman named Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. He was a scholar of myths. She was heiress to a fortune. They exchanged gifts and stories and believed they would live happily ever after—and in exchange for her love, Indigo extracted a promise: that her bridegroom would never pry into her past.But when Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is dying and the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom will soon find himself unable to resist. For within the crumbling manor’s extravagant rooms and musty halls, there lurks the shadow of another girl: Azure, Indigo’s dearest childhood friend who suddenly disappeared. As the house slowly reveals his wife’s secrets, the bridegroom will be forced to choose between reality and fantasy, even if doing so threatens to destroy their marriage . . . or their lives.Combining the lush, haunting atmosphere of Mexican Gothic with the dreamy enchantment of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a spellbinding and darkly romantic page-turner about love and lies, secrets and betrayal, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive."Gorgeous and ornate, this sensual fairy tale illuminates the corrosive and redemptive power of both love and lies." — Holly Black, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book of Night"A fairy tale in the oldest and truest sense: a haunting dream full of blood and love, vicious truths and beautiful lies. It swallowed me whole, and I went willingly." — Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Once and Future Witches

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride: A Novel

This #1 New York Times bestseller is a "bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story" that brilliantly reimagines the life of Circe, formidable sorceress of The Odyssey (Alexandra Alter, TheNew York Times).. In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.. #1 New York Times Bestseller -- named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post, People, Time, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Refinery 29, Buzzfeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Thrillist, NYPL, Self, Real Simple, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian, Book Riot, Seattle Times, and Business Insider.

Circe

A new pocket edition of Jane Austen's classic comedy of manners, Pride and Prejudice, originally published in 1813. Pride and Prejudice is story of the Bennet family, a family of five daughters where the parents are desperate for at least one of them to make a wealthy match and save the next generation from destitution. Austen's story engages with the tension between marrying for love, rather than wealth or social prestige, and the pressure to assure financial security. Moreover, it features some of her most enduring characters -- the Bennet family, including the parents Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and the five Bennet Sisters (Jane Bennet, Lizzy Bennet, Kitty Bennet, Mary Bennet, and Lydia Bennet), the handsome Charles Bingley, the vain Caroline Bingley, the evil George Wickham, Mr. Collins, and of course the unforgettable Mr. Darcy. Originally published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is one of the best-loved and best-selling novels in English literature of all time.. This Pocket Edition is designed to be easy to carry -- the size of a standard mass market paperback, easy to fit in a purse or briefcase or pocket -- but made with paper that stands up to repeat reading, and font and typeface large enough to easily read, and margins wide enough to be marked up by students of all ages. . Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist known for her novels about the British landed gentry and the social, economic, and romantic pressures faced by young women. Her comic wit and use of irony and literary realism have given her novels remarkable staying power, staying as relevant and meaningful to readers today as during her own time. Her novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published together posthumously in 1818. A short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and another unfinished work, The Watsons, were publish posthumously in 1871, and a final unfinished novel, Sanditon, was eventually published in 1925. Her works are considered to be among the finest examples of early 19th century British literature, hallmarks of the transition to 19th century literary realism.

Pride and Prejudice

Inspired by author Tori Telfer's Jezebel column “Lady Killers,” this thrilling and entertaining compendium investigates female serial killers and their crimes through the ages.When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are ones like Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, Kate Bender? The narrative we’re comfortable with is the one where women are the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally, overwhelmingly male that in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared in a homicide conference, “There are no female serial killers.”Lady Killers, based on the popular online series that appeared on Jezebel and The Hairpin, disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Though largely forgotten by history, female serial killers such as Erzsébet Báthory, Nannie Doss, Mary Ann Cotton, and Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite for destruction. Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different subject, and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media, as well as the stereotypes and sexist clichés that inevitably surround her. The first book to examine female serial killers through a feminist lens with a witty and dryly humorous tone, Lady Killers dismisses easy explanations (she was hormonal, she did it for love, a man made her do it) and tired tropes (she was a femme fatale, a black widow, a witch), delving into the complex reality of female aggression and predation. Featuring 14 illustrations from Dame Darcy, Lady Killers is a bloodcurdling, insightful, and irresistible journey into the heart of darkness.

Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History

It's 1900, and Louise Wilk is taking her dying husband home to Buffalo where he grew up. Dr. Edward Wilk is wasting away from an aggressive and debilitating malady. But it's becoming clearer that his condition isn't exactly a disease, but a phase of existence that seeks to transform and ultimately possess him.. “At the bitter end of the 19th century, a loyal wife cares tenderly for her dissolute husband as he nears his death from a mysterious, gruesomely corrosive disease. Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum is a sumptuous excursion into surreal body horror and an unsparing exploration of the extreme frontiers of connubial devotion. Ruthnum delivers a uniquely unsettling Gothic love story—and it is first and foremost a love story—evoking the grisly Edwardian tales of W.W. Jacobs, William Hope Hodgson and Algernon Blackwood, while drawing in such modern masters as Barker, Del Toro and Cronenberg. Brief enough to be read in an evening, it holds certain images so grotesque that they will linger in your dreams for weeks.”- David Demchuk, Award-winning author of The Bone Mother, and RED X. Naben Ruthnum is the author of Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race and A Hero of Our Time. He also writes thrillers as Nathan Ripley. His short fiction has won the Journey Prize and a National Magazine Award.. “Naben Ruthnum’s Helpmeet is a remarkable throwback. The style, the precise prose, the lush imagery, the dreadful sense of wheels turning just past the reader's sightline—I devoured it in a few delighted hours and it took me back to my teenage years, to afternoons squirreled away in the corner of my local library reading Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Chambers, Algernon Blackwood and the other great elder wordsmiths I cut my horror teeth on.”- Craig Davidson, Author of The Saturday Night Ghost Club. “An everyday tragedy spirals into a medical mystery and then into something much darker and more disquieting, executed in prose that glitters like candlelight on an open wound. I loved this intensely claustrophobic study of a complicated marriage twisting itself into something monstrous.”- Premee Mohamed, Author of the Beneath the Rising Trilogy. “In a wholly unique spot between the New York society novels of Henry James and Edith Wharton and the best body horror of David Cronenberg lurks the strange, disturbing and ultimately transcendent novella Helpmeet. Naben Ruthnum’s pitch-perfect pastiche is as all-consuming as the disease at its heart, a fever dream of a story as original, elegantly written and chilling as anything I’ve read in recent memory.”- Pasha Malla, Author of Fugue States, and Kill the Mall. “Naben Ruthnum’s succinctly brilliant Helpmeet finds the thin line between intimacy and body horror, and blurs it to create a unique love story that is as moving as it is disturbing.”- Indrapramit Das, Author of The Devourers

Helpmeet

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it.. Connecticut, 1666: An ancient spirit awakens in a dark wood. The wildfolk call him Father, slayer, protector.. The colonists call him Slewfoot, demon, devil.. To Abitha, a recently widowed outcast, alone and vulnerable in her pious village, he is the only one she can turn to for help. . Together, they ignite a battle between pagan and Puritan – one that threatens to destroy the entire village, leaving nothing but ashes and bloodshed in their wake.. This terrifying tale of bewitchery features more than two dozen of Brom’s haunting full-color paintings and brilliant endpapers, fully immersing readers in this wild and unforgiving world.

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery

A compulsive feminist reworking of Carmilla, the queer novella that inspired Dracula. . "A dark, sensuous, gothic story of female appetite, ravenous desire and insatiable rage. A blood-drenched, glittering jewel of a novel that I absolutely devoured.” ―Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne and Atalanta. It’s the height of the industrial revolution and ten years into Lenore’s marriage to steel magnate Henry, their relationship has soured. When Henry’s ambitions take them from London to the remote British moorlands to host a hunting party, a shocking carriage accident brings the mysterious Carmilla into their lives. Carmilla, who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night. Carmilla, who stirs up something deep within Lenore. And before long, girls from the local villages fall sick, consumed by a terrible hunger . . . . As the day of the hunt draws closer, Lenore begins to unravel, questioning the role she has been playing all these years. Torn between regaining her husband’s affection and the cravings Carmilla has awakened, soon Lenore will uncover a darkness in her household that will place her at terrible risk.

Hungerstone

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier“An ideal pairing of talent and material. … Engrossing. … A deft and ambitious storyteller.” — Mary Roach, New York Times Book ReviewIn April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and fourteen others set out for California on snowshoes, and, over the next thirty-two days, endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.In this gripping narrative, New York Times bestselling author Daniel James Brown sheds new light on one of the most legendary events in American history. Following every painful footstep of Sarah’s journey with the Donner Party, Brown produces a tale both spellbinding and richly informative.

The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party

Boneyard Picnic

During this phase, we're reviewing manuscripts and deciding which book we want to publish. At the end of this phase, we offer an author a book deal.

Consideration

As the manuscript goes through several phases of editorial work, the cover and interior design takes place, while format decisions about paper stocks and printing treatments are made.

Editorial & Design

**Design** includes the cover process and interior layout, as well as format decisions like paper stocks and special treatments.

Design

While the books are on press, the pre-order links go live and the marketing campaign ramps up with waves of review copy mailings to media and influencers.

Pre-order

The finished copies have released on the book's publication date. Go give it some love!

Published

bookshop

amazon

Natalie

My name is Natalie Meagan and I am an artist, reviewer of books (Weirdo Book Club), occasional gamer and lover of all things weird and wonderful. From a young age, I reached for art, books and media as a source of comfort but once the internet came into play, I found community through those things as well. Reading is one of my favorite solitary activities but it is also a lot of fun to share it with others and that is what I hope to do here with you!

I first read about the concept of cemetery picnics in an article about the weird history of American cemeteries. Apparently, before there were local or city parks, people would break bread with the dead and have their lunch on the peaceful, often beautiful grounds of the local cemeteries. What seemed morbid and strange to some was fascinating to me and I knew it was the perfect concept for this page, the books I hope to share with you and the vibes I hope to create! 

Weirdo Book Club

I read a lot, I talk a lot. This just makes sense.


Hi ghouls, I’m Natalie Meagan, artist and reviewer of weird books/media. Welcome to my boneyard picnic, where we can sit and enjoy stories that appeal to both our morbid nature and our heartstrings. 