The Ghosts & Apparitions Bundle, curated by Tricia Reeks and made available by the folks at StoryBundle, delivers a superior selection of supernatural tales.

• The Crying Forest by Venero Armanno
• The Bridge by J.S. Breukelaar
• Remains by Andrew Cull
• HAUNTINGS edited by Ellen Datlow
• Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias
• The Ghost Club by William Meikle
• You Have Never Been Here by Mary Rickert
• Smoke City by Keith Rosson
• Into Bones Like Oil by Kaaron Warren
• Bayou Whispers by R.B. Wood

It isn’t a requirement to believe in ghosts to enjoy a good ghost story. Most of us have wondered what happens after this life, and what better way to explore the infinite possibilities than by reading the imaginative takes writers have on the topic. I have long been drawn to tales of ghosts and hauntings: starting with early reads, such as Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, to later stories like Toni Morrison’s Beloved or Isabel Allende’s House of Spirits.

For me, the very wrongness of spirits that refuse to move on can somehow be so right. Perhaps it is the ability of authors to make us feel the intensity of emotions strong enough to keep an entity tethered to this world that can be so intoxicating. Love, hate, grief, longing. And let’s not forget revenge.

The manifestation of ghosts in fiction is almost endless. Haunted houses, haunted ships, haunted forests. Spirits of bad intent. Others that stay to lend a helping hand. Ghostly apparitions. Entities that are invisible to the eye yet devastating to the soul. Stories that evoke emotions that range from terror to despair to hope.

The books in this bundle are purposefully wide-ranging in tone as well content. From the hopefulness and redemption of Keith Rosson’s Smoke City and J.S. Breukelaar’s The Bridge, to the gut-wrenching devastation of Gabino Iglesias’s Coyote Songs and Andrew Cull’s Remains. From the poignant prose of Mary Rickert’s stories to the masterful storytelling styles in William Meikle’s The Ghost Club. If you like tales of the supernatural, then we think that this selection will have something that appeals to everyone.

Tricia Reeks