Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

When a couple of ageing musicians discovered an abandoned baby girl in the woods, they set in motion a chain of horrific events in John Ajvide Lindqvist’s fourth novel, Little Star .

Family Storms and Cloudburst were the first volumes in a new series by the still long-dead V. C. Andrews ®.

A couple buried in an avalanche emerged to discover a world apparently devoid of anyone but themselves in Graham Joyce’s The Silent Land . Stephen King described it as “Scary Twilight Zone stuff, but also a sensitive exploration of love’s redemptive power.”

A man found that his life had been “modified” out of his control in Killer Move by Michael Marshall (Smith).

Inspired by the Hammer Films tradition, Christopher Fowler’s Hell Train was set on a locomotive travelling through Eastern Europe during the First World War.

As a companion to its series of new Sherlock Holmes adventures, Titan Books issued Kim Newman’s novel Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles , which continued the exploits of “the Napoleon of Crime” and his debauched henchman, Colonel Sebastian Moran.

Meanwhile, John O’Connell’s novella The Baskerville Legacy focused on the relationship between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and real-life journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson, who some claim came up with the idea for The Hound of the Baskervilles .

The Dark at the End was reportedly the final volume in F. Paul Wilson’s long-running “Repairman Jack” series, while Out of Oz marked the end of Gregory Maguire’s best-selling “Wicked” series (at least for now).

In Adam Nevill’s The Ritual , a group of four campers encountered monsters both human and supernatural in an ancient Scandinavian forest.

A former airline pilot searched for his missing girlfriend in a strange coastal village in Loss of Separation by Conrad Williams, and a man believed he had discovered a map to the city of his dreams in Nicholas Royle’s novel Regicide , an expanded version of the author’s story “Night Shift Sister”.

The Shadow of the Soul was the second book in Sarah Pinborough’s “Dog-Faced Gods” series, as detective inspector Cassius “Cass” Jones continued his investigations into the sinister activities of the immortal “Network”.

Ghost of a Smile was the second in Simon R. Green’s “Ghost Finders” series about agents working for the Carnacki Institute.

A gate in an urban housing project led to a world of ghosts and monsters in Gary McMahon’s The Concrete Grove , the first volume in a new trilogy, while Dead Bad Things from the same author was about a reluctant psychic and included a bonus short story.

The dead were restless in Graveminder , the first adult novel by best-selling YA author Melissa Marr, and a seventeen-year-old girl uncovered her family’s dark secrets in Essie Fox’s Victorian Gothic mystery The Somnambulist .

Aloha from Hell: A Sandman Slim Novel was a sequel to Kill the Dead and Sandman Slim , as Richard Kadrey’s anti-hero took on an insane serial killer who was mounting a war against both Heaven and Hell.

Joseph Nassise’s Eyes to See was the first in a trilogy about a man with the ability to see ghosts, and a survivor of a terrorist attack could hear the voices of who perished in Robert J. King’s Death’s Disciples .

A woman could tell when men were about to die in Michael Koryta’s The Cypress House , while an ancient evil infected an island lighthouse and a big cat sanctuary in The Ridge , from the same author.

Something huge and tentacled emerged Out of the Waters , the second in David Drake’s “Books of the Elements” quartet.

People started turning into cannibalistic monsters in Vacation by Matthew Costello, and a woman’s New York apartment was infested with insects no one else could see in Ben H. Winters’ Bedbugs .

Fired Up by Jayne Ann Krentz was the first book in the “Dreamlight” series and the seventh in the “Arcane Society” series.

Diabolical was Hank Schwaeble’s sequel to Damnable , while I Don’t Want to Kill You was the third book in the humorous serial killer trilogy by Dan Wells about sociopath John Wayne Cleaver.

Skinners: The Breaking and Skinners: Extinction Agenda were the fifth and sixth books, respectively, in the series about monster-hunters by Marcus Pelegrimas.

Former Leisure executive editor Don D’Auria moved to small press/e-book imprint Samhain Publishing, where he launched a new horror line in October with no less than five books from Ramsey Campbell, including the new novel The Seven Days of Cain .

Other titles from the same publisher included Angel Board by Kristopher Rufty, Borealis by Ronald Malfi, Wolf’s Edge by W. D. Gagliani, Forest of Shadows by Hunter Shea, Dead of Winter by Brian Moreland, Dark Inspirations by Russell James, Catching Hell by Greg F. Gifune, and The Lamplighters by Frazer Lee.

Steve Hockensmith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After , illustrated by Patrick Arrasmith, was the third in the trilogy that started with Seth Grahame-Smith’s bestselling pastiche and continued with Hockensmith’s prequel.

Derived from the same source material, Mr Darcy’s Bite was a werewolf novel by Mary Lydon Simonsen, Jane Goes Batty was the second book in Thomas Michael Ford’s series about a vampire Jane Austen in the present day, and Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion was the second in the humorous vampire series by Janet Mullany.

And still the dross kept coming with such literary “mash-ups” as Alice in Zombieland “by” Lewis Carroll and Nickolas Cook, and The Twilight of Lake Woebegotten by “Harrison Geillor”.

In Grave Expectations credited to Charles Dickens and Sherri Browning Erwin, young Pip was a werewolf and Miss Havisham a vampire, while A Vampire Christmas: Ebenezer Scrooge, Vampire Slayer by Sarah Gray (Colleen Faulkner) pretty much spoke for itself.

Oscar Wilde teamed up with Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker to investigate some bizarre killings in Gyles Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders , while The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham was a gonzo mash-up of H. P. Lovecraft and Hunter S. Thompson by Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas.

Gregor Samsa transformed into a kitten instead of a cockroach in The Meowmorphosis by Franz Kafka (who should be spinning in his grave) and the pseudonymous “Coleridge Cook”.

Maureen McGowan’s Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer was a YA novel in the “Twisted Tales” series, but perhaps the year’s most interesting mash-up came from author Cecily von Ziegesar, who reworked her popular 2002 novel as Gossip Girl: Psycho Killer .

Charlaine Harris’ eleventh “Sookie Stackhouse” novel, Dead Reckoning , involved the telepathic waitress in the firebombing of Merlotte’s bar and a plot by her lover Eric to destroy his new vampire master.

In Hit List , the twentieth volume in Laurell K. Hamilton’s best-selling “Anita Blake” series, the vampire hunter found herself battling with the Mother of All Darkness once again for possession of her body.

The titular lawman’s job was to control the blood-drinking “Sunless” who lived in ghetto areas of London in James Lovegrove’s Redlaw , and a woman investigated her uncle’s murder in Piper Maitland’s Acquainted with the Night .