Fear Itself
with Nick Cutter, Karma Brown and Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Hosted by Susan Johnston
“Karma Brown explodes onto the horror scene with a terrifying tale of governmental control over women’s bodies, procreation, and what mothers will do to protect their children. This is a frightening, yet all too realistic peek into our future . . . proceed with caution!”
Join our host, Susan Johnston, for an evening celebrating things that go bump in the night and the power of terror to delight and entertain while exploring our deepest fears.
The Dorians, the latest bestseller from Nick Cutter, brings us to a remote island in the Canadian wilderness where five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring their lost youth. The chance to put death on pause—forever, perhaps. The remarkable secret lies in the high-tech harnessing of an ancient and extraordinary biological agent…one with no conscience, yet possessed with a single-minded purpose that has helped it persist for eons: the will to survive. Find out why Stephen King calls Nick Cutter’s work “old-school horror at its best.”
Mother Is Watching, the chilling horror debut from #1 international bestselling author Karma Brown, is all about sacrificing everything to one’s art. Tilly Crewson, a thirty-nine-year-old mother and art conservator, is tasked with restoring The Mother. The painting, believed to be the work of a female surgeon-turned-artist after a personal tragedy. Soon after receiving the painting, Tilly discovers she’s unexpectedly pregnant, and strange, inexplicable occurrences begin: terrifying insect swarms, eerie visits from her long-deceased mother, and sinister whispers that invade her mind. As these malevolent forces intensify, Tilly comes to a harrowing realization that the only way to sever the perilous bond she shares with the painting is to destroy it. But The Mother has plans of her own—and they’re darker than Tilly could ever imagine.
In The Bewitching by international bestseller Silvia Moreno-Garcia, three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in a multigenerational horror saga. “Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches”: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales. As she descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, Minerva begins to sense that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own.

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