Annal:2007 Bram Stoker Award for Novel

The Missing

Sarah Langan

• 2007 Stoker–Novel winner
• 2007 IHG–Novel nominee
• Score: 16.57

A remote and affluent Maine community, Corpus Christi was untouched by the environmental catastrophe that destroyed the neighboring blue-collar town of Bedford. But all that will change in a heartbeat…

The nightmare is awakened when third-grade schoolteacher Lois Larkin takes the children on a field trip to Bedford. There in the abandoned woods, a small, cruel boy unearths an ancient horror—a contagious plague that transforms its victims into something violent, hungry…and inhuman.

The long, dark night is just beginning. And all hope must die as the contagion feeds—for the malevolence will not rest until it has devoured every living soul in Corpus Christi…and beyond.

The Guardener's Tale

Bruce Boston

• 2007 Stoker–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.57

“A gripping dystopia wickedly extrapolated from our present. Boston brings to bear his narrative genius on this noir tale of a love triange in a society gone mad, probing the way technology and science alter our reality. Transcending genre, ”The Guardener’s Tale" combines suspense and breathtaking plot twists with macabre humor. Involving, compelling, a masterwork.“—Mary Turzillo, author of ”An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl"

Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel

Joe Hill

• 2007 Stoker–1st Novel winner
• 2008 Macavity-1st Novel nominee
• 2007 Stoker–Novel nominee*
• Score: 16.57

Aging, self-absorbed, death-metal rock star Judas Coyne was a collector. He collects the bizarre, the uncanny, and the grotesque. Many of these objects were gifts from the black-clad fans that made his metal band a legend and made him rich. But not all…When his personal assistant told him there was a ghost for sale on the Internet, Jude knew he had to have it for his private collection, didn t think twice. He should have. Jude has spent a lifetime evading ghosts of an abusive father, of the band mates he betrayed, of Anna, the suicidal girl he loved and abandoned. But this spirit is different. This one means to chase him to the edge of sanity. His new acquisition delivered to his doorstep in a black heart-shaped box is the restless soul of Anna s vengeful step daddy. Craddock McDermott swore he would settle with Jude for ruining his daughter s life. Soon, everywhere Jude turns, Craddock is there: behind the bedroom door; in Jude s restored vintage Mustang; outside his window; on his widescreen TV. Waiting with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one bony hand.

The Terror: A Novel

Dan Simmons

• 2007 IHG–Novel winner
• 2007 Stoker–Novel nominee
• Score: 16.57

Greeted with excited critical praise, this extraordinary novel-inspired by the true story of two ice ships that disappeared in the Arctic Circle during an 1845 expedition-swells with the heart-stopping suspense and heroic adventure that have won Dan Simmons praise as “a writer who not only makes big promises but keeps them” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). The Terror chills readers to the core.

The Witch's Trinity: A Novel

Erika Mailman

• 2007 Stoker–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.57

The year is 1507, and the remote German village Tierkinddorf has been suffering a famine. A traveling friar has a book called the Malleus Maleficarum—“The Witch’s Hammer”—a guide to gaining confessions of witchcraft. Hungry Tierkinddorf is filled with hope that the woman who has brought God’s anger upon the town will be found and burned.

Güde, an elderly woman, has stark and frightening visions. She has become an object of scorn and a burden to her son’s wife. In these desperate times her daughter-in-law would prefer one less hungry mouth at the family table. As the friar turns his eye on each member of the tiny community, Güde dreads what her daughter-in-law might say to win his favor.

Then one terrible night Güde follows an unearthly voice and the scent of charred meat into the snow-filled woods. Come morning, she no longer knows if the horror she witnessed was real or imagined. She only knows that if the friar hears of it, she may be damned in this life as well as the next.