Tales of the Dark Feminine: Inspirational Stories of the World’s Fiercest Goddesses
Dive into a dark, empowering world where folktales, horror and feminist magic collide. This collection features 26 modern retellings of legends and folktales about fierce female deities and spirits from around the world. Perfect for women who own their power.
Dark goddess energy is powerful and transformative, embodying the sensual, the hunter, the warrior, the mother, and even the grotesque and horrific. These 26 tales of powerful female goddesses and spirits will entrance those daring enough to explore the shadows of the human psyche, offering lessons from our ancient origins and help us understand ourselves in today’s world. Embrace your own inner darkness alongside these fierce deities and spirits, such as:
- The fierce Indian goddess Kali, who teaches not to fear endings but instead use our creativity to remove obstacles and carve out our own path.
- The mighty Yoruba orisha Yemaya, who birthed the waters of the whole planet, and teaches of the need to nurture and love oneself.
- The ravenous Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, who is the very definition of “I am woman, hear me roar!”
- The occult Greek goddess Hecate, beloved of modern witches, who offers a stunning portrayal of femininity manifesting in magic.
- And many more!
The retold legends are accompanied by information about the goddess’s history, symbols and core energy. This stunning volume is perfect for those who love fantasy and horror and all who wish to learn about the powerful female archetypes in cultures around the world.
Maria The Wanted
Newly turned Mexican vampire, Maria, is not just out for blood, she wants answers.
From the twice Bram Stoker-nominated author of The Haunting of Alejandra and Immortal Pleasures, a gripping tale of empowerment, desire and belonging, perfect for readers of A Dowry of Blood and Certain Dark Things.
Maria is a wanted woman. She’s wanted by an Aztec trafficker, a cartel boss, the people she fights for, and now the Devil she can’t resist. Her journey begins as a would-be immigrant turned vampire in Juarez, Mexico until the injustices of the world turn her into something else.
Forced to leave her home and family, she embarks on a journey across Mexico seeking those answers. She learns a new language and how to survive as a vampire. To ease her restlessness she finds work with an ex-boxer and learns to fight, becoming an unlikely bad ass enforcer of justice for the community that has embraced her. Is she a saint or an old God from a forgotten past?
An encounter with a violent, ruthless vampire boss leads her to finally find her creator, and he is nothing like she imagined. Drawn into a world of ancient vampires, deadly conspiracies and a dangerously seductive devil, Maria must find a way to fight for herself and all humankind.
A fierce and seductive vampire thriller, pulsing with rage, fear and desire, that explores the dark back streets of Mexico and a vampire woman’s determination to find her place in the world.
Tejano Tales to Tell in the Dark
A new short story collection for YOUNGER readers!
There is a rich Tejano folklore that runs through the heart of Texas. Tales often shared by teens involving La Lechuza and La Llorona, werewolves and Chupacabra, even giant armadillos. But there’s so much more, so many fun, and often sinister, twists…
When sisters go looking for a legend in Caddo Lake State Park, or a group of friends park their car on the local train tracks chasing ghosts, they soon discover there’s more to the story than what has been passed down. Who is the Hot Dog Man? Can a carnival game grant wishes or predict devastation? Should you eat the catfish in Medina Lake?
Pink Agave Motel
Two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, V. Castro dims the lights in a collection where you might devour your next lover or meet your next meal.
Readers are invited to The Pink Agave Motel, where brutality and intimacy ooze across the pages, exploring the depths of the unhinged imagination and how human desire unlocks the impulse to bite. Castro’s voice, influenced by Mexican folklore and a feminist perspective, illuminates a deeper view of how unrequited love affects every type of being alike.
Readers are invited to The Pink Agave Motel, where brutality and intimacy ooze across the pages, exploring the depths of the unhinged imagination and how human desire unlocks the impulse to bite. Castro’s voice, influenced by Mexican folklore and a feminist perspective, illuminates a deeper view of how unrequited love affects every type of being alike.
The titular story focuses on Valentina, the proclaimed leader of a creature cohort, who manages hotel guests, until she is enlightened to a carnivorous death on the property. To avoid exposure that threatens her existence, she partners with (the hauntingly handsome) grieving friend of the dearly departed to solve the murder. Further within these tales, discover a woman who is a fish out of water drinking at a seaside honky tonk, the trapped guests who undergo sexual liberation, and aliens who find the sexiest of disguises.
Immortal Pleasures
An ancient Aztec vampire roams the modern world in search of vengeance and love in this seductive dark fantasy from the author of The Haunting of Alejandra.
Hundreds of years ago, she was known as La Malinche: a Nahua woman who translated for the conquistador Cortés. In the centuries since, her name has gone down in infamy as a traitor. But no one ever found out what happened to La Malinche after Cortés destroyed her people.
In the ashes of the empire, she was reborn as Malinalli, an immortal vampire. And she has become an avenger of conquered peoples, traveling the world to reclaim their stolen artifacts and return them to their homelands.
But she has also been in search of something more, for this ancient vampire still has deeply human longings for pleasure and for love.
When she arrives in Dublin in search of a pair of Aztec skulls–artifacts intimately connected to her own dark history–she finds something else: two men who satisfy her cravings in very different ways.
For the first time she meets a mortal man–a horror novelist–who is not repelled by her strange condition but attracted by it. But there is also another man, an immortal like herself, who shares the darkness in her heart.
Now Malinalli is on the most perilous adventure of all: a journey into her own desires.
Rebel Moon
When a peaceful settlement on a moon in the furthest reaches of the universe finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, a mysterious stranger named Kora becomes their best hope for survival.
From Zack Snyder, the filmmaker behind 300, Man of Steel, and Army of the Dead, comes REBEL MOON, an epic science-fantasy event decades in the making.
When a peaceful settlement on a moon in the furthest reaches of the universe finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Mother World, Kora assembles a small band of warriors–outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a new army of heroes is formed.
Novelized by V. Castro, two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author. Experience Rebel Moon on the page in this pulse-pounding novelization.
Belit
Capturing the electric short fiction energy that led Robert E. Howard to be one of the top fantasy writers of the century, with exclusive serialized eBook stories starring Conan, Solomon Kane, and more by many of today’s top writers in fantasy and sword-and-sorcery.
Queen of the Black Coast and captain of the Tigress, Bêlit, and her pirate crew roam the seas in pursuit of treasure and adventure. The crew are utterly devoted to their leader, yet they can do little when a massive storm beaches their ship on unknown shores. She and her first mate Seneka send a trio of teams to search for resources and human habitation, but only two return. When Bêlit and her best swordsmen venture into the jungle, they discover a temple, silent warriors, and a charismatic leader who promises Bêlit a kingdom…
But at what cost?
Dia de Los Slasher
It’s a few weeks until Halloween and Día de Los Muertos. Tula’s friend Carmen has convinced her to go to a new event called Night of the Calavera. It’s meant to celebrate the two holidays in the nearby town of Driftwood, Texas, not far from Tula in Slaughter Creek.
Tula adores Halloween, but Dia de Los Muertos is the night she loves. Every year, she leaves Slaughter Creek and celebrates on her own in a different location.
Despite the forecast set for rain after a week of storms, Tula agrees to go to Night of the Calavera, held at an abandoned petting zoo on a farm. Plus, she wants to get her mind off someone she has admired from afar but is unavailable.
When they arrive, the event looks like a total flop with not many people there and even fewer vendors. Little does Tula know that the Calavera is real. And it’s out for blood.
Las Posadas
Las Posadas is V. Castro’s first Christmas horror novelette set in Texas.
Nola has been single for years as she has put her success over love, but this Las Posadas she hopes to find something more with the gorgeous mortician who has just moved into town to take over the local funeral home after the owners die in a house fire.
For weeks the tension has been building between Nola and Henry during their weekly meetings at Puzzle Club. At the start of Las Posadas, and her turn to host Puzzle Club, Nola has an unexpected guest in her new home.
Pozole and pinata sticks at the ready…
Aliens: Vasquez
Even before the doomed mission to Hadley’s Hope on LV-426, Jenette Vasquez had to fight to survive. Born to an immigrant family with a long military tradition, she looked up to the stars, but life pulled her back down to Earth—first into a street gang, then prison. The Colonial Marines proved to be Vasquez’s way out—a way that forced her to give up her twin children. Raised by Jenette’s sister, those children, Leticia and Ramon, had to discover their own ways to survive. Leticia by following her mother’s path into the military, Ramon into the corporate hierarchy of Weyland-Yutani. Their paths would converge on an unnamed planet which some see as a potential utopia, while others would use it for highly secretive research. Regardless of whatever humans might have planned for it, however, Xenomorphs will turn it into a living hell.
The Haunting of Alejandra (April 18, 2023)
A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona as she unravels the dark secrets of her family history in this ravishing and provocative horror novel.
Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her. Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.
When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she never knew. As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors. Because the crying woman was with them, too. She is La Llorona, the vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. And she will not leave until Alejandra follows her mother, her grandmother, and all the women who came before her into the darkness.
But Alejandra has inherited more than just pain. She has inherited the strength and the courage of her foremothers—and she will have to summon everything they have given her to banish La Llorona forever.
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Out of Aztlan
An ancient goddess rises up from an inverted temple in a lake of blood to purify the earth. Two pearl divers plot revenge against the Spanish merchants who enslave them. A mutant species of jellyfish fueled by garbage heaps wreaks havoc on beachgoers. Aided by mermaids, a pirate known as The Scorpion and her all-female crew challenge a corrupt king. And back on dry land, a mother avenges the daughters of her community with a very special batch of ancho chili salsa V. Castro’s spirited characters come alive in her uniquely playful, fiery style, from a vengeful lobster to a mother willing to put her life on the line for justice. In these and other stories, the descendants of Aztlan—the mythical homeland of the Aztec people—work to overthrow their oppressors and usher in the dawn of a new world.
Mestiza Blood
From the lauded author of The Queen of the Cicadas (which picked up starred reviews from PW, Kirkus and Booklist who called her “a dynamic and innovative voice”) comes a short story collection of nightmares, dreams, desire and visions focused on the Chicana experience. V.Castro weaves urban legend, folklore, life experience and heartache in this personal journey beginning in south Texas: a bar where a devil dances the night away; a street fight in a neighborhood that may not have been a fight after all; a vengeful chola at the beginning of the apocalypse; mind swapping in the not so far future; satan who falls and finds herself in a brothel in Amsterdam; the keys to Mictlan given to a woman after she dies during a pandemic. The collection finishes with two longer tales: The Final Porn Star is a twist on the final girl trope and slasher, with a creature from Mexican folklore; and Truck Stop is an erotic horror romance with two hearts: a video store and a truck stop.
The Queen of the Cicadas
NOMINATED FOR A BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL
2018 — Belinda Alvarez has returned to Texas for the wedding of her best friend Veronica. The farm is the site of the urban legend, La Reina de Las Chicharras — The Queen of The Cicadas. In 1950s south Texas a farmworker, Milagros from San Luis Potosi, Mexico, is murdered. Her death is ignored by the town, but not the Aztec goddess of death, Mictecacíhuatl. The goddess hears the dying cries of Milagros and creates a plan for both to be physically reborn by feeding on vengeance and worship. Belinda and the new owner of the farmhouse, Hector, find themselves immersed in the legend and realize it is part of their fate as well.
Goddess of Filth
NOMINATED FOR A BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN LONG FICTION
One hot summer night, best friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline hold a séance. It’s all fun and games at first, but their tipsy laughter turns to terror when the flames burn straight through their prayer candles and Fernanda starts crawling toward her friends and chanting in Nahuatl, the language of their Aztec ancestors.
Over the next few weeks, shy, modest Fernanda starts acting strangely—smearing herself in black makeup, shredding her hands on rose thorns, sucking sin out of the mouths of the guilty. The local priest is convinced it’s a demon, but Lourdes begins to suspect it’s something else—something far more ancient and powerful.
As Father Moreno’s obsession with Fernanda grows, Lourdes enlists the help of her “bruja Craft crew” and a professor, Dr. Camacho, to understand what is happening to her friend in this unholy tale of possession-gone-right.
Las Posadas
Las Posadas is V. Castro’s first Christmas horror novelette set in Texas.
Nola has been single for years as she has put her success over love, but this Las Posadas she hopes to find something more with the gorgeous mortician who has just moved into town to take over the local funeral home after the owners die in a house fire.
For weeks the tension has been building between Nola and Henry during their weekly meetings at Puzzle Club. At the start of Las Posadas, and her turn to host Puzzle Club, Nola has an unexpected guest in her new home.
Pozole and pinata sticks at the ready…
Scargiver rebel moon book beneath the first rebel moon book
Embark on an interstellar adventure like no other in V. Castro’s thrilling official novelization of Part Two of Zack Snyder’s epic new universe.
Las Posadas is V. Castro’s first Christmas horror novelette set in Texas.
Rebel Moon Part Two — The Scargiver continues the epic saga of Kora and the surviving warriors as they prepare to sacrifice everything, fighting alongside the brave people of Veldt, to defend a once peaceful village, a newfound homeland for those who have lost their own in the fight against the Motherworld. On the eve of their battle, the warriors must face the truths of their own pasts, each revealing why they fight. As the full force of the Realm bears down on the burgeoning rebellion, unbreakable bonds are forged, heroes emerge, and legends are made.