Book picks similar to
How Dear the Dawn by Marc Eliot


horror
vampire
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Pretty When She Dies


Rhiannon Frater - 2008
    She digs out of the shallow grave and realizes she is hungry...... in a new, horrific, unimaginable way...Sating her great hunger, she discovers that she is now a vampire, the bloodthirsty creature of legend. She has no choice but to flee from her old life and travels across Texas. Her new hunger spurs her to leave a wake of death and blood behind her as she struggles with her new nature.All the while, her creator is watching. He is ancient, he is powerful, and what's worse is that he's a necromancer. He has the power to force the dead to do his bidding. Amaliya realizes she is but a pawn in a twisted game, and her only hope for survival is to seek out one of her own kind.But if Amaliya finds another vampire, will it mean her salvation... or her death?

Ghouls


Edward Lee - 1988
    No one knew what went on in the sullen, dark house on the hill, but town cop Kurt Morris intended to find out. The sleepy town of Tylersville, Maryland was being stalked by an unimaginable evil, it had become the haunting-ground for horrors too grisly to be described. Young girls had vanished without a trace. Graves had been opened, corpses unearthed and carried away. Quiet moonlit nights gave way to a mindless slaughter, and to the sounds of hysterical screams… DARK HORIZONS Time was running out. How many more would be dragged off into an endless night, and for what hideous purpose? Fear led to wild speculations about psychopaths, crazed animals, vampires, and werewolves. But Kurt knew better. Deep in the fog-shrouded woods, he had seen the nightmare figures. And the truth was much, much worse… GHOULS! A novel of unrelenting horror in the tradition of Dean Koontz.

'Salem's Lot


Stephen King - 1975
    They must return to 'Salem's Lot for a final confrontation with the unspeakable evil that lives on in the town.

The Last Vampire


Kathryn Meyer Griffith - 1992
    Then, for her, everything changed…as the world ended. The earthquakes, the global floods and the devastating fires arrived first. The human race, displaced and panicked, at first fled, migrating to any place there was food and shelter. Then the worldwide plague arrived with its waves of death. And as mankind suffered and died out, vampires, their numbers dwindling from the same sickness, struggled and fought fiercely among themselves to survive in a world where there weren’t enough humans left to feed upon. As the months went by the vampires become fewer, more desperate and ruthless. Emma, as the world disintegrated around her, found herself alone, the old life she’d known, her family and friends all dead…and fighting off an unnatural hunger as she became one of the undead. Defying her unwanted destiny she was determined to resist the increasing bloodlust, the need to kill and feed on human blood, of losing her humanity, for as long as she could bear it, but she was so hungry, and the night, the wolves, called. And then she met Matthew and was no longer alone…but could the love she felt for him protect him from her hunger; could her love protect him from the other vampires?

Somebody Come and Play


Clare McNally - 1987
    except in the rambling mansion where Myrtle Hollenbeck paced up and down like a mad woman, waiting for the return of her children.But Myrtle's waiting is soon over: one night she is found hanging from her daughter's skipping rope. Everyone believes Myrtle's death to be a case of routine suicide; everyone, that is, apart from Cassie Larchmont, the ten-year-old child who witnessed Myrtle's death, and Robert Landers, an investigating police officer who hears from Cassie how a dark shadow stood by Myrtle's side that fearful night.At the same time, Nicole Morgan comes into Cassie's life. Dark-haired, malevolent, dressed in quaint old-fashioned clothes popular decades before, Nicole seems bent on luring the other children into Myrtle's haunted mansion. The fabulous playroom they discover conceals untold horrors, while outside the terror that has lain quietly on the lake bed for thirty years rises slowly towards them. Only Landers can save them before that evil kills them all...

Infinite Days


Rebecca Maizel - 2010
    no one.”Those were some of Rhode’s last words to me. The last time he would pronounce his love. The last time I would see his face.It was the first time in 592 years I could take a breath. Lay in the sun. Taste.Rhode sacrificed himself so I, Lenah Beaudonte, could be human again. So I could stop the blood lust. I never expected to fall in love with someone else that wasn’t Rhode.But Justin was... daring. Exciting. More beautiful than I could dream.I never expected to be sixteen again... then again, I never expected my past to come back and haunt me...

Dracula


Bram Stoker - 1897
    Also included are a discussion of Stoker's working notes for the novel and "Dracula's Guest," the original opening chapter to Dracula. Reviews and Reactions reprints five early reviews of the novel. "Dramatic and Film Variations" focuses on theater and film adaptations of Dracula, two indications of the novel's unwavering appeal. David J. Skal, Gregory A. Waller, and Nina Auerbach offer their varied perspectives. Checklists of both dramatic and film adaptations are included.Criticism collects seven theoretical interpretations of Dracula by Phyllis A. Roth, Carol A. Senf, Franco Moretti, Christopher Craft, Bram Dijkstra, Stephen D. Arata, and Talia Schaffer.A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.

Eternal Darkness


Tom Deady - 2017
    . . and the flies. They had no idea why anybody would want to live there, but then they met Greg Lupescu, the new kid who had moved in. He looked strange, his father was never around, and he had this creepy butler named Karl. Soon, however, he became their close friend.SOMETHING IS KILLING PEOPLEFirst, a young boy goes missing . . .Soon after, the boy's abusive deadbeat father is slaughtered . . .And his grieving mother burns to death in an unnatural fire . . .People are dying all over Bristol, Massachusetts and the boys are beginning to realize that it all started when the Lupescus moved to town.SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T FIGHT YOUR DESTINYBen and little sister Eve can sense that a dark storm looms on the horizon threatening to engulf Bristol, and at its center stands his new friend. Can they all help Greg resist the sinister forces against him, or in the end will he choose to succumb and embrace an Eternal Darkness?

Night Stone


Rick Hautala - 1986
    She couldn't believe they were really moving in. If it weren't for the wooden doll she had found in the closet of her new bedroom, she would have been miserable. But the strange hand-carved figure fascinated her, and she sensed with a child's instinct that she had to hide it from her parents...Hidden EvilIt was a house of darkness and shadows, but with her secret doll, Beth wasn't afraid. Not even when she heard the scratching and whispering at night. Not even when the tall massive stones of her dreams began to ooze with blood. For as she stared into the eyes of the wooden doll, she heard it call to her and felt the force of its evil power. And she knew that it was about to tell her what she had to do...

The Ninth Configuration


William Peter Blatty - 1966
    A Marine Corps psychiatrist with a crisis of faith encourages his patients to enact their fantasies as part of their therapy. However, he proves himself to be more deeply disturbed than at first appears and finally sacrifices himself to save one of his patients.

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer


Jonathan L. Howard - 2009
    Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not "soul" . . . He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever. To make the bet even more interesting, Satan throws in that diabolical engine of deceit, seduction, and corruption known as a "traveling circus" to aid in the evil bidding. What better place exists to rob poor sad saps of their souls than the traveling carnivals historically run by hucksters and legendary con men? With little time to lose, Johannes raises a motley crew from the dead and enlists his brother, Horst, a charismatic vampire (an unfortunate side effect of Johannes's early experiments with necromancy), to be the carnival's barker. On the road through the pastoral English countryside, this team of reprobates wields their black magic with masterful ease, resulting in mayhem at every turn. Johannes may have the moral conscience of anthrax, but are his tricks sinful enough to beat the Devil at his own game? You'll never guess, and that's a promise! Brilliantly written and wickedly funny, "Johannes Cabal the Necromancer" combines the chills and thrills of old-fashioned gothic tales like "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," the mischievous humor of "Wicked," and the sophisticated charms of" Jonathan Strange &Mr. Norrell "and spins the Faustian legend into a fresh, irreverent, and irresistible new adventure.

The Shoemaker


Flora Rheta Schreiber - 1983
    Two Men in the same body...One Joseph Kallinger was a superb craftsman, a sensitive poet, a devoted family man, and a human being who held all life sacred.The other Joseph Kallinger was a lover who needed images of bloody violence to maintain sexual potency, and a father who physically tortured his children, lived in abnormal intimacy with his daughter, and enlisted his 12-year-old son in a campaign of rape and murder that terrified millions.This is the true story of Joseph Kallinger- both of him...

Prodigal


Melanie Tem - 1991
    The voice could only belong to one person, her brother Ethan, but his body, broken by drugs, lies cold in the morgue. An invisible hand has opened the door for Lucy and her sisters and though Lucy questions her parents they have receded into their private existence where nothing can touch them. Lucy is quickly losing touch with her reality of white fences and pristine lawns. She is drawn beyond that door into the dark abyss where her brother waits and evil is hiding in the shadows. Each day the voice grows stronger, demanding that she journey far away to the place that stole her brother's mind and body. As the secret unfolds, the Prodigal emerges.

Blood Kin


Ronald Kelly - 1996
    But tonight, his ancestors have awakened their Great-Grandpa Craven. They're planning a party in the backwoods of Tennessee. And the folks of Green Hollow are in for the night of their lives. The last night of their lives...A teenage girl is found with her throat torn open and her body completely drained of blood... A young bride sprouts fangs and turns on her husband ...A little girl's pet rat develops a murderous mind of its own ...A preacher goes insane and slaughters his entire congregation before feasting on their blood...

Some of Your Blood


Theodore Sturgeon - 1961
    Inside this folder are the letters, memos and transcripts for a young soldier named George Smith, a quiet young man with a terrible past and a shocking secret. As Outerbridge conducts George's therapy, he gradually discovers the truth about George's traumatic childhood, his twisted romance with an older woman named Anna, and the unusual obsession George keeps hidden from the world. With the masterful touch that earned him the Hugo and Nebula awards, Theodore Sturgeon creates a character capable both of unsettling violence and irresistible humanity.