Book picks similar to
The Immortal Body by William Holloway
horror
lovecraftian
cosmic-horror
adult
House of Small Shadows
Adam Nevill - 2013
Corporate bullying at a top TV network saw her fired and forced to leave London, but she was determined to get her life back. A new job and a few therapists later, things look much brighter. Especially when a challenging new project presents itself -- to catalogue the late M. H. Mason's wildly eccentric cache of antique dolls and puppets. Rarest of all, she'll get to examine his elaborate displays of posed, costumed and preserved animals, depicting bloody scenes from the Great War. Catherine can't believe her luck when Mason's elderly niece invites her to stay at Red House itself, where she maintains the collection until his niece exposes her to the dark message behind her uncle's "Art." Catherine tries to concentrate on the job, but Mason's damaged visions begin to raise dark shadows from her own past. Shadows she'd hoped therapy had finally erased. Soon the barriers between reality, sanity and memory start to merge and some truths seem too terrible to be real... in The House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill.
Dracul
Dacre Stoker - 2018
Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here...A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen--a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen--and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning.
Wormwood
Poppy Z. Brite - 1993
Behind a dusty Georgia carny show... In a mausoleum in Baton Rouge, or in an alley in Calcutta... Here wanderers come to rest, the lost and lonely press their bodies up against each other, the heat rises, flesh yields, bones are bared, blood spills. This is the landscape of today's most brilliant young horror writer, Poppy Z. Brite.Now, in a collection that sings like cutting edge rock 'n' roll and shows the deft touch of a master storyteller, Poppy Z. Brite weaves her unique spell of the sensual, the frightening, and the forbidden....
Hôtel Transylvania
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - 1978
A fixture in 1740s Parisian society, Saint-Germain is a perfect gentleman--and a vampire. When the fiery young Madeline falls in love with him, a group of evil sorcerers targets her for their black mass--and only Saint-Germain can save her soul.
The Dark Rites of Cthulhu
Brian M. SammonsGlynn Owen Barrass - 2014
Hapless mortals have invoked monstrous entities from beyond through foul magicks, incantations and rituals. When will they learn that here can be no profit nor joy to be gained through relations with the insidious old ones? These sixteen tales of depravity, sorcery and madness may offer some illumination, but ultimately there can be no salvation for those who dabble in The Dark Rites of Cthulhu.
The Last Werewolf
Glen Duncan - 2011
For two hundred years he has wandered the world, enslaved by his lunatic appetites and tormented by the memory of his first and most monstrous crime. Now, the last of his kind, he knows he cannot go on.But as Jake counts down to suicide, a violent murder and an extraordinary meeting plunge him straight back into the desperate pursuit of life — and love.Sexy, smart, bloody and heartbreaking, The Last Werewolf takes literature by the throat.
Nocturnes
John Connolly - 2004
In "The New Daughter," a father comes to suspect that a burial mound on his land hides something very ancient, and very much alive; in "The Underbury Witches," two London detectives find themselves battling a particularly female evil in a town culled of its menfolk. And finally, private detective Charlie Parker returns in the long novella "The Reflecting Eye," in which the photograph of an unknown girl turns up in the mailbox of an abandoned house once occupied by an infamous killer. This discovery forces Parker to confront the possibility that the house is not as empty as it appears, and that something has been waiting in the darkness for its chance to kill again.
Equoid
Charles Stross - 2013
Now Bob Howard, Laundry agent, must travel to the quiet English countryside to deal with an outbreak of one of the worst horrors imaginable. For, as it turns out, unicorns are real. They're also ravenous killers from beyond spacetime...At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.
Black Creek Crossing
John Saul - 2004
Unholy forces are stirred from long slumber to monstrous new life. And two young misfits discover the chilling art of turning persecution into retribution. With these eerie ingredients, bestselling master John Saul once again works his unique brand of sinister magic to conjure an unforgettable tale of unspeakable terror.For most of her young life, fifteen-year-old Angel Sullivan has been on the outside looking in, enduring the taunts of cruel schoolmates and the angry abuse of a bitter father. Then Angel’s family moves to the quaint town of Roundtree, Massachusetts—where a charming home is available, a promising job awaits Angel’s unemployed father, and most of all, the chance to make a new start beckons to the shy, hopeful teenager. But when she is shunned by her new classmates, Angel falls deeper into despair. Until she meets Seth Baker, a fellow outcast—and a fateful kinship is forged. It’s Seth who tells Angel the unspoken truth about the legacy of murder that hangs over her family’s home—and the whispered rumors that something supernatural still dwells there. Uncertain whether the stories are true, and desperate to escape the torment of their daily lives, Angel and Seth devote themselves to contacting whatever restless soul haunts the dark recesses of Black Creek Crossing. But once they have begun, there is no turning back. Guided by an anguished and vengeful spirit, they uncover the shocking events and centuries-old horrors that lay buried beneath the placid veneer of Roundtree. And along with the ghastly revelations comes a terrifying power—one that feeds upon the rage of the victimized, turning the basest impulses and most dangerous desires into devastating weapons. Now, the closer Angel and Seth are pushed toward the edge by their tormentors, the deeper they descend into the maelstrom of dark forces they’ve unleashed . . . and the more unspeakable the hour of reckoning will be.
The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures
Aaron Mahnke - 2017
They're spoken of in stories and superstitions, relics of an unenlightened age, old wives' tales, passed down through generations. And yet, no matter how wary and jaded we have become, as individuals or as a society, a part of us remains vulnerable to them. Werewolves and wendigos, poltergeists and vampires, angry elves and vengeful spirits.In this beautifully illustrated volume, the host of the hit podcast Lore serves as a guide on a fascinating journey through the history of these terrifying creatures, and explores not only the legends but what they tell us about ourselves. Aaron Mahnke invites us to the desolate Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where the notorious winged, red-eyed Jersey Devil dwells. Mahnke delves into harrowing accounts of cannibalism-some officially documented, others the stuff of speculation . . . perhaps. He visits the dimly lit rooms where séances take place, the European villages where gremlins make mischief, and Key West, Florida, home of a haunted doll named Robert.The monsters of folklore have become not only a part of our language but a part of our collective psyche. Whether these beasts and bogeymen are real or just a reflection of our primal fears, we know, on some level, that not every mystery has been explained, and that the unknown still holds the power to strike fear deep in our hearts and souls. As Aaron Mahnke reminds us, sometimes the truth is even scarier than the lore...
The Land Below
William Meikle - 2020
But their attempt to escape out of the dark deep places is thwarted.Men are not at home in the depths. But there are things that are, pale terrifying things.Huge things.Things red in tooth and claw.
The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Vol. 1: At the Edge of Empire
Daniel Kraus - 2015
Dusk. A swaggering seventeen-year-old gangster named Zebulon Finch is gunned down on the shores of Lake Michigan. But after mere minutes in the void, he is mysteriously resurrected.His second life will be nothing like his first.Zebulon’s new existence begins as a sideshow attraction in a traveling medicine show. From there, he will be poked and prodded by a scientist obsessed with mastering the secrets of death. He will fight in the trenches of World War I. He will run from his nightmares—and from poverty—in Depression-era New York City. And he will become the companion of the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.Love, hate, hope, and horror—Zebulon finds them. But will he ever find redemption?Ambitious and heartbreaking, The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume One: At the Edge of Empire is the epic saga of what it means to be human in a world so often lacking in humanity.
Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories
Michael Sims - 2010
Beginning with the supposedly true accounts that captivated Byron and Shelley, the stories range from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Oval Portrait" and Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" to Guy de Maupassant's "The Horla" and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Good Lady Ducayne." Sims also includes a nineteenth-century travel tour of Transylvanian superstitions, and rounds out the collection with Stoker's own "Dracula's Guest"-a chapter omitted from his landmark novel.Vampires captivated the Victorians, as Sims reveals in his insightful introduction: In 1867, Karl Marx described capitalism as "dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor"; while in 1888 a London newspaper invoked vampires in trying to explain Jack the Ripper's predations. At a time when vampires have been re-created in a modern context, Dracula's Guest will remind readers young, old, and in between of why the undead won't let go of our imagination.
Those Below the Tree House
Matt Hayward - 2020
His stepdad is home, a bite on his neck, as Riverside’s only officer searches the woodlands for the aggressor. Tony is told not to cause a panic among the few kids living in Riverside’s mountaintop community, and his best friends Ben Rodgers and Lee Tally are unaware. Overnight, the condition of Tony’s stepfather worsens. His mother won’t leave the bedside. And soon, Riverside is turned upside down as residents morph into moss-covered abominations. Freaks. Joined by the local bully, the boys seek refuge in Rodgers’ tree house, trapped inside as neighbors, and even family, claw the trunk… Food and water soon runs low. With all hope lost, the boys decide to have their first of what they can before time runs out. Their first drink, their first cigarette, their first of anything at all. Like baby birds thrown from the nest, they will need to fly or fall. And time is running short. For his thirteenth birthday, Tony has learns the world has teeth. And someone else is out there, too, watching. An adult in a butcher’s apron. Waiting… Those Below the Tree House is the new supernatural coming-of-age from the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of What Do Monsters Fear? and A Penny For Your Thoughts.
Haunted Gracefield
M.L. Bullock - 2019
Armed with her ability to dream about the past and with the aid of a familiar ghost, the dream catcher gets to work. Hoping to unravel the mystery quickly she decides to stay at the lonely manor house and through her dreams uncovers the forgotten Starlett family history. As she discovers the paranormal reports are true and that she has become a target of the angry spirits, she must quickly work to settle the score on their behalf. Or join their ranks as a ghost of Gracefield. Gracefield is Book One in the Haunted Gracefield series. If you are a fan of M.L. Bullock's Seven Sisters series you'll be familiar with Carrie Jo and her unique abilities. You can read this series by itself but if you would like the full Carrie Jo experience the suggested reading order is The Ultimate Seven Sisters Collection, The Idlewood Collection, Return to Seven Sisters and now Haunted Gracefield. If you prefer darker stories, check out Monica's Gulf Coast Paranormal series which contains intense ghost stories and loads of paranormal investigation or her Sugar Hill series. Scroll up and grab your copy of Gracefield now!