Book picks similar to
Rule Zero by Laurence Timms


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GENESIS


Matt K. Turner - 2016
    But his perfect life comes apart at the seams when he begins to experience blinding headaches and strange bursts of physical ability. Suspicion and paranoia lead him down a rabbit hole of corporate conspiracy where he finds out he’s not losing him mind, it’s much worse than that. Genesis is a mind-bending thrill ride through a near future where Aiden must face the possibility that he is a bio-fabricated being created by a ruthless multinational corporation. The closer Aiden gets to the truth, the more he becomes something unprecedented, a being more powerful than anyone thought possible. If he can learn to harness his newfound abilities in time, Aiden might find a way to save the woman he loves, his species, and possibly... the future of the human race. Film and television writer Matt K. Turner comes storming out of the gates with his debut sci-fi action thriller. Blending a surprisingly smart mixture of heart pounding action, heady reflections on the nature of humanity, and witty comedic flare, Genesis is a new brand of sci-fi for enthusiasts and newcomers alike.

The Amplified Trilogy: The Amplified Books 1-3


Lauren M. Flauding - 2017
    Includes The Amplified, The Dissenters, and The Restrainers.

Children Of The Dark: A Jack Nightingale Short Story


Stephen Leather - 2016
    Children Of The Dark is a fast-paced supernatural story about 10,000 words long. Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com and Jack Nightingale has his own website at www.jacknightingale.com

Drynn


Steve Vera - 2013
    Seventeen years ago, five knights from Earth's magical twin, Theia, entombed Asmodeous the Pale, Lord of the Drynn, in Skip's town. Now that the dark god is free again, he's anxious to get back home and finish the war he began…to enslave all life. It begins with killing the knights who trapped him.Deprived of their magic, the knights fight back using whatever they can get their hands on, from samurai swords to assault rifles. Skip gets reluctantly drawn in to their struggle while Donovan Smith, the demi-god murderer whom Skip was after in the first place, plots to find the Lord of the Underworld and butcher him on his own.Together, these unlikely heroes might just save the world. If they don't kill each other first.

The Curse of Allie Mae


Aiden James - 2010
    David Hobbs, vacationing with his wife Miriam, inadvertently stumbles upon a small cloth 'keepsake' bag and a broken tooth. A human tooth. Miriam begs David to hand the bag and tooth over to park officials, but he ignores his wife's pleas and secretly keeps the 'harmless' items. The action opens a doorway that had been closed for nearly a hundred years and unleashes hell on earth, or at least hell in the lives of David and Miriam.Following the brutal murder of his best friend in Denver, and an aborted attack on his oldest son, David desperately seeks to understand why a mysterious teenage girl has chosen to terrorize him and the males closest to him. To prevent further devastation to his family and end the wanton bloodshed, he returns to the enchanted hills of eastern Tennessee, where a terrible truth awaits discovery...one that forces him to face the consequences for the unpaid sins of his ancestors.

Call to Quarters


Honor Raconteur - 2016
     In modern times, they are known as the Gældorcræft Forces. They do everything that needs to be done, from disaster relief to keeping giant cities afloat – like Los Angeles. Investigating explosions at Air Force Research Labs are outside of the norm, but this explosion doesn’t follow the rules either. It happens nearly right on top of a leyline and the damage it causes is considerable. Noriko is new to California, new to the GF, and has a brand new partner to boot. She wanted to have an easy first week of work, just to adjust to things, but instead she’s thrown head first into a case that is snowballing in complexity. Time is definitely ticking because if they don’t figure it out, then all of California is going to wind up in the ocean.

Witness X


S.E. Moorhead - 2020
    A genre-bending thriller for the Netflix generation, for fans of Altered Carbon, Dark and Mindhunter.She's the only one who can access the truth...Fourteen years ago, the police caged a notorious serial killer who abducted and butchered two victims every February. He was safe behind bars. Wasn't he?But then another body is discovered, and soon enough, the race is on to catch the real killer. Neuropsychologist Kyra Sullivan fights to use a new technology that accesses the minds of the witnesses, working with the police to uncover the truth. Will Kyra discover the person behind the murders, and if so, at what cost? And how far will she go to ensure justice is served?An addictive futuristic thriller, perfect for fans of Stranger Things.

Colin McCool and the Vampire Dwarf


M.D. Massey - 2012
    Now, they've been recruited by a leprechaun who loves IKEA and a centuries-old wizard (who may or may not think he’s Gandalf) to break the evil vampire dwarf’s curse and save the town… The thing is, there are a lot of weird and frightening things sneaking around their town, and not all of them are friendly. Cats the size of ponies. Ponies that eat people. Little people that eat people, and who have horrible taste in hats. And, pom-pom girls with goat feet. All-in-all, it’s a pretty messed up situation, and it looks like Colin and Jesse are the only ones who can do anything about it – which makes it even more messed up. But if they fail, it could mean an end to their town… and an even bloodier end for Colin and Jesse. About “Colin McCool and the Vampire Dwarf”: “Colin McCool and the Vampire Dwarf” is an exciting new entry among fantasy adventure books for kids 9-12, and is a unique and entertaining addition to the YA books genre. If you enjoy vampire books for kids or kids adventure books, then you’ll love the Colin McCool children’s fantasy book series. “Colin McCool and the Vampire Dwarf” classifies as middle grade fiction for ages 9 and up, grade levels 4 and up.

The Ghost of Blackwood Lane


Greg Enslen - 2010
    He’s got a new career and new friends, but they can never know his real name or where he comes from. But the program can’t protect him from the relentless dreams of a young woman in danger. It’s the same dream, night after night, and Gary is helpless, unable to stop the dream’s inevitable and horrifying conclusion. The woman seems strangely familiar…is she someone from his dark past? Is she even real? All he knows for certain is that she needs his help, or she will die.

Soul Bonds


E.M. Sinclair - 2007
    When that death seems all too likely, she is found by one of the Dragon Kindred and Tika's life takes a twist she could never have imagined in her wildest dreams - or her worst nightmares.

Ninth House


Leigh Bardugo - 2019
    Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

Angelmaker


Nick Harkaway - 2012
    The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork, he has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism. His client, Edie Banister, is more than the kindly old lady she appears to be—she’s a retired international secret agent. And the device? It’s a 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch-nemesis. On the upside, Joe’s got a girl: a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts, savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun...

Spirit Legacy


E.E. Holmes - 2013
    Jess' life has never been what anyone would call easy; doing damage control in the wake of your nomadic, alcoholic mother doesn't exactly make for a storybook childhood. But now her world has fallen apart just when it should be coming together: her mother gone—dead under mysterious circumstances; her life uprooted to stay with estranged relatives she’s never met; and there’s something odd about some of the people she’s been meeting at school:They’re dead.Aided by Tia, her neurotic roommate, and Dr. David Pierce, a ghost-hunting professor, Jess must unravel the mystery behind her hauntings. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more danger shadows her every move. An ancient secret, long-buried, is about to claw its way to the surface, and nothing can prepare Jess for one terrifying truth......her encounters with the world of the dead are only just beginning.Spirit Legacy is the first of three thrilling novels in The Gateway Trilogy by E.E. Holmes.

Afterlife


Marcus Sakey - 2017
    He wakes without a scratch. The building is in ruins. His team is gone. Outside, Chicago is dark. Cars lie abandoned. No planes cross the sky. He’s relieved to spot other people — until he sees they’re carrying machetes.Welcome to the afterlife.Claire McCoy stands over the body of Will Brody. As head of an FBI task force, she hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. A terrorist has claimed eighteen lives and thrown the nation into panic. Against this horror, something reckless and beautiful happened. She fell in love… with Will Brody. But the line between life and death is narrower than any of us suspect — and all that matters to Will and Claire is getting back to each other.From the author of the million-copy bestselling Brilliance Trilogy comes a mind-bending thriller that explores our most haunting and fundamental question: What if death is just the beginning?

A Rarer Gift Than Gold: Adventure for Art Lovers


Lucy Branch - 2015
    Abigail Argent is a skilled craftsman working in the world of sculpture. Her particular talent lies in seeing the beauty in a plain piece of metal and being able to draw it out. When she comes across a book that links her craft with the ancient myth of alchemy, she's intrigued. Digging deeper, she discovers that some types of research can be dangerous. Delving into one of Italy's oldest secret societies, curiosity comes at a price that no-one should have to pay. If you like a conspiracy theory that walks the line between myth and science, you'll love A Rarer Gift Than Gold. A Rarer Gift Than Gold takes everything you think you know about alchemy and turns it on its head Treat yourself to A Rarer Gift Than Gold as featured on Radio 4, BBC World Service & Timeout Magazine Interview with the Author Will you share a little about your book?  It’s a conspiracy theory about alchemy.  Set in the art and craft world, it’s low fantasy with high stakes. Readers who enjoy the Da Vinci Code should like it.   Will you share how you came up with the idea for this book?    I am a sculptural restorer specialising in metals. I wanted to convey my love of metals and the idea came to me when a historian friend was doing some research and calling up some pretty rare volumes. He got a warning to stay away from the material he was looking at. I wondered why anyone would be so protective of something so dry and academic. I wondered what motivation they could possibly have and what might happen if he ignored the warning. I built this book around this event.   Who or what was your inspiration for this book?   Every day, I work with historic objects and one of the questions I always ask myself when restoring them is ‘what is missing from this object. What can I not see?’ and ‘why might evidence have been lost?’ It has made me very interested in what’s absent from history and why.  This story is about how history can be manipulated by the removal of physical evidence for personal gain.   It is said that authors write themselves into their characters. Is there any part of you in your characters and what they would be?   The only part of the lead character that is like me is her love of metals. That we share.   Have you been influenced by the writing style of other authors?   I adore and devour books, but trying to imitate someone else would just be too hard. Your own voice has to be authentic otherwise I think you come off as a hack.    Do you have plans to write another book?   Girl in A Golden Cage will be out at the end of 2016 – it’s another book in The Gold Gift Series