Book picks similar to
The Judas Line by Mark Everett Stone
mystery
crime-action
fantasy
supernatural-fiction
Layla
Colleen Hoover - 2020
After weeks in the hospital, Layla recovers physically, but the emotional and mental scarring has altered the woman Leeds fell in love with. In order to put their relationship back on track, Leeds whisks Layla away to the bed-and-breakfast where they first met. Once they arrive, Layla’s behavior takes a bizarre turn. And that’s just one of many inexplicable occurrences.Feeling distant from Layla, Leeds soon finds solace in Willow—another guest of the B&B with whom he forms a connection through their shared concerns. As his curiosity for Willow grows, his decision to help her find answers puts him in direct conflict with Layla’s well-being. Leeds soon realizes he has to make a choice because he can’t help both of them. But if he makes the wrong choice, it could be detrimental for all of them.
Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper
J.L. Bryan - 2014
Part detective, part paranormal exterminator, Ellie operates out of Savannah, Georgia, the most haunted city in the United States.When a family contacts her to deal with a disturbing presence in the old mansion they’ve recently purchased, Ellie first believes it to be a typical, by-the-book specter, a residual haunting by a restless spirit. Instead, she finds herself confronting an evil older and more powerful than she’d ever expected, rooted in the house’s long and sordid history of luxury, sin, and murder. The dangerous entity seems particularly interested in her clients’ ten-year-old daughter.Soon her own life is in danger, and Ellie must find a way to exorcise the darkness of the house before it can kill her, her clients, or their frightened young child.
The Bones of Others
Vickie McKeehan - 2013
Not this one.Brutalized as a young girl by a vile sexual predator, Skye Cree is a survivor. Guided by the visions of her mystical spirit guide to the whereabouts of abducted girls, she uses her unique abilities to turn her horrifying past into a positive force for justice. Fighting the demons that have haunted her for years, she trusts only in herself—until she falls hard for a man for the first time in her life. Now, discovering her abductor is back with a vengeance, she becomes locked in a deadly race against time to stop the horrors of an evil human-trafficking ring that threatens to tear her world, and her newfound love apart.
American Elsewhere
Robert Jackson Bennett - 2013
Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different ...From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew.
The Passage
Justin Cronin - 2010
government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—toward the time an place where she must finish what should never have begun.With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterly prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.
Possess
J.A. Howell - 2013
The catch? The last tenant, Brody Walsh, killed himself.Or did he?As disturbing dreams and hauntings start to occur, Harley realizes there may be much more behind the previous tenant’s death than a simple suicide. She finds her life further entangled with his when she learns that her new boss, Nolan, was also his best friend. Could this handsome but evasive pub owner have something to do with Brody’s death?Trying to piece together the events surrounding Brody’s death proves to be a daunting task, but Harley can’t give up. Brody won’t let her. He is still in the apartment with her, trapped in limbo until she finds his killer.But he’s not waiting for revenge.Harley’s next.
The Children in the Lake: A Story You Will Never Forget
Mark Edward Hall - 2019
Nearly a century later there are those who still report seeing the children swimming beneath the surface like elusive dolphins. After losing her husband in a violent car crash, Rachel King and her two young sons venture to Arrowhead Lake to heal. When Rachel discovers that Great Woods Timber is planning to clear-cut this beautiful wilderness she enlists the help of Lilly Bowman and her mysterious father, chief and shaman of the Wabanaki nation. But dark events have been set in motion and Arrowhead Lake is under siege by a sinister force of mercenaries. When Chief Neptune vanishes, Rachel and Lilly call on Seth Ferguson, the local deputy sheriff for help. Together they discover an astonishing truth; a shadowy cabal that will stop at nothing to obtain the secret of Arrowhead Lake, a secret that if unearthed could have far-reaching consequences. When one of Rachel’s sons vanishes in the Lake, she and Lilly embark on a harrowing journey to find him. What they discover is a mind boggling truth that will change their lives forever. *
Awake in the Dark Box Set
Tim McBain - 2015
A 27 year old slacker has seizures during which he may or may not be astral projecting. What he learns might have the power to change the world. One second JEFF GROBNAGGER is standing in line at the grocery store, and the next he's in an alley where a hooded figure strangles him to death. So that sucks. This happens over and over again, every time Grobnagger has a seizure. Alley. Choking. Death. Repeat. What for? Why would anyone want to kill him repeatedly? Is it just a recurring seizure dream? When a sniper's bullet shatters his apartment window, he realizes two things: he's in serious danger, and there's no way he's getting his security deposit back. Who is the hooded man? And who tried to kill Grobnagger in real life? His quest for answers leads to a missing girl, cults obsessed with astral projection, an arcane puzzle sphere, an evil book, a private detective named Louise and a mustached man named Glenn that makes the most delicious food he's ever tasted. No one he meets is who they seem, and every answer leads to more questions, more seizures and more horrific deaths that may or may not be transpiring on some mysterious plane beyond the physical world.
Scroll up and hit LOOK INSIDE to check out the first few chapters.
BLED WHITE (Book 2) All Jeff Grobnagger wanted was to be left alone. The events of Fade to Black (Awake in the Dark #1) shifted his goal from a life of solitude to figuring out what the hell is happening to him ASAP, so he can, you know, get back to the solitude. His journey takes another twist when a burned corpse sporting a League of Light robe turns up in a vacant lot. Working undercover to solve the murder reveals bigger and bigger clues about his seizures. Solve the murder, solve the seizures? Maybe. He meets new people and is shown new places on the other side. But who and what can he trust? Just as he realizes that someone close may be working against him, he gets blindsided by the biggest shock yet. RED ON THE INSIDE (Book 3) The events of the first two books leave Grobnagger drained, often struggling to stay awake. He shuffles through life half awake, half tethered to reality. He still has no idea what is happening to him, but he's not sure he even cares anymore. When those that mean him harm finally begin to assert themselves, however, Grobnagger finds himself and his friends under direct threat of death. Plans are made to cross over and rescue Amity once and for all from her vulnerable position in the other world. But his adversaries are one step ahead and a violent spectacle becomes inevitable. Praise for the Awake in the Dark series: "Fade to Black is the funniest book I've read in... I can't remember how long. Seriously funny. I think I laughed out loud roughly once every three pages. That's a lot of funny packed into one book! And not just an internal chuckle here and there, but an honest to goodness laugh out loud that made my significant other call, 'What?' from the next room repeatedly." - Lisbeth Ames "(FADE TO BLACK) weirdly resonates with me. It is sneaky in a way – it holds the things we fear up to the light – opening the reader up to honesty – to love and hope and the truths of our souls found in the darkest of nights.
Brilliance
Marcus Sakey - 2013
In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called "brilliants," and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in - and betray his own kind.From Marcus Sakey, "a modern master of suspense" (Chicago Sun-Times) and "one of our best storytellers" (Michael Connelly), comes an adventure that’s at once breakneck thriller and shrewd social commentary; a gripping tale of a world fundamentally different and yet horrifyingly similar to our own, where being born gifted can be a terrible curse.
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
Grady Hendrix - 2020
The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.
House of Bathory
Linda Lafferty - 2014
During bizarre nightly rites, she tortured and killed the young women she had taken on as servants. A devil, a demon, the terror of Royal Hungary—she bathed in their blood to preserve her own youth.400 years later, echoes of the Countess’s legendary brutality reach Aspen, Colorado. Betsy Path, a psychoanalyst of uncommon intuition, has a breakthrough with sullen teenager Daisy Hart. Together, they are haunted by the past, as they struggle to understand its imprint upon the present. Betsy and her troubled but perceptive patient learn the truth: the curse of the House of Bathory lives still and has the power to do evil even now.The story, brimming with palace intrigue, memorable characters intimately realized, and a wealth of evocative detail, travels back and forth between the familiar, modern world and a seventeenth-century Eastern Europe brought startlingly to life.Inspired by the actual crimes of Elizabeth Báthory, The House of Bathory is another thrilling historical fiction from Linda Lafferty (The Bloodletter’s Daughter and The Drowning Guard). The novel carries readers along with suspense and the sweep of historical events both repellent and fascinating.
Waking Hours
Lis Wiehl - 2011
Some have demons.Welcome to East Salem. A sleepy town with a history older than America where things are just a bit off. Where the supernatural bleeds into the everyday.And where a tragic murder mystery is underway. A high school girl is found dead in the town park. And where forensic psychiatrist Dani Harris wants answers. All the suspects are teenagers who were at the party with her the night before-but who woke up the next morning with no memory of what transpired. Even though evidence confirms they were all at the scene of the crime.Former pro-football linebacker-and local celebrity-Tommy Gunderson finds himself drawn to the case. And to Dani-who he last spoke with on their one high school date forever ago. Yet his celebrity status opens doors barred to Dani-so they form an awkward alliance. They soon realize that there's more to the mystery than murder. And more to the evil they are facing than a mere human killer.
Maplecroft
Cherie Priest - 2014
The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny. But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness. This evil cannot hide from me. No matter what guise it assumes, I will be waiting for it. With an axe.
Killing Time
Michaelbrent Collings - 2013
*** It sounds like just another urban legend -- a clock appears in your home, ticking backward to midnight, and when the twelfth chime rings, the recipient is gruesomely murdered. But when Kristen receives a clock of her own, ticking backward to her doom, she must unravel its mysteries. Mysteries that have their roots in her family, and that will lead her through generations of madness. The clock is ticking, and when it reaches midnight, Kristen will discover that some urban legends are real, and sometimes the dead do not stay dead. It's only a matter of time...