Book picks similar to
A Collection of Nightmares by Christina Sng
poetry
horror
horror-poetry
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Dark Matter
Michelle Paver - 2010
Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return--when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark...
The Fireman
Joe Hill - 2016
Stay cool.No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.
Red Moon
Benjamin Percy - 2013
They are our neighbors, our mothers, our lovers.They change.When government agents kick down Claire Forrester's front door and murder her parents, Claire realizes just how different she is.Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and hours later stepped off it, the only passenger left alive, a hero.Chase Williams has sworn to protect the people of the United States from the menace in their midst, but he is becoming the very thing he has promised to destroy. So far, the threat has been controlled by laws and violence and drugs. But the night of the red moon is coming, when an unrecognizable world will emerge...and the battle for humanity will begin.
Pretty Little Dead Girls
Mercedes M. Yardley - 2014
In order to survive, she must run as far and as fast as she can. After arriving in Seattle, Bryony befriends a tortured musician, a market fish-thrower, and a starry-eyed hero who is secretly a serial killer bent on fulfilling Bryony’s dark destiny. Mercedes M. Yardley’s Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy is a dark, lovely fairy tale with lyrical language and a high body count. It features a cover by Hugo Award Winner GALEN DARA.
Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror
Lee MurrayJonathan Maberry - 2018
A world filled with wonders... and danger. But what if the legends are true?Delve into dark worlds in HELLHOLE, where death lurks around every corner, and come face to face with creatures from your worst nightmares in this collection of dark thrillers. New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry and Bram Stoker Award winner Rena Mason headline a cast of bestselling and award-winning authors.This collection includes:Introduction by James A. MooreAll the Devils are Here- A Joe Ledger/Lizzie Corbett Adventure by Jonathan MaberryThe Devil's Throat by Rena MasonA Plague of Locusts by Michael McBridePit of Ghosts by Kirsten CrossWhere the Sun Does Not Shine by Paul ManneringGuard Duty by SD PerryBlack Lung by Aaron SternsThe Offspring by J.H. MoncrieffGinormous Hell Snake by Jake BibleGhosts of Hyperia by Jessica McHughHe Who Fights by Sean EllisEdited by Lee Murray
The Ninth Circle
Alex Bell - 2008
His head is glued to the floorboards with his own blood. There's a fortune in cash on the kitchen table. And he has no idea where, or who, he is. He can do extraordinary things—speak any number of languages fluently, go three days without food or sleep, and fight with extraordinary prowess. But without a name, without a past, he's isolated from the rest of the world; a stranger to everyone, including himself—until a chance encounter with a young scholar leads to his first friendship, and his first hint that someone out there knows more about him than he does. Someone is sending him clues about his past. Photographs hidden in books and crates of wine. Cryptic clues pointing towards a murdered woman. And clear warnings against Stephomi, his only friend. But that's not all; Gabriel Antaeus is seeing strange, impossible things: a burning man is stalking his dreams and haunting his mirrors, his dreams are filled with violence from the past, and his pregnant young neighbor is surrounded by an extraordinary golden aura. Something dark and violent in Gabriel's past is trying to resurface. And as he pieces the clues together, everything points towards an astounding war between angels and demons—a battle not just for the future of the world, but for the minds and souls of everyone in it.
A Beautiful Composition of Broken
R.H. Sin - 2017
Sin, bestselling author of the Whiskey, Words & a Shovel series, returns with a collection of poetry and prose meant to remind the wounded that they are, in fact, beautiful in a way society may never comprehend.A Beautiful Composition of Broken is inspired by some of the events expressed artistically by Samantha King in the bestseller Born to Love, Cursed to Feel. It serves as a poetic documentary of the lives of people who have been mistreated, misunderstood, and wrongfully labeled in a way that limits them in this world. The author’s most personal volume yet, A Beautiful Composition of Broken builds a conceptual bridge between r.h. Sin’s earliest work and his forthcoming series, Planting Gardens in Graves.
The Reapers are the Angels
Alden Bell - 2010
A young girl named Temple is on the run. Haunted by her past and pursued by a killer, Temple is surrounded by death and danger, hoping to be set free.For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself - and keeping her demons inside. She can't remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her on a personal journey toward redemption. Moving back and forth between the insulated remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks.
Ring Shout
P. Djèlí Clark - 2020
All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?
Snake Agent
Liz Williams - 2005
Chen has several problems: in addition to colleagues who don't trust him and his mystical ways, a patron goddess whom he has offended and a demonic wife who's tired of staying home alone, he's been paired with one of Hell's own vice officers, Seneschal Zhu Irzh, to investigate the illegal trade in souls. Political pressures both Earthly and otherworldly seek to block their investigations at every turn. As a plot involving both Singapore Three's industrial elite and Hell's own Ministry of Epidemics is revealed, it becomes apparent that the stakes are higher than anyone had previously suspected.
Wake
Elizabeth Knox - 2013
With an invisible monster you never know when you're in danger and when you're safe—if you retreat to your fortress you can't be sure you haven't locked it in with you. The invisible monster is something on which no one is an expert. But everyone has the same relationship to it. It could just as well be peering over your shoulder as mine.On a sunny spring morning the settlement of Kahukura in Tasman is suddenly overwhelmed by a mysterious mass insanity. A handful of survivors find themselves cut off from the world, and surrounded by the dead. As the group of try to take care of one another, and survive in ever more difficult circumstances, it becomes apparent that this isn't the first time that this has happened, and that they aren't all survivors and victims - two of them are something quite other. And, it seems, they are trapped with something. Something unseen is picking at the loose threads of their characters, corrupting, provoking, and haunting them.Wake is a book that asks: 'What are the last things left when the worst has happened?' It is a book about extreme events, ordinary people, heroic compassion—and invisible monsters.
The Stone Man
Luke Smitherd - 2012
until the Stone Man begins to walk, heading silently through the wall of the nearest building, flattening it and killing several people inside as a result.As efforts by the local police - and soon, the government - to halt the Stone Man's inexorable progress prove futile, only three questions are on the watching world's lips:Where has it come from, where is it going, and what does it want?Andy is determined to be the first person to answer those questions; after all, he was there when it arrived. Surely the headaches and visions he's experiencing are proof of a mental connection to The Stone Man? Clearly his dreams of champagne and notoriety are all about to be fulfilled once he uncovers the truth ... and the scoop of a lifetime.In a pursuit that carries him the length of the country and the breadth of the Atlantic, Andy uncovers the jagged pieces of an increasingly terrifying puzzle. As the number of lives lost in the wake of the Stone Man reaches grim figures, the terrible results of Andy's blind determination force him to confront the savagery of human nature.When irresistible forces aren't met by immovable objects, how far is too far? Andy must discover the answer - and find out who he really is - in the shadow of the Stone Man.
33 A.D.
David McAfee - 2010
The vampires of the era have long sought to gain a foothold into Israel, but the faith of the local Jewish population has held them in check for centuries. When one of their own betrays them to follow a young rabbi from Galilee, the elders of the vampire race send Theron, a nine hundred year old assassin, to kill them both. The rabbi's name is Jesus. Killing him should be easy.
Toxic
Lydia Kang - 2018
She's grown up hidden by her mother in a secret room of the bioship Cyclo until the day her mother is simple gone - along with the entire crew. Cyclo tells her she was abandoned, but she's certain her mother wouldn't leave her there to die. And Hana isn't ready to die yet. She's never really had a chance to live.Fenn is supposed to die. He and a crew of hired mercenaries are there to monitor Cyclo as she expires, and the payment for the suicide mission will mean Fenn's sister is able to live. But when he meets Hana, he's not sure how to save them both.As Cyclo grows sicker by the day, they unearth more secrets about the ship and the crew. But the more time they spend together, the more Hana and Fenn realize that falling for each other is what could ultimately kill them both.
The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories
Kevin Brockmeier - 2021
Kevin Brockmeier's fiction has always explored the space between the fantastical and the everyday with profundity and poignancy. As in his previous books, The Ghost Variations discovers new ways of looking at who we are and what matters to us, exploring how mysterious, sad, strange, and comical it is to be alive--or, as it happens, not to be.