Book picks similar to
The Whipping Boy by Beth Holmes
fiction
horror
1-psych-abuse-twisted
middle-grade
Mouse
D.M. Mitchell - 2012
But his life is about to change dramatically when he sees and falls secretly in love with Laura Leach.Laura lives all alone in an 18th Century folly known as Devereux Towers; a brooding old building sitting alone in its field a few miles from Langbridge. Recently returned to the area to bury her father and having inherited Devereux Towers, Laura is something of a recluse. The local children call Laura the ‘Witch of Devereux Towers’; some people call her ‘damaged goods’. She too is lonely and unassuming, a desperately troubled woman haunted by her dark, secret past. Haunted by what lies behind the blue-painted door in Devereux Towers which Laura lets no one enter…Then Laura Leach meets Casper Younge. He’s handsome, well-spoken, gentle and loving, and Laura falls head-over-heels in love with him. Vince Moody is devastated to have lost the woman of his dreams, but he soon discovers that Casper Younge is not all he first appears. He’s blackmailing the Empire’s manager, Martin Caldwell, for one thing; and who is the attractive woman Vince sees Casper meeting in Glastonbury? What plans are they hatching? Martin Caldwell is having serious troubles of his own, aside from managing the failing Empire cinema – his affair with Monica Andrews the cleaner has gone horribly wrong. His world is falling apart, and the last thing he wants is a visit from Casper Younge dredging up a murky past he thought he’d left behind.Then both Casper and Monica go missing; the longer they are gone, the more the thoughts turn to their possible deaths. But if they are dead, who is responsible for killing them?Soon, everyone is caught up in a dangerous spiral of events that draws them inexorably into a world of jealousy, deceit, passion, blackmail and murder, where the hunter becomes the hunted, the mice turn on the cats.Set against the impressive yet claustrophobic landscape of the Somerset Levels, Mouse is a chilling exploration of the corrupt depths people will sink to in the name of revenge, power, greed and love and is D. M. Mitchell at his imaginative best.
Rings of Smoke
Diane O'Toole - 2012
Neither has a clue of the devastation and heartbreak their actions have caused. Neither understands the damage they have done to their own offspring; one by deserting her family, one by staying. But both are the same; greedy and demanding. They both wanted more, and they pushed their husbands to the brink to get it. Rings of Smoke is a crime thriller set in 1970's northern England, where the Fallon family, recently emigrated from Ireland, now live. When the mother, Helen, leaves her husband for another man, eldest daughter Erin sets off to search for her, unaware that she has been stalked by a serial killer for the last six weeks. All Erin wants is to find her mother and bring her home. What she encounters is Leonard Fitch, an eminent surgeon with a deep, dark secret. Now, in a secluded forest ranger's lodge, Erin must fight to survive or never see her family again.
The David Rivers Series: Books 1-3: Greatest Enemy, Offer of Revenge, and Dark Redemption
Jason Kasper - 2018
Now an international bestseller.
Book 1: Greatest Enemy
Army Ranger David Rivers enters the covert underworld of ex-special operators for hire. His new team serves a faceless mastermind known as the Handler. But as the stakes continue to rise, he learns that his new employer is more ruthless than anyone he's faced in combat—and he just might be David's greatest enemy.
Book 2: Offer of Revenge
David Rivers wants vengeance. But to get it, he must join the secretive organization that slaughtered the only family he had. Sent into battle against a savage force of enemy fighters in Somalia, David realizes that someone inside the organization seems to know his true purpose…and has been waiting for him all along.
Book 3: Dark Redemption
The path to revenge leads David Rivers into a labyrinth of twisted loyalties in the violent slums of Rio de Janeiro—where he learns the betrayal of his team was just the beginning. And nothing in David’s murderous past can prepare him for what happens when he finally meets his greatest enemy face-to-face.
The Maple House: The True Story of a Haunting
Jeanie Dyer - 2014
But when the life of their young son is taken, Jeanie starts to wonder if her family is being targeted by something supernatural. In this novella based on a true story, Jeanie narrates her family's time at the Maple House and the experiences in what she thought would be her dream home that still plague her family today.
Burn the Rabbit: Rabbit in Red Volume Two
Joe Chianakas - 2016
He's looking forward to learning the craft, renewing last year's friendships, and above all, to seeing Jaime, and finally asking her to be his girlfriend.But before he even gets to see her, one of their own is violently attacked. JB goes on the hunt, and the students learn about his troubled past, which changes their views of him forever. As their project, they create Rabbit in Red's most terrifying and disturbing challenge yet, Hellfire, and use it to recruit a new class of horror students.Then the bodies start piling up, and the mysteries become more and more dangerous. Is this another one of JB's dark games-within-a-game, or will Rabbit in Red--and everyone in it--burn in the end
The Lunatic Memoirs: The Jack Downing Story
Thatcher C. Nalley - 2013
Jack Downing has become one of the most influential business tycoons in America. Jack Downing also believes that God has chosen him to annihilate the entire existence of human beings. Convinced that God has chosen him to be “The One”, the successful Jack Downing will set out to kill off all of mankind. As he begins to carry out the plan of extinction, and with only one year left to do so, Jack begins to write on how he became God’s chosen one. On the outside the publicly respected Jack Downing in charming and charismatic, but unbeknownst to the world around him, the secret Jack is descending into violent madness. Written in a narrative form, THE LUNATIC MEMOIRS, is a novel that journeys deep into the detached reasoning of a sociopathic mind. Jack Downing illuminates how the mind’s line between that which is sane and insane can be truly very thin. www.ThatcherCNalley.com
The Cannibal's Daughter
Mitchell Nelson - 2014
She’s a nobody. And that’s the way she likes it. Her father, on the other hand — Hank Keeling, the serial killer and occasional cannibal better known as the Pork Chop Killer — has just gone viral. Thanks to a prison guard’s error, a cell phone video of Keeling’s botched execution is quickly becoming an internet sensation. After watching her father die in all his pixelated glory, Caroline is taken off-guard when Keeling himself shows up at her front door, looking very much not dead. And he has a plan. A plan involving Caroline. A plan Caroline is going to take part in whether she wants to or not. Success means wealth beyond her dreams. Failure means death. Soon Caroline is whisked away from her bland life to face down killers, gangsters and a well-meaning cop in a hunt for long-lost fortune. Deceit, avarice and unrelenting violence collide in a coming-of-age story like none you’ve ever read.
The Gemini Effect
Chuck Grossart - 2012
By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance.Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop.As Carolyn and Garrett race to stop the plague, a battered and broken government prepares to release the fury of America’s nuclear arsenal on its own soil and its own citizens.
The Gemini Effect was originally published as The Mengele Effect. This edition has been completely edited and revised, including significant plot changes.
Only The Good Die Young : And I'm Not A Saint
Akash Verma - 2021
She thinks that chapter of her life hasended, and starts afresh in Mumbai. But strangely, it seems her past is trying to catch up. Dhruv suddenlycomes back into her life. Even as they try to figure out their relationship, horrible things start happening to people they know. Together, Anuradha and Dhruv need to find out who it is that cannot bear to see them together. Who is carrying out these shocking crimes? Are they really soulmates cursed to stay apart, or is there some karmic debt they have to repay? Taut and thrilling, Only the Good Die Young is unputdownable.
The Bird's Nest
Shirley Jackson - 1954
When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson's characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl—but four separate, self-destructive personalities. The Bird's Nest, Jackson's third novel, develops hallmarks of the horror master's most unsettling work: tormented heroines, riveting familial mysteries, and a disquieting vision inside the human mind.
Spares
Michael Marshall Smith - 1996
An eye for an eye, but some people are doing all the taking.Spares - the story of Jack Randall: burnt-out, dropped out, and with a zero credit rating at the luck bank. After five years lying low on a Spares farm, looking after inmates that can't even spell luck, he is finally faced with a chance at redemption....if he, and the spares, can run fast enough.Spares - a breathless race through strange, disturbing territories in a world all too close to our own.Spares - it's fiction. But only just...
Strange Bodies
Antonia Marlowe - 2013
The Richardsons’ deaths are just two of several brutal murders to be unearthed. With local police stymied, former Scotland Yard Commander, Nicholas Adams and his team, are called in. But even with the extensive surveillance of central computer BigSys and the pervasive eyes of cameras that cover so much of the country, it takes the skills of the attractive Verity Burne – computer wizard and freelance feature writer – to uncover the links between the homicides that lead to the discovery of past injustices and a thirst for bloody vengeance.
First Blood
David Morrell - 1972
Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of First Blood to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with—or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky. Millions saw the Rambo movies, but those who haven't read the book that started it all are in for a surprise—a critically acclaimed story of character, action, and compassion.
Death Is a Lonely Business
Ray Bradbury - 1985
Trying not to miss his girlfriend (away studying in Mexico), the nameless writer steadily crafts his literary effort--until strange things begin happening around him.Starting with a series of peculiar phone calls, the writer then finds clumps of seaweed on his doorstep. But as the incidents escalate, his friends fall victim to a series of mysterious "accidents"--some of them fatal. Aided by Elmo Crumley, a savvy, street-smart detective, and a reclusive actress of yesteryear with an intense hunger for life, the wordsmith sets out to find the connection between the bizarre events, and in doing so, uncovers the truth about his own creative abilities.
The Cutting Edge
Darcia Helle - 2010
I'm a hairstylist and I can't stop fantasizing about killing my clients. Not all of them, of course. I only want to kill the ones who irritate me, which, if I'm being honest, is most of them. My occasional fantasies have turned into chronic daydreams. They're bloody and vivid, like watching a slice-and-dice movie on IMAX. I also want to kill my husband's ex-girlfriend. She's not a client but she tops my list. Eighteen years ago, she gave birth to his daughter and she has tormented him ever since. I should be troubled by this growing desire to use my surgically sharpened shears for more than a haircut. Instead, I wonder how I can get away with it.