Book picks similar to
Too Near the Dead by Helen Grant
horror
anglophilia
lovebookstours-review
gothic-shit
The Necromancer's House
Christopher Buehlman - 2013
We know where you are. And we are coming.”The man on the screen says this in Russian.“Who are you?”The man smiles, but it’s not a pleasant smile.The image freezes.The celluloid burns exactly where his mouth is, burns in the nearly flat U of his smile. His eyes burn, too.The man fades, leaving the burning smiley face smoldering on the screen.“Oh Christ,” Andrew says.The television catches fire.Andrew Ranulf Blankenship is a handsome, stylish nonconformist with wry wit, a classic Mustang, and a massive library. He is also a recovering alcoholic and a practicing warlock, able to speak with the dead through film. His house is a maze of sorcerous booby traps and escape tunnels, as yours might be if you were sitting on a treasury of Russian magic stolen from the Soviet Union thirty years ago. Andrew has long known that magic was a brutal game requiring blood sacrifice and a willingness to confront death, but his many years of peace and comfort have left him soft, more concerned with maintaining false youth than with seeing to his own defense. Now a monster straight from the pages of Russian folklore is coming for him, and frost and death are coming with her.
Bacchanal
Veronica Henry - 2021
But the carnival’s newest act, a peculiar young woman with latent magical powers, may hold the key to defeating it. Her time has come.Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the color line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It’s a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she’s a magical tender. To others, a she-devil. To a talent prospector, she’s a crowd-drawing oddity. And the Bacchanal Carnival is Eliza’s ticket out of the swamp trap of Baton Rouge.Among fortune-tellers, carnies, barkers, and folks even stranger than herself, Eliza finds a new home. But the Bacchanal is no ordinary carnival. An ancient demon has a home there too. She hides behind an iridescent disguise. She feeds on innocent souls. And she’s met her match in Eliza, who’s only beginning to understand the purpose of her own burgeoning powers.Only then can Eliza save her friends, find her family, and fight the sway of a primordial demon preying upon the human world. Rolling across a consuming dust bowl landscape, Eliza may have found her destiny.
Help the Witch
Tom Cox - 2018
Inspired by our native landscapes and traversing boundaries of the past and future, this collection is Tom Cox's first foray into fiction. Funny, strange and poignant, it elicits the unexpected and unseen to raise our hackles and set imaginations whirring.Inspired by our native landscapes, saturated by the shadows beneath trees and behind doors, listening to the run of water and half-heard voices, Tom Cox's first collection of short stories is a series of evocative and unsettling trips into worlds previously visited by the likes of M.R. James and E.F. Benson.Railway tunnels, the lanes and hills of the Peak District, family homes, old stones, shreds fluttering on barbed wire, night drawing in, something that might be an animal shifting on the other side of a hedge: Tom has drawn on his life-long love of weird fiction, folklore and nature's unregarded corners to write a collection of stories that will delight fans old and new, and leave them very uneasy about turning the reading lamp off.
You
Caroline Kepnes - 2014
She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation, debut author Caroline Kepnes delivers a razor-sharp novel for our hyper-connected digital age.
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories
H.P. Lovecraft - 1937
This Penguin Classics edition brings together a dozen of the master's tales-from his early short stories "Under the Pyramids" (originally ghostwritten for Harry Houdini) and "The Music of Erich Zann" (which Lovecraft ranked second among his own favorites) through his more fully developed works, "The Dunwich Horror," The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and At the Mountains of Madness.
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories
presents the definitive corrected texts of these works, along with Lovecraft critic and biographer S. T. Joshi's illuminating introduction and notes to each story.Contains the following tales:- The Tomb- Beyond the Wall of Sleep- The White Ship- The Temple- The Quest of Iranon- The Music of Erich Zann- Imprisoned with the Pharaohs aka Under the Pyramids- Pickman's Model- The Case of Charles Dexter Ward- The Dunwich Horror- At the Mountains of Madness- The Thing on the Doorstep
Ghosts of Harvard
Francesca Serritella - 2020
Then she starts hearing voices. Cadence Archer arrives on Harvard’s campus desperate to understand why her brother, Eric, a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia took his own life there the year before. Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady’s life, and while her decision to follow in her brother’s footsteps threatens to break her family apart, she is haunted by questions of what she might have missed. And there’s only one place to find answers. As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions, and illusory enemies—but what tipped him over the edge? With her suspicions mounting, Cady herself begins to hear voices, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who walked the university’s hallowed halls—or huddled in its slave quarters. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget. Does she share Eric’s illness, or is she tapping into something else? Cady doesn’t know how or why these ghosts are contacting her, but as she is drawn deeper into their worlds, she believes they’re moving her closer to the truth about Eric, even as keeping them secret isolates her further. Will listening to these voices lead her to the one voice she craves—her brother’s—or will she follow them down a path to her own destruction?
First Cut
J.T. Bishop - 2020
But there’s a catch. She must return to the mindset that bound her to him. The mindset the killer still seeks from her.But choosing to help Daniels and Remalla will not only risk her life but also her heart, when she falls for one of them, drawing the attention of the man she’s driven to capture.After losing everything, can she find the courage to face the murderer who took it all away, and who is eager to do it again?First Cut is the first book in the new series from award-winning author J. T. Bishop featuring Detectives Gordon Daniels and Aaron Remalla. If you love gripping suspense, enticing romance, charismatic characters, and a story that will keep you up at night, then pick up First Cut today.
Wraith
Angel Lawson - 2012
Weird. Crazy. These are the names tossed around seventeen-year old Jane Watts by her fellow classmates. But things aren’t always as they seem. Sometimes there’s a reason for talking to yourself in the hallway at school.Adjusting to her new home and school after an abrupt move, Jane just wants to be like everyone else at school. Although she does manage to make one friend, Evan — sixteen, charming and protective. Evan is everything a girl could want in a best friend, with one minor caveat: He’s dead.Caught somewhere between life and death, Evan is tied to Jane and the living world, unable to complete the journey to the other side. She thinks he’s here to be her friend, to take care of her, and that’s why no one else can see or hear him.That is, until a new boy shows up at school after a rumored stretch in juvie. Connor can see Evan and is not convinced that the ghost is completely honest. Past experience taught him how ghosts tend to need something from the humans they connect to and Evan, despite his arguments, isn’t any different.Jane is resentful of Connor’s intrusion but soon realizes that her ghostly friend has secrets about his past. And now Evan's family, still reeling from his tragic death, is in danger. Jane must face her fears and battle Evan’s human demons to free both of them.
Creeper
Stuart James - 2021
He's not real.A story so terrifying, the locals won't mention his name.It's said that Creeper is an urban legend, a chilling, made-up character fabricated to scare children into behaving themselves.He's known as Painswicks own Bogeyman.Parents tell their children that Creeper will come if they're naughty.Adults continually look over their shoulders.It's said that he hides out front late at night or crawls around in the basement. Others believe Creeper watches them as they sleep.Eight women have gone missing over the last twenty years. They're known as the Painswick eight.Now, a ninth woman has vanished.Billy Huxton, an ex-private investigator, resides at a retirement home and tries to persuade the local, flamboyant entertainer, Declan Ryan, to help him solve the case.Sean and Jenny make documentaries, creepypastas, the paranormal, and unsolved mysteries. Together with their children, they move into a rundown farmhouse on Gallows Lane.As they begin to learn of Creeper and the terror many believe he brought to Painswick years ago, they begin to make a film, delving into the chilling story.But they soon learn it may not be just a story.Whatever happens, pray you don't see Creeper...
Pieces of Me
Ann Garner - 2013
When she starts her freshman year at Cedar Mountain University, she isn't focused on making friends or falling in love. She just wants to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and fit them back together the best she can.Cole Marsh hadn't settled down since getting his heart broken three years before. But one look at the sexy brunette with the sad blue eyes and he’s lost. But can he convince her to trust him enough to put the past behind her?
The Fall
Bethany Griffin - 2014
Until she woke up in a coffin.Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline’s life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house.In the end, can Madeline keep her own sanity and bring the house down? The Fall is a literary psychological thriller, reimagining Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher.
The Stranger Times
C.K. McDonnell - 2021
A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but more often the weird) of modern life, it is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable . . .At least that’s their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and -mouthed husk of a man who thinks little (and believes less) of the publication he edits, while his staff are a ragtag group of wastrels and misfits, each with their own secrets to hide and axes to grind. And as for the assistant editor . . . well, that job is a revolving door – and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who's got her own set of problems.It’s when tragedy strikes in Hannah’s first week on the job that The Stranger Times is forced to do some serious, proper, actual investigative journalism. What they discover leads them to a shocking realisation: that some of the stories they’d previously dismissed as nonsense are in fact terrifyingly, gruesomely real. Soon they come face-to-face with darker foes than they could ever have imagined. It’s one thing reporting on the unexplained and paranormal but it’s quite another being dragged into the battle between the forces of Good and Evil . . .
The Lost Ones
Anita Frank - 2019
Some houses are never at peace.
England, 1917
Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick – but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion.Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella – sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs – and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house.Aided by a wounded war veteran, Stella sets about uncovering Greyswick’s dark and terrible secrets – secrets the dead whisper from the other side…
The Widow of Rose House
Diana Biller - 2019
Now his sudden death allows her to return to New York to make a fresh start, restoring Liefdehuis, a dilapidated Hyde Park mansion, and hopefully her reputation at the same time. However, fresh starts aren't as easy as they seem, as Alva discovers when stories of a haunting at Liefdehuis begin to reach her. But Alva doesn't believe in ghosts. So when the eccentric and brilliant professor, Samuel Moore, appears and informs her that he can get to the bottom of the mystery that surrounds Liefdehuis, she turns him down flat. She doesn't need any more complications in her life―especially not a handsome, convention-flouting, scandal-raising one like Sam. Unfortunately, though Alva is loath to admit it, Sam, a pioneer in electric lighting and a member of the nationally-adored Moore family of scientists, is the only one who can help. Together, the two delve into the tragic secrets wreathing Alva's new home while Sam attempts to unlock Alva's history―and her heart. Set during the Gilded Age in New York City, The Widow of Rose House is a gorgeous debut by Diana Biller, with a darkly Victorian Gothic flair and an intrepid and resilient American heroine guaranteed to delight readers.