Book picks similar to
The Joseph Stone by Jacqueline La Tourrette


gothic
folk-horror
wants-pulp
astromagick-fiction

Skinwalker: A Western Horror Novel


Michael Newton - 2015
    In Skinwalker, his quest takes him to Tularosa, New Mexico Territory, where a savage prowler striking on nights with full moons has slaughtered eighteen victims. Can Thorn identify and slay the predator before it claims more lives—including his

The Spirit Wood


Robert Masello - 1987
    It was the call of his own blood . . .  When Peter Constantine inherited a vast, remote estate, his life began to change.  Free at last from money worries, Peter and his wife, Meg, could relax—and Peter could explore his new, mysterious home. From the thick woods, the winding trails, the bizarre, sensual sculpture, came a pulsing, ancient call that stirred his very soul. Then he heard the music and saw the beautiful woman who beckoned him into the wood . . . into an ancient ritual, a blood curse, a world of violent, unbridled lust. Now his wife no longer knows him. Now Peter is transformed . . . into a pagan creature, driven by the suffocating need of animal desire . . . until pleasure is not enough, and no evil is forbidden, in . . . The Spirit Wood.

Fright Night


John Skipp - 1985
    He knows he will be the vampire's next victim. But no one will believe him: not the police, not his girlfriend Amy, not even the school weirdo, Evil Ed. Charley's last chance is to enlist the help of Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer, star of a hundred horror movies and host of TV's Fright Night.Nobody thinks he's telling the truth—until Evil Ed becomes a vampire and Amy is dragged into his next-door neighbour's evil, foul-smelling house of death!

The Auctioneer


Joan Samson - 1975
    The story of John Moore, his wife Mim, and his mother, it is a gripping tale of greed in a small town being quietly overrun by auctioneer Perly Dunsmore. Acclaimed by writers including Stephen King, and an influence on King’s Needful Things, The Auctioneer is here reprinted for the first time in thirty years.

The Happy Man: A Tale of Horror


Eric C. Higgs - 1985
    Higg's' riveting vision of the nightmare underside of the American dream, brilliantly echoes the grand Gothic horror tradition of Edgar Allan Poe and Roald Dahl.

A Nest of Nightmares


Lisa Tuttle - 1986
    Sylvia would take long walks in the country; Pam would have tea ready by the fire for when she returned. Nice fantasies...The house had that kind of effect on people. It felt cosy, lived-in, though it had been empty for many years. Oddly, there was rubbish everywhere, but there was no other sign of a squatter's brief inhabitation.And though the windows were unbroken. the doors securely locked, Pam could never entirely rid herself of the thought that she and her sister might not be alone in the house...One of 13 terrifying tales of terror...

Lupe


Gene Thompson - 1977
    In San Francisco, Emily Blake and her husband David, a dermatologist, by an old Victorian in Pacific Heights and hope to start a family. Emily's happy plans are threatened when David begins an affair with a beautiful patient named Jennie. A visit to a mysterious young boy in the Mission District named Lupe starts a chain of events in motion that result in Jennie's death -- by spontaneous combustion -- a murder trial, a media circus, and demon possession.

The Last Assignment: A Ghost Story


Benedict Ashforth - 2015
     A photographer reluctantly agrees to take images of an abandoned manor house on the Dorset cliff tops only to find the building is not completely empty. . .

Dark Masques


J.N. WilliamsonDennis Hamilton - 2001
    A place hidden from view, nestled in the darkest recesses of your mind, awaiting the perfect moment to reveal itself—only to scare you blind. In this collection of unforgettable horror stories, discover the terrifying truth as told by today’s greatest masters of the macabre—classic twisted tales that will reach out from the past and draw you into the depths of their darkness. Prepare to enter a nightmarish reality in which seeing is disbelieving, your eyes can deceive you…and DARK MASQUES conceal the ultimate in terror….

Black Light


Elizabeth Hand - 1999
    In fact, the whole idyllic hamlet of Kamensic, New York, is ready to party, for legendary avant-garde film director--and Lit's godfather--Alex Kern is coming back to reopen his fabulous mansion, Bolerium. But it won't be just any party. It'll be the event of all time.The whole town is invited, young and old, famous and obscure. But other, more disturbing guests are arriving, too--seen at the edges of the forest, at the margins of the night. Kern's connections extend far beyond Hollywood, beyond even the modern age . . . and in Bolerium's echoing halls a fearsome confrontation is gathering, between ancient powers of the darkness and those sworn to stop them at any cost, no matter what--or who--the sacrifice...even an innocent girl.

What's Wrong With Valerie?


D.A. Fowler - 1991
    The house belongs to her. She should be happy. But Valerie isn’t quite normal… She’s taking in roommates to make ends meet, but, one by one, they keep ending up dead. Her young niece is crying out for a special kind of discipline that only she can provide. And there’s the voices she hears...voices that want her to do terrible things. Valerie is only trying to survive. If she stops doing what the voices tell her, something grotesquely evil will devour her soul... WHAT’S WRONG WITH VALERIE?

The Haunting of Hathaway House


Amy Cross - 2020
    When Craig and Becky Westcott died, their son Michael was left all alone in the house for several days until he was discovered by his uncle. But was he really alone?Today, determined to bury the past, Michael Westcott moves back to Hathaway House with his pregnant wife. They set about renovating the building, even though Jennifer has reservations about the project. Soon, however, she begins to worry that there might be a presence lingering in the house, one that still remembers Michael. One that seems linked somehow to a mysterious old crib.Michael and Jennifer soon discover that the past can't be forgotten so easily. Who built a hidden room beneath the house? What really happened to Michael's parents all those years ago? And whose faded, ghostly hand can sometimes still be seen resting on the crib's side?The Haunting of Hathaway House is a ghost story about family, about the dangers of not learning from the past, and about an evil that has survived for centuries.

Nightshade & Damnations


Gerald Kersh - 1968
    J. Gahagan] · ss Courier Spr ’38 77 · The Ape and the Mystery [“The Mysterious Mona Lisa Smile”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jun 26 ’48 89 · The King Who Collected Clocks [“Royal Impostor”] · nv The Saturday Evening Post May 3 ’47 117 · Bone for Debunkers [“The Karmesin Affair”; Karmesin] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Dec 15 ’62 133 · A Lucky Day for the Boar · ss Playboy Oct ’62 143 · Voices in the Dust of Annan · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 13 ’47 161 · Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo? · nv The Brighton Monster, London: Heinemann, 1953; Star Science Fiction Stories #3, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1954

The Ninth Configuration


William Peter Blatty - 1966
    A Marine Corps psychiatrist with a crisis of faith encourages his patients to enact their fantasies as part of their therapy. However, he proves himself to be more deeply disturbed than at first appears and finally sacrifices himself to save one of his patients.

Dark Shadows


Marilyn Ross - 1966
    For some curious reason she feels the secret of her past may be uncovered in the bleak manor high on Widow's Hill.From the moment she arrives, Victoria becomes the target of someone in the house determined to destroy her.As the wind moans and the rain lashes around the isolated Collins House, Victoria, without friends in the manor, feels death close in on her, a choking, frightening death.