Book picks similar to
Crooked Tree by Robert C. Wilson


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The Last


Hanna Jameson - 2019
    I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of the L’Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland after an academic conference, still mulling over how to respond to his wife, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, then New York, then London, and finally Berlin. That’s all he knows before news outlets and social media goes black—and before the clouds on the horizon turn orange.Now, two months later, there are twenty survivors holed up at the hotel, a place already tainted by its strange history of suicides and murders. Those who can’t bear to stay commit suicide or wander off into the woods. Jon and the others try to maintain some semblance of civilization. But when the water pressure disappears, and Jon and a crew of survivors investigate the hotel’s water tanks, they are shocked to discover the body of a young girl.As supplies dwindle and tensions rise, Jon becomes obsessed with investigating the death of the little girl as a way to cling to his own humanity. Yet the real question remains: can he afford to lose his mind in this hotel, or should he take his chances in the outside world?

The Beast Within


Edward Levy - 1981
    The Beast Within is a classic horror tale guaranteed to haunt your dreams.Prepare to meet the beast within. A lonely wife cheats. A brutal husband gets revenge. A not-so-innocent stranger hears a cellar door scrape shut—and begins 20 years of indescribable horror, chained in total darkness, feeding on live rats and human flesh, becoming himself the nightmare creature that lurks within us all...

Relic


Douglas Preston - 1995
    Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human...But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders.Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who-or what-is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre?

Resurrection Dreams


Richard Laymon - 1988
    Vicki was the only one to stand up for him but even she had to admit he'd gone too far when he dug up a body and attempted to bring it back to life with the aid of a car battery. — Years later Vicki still has nightmares about Melvin's "joke" and now that she's back in Ellsworth, she knows she'll have to see him again. Recently released from a mental institution, Melvin is acting stranger than ever. His experiments with the dead have progressed and as soon as he can get Vicki - or rather her body - where he wants her, he can realize his most chilling dream of all...

Infected


Scott Sigler - 2008
    Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common – they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.Meanwhile Perry Dawsey – a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey – awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected. The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

When We Were Animals


Joshua Gaylord - 2015
    In fact, she never thought she would escape her small and peculiar hometown. When We Were Animals is Lumen's confessional: as a well-behaved and over-achieving teenager, she fell beneath the sway of her community's darkest, strangest secret. For one year, beginning at puberty, every resident "breaches" during the full moon. On these nights, adolescents run wild, destroying everything in their path.Lumen resists. Promising her father she will never breach, she investigates the mystery of her community's traditions and the stories erased from the town record. But the more we learn about the town's past, the more we realize that Lumen's memories are harboring secrets of their own.A gothic coming-of-age tale for modern times, When We Were Animals is a dark, provocative journey into the American heartland.

Off Season


Jack Ketchum - 1980
    A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River—off season—awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall...And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface...and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.

Terminal


Michaelbrent Collings - 2019
    another outstanding novel from author Michaelbrent Collings..." - Horror After Dark All passengers, please prepare for departure... An employee, a cop, and six passengers; a prisoner, a stowaway, and a madman. "A great read." - Sci-Fi and Scary These are the people waiting at the Lawton bus terminal. "If you need a fast-paced thriller that chills and keeps you guessing, look no further..." - Horror Novel Reviews Mostly late-night travelers who want nothing more than to get to their destinations, and employees who want nothing more than to get through the graveyard shift. "[Collings] brings the reader close in and doesn't want them to leave... I'd give this an A." - Horror Drive-In But when a strange, otherworldly fog rolls in, the night changes to nightmare. Because something hides in the fog. Something powerful. Something strange. Something... inhuman. "Fun novel, fast paced... Great story, recommended." - Hellnotes Soon, those in the terminal have been cut off from the rest of the world. No phones, no computers. Just ten strangers in the terminal... and The Other. "Terminal is a hard-edged, brutal, sometimes exceptionally violent thrill-fest of a novel that I blazed through..." - Inkheist Book Reviews The Other is the force in the mist. The Other is the thing that has captured them. And The Other wants to play a game. "[A]n intense, creepy, and twisty read... the suspense will have you on the edge of your seat." - A Book Lover's Life The rules are simple: 1) The people in the terminal must choose a single person from among them. That person will live. The rest will die. 2) Anyone who attempts to leave the terminal before the final vote will die. 3) The final vote... must be unanimous. 5 stars! "[A] nightmarish tale that was both captivating and frightening and also a novel that I would highly recommend!" - The Genre Minx A nightmare. And getting worse, because the best way to make a vote unanimous... is to kill the other voters. Welcome to the Terminal . "Another win for [Collings]... Excellent!" - The Raven Podcast

Storm Front


Jim Butcher - 2000
    Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a—well, whatever. There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks.So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get interesting.Magic - it can get a guy killed.

The Cabin at the End of the World


Paul Tremblay - 2018
    Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, "None of what’s going to happen is your fault". Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: "Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world."

Rushed


Brian Harmon - 2013
    With no idea how to cure himself of this odd new compulsion, he decides to let it take its course and go for a drive, hoping that once he proves to himself that there is nowhere to go, he can return to his normal life. Instead, he finds himself hurled headlong into a nightmare adventure across a fractured Wisconsin as the dream reveals itself one heart-pounding detail at a time. <br><br>Horror, science fiction, dark fantasy. From the author of The Temple of the Blind. 84,000 words.

Bleak Harbor


Bryan Gruley - 2018
    Deep down, they think they’re to blame. Summertime in Bleak Harbor means tourists, overpriced restaurants, and the Dragonfly Festival. One day before the much-awaited and equally chaotic celebration, Danny Peters, the youngest member of the family that founded the town five generations ago, disappears. When Danny’s mother, Carey, and stepfather, Pete, receive a photo of their brilliant, autistic, and socially withdrawn son tied to a chair, they fear the worst. But there’s also more to the story. Someone is sending them ominous texts and emails filled with information no one else should have. Could the secrets they’ve kept hidden—even from one another—have led to Danny’s abduction?As pressure from the kidnapper mounts, Carey and Pete must face their own ugly mistakes to find their son before he’s taken from them forever.

The Boatman's Daughter


Andy Davidson - 2020
    Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm.But dark forces are at work in the bayou, And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.

Slob


Rex Miller - 1981
    Slob is his debut novel, the story of a man who thinks of himself as Death. A man wholikes to feast on human hearts, spilling blood wherever he goes. Jack Eichord is the detective who must hunt this human monster and genius killer. Years of working as a homicide detective for the Chicago Police department has hardened Eichord to things that would make most men turn and flee. But even he is not prepared for the labyrinthine search underground, as he trails the killer and his hostages through the sewer system of the city. Eichord thinks that he is beginning to understand thediabolical man and his patterns of violence...but can he guess the next victim in time, before it is too late for the woman he loves?

The Legacy


John Coyne - 1979
    Six guests of the unseen host who lies wasting away upstairs. Five heirs to a mysterious Legacy watch the body of the sixth float to the side of the pool. Four claim the unspeakable power of the Legacy, while a red stain spreads across the ceiling. Three realize that the Legacy has come to claim them, while outside a dog dines a thing that was once a man. And then there are two......