Book picks similar to
Pay Me in Flesh by K. Bennett


urban-fantasy
paranormal
zombies
mystery

Carrots


Colleen Helme - 2011
    Her life is organized and predictable, revolving around her husband and two children. All that changes the day she stops at the grocery store for some carrots. As the cashier rings up her purchases, a gunman is busy robbing the bank inside the store. When a customer grabs the robber's mask, he is shot and everyone runs for cover. Everyone except Shelby, who finds herself face to face with the killer. The next thing she knows, she's lying on the floor with a bullet wound to her head. Luckily, the bullet only grazes her scalp, and she doesn't suspect any lasting affects until later, when she suddenly 'hears' what people are thinking. With this uncanny ability, her life takes on a whole new dimension. Her kids think she's bossy and too old to understand them, but that's nothing compared to her husband. He says he loves her, but what is it about the redhead at work that he doesn't want her to know? As if that isn't enough, the gunman knows she can identify him, and he's out to silence her forever. In her fight to stay alive, she is saved from certain death by a handsome hit-man with ties to organized crime. This pulls Shelby even deeper into danger, where knowing someone's thoughts can not only hurt her feelings, but get her killed.

Carpe Demon


Julie Kenner - 2005
    she used to be a Demon Hunter.Now retired, she's more interested in the domestic than the demonic. So when she catches sight of a demon in Walmart, she tells herself it's some other Hunter's problem. But when that demon attacks her in her kitchen, retirement is no longer an option.Now Kate has to kick a little demon butt, figure out why the creatures are trying to take her out and take over her home town, and at the same time take care of her 2-year-old, deal with a hormonal 14-year-old, get the family to Mass on time, and try to keep her past a secret from her daughter and her husband.She's a little out of practice, but hey ... if she can juggle two kids and an impromptu dinner party, ridding the town of demons should be a piece of cake. Like the saying goes, Carpe Demon ... and Kate intends to do just that.

Chosen


Denise Grover Swank - 2011
    She and Jake, her five year old son who can see the future, are running from the men intent on taking him. Emma will do anything to protect him even when it means accepting the help of a stranger named Will. Jake insists she needs Will, but Emma's never needed help before. And even though she's learned to trust her son, it doesn't mean she trusts Will. Mercenary Will Davenport lives in the moment. Hauling Emma to South Dakota should have been an easy job, but his employer neglected to tell him about Emma's freaky son and the gunmen hot on her trail. Instinct tells him this job is trouble, but nothing can prepare him for Jake's proclamation that Will is The Chosen One, who must protect Emma from the men hunting her power. A power she doesn't know she has. Will protects Emma and Jake on a cross-country chase from the men pursuing them, while struggling with memories from his past, his apprehension of Jake, and his growing attraction to Emma. Will's overwhelming urge to protect Emma surprises him, especially since it has nothing to do with his paycheck and possibly everything to do with the tattoo Jake branded on his arm. Rich and powerful men are desperate to capture Emma, and Will must discover why before it's too late.

The Spookshow


Tim McGregor - 2014
    Drab even. That all that changed after an accident left her in a coma for three days. That's when the spookshow really began, when Billie realized that she could see the dead.And the dead could see her. Now, they won't leave her alone. Accompanying two friends through a haunted house, Billie uncovers a terrible secret that brings, not only the police, but the homicide detective responsible for putting her into the hospital in the first place. He's also the one man she sworn to stay away from.

A Hidden Fire


Elizabeth Hunter - 2011
    Giovanni Vecchio back on the path of a mysterious manuscript he's hunted for over five hundred years. He never expected a young student librarian could be the key to unlock its secrets, nor could he have predicted the danger she would attract. Now he and Beatrice De Novo follow a twisted maze that leads from the archives of a university library, though the fires of Renaissance Florence, and toward a confrontation hundreds of years in the making.

Ghostly Paws


Leighann Dobbs - 2014
     At least that’s how it seems to former crime journalist, Wilhelmina Chance, whose near-fatal accident has given her a strange side effect ... she sees ghosts. After a messy divorce sends her fleeing back to her hometown of Mystic Notch, nestled in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Willa finds herself haunted by the tenacious ghost of the town librarian who insists Willa solve her murder. Luckily, she has lots of help, including a quirky cast of small-town characters, the cat she’s inherited from her grandmother, and her best friend, Pepper, who claims her herbal teas can work magic. But just when Willa thinks she’s discovered who the killer is, she finds out that things are not what they seem in Mystic Notch, and the case takes a strange turn that has Willa adding even some of her long-time friends to her suspect list. Can Willa find the real killer in time to keep the magical balance in Mystic Notch on the side of good, or will evil prevail?

Dead Eye


Alyssa Day - 2015
    Dead End, Florida, to be exact. When he learns that he inherited a combination pawn shop/private investigation agency from his favorite uncle, Jack’s first job is to solve his uncle’s murder. Because sometimes it takes a tiger’s eye to see the truth. This novel is a paranormal mystery with magic, shape shifters, humor, vampires, a taxidermied alligator, witches, gunshots, bad singing, Crazy Hormonal Town, terrible parking, the FBI, swamp commandos, tigers, special agents, flirting, belly laughs, comedy, humor, and a pawn shop.

Beyond Hades


Luke Romyn - 2012
    Were they just highly imaginative, or was their inspiration from somewhere else?Doctor Talbot Harrison, a professor in archeology, receives a phone call one day which will destroy everything he perceives as reality. His brother has been mysteriously killed and within moments the United States Military appear at his door, literally dragging him from his home. Thrown into a helicopter under intense armed guard, it doesn’t take long until they are attacked by something which cannot possibly exist, something drawn to destroy the one man who can stop the beasts from a land beyond Hades....

Midnight Crossroad


Charlaine Harris - 2014
    But then, that’s how the locals prefer it...Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth...

Darker Things


Rob Cornell - 2011
    Not since he was trained to kill creatures that were supposed to exist only in nightmares.Yet the teenage girl on his doorstep not only knows his real name, she claims she's his daughter.Before Lockman can learn how the girl found him, he's attacked by a black-ops team of assassins. But these aren't ordinary killers—they're heavily armed vampires sent by his most hated enemy.Forced on the run, Lockman protects his daughter from an onslaught of horrors while searching for who betrayed him and why. The investigation leads him to Detroit, where he unwittingly sets a plan into motion that could trigger a paranormal apocalypse and cost him his soul.For fans of Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, and Laurell K. Hamilton… Darker Things is an 82,000-word urban fantasy loaded with double-crosses, thrilling action, and shocking twists.

Blur


Kristen Middleton - 2012
    Seventeen year old Nikki and her twin brother, Nathan, move to the small town of Shore Lake to start over after their mother is brutally attacked. When a missing teenager washes up on shore during their first night at the cabin and there are whispers of vampires in Shore Lake, Nikki begins to realize that there are things roaming in the darkness that are far more sinister than what they left behind in the big city. This book contains some graphic language, violence, and mild sexual situations.

Blood Oath


Christopher Farnsworth - 2010
    But Cade is no ordinary civil servant. Bound by a special blood oath, he is a vampire. Cade battles nightmares before they can break into the daylight world of the American dream, enemies far stranger-and far more dangerous-than civilians have ever imagined.Blood Oath is the first in a series of novels featuring Nathaniel Cade-the President's vampire.

The Curse of Allie Mae


Aiden James - 2010
    David Hobbs, vacationing with his wife Miriam, inadvertently stumbles upon a small cloth 'keepsake' bag and a broken tooth. A human tooth. Miriam begs David to hand the bag and tooth over to park officials, but he ignores his wife's pleas and secretly keeps the 'harmless' items. The action opens a doorway that had been closed for nearly a hundred years and unleashes hell on earth, or at least hell in the lives of David and Miriam.Following the brutal murder of his best friend in Denver, and an aborted attack on his oldest son, David desperately seeks to understand why a mysterious teenage girl has chosen to terrorize him and the males closest to him. To prevent further devastation to his family and end the wanton bloodshed, he returns to the enchanted hills of eastern Tennessee, where a terrible truth awaits discovery...one that forces him to face the consequences for the unpaid sins of his ancestors.

Alone


Robert J. Crane - 2012
    Then one day her mother vanished, and Sienna woke up to find two strange men in her home. On the run, unsure of who to turn to and discovering she possesses mysterious powers, Sienna finds herself pursued by a shadowy agency known as the Directorate and hunted by a vicious, bloodthirsty psychopath named Wolfe, each of which is determined to capture her for their own purposes...

Southern Spirits


Angie Fox - 2015
     When out of work graphic designer Verity Long accidentally traps a ghost on her property, she’s saddled with more than a supernatural sidekick—she gains the ability see spirits. It leads to an offer she can’t refuse from the town’s bad boy, the brother of her ex and the last man she should ever partner with. Ellis Wydell is in possession of a stunning historic property haunted by some of Sugarland Tennessee’s finest former citizens. Only some of them are growing restless—and destructive. He hires Verity to put an end to the disturbances. But soon, Verity learns there’s more to the mysterious estate than floating specters, secret passageways, and hidden rooms. There’s a modern day mystery afoot, one that hinges on a decades-old murder. Verity isn't above questioning the living, or the dead. But can she discover the truth before the killer finds her?