Book picks similar to
The Devil in Canaan Parish by Jackie Shemwell


historical-fiction
southern-fiction
mystery
fiction

Nothing Hidden Ever Stays


H.R. Mason - 2019
    A tangled thread of mental illness. A growing list of Ross family women dying young. The house where it all began, Desolate Ridge, holds all the secrets.Abandoned at a hospital when she was only three years old, Aubrey Ross grew up as a ward of the state, passed from one foster family to the next. Having endured years of abuse and neglect, she’s become hardened to the world around her. She’s flirted with depression and anxiety, and she’s haunted by premonitions. When a strange man approaches Aubrey with information about her past, she knows her life is about to change. Inside the envelope is the deed to a house in Ohio—her ancestral home. When Aubrey arrives in Rossdale, the town named after her family, she immediately experiences situations she cannot explain. She hears voices, sees apparitions, and has vivid visions of tragedies she can scarcely comprehend. Aubrey comes to realize she is reliving events which have happened to those who came before her. Then she meets Hank Metzger, the town’s sheriff, whose family has an eerie connection to her own. As the secrets of Desolate Ridge are unearthed, Aubrey begins to understand her destiny is tied to Hank’s in a way she cannot escape.

Bone Music


Christopher Rice - 2018
    If only the nightmare had ended when she was rescued. Instead, her real father exploited her tabloid-ready story for fame and profit—until Charlotte finally broke free from her ghoulish past and fled. Just when she thinks she has buried her personal hell forever, Charlotte is swept into a frightening new ordeal. Secretly dosed with an experimental drug, she’s endowed with a shocking new power—but pursued by a treacherous corporation desperate to control her.Except from now on, if anybody is going to control Charlotte, it’s going to be Charlotte herself. She’s determined to use the extraordinary ability she now possesses to fight the kind of evil that shattered her life—by drawing a serial killer out from the shadows to face the righteous fury of a victim turned avenger.

Ghosts by Gaslight


Jack DannRobert Silverberg - 2011
    Seventeen all-new stories illuminate the steampunk world of fog and fear!Modern masters of the supernatural weave their magic to revitalize the chilling Victorian and Edwardian ghostly tale: here are haunted houses, arcane inventions, spirits reaching across the centuries, ghosts in the machine, fateful revelations, gaslit streets scarcely keeping the dark at bay, and other twisted variations on the immortal classics that frighten us still.

Recoil


Joanne Macgregor - 2016
    The Game is real. Three years after a series of terrorist attacks flooded the US with a lethal plague, society has changed radically. Sixteen year-old Jinxy James spends her days trapped at home – immersed in virtual reality, worrying about the plague and longing for freedom. Then she wins a war simulation game and is recruited into a top-secret organisation where talented teenagers are trained to become agents in the war on terror. Eager to escape her mother’s over-protectiveness and to serve her country, Jinxy enlists and becomes an expert sniper of infected mutant rats. She’s immediately drawn to Quinn O’Riley, a charming and subversive intelligence analyst who knows more about the new order of government and society than he is telling. Then a shocking revelation forces Jinxy to make an impossible decision, and she risks losing everything. Recoil is the first book in a Young Adult dystopian romance trilogy, and makes great reading for lovers of Rick Yancey (The Fifth Wave), Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games), and Veronica Roth (Divergent). BONUS CONTENT! Chapter one of Refuse (book 2 in the Recoil series) included in this version!

The House at Ladywell


Nicola Slade - 2017
    Unknown to Freya, these women, over centuries, fought with whatever weapons came to hand – deception, endurance, even murder – to preserve their home and family.Freya falls in love with the house, but her inheritance includes an enigmatic letter telling her to ‘restore the balance’ of the Lady’s Well. Besides this, the house seems to be haunted by the scent of flowers.In the past, the Lady’s Well was a place of healing, and Freya soon feels safe and at home, but she has demons of her own to conquer before she can accept the happiness that beckons.

A Corpse in the Soup


Morgan St. James - 2006
    Filled with twists and turns, clues and backfires, these ladies with a nose for trouble set out to track down the real killer when a murder occurs at the glitzy televised Gourmet Gladiator Tournament and Godiva's boyfriend is a prime suspect, . To complicate matters, they get lots of unwanted help from their 80 year old mother and uncle, both former vaudeville magicians who love to dress in disguise and go undercover. Will the Silver family be able to flush out the real killer or will they all wind up in really hot water?

Daughters of the Lake


Wendy Webb - 2018
    Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…One hundred years ago, a love story ended in tragedy, its mysteries left unsolved. It’s time for the lake to give up its secrets. As each mystery unravels, it pulls Kate deeper into the eddy of a haunting folktale that has been handed down in whispers over generations. Now, it’s Kate’s turn to listen.As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.

The Wedding Dress: Masquerade Bride


Samantha Bayarr - 2010
    But in order to accept it, she must move away from her childhood sweetheart, Jonathon, whom she hoped was on the verge of proposing. When a wealthy, older gentleman visits the bookstore one day, he spins a tale of Annabelle, his childhood sweetheart, and talks of a family curse that tore them apart more than fifty years ago. While searching her grandmother’s attic for the wedding dress worn by three generations before her, Amy stumbles upon clues in an old steamer trunk that could help lead the stranger to his Annabelle. But what does this curse have to do with her? When Jake, Henry’s grandson, gets involved, everything becomes more complicated than Amy bargained for. How can she help Henry and break the curse without destroying her own chance at true love?

The Amber Trail


M.J. Kelly - 2015
    But after a tragic accident, he is unnerved by his dad’s dying words. Without his father, it falls to Dig and his belligerent brother Jake to put aside their differences and get the successful family brewery running again—or their mother will be forced into bankruptcy and lose the family home.The Buckley Brewery makes Australia’s most popular craft beer—but there’s a catch. The recipe is based on a unique hop sourced from a secretive supplier in India. And when the supplier hears of Dig’s father’s death they shut down deliveries and threaten to silence the family.Why is the mysterious group acting so aggressively? Was there a hidden side to their father’s business? Is there another reason the beer is so popular?Dig is forced to travel to India to track the supplier down. He embarks on a challenging journey across the Indian countryside, unravelling a complicated history as he fights for his family and comes to terms with his father’s death.

Cauldstane


Linda Gillard - 2014
    Lust, betrayal and murder have blighted family fortunes for generations, together with an ancient curse. As members of the family confide their sins and their secrets, Jenny learns why Cauldstane’s uncertain future divides father and sons. But someone resents Jenny’s presence. Someone thinks she’s getting too close to Alec MacNab – swordsmith, widower and heir to Cauldstane. Someone will stop at nothing until Jenny has been driven away. Or driven mad. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Especially a dead woman.

Murder Bay: A Ben Carey Mystery


David R. Horwitz - 2008
    The action is fast-paced and convincing...the characters are expertly drawn." —ForeWordNo one noticed anything suspicious about the death of a wounded soldier at the height of the Civil War—not, that is, until almost a hundred years later.In 1957, a young Washington, D.C. police sergeant, Ben Carey, heads up a team of officers in a dilapidated house three blocks from the Capitol. Though Carey's career is on the rise, his marriage is circling the drain, and as he spends more time at the office, he discovers there is something not quite right about this decaying old home. It harbors some dark secrets—connecting him to the long-dead soldier and others in ways he can't understand. With his personal life in shambles, and forces from within the house vying for his attention, Carey casts reason aside and begins an investigation to uncover the truth about what happened in this haunted place. As he peels back the layers of history, he finds courage and love, but also deception, greed, jealousy, and murder.Twisting through time—between an America torn by Civil War and the prosperous 1950s—Murder Bay is a mystery that spans eras and the gulf dividing what can and cannot be explained.

The Aosawa Murders


Riku Onda - 2005
    The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician's bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury. The youth who emerges as the prime suspect commits suicide that October, effectively sealing his guilt while consigning his motives to mystery. The police are convinced Hisako had a role in the crime, as are many in the town, including the author of a bestselling book about the murders written a decade after the incident, who was herself a childhood friend of Hisako’s and witness to the discovery of the killings. The truth is revealed through a skillful juggling of testimony by different voices: family members, witnesses and neighbors, police investigators and of course the mesmerizing Hisako herself.

The Devil Walks


Anne Fine - 2011
    You cannot tell, simply from looking at a man, what colour is his soul.For most of his life, Daniel has known only the company of his mother - a silent, reclusive woman who has hidden him away from the outside world.Then a forceful knock at the door changes everything and Daniel realizes just how many secrets his mother has kept from him.Secrets of a dark family history - a history of fiendish spite and devilish wickedness that Daniel must now confront. . . A sinister thriller from Carnergie, Whitbread and Guardian award-winning author Anne Fine.

Girl on a Wire


Gwenda Bond - 2014
    When her family is offered a prestigious role in the new Cirque American, it seems that Jules and the Amazing Maronis will finally get the spotlight they deserve. But the presence of the Flying Garcias may derail her plans. For decades, the two rival families have avoided each other as sworn enemies.Jules ignores the drama and focuses on the wire, skyrocketing to fame as the girl in a red tutu who dances across the wire at death-defying heights. But when she discovers a peacock feather—an infamous object of bad luck—planted on her costume, Jules nearly loses her footing. She has no choice but to seek help from the unlikeliest of people: Remy Garcia, son of the Garcia clan matriarch and the best trapeze artist in the Cirque.As more mysterious talismans believed to possess unlucky magic appear, Jules and Remy unite to find the culprit. And if they don’t figure out what’s going on soon, Jules may be the first Maroni to do the unthinkable: fall.

The Secret Journal of Ichabod Crane


Alexander C. Irvine - 2014
    From Fox’s breakout hit “Sleepy Hollow,” an unprecedented look inside the mind of one of TV’s hottest new characters.