Book picks similar to
The Roo by Alan Baxter
horror
novella
fiction
creature-feature
Carmilla
J. Sheridan Le Fanu - 1872
Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest – the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day… Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.
Agents of Dreamland
Caitlín R. Kiernan - 2017
Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation, but which haunts the Signalman.In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible—the Children of the Next Level—and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming and they will help to usher it in.A day after the events at the ranch house which disturbed the Signalman so deeply that he and his government sought out help from ‘other’ sources, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory abruptly loses contact with NASA’s interplanetary probe New Horizons. Something out beyond the orbit of Pluto has made contact.And a woman floating outside of time looks to the future and the past for answers to what can save humanity.
Reapers
Marata Eros - 2011
20,000 wordsThe vampires are a dying race, their females sterile. When it's discovered that human females of Druid ancestry can be viable breeders...the harvest begins.Rachel Collins is a young woman living in the frozen north of Alaska in a dead-end job with a circular life. She yearns for something more.When murders begin taking place in the city where she lives, she and her girlfriend try to be more cautious...only to be caught in the middle of a dangerous situation in which an unlikely savior emerges.Can Rachel escape her destiny while two different factions hunt her?
The Stone Child
Dan Poblocki - 2009
That’s why moving to the small town of Gatesweed becomes a dream come true when Eddie discovers that Olmstead lived there before mysteriously disappearing thirteen years ago. Even better, Eddie finds a handwritten, never-before-seen Nathaniel Olmstead book printed in code and befriends Harris, who’s as much an Olmsteady as he is. But then the frightening creatures of Olmstead’s books begin to show up in real life, and Eddie’s dream turns into a nightmare. Eddie, Harris, and their new friend, Maggie, must break Olmstead’s code, banish all gremlins and monster lake-dogs from the town of Gatesweed, and solve the mystery of the missing author, all before Eddie’s mom finisheswriting her own tale of terror and brings to life the scariest creature of all.
White Shark
Peter Benchley - 1994
But even Simon doesn't know that a far deadlier creature is about to come out of the deep and threaten everything he cares for. A creature whose malevolence is unthinkable. Whose need to feed is insatiable. And whose relentless hunt for prey is unstoppable.Twenty years after his huge bestseller Jaws, the master of the deep has done it again, letting loose a chilling new predator that only he could create. Drawing on his singular knowledge of the sea, science, and history, Peter Benchley masterfully spins a suspense-filled novel that hits you on a primal level, makes your heart pound, and leaves your blood running cold.White Shark is Peter Benchley at his best. Read it at your own risk.
Here There Are Monsters
Amelinda Bérubé - 2019
Moving across the country seems like the perfect chance to start over.In their isolated new neighborhood, Skye manages to fit in, but Deirdre withdraws from everyone, becoming fixated on the swampy woods behind their house and building monstrous sculptures out of sticks and bones.Then Deirdre disappears.And when something awful comes scratching at Skye's window in the middle of the night, claiming she's the only one who can save Deirdre, Skye knows she will stop at nothing to bring her sister home.
The Haunted Vagina
Carlton Mellick III - 2006
Unfortunately, their sex life has been suffering as of late, because Steve is worried about the odd noises that have been coming from Stacy's pubic region. She says that her vagina is haunted. She doesn't think it's that big of a deal. Steve, on the other hand, completely disagrees. When a living corpse climbs out of her during an awkward night of sex, Stacy learns that her vagina is actually a doorway to another world. She persuades Steve to climb inside of her to explore this strange new place. But once inside, Steve finds it difficult to return... especially once he meets an oddly attractive woman named Fig, who lives within the lonely haunted world between Stacy's legs.
Pretty Little Dead Girls
Mercedes M. Yardley - 2014
In order to survive, she must run as far and as fast as she can. After arriving in Seattle, Bryony befriends a tortured musician, a market fish-thrower, and a starry-eyed hero who is secretly a serial killer bent on fulfilling Bryony’s dark destiny. Mercedes M. Yardley’s Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy is a dark, lovely fairy tale with lyrical language and a high body count. It features a cover by Hugo Award Winner GALEN DARA.
The Book Collector
Alice Thompson - 2015
Violet is obsessed with the books of fairy tales her husband acquires, but her growing delusions see her confined in an asylum. As she recovers and is released a terrifying series of events is unleashed.
Yours Truly
Kirsty Greenwood - 2012
Newly engaged Natalie Butterworth is an easy-going girl. She’ll do anything for a quiet life and if telling a few teensy white lies keeps her friends and family happy, then so what? It’s not like they’ll ever discover what she’s really thinking… Until one night, thanks to a pub hypnotist, Natalie’s most private thoughts begin to bubble up and pop out of her mouth. Things get very messy indeed. Especially when some sticky home truths offend her fiancé. Natalie must track down the hypnotist before the wedding is officially cancelled. So along with bad influence bestie Meg, Natalie finds herself in the Yorkshire Parish of Little Trooley - a small village bursting with big secrets, nosy old folk and intriguing Wellington-wearing men. When the girls get stranded in the village with no means of escape and no way to break the hypnotist's spell, Natalie is forced to face the truths she has been avoiding her whole life...
Larry
Adam Millard - 2014
Life couldn't have been better for a psycho slasher.But in '78, after being outwitted by that year's 'final girl', Pigface found himself trapped (and a little bit on fire). Presumed dead, Larry Travers disappeared, but his legend lived on.It's 2014. Now living in the woods with his overbearing - and slightly antique - mother, Larry's old enough to play bingo and enjoy jigsaw puzzles without feeling guilty. But the urge to kill has returned, and Larry thinks he still has what it takes to be a homicidal lunatic.Pigface is back. Trouble is, he's not as young as he used to be...
Unbound
Kim Harrison - 2009
1 Ley Line Drifter by Kim Harrison - Pixy Jenks faces murderous dryad locked inside statue 2 Reckoning by Jeaniene Frost - Bones, faces New Orleans ghouls who eat victims alive - horror 3 Dark Matters by Vicki Pettersson - JJ superhero has illicit affair with Shadow agent Solange 4 The Dead, the Damned, and the Forgotten by Jocelynn Drake - Savannah vampire Keeper Mira investigates murder 5 Two Lines by Melissa Marr - Eavan resists sex and murder that morph her into a glaistig until Daniel Brennan, sex slaver, tempts her into both.
Darkness Falls
Erin Kellison - 2014
He finds the undeniably gifted Jordan Lane, but she’s wary of mysterious Rook and resists his pursuit as long as she can. When the dreamwaters they enter are too exhilarating to resist, their attraction explodes into passion. But delving too deep stirs a nightmare—one they must defeat together, or be forever lost to darkness. Fans of paranormal romance and bad boys, get ready for a dark, sexy plunge into fantasy and desire. The Reveler Series is set in a contemporary world in which people can indulge in Rêve, or shared dreaming—a pop culture phenomenon sweeping the world. Imagine being able to fall asleep at night, only to wake in a dream world, one in which you are lucid and in control—where you can be anything you want to be and do anything you like. But you must be careful…dreaming can be as dangerous as it is seductive.
Carrion Comfort
Dan Simmons - 1989
Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves...THE PRESENT... Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to 'use' humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression. Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction. But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself...
The Benson
Karina Halle - 2011
It occurs between books #2 (Red Fox) and #3 (Dead Sky Morning) and is the perfect primer for anyone interested in the EIT series.