Book picks similar to
Leviathan by Jared Sandman


horror
ocean
creature-feature
sea-monsters

Extinct


Charles Wilson - 1997
    Now, he has created his most chilling story yet—a fast-paced thriller so realistic it will take your breath away and keep you riveted to the page.From the Gulf of Mexico's warm shallow waters ... to the deepest parts of the Pacific ... terror comes to the surface...Six-year-old Paul Haines watches as two older boys dive into a coastal river ... and don't come up. His mother, Carolyn, a charter boat captain on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, finds herself embroiled in the tragedy to an extent she could never have imagined.Carolyn joins the marine biologist Alan Freeman in the hunt for a creature that is terrorizing the waters along the Gulf Coast. But neither of them could have envisioned exactly what kind of danger they are facing.Yet one man, Admiral Vandiver, does know what this creature is, and how it has come into the shallows. And his secret obsession with it will force him, as well as Paul, Carolyn and Alan, into a race against time ... and a race toward death.

From The Depths


J.E. Gurley - 2014
    Now giant mutated deep sea creatures are washing up on the beach.Out on the open ocean things are about to get ugly as giant Viperfish, Bristle worms and a two-hundred-foot long ceresiosaurus, thought to be long extinct, hunt for prey.As the body count rises a frantic struggle to survive the creatures From The Depths begins.

Deeper


James A. Moore - 2007
    The thing they bring ashore is certainly unusual. Big mistake thinking it couldn't survive on land. Bigger mistake thinking that it's the only one of its kind.

Natural Selection


Dave Freedman - 2006
    . . Are they? Well, aren't dinosaurs, sharks, and crocodiles all really monsters? Yes. In fact, evolution made every single one of them. So could evolution make another monster? Today? A monster that is smarter, more deadly, and unlike any other to have evolved in the history of this planet? Weaving together science and thriller in a way notseen since Jurassic Park, Natural Selection introduces a phenomenally dangerous new species of predator that is forced out of its world and intoman's for a violent first encounter.

From the Deep


Michael Bray - 2014
    Roused from its slumber following an Antarctic ice quake, an immense beast has risen from the depths. Dwarfing even the mighty blue whale, the gargantuan wonder of evolution takes charge of the oceans, setting a catastrophic chain of events in motion.Henry Rainwater is a rookie crab fisherman trying to make his own way in life. After surviving an encounter with the beast which sees his father and the rest of the crew of their family boat killed, Rainwater becomes a recluse, deathly afraid of the creature which lurks in the ocean.The only man that believes Rainwater is Andrews, an ambitious scientist charged by the government to investigate the existence of the creature. Rainwater soon finds out that Andrews has different motivations for locating the beast.Driven to find his redemption and clear his name, Henry must overcome his terror and set out to sea in order to track down and kill the creature, in the hope of finding it before Andrews and his unhinged superior, Russo can put their own plan into action, one which could have terrible repercussions for the entire human race…

Saurian


William Schoell - 1988
    Something calls Tom back to the ruins of his boyhood home, to the scene of the devastation that almost destroyed him.

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.

The Black


Paul Elard Cooley - 2014
    But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

Kronos Rising


Max Hawthorne - 2014
    Even though he knew the creature was right behind him, he wouldn't quit. He would make it. Just as that beacon of hope began to shine down upon him, the bright sun overhead vanished from view. Confused, he gazed wide-eyed as the daylight grew dim. Then he realized the ultimate horror: the creature had overtaken him, its jaws opened wide.""He was in its mouth."A coastal community faces the wrath of a mysterious sea creature in Max Hawthorne's heart pounding new novel, "Kronos Rising."Devastated by his wife's tragic drowning, Olympic hopeful Jake Braddock turns his back on fame and fortune and retreats to his childhood home of Paradise Cove, Florida. He accepts the job of town sheriff, hoping to find the solace he so desperately craves.He finds anything but.A series of horrifying deaths and disappearances send a flood of panic through the idyllic town. It is only after the ravaged carcass of a full-grown whale surfaces, however, that the real terror begins.Soon Jake finds himself drawn into an ancient-a mystery that ends with him adrift at sea, battling for survival against the deadliest predator the world has ever seen. It is a creature whose ancestors ruled the prehistoric seas. Now freed after eons of imprisonment, it has risen to reclaim the oceans of the world as its own.And it's hungry.

Primordial


David Wood - 2017
    When eccentric billionaire, Ellis Holloway, hires renegade marine biologist, Sam Aston, to investigate the legend of a monster in a remote Finnish lake, Aston envisions an easy paycheck and a chance to clear his gambling debts. But he gets much more. There is something terrible living beneath the dark waters of Lake Kaarme and it is hungry. As the death toll mounts, Aston faces superstitious locals, a power-hungry police chief, and a benefactor's descent into madness as he races to find the legendary beast of the lake.

The Loch


Steve Alten - 2005
    Incorporating the latest research and new evidence, that leads to real answers concerning the Loch Ness monster's identity, bestselling author Steve Alten weaves a tale of horror about the most publicized and controversial creature ever imagined.

Leviathan


Tim Curran - 2013
    When the atmospheric conditions are right, a doorway opens to a primeval world of monsters. The locals won’t talk about it. They live in denial. But that’s all about to change. Johnny Horowitz, a much despised member of the paparazzi, has gotten a glimpse of something from prehistory and he isn’t going to stop until he gets a photo of it. With Hurricane Amelia bearing down on the island, the doorway to the prehistoric sea is about to be thrown wide and Johnny plans on being there when it opens with camera in hand, regardless of the consequences.

They Rise


Hunter Shea - 2015
    He thought he knew everything about them. He was wrong. Warming ocean temperatures free legions of prehistoric chimaera fish from their methane ice suspended animation. Now, in a corner of the Bermuda Triangle, the ocean waters run red. The 400 million year old massive killing machines know no mercy, destroying everything in their path. It will take Whitley, his climatologist ex-wife and the entire US Navy to stop them in the bloodiest battle ever seen on the high seas.

Devour


Kurt Anderson - 2016
    A primordial creature frozen in time, it is the oldest, largest, most efficient predator that nature has ever produced. And it is ravenously hungry…  IT HUNTS Thirty-five miles off the Massachussetts coast, a small research ship is attacked. All but one of its crew is killed by the massive serpentine horror that rises from the sea. The creature likes this human prey. The chewy outer hide. The tender saltiness within. And it wants more…  IT FEEDS Responding to a distress signal, fishing-boat captain Brian Hawkins arrives in time to save the ship’s last survivor. But the nightmare is just beginning. A casino cruise ship carrying high-stakes passengers—and a top-secret cargo—becomes the creature’s bloodsoaked hunting ground. Desperate but determined, Hawkins goes after the biggest catch of the century.

Crazy Eights


James Melzer - 2017
    An expert in all things extraordinary, she’s approached to lead the formation of a new team into the West Virginia wilderness to evaluate reports of a giant spider, but her quest for answers leads her to the discovery of an eight-legged monstrosity no one could have prepared for. Existing for eons beneath our earth, these aren’t your garden variety spiders. They’re bloodthirsty monsters that will rip apart anything—and anyone—in their path, and while a town fights to survive Emily and her team will have to do everything they can to beat back the terror before there’s a new species at the top of the food chain!