Mexican Gothic


Silvia Moreno-Garcia - 2020
    She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

The Terror


Dan Simmons - 2007
    As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape.

The Butterfly Tattoo


M.D. Thomas - 2020
    Jon, guilt-ridden because he forgot to make sure his son had buckled up, will do anything to save his relationship with his wife. Bartender Elle doesn’t believe in guilt, even as it accelerates her descent into alcoholism. Narcotics officer Harvey has been stealing seized drug money for months to pay off his grandparent’s debt, unaware his superiors are onto him. Their struggles morph from difficult to life-threatening when Lee’s spirit finds each of them.They all think they know what Lee’s spirit is after. They’re all wrong. Drawn ever-closer together, their mistakes and misdeeds accumulate until Lee’s spirit latches onto one of them, and if they can’t figure out the truth in time, everybody they care about might die.

Privy to Murder


Carol Shenold - 2007
    Not that she had much choice. Her husband, disturbed by her admission of possessing a special gift of being able to see the dead, dropped her and their two children by the side of the road. Now she was back in her home town, living with her mother, starting a new business, wanting nothing more than a fresh start.But murder gets in the way of her fresh start, making it more of a challenge then anyone deserves. Every where she turns, she’s making more enemies then friends and the trail of murder keeps following her. Until she learns to embrace her gifts and use them to find the killer, life in Love, Texas will continue to be Privy to Murder.

Probability Chain


Regan Keeter - 2013
    - Out of Print -

The iCandidate


Mikael Carlson - 2013
    However, when he loses a bet to his over-achieving class of American history students, he finds himself in unfamiliar territory: a candidate running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.With no money to run a campaign, Michael sets an audacious plan in motion to become the country’s first virtual candidate. With the help of his teenaged students who serve as his campaign staff, he leverages every form of electronic and social media to reach the voters in his district. With the help of a beautiful, but jaded journalist bent on getting revenge against his opponent, the Bennit campaign rises from obscurity to become the epicenter of national attention. As the infatuation with his fledgling campaign captivates the country, he becomes a target for the desperate incumbent fanatical about hanging onto his power at any cost.The iCandidate follows the plight of four people caught in the firestorm of mainstream media, social media, and dirty politics. In the end, the lives of everybody involved will be changed and the political landscape of the country forever altered. For Michael Bennit, his real concern heading into Election Day is whether the lesson he is trying to teach is getting lost in all the drama.

A Madness So Discreet


Mindy McGinnis - 2015
    Those secrets, along with the bulge in her belly, land her in a Boston insane asylum.When her voice returns in a burst of violence, Grace is banished to the dark cellars, where her mind is discovered by a visiting doctor who dabbles in the new study of criminal psychology. With her keen eyes and sharp memory, Grace will make the perfect assistant at crime scenes. Escaping from Boston to the safety of an ethical Ohio asylum, Grace finds friendship and hope, hints of a life she should have had. But gruesome nights bring Grace and the doctor into the circle of a killer who stalks young women. Grace, continuing to operate under the cloak of madness, must hunt a murderer while she confronts the demons in her own past.In this beautifully twisted historical thriller, Mindy McGinnis, acclaimed author of Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust, explores the fine line between sanity and insanity, good and evil—and the madness that exists in all of us.

Alpha


Steven Konkoly - 2011
    A secret his government has hidden in the deepest vaults of the Pentagon.Someone is trying to raise Black Flag from the dead, and drag Petrovich back into the poisonous life he abandoned. Someone who knows his darkest secrets.In exchange for the promise of a clean slate, and a chance to keep the life he has built with the woman he loves, he agrees to carry out one more mission. Now Daniel has an even bigger problem. The assassination of Mohammed Ghani, a wealthy Muslim importer, wasn't the uncomplicated mission he had been promised. Seven other prominent Muslim businessmen are killed on the same night along the East Coast, suddenly extinguishing Task Force HYDRA, the most significant counter-terrorism investigation in recent FBI history.Daniel's life is about to disintegrate, as he becomes the focus of a relentless FBI manhunt, and the target of a vengeful CIA agent. To survive, he'll be forced to release a dark side he fought for years to keep suppressed. A dark side with no boundaries, and few loyalties.

Connected


Simon Denman - 2012
    Across the country, a university student, enjoying the unexpected attentions of an enigmatic seductress, is disturbed when his best friend falls to his death from the thirteenth floor of a neighbouring campus tower block.As each tries to unravel the mystery behind the apparent suicides, they are drawn into an obsessive search for a computer-generated fractal video sequence, with startling effects on human consciousness, and which might just pave the way for discovery of the ultimate Theory of Everything. However, they are not the only ones to have seen the potential of this mind-altering video, and soon find themselves in a desperate race against time with gangsters from the shadowy worlds of sex, drugs, cyber-crime, and massively multi-player on-line gaming.Science ContentAlthough, as the reviews testify, CONNECTED has been enjoyed by many with no background in computer science, Mandelbrot Fractal geometry, string theory, quantum physics or brain science, those with some interest or knowledge in these areas seem to have particularly enjoyed the book. One reason for this appears to be that most of these references are actually based on fact. Of course, some readers have preferred to skim these sections, and claim that this did not detract from the story. Others have appreciated the scientific detail and fidelity, and some have even thanked the author for explaining such things in a way that enabled them to learn something new.Philosophy, Science and ReligionAlthough CONNECTED is mostly enjoyed as a fast-paced mystery thriller, it is also, to a limited extent, about the inevitable conflict between science and religion. The two main male protagonists happen to be atheist, and some of the dialogue explores the different thoughts and attitudes concerning some of life’s deeper questions. These include the origins of the universe, the nature of consciousness, and whether there could be life after death. Again these philosophical references to faith and atheism are few, and mostly quite short, but all are crucial to the story.Setting and slangCONNECTED is a contemporary novel, set entirely in England. As the story unfolds through two converging plot threads, the action switches between a fictitious village in the Lake District, the University of Essex in Colchester (an old Roman town about 60 miles north-east of London), Bracknell (a newer suburban town some 40 miles west of London), and North London.Consequently, there is some British slang and occasional use of bad language (e.g. a few instances of the F-word etc.) in keeping with the age and background of the characters.Why Connected?Years ago, while the author was at university, a fellow student had a breakdown and was admitted to the local psychiatric hospital. A few, who knew him well, went to visit and reported that he’d subsequently lost the plot and was gabbling incomprehensibly of having found the answer to life, the universe and everything. While most people seemed consumed with sadness and pity at this, the author’s first thought was, “What if he really had discovered some universal truth?” Although never seriously believing that he had, it was on that day that the seed of an idea lodged in his young brain – a seed that years later would

Road of Bones


Christopher Golden - 2022
    Under Stalin, at least eighty Soviet gulags were built along the route to supply the USSR with a readily available workforce, and over time hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the midst of their labors. Their bodies were buried where they fell, plowed under the permafrost, underneath the road.Felix Teigland, or "Teig," is a documentary producer, and when he learns about the Road of Bones, he realizes he's stumbled upon untapped potential. Accompanied by his camera operator, Teig hires a local Yakut guide to take them to Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth. Teig is fascinated by the culture along the Road of Bones, and encounters strange characters on the way to the Oymyakon, but when the team arrives, they find the village mysteriously abandoned apart from a mysterious 9-year-old girl. Then, chaos ensues.A malignant, animistic shaman and the forest spirits he commands pursues them as they flee the abandoned town and barrel across miles of deserted permafrost. As the chase continues along this road paved with the suffering of angry ghosts, what form will the echoes of their anguish take? Teig and the others will have to find the answers if they want to survive the Road of Bones.

The Boy Who Drew Monsters


Keith Donohue - 2014
    Refusing to leave his home in a small coastal town in Maine, Jack Peter spends his time drawing monsters. When those drawings take on a life of their own, no one is safe from the terror they inspire. His mother, Holly, begins to hear strange sounds in the night coming from the ocean, and she seeks answers from the local Catholic priest and his Japanese housekeeper, who fill her head with stories of shipwrecks and ghosts. His father, Tim, wanders the beach, frantically searching for a strange apparition running wild in the dunes. And the boy’s only friend, Nick, becomes helplessly entangled in the eerie power of the drawings. While those around Jack Peter are haunted by what they think they see, only he knows the truth behind the frightful occurrences as the outside world encroaches upon them all.In the tradition of The Turn of the Screw, Keith Donohue’s The Boy Who Drew Monsters is a mesmerizing tale of psychological terror and imagination run wild, a perfectly creepy read for a dark night.