Book picks similar to
Closed at Dark by Rob Blackwell


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mystery-suspense

The Bones of Others


Vickie McKeehan - 2013
    Not this one.Brutalized as a young girl by a vile sexual predator, Skye Cree is a survivor. Guided by the visions of her mystical spirit guide to the whereabouts of abducted girls, she uses her unique abilities to turn her horrifying past into a positive force for justice. Fighting the demons that have haunted her for years, she trusts only in herself—until she falls hard for a man for the first time in her life. Now, discovering her abductor is back with a vengeance, she becomes locked in a deadly race against time to stop the horrors of an evil human-trafficking ring that threatens to tear her world, and her newfound love apart.

Doll House


John Hunt - 2017
    She will be on her own, in a new place hopeful to meet new friends. On the night she moves in, she is taken off the street by two masked men. She is placed in a room which is little more than a cell. A pink cell. A room made for a doll. She is now part of their collection.

Asylum Lake


R.A. Evans - 2010
    Through its doors came the weak and the weary, the disabled and the discarded, the frail and the forgotten. But an open door is an invitation, and some visitors, once invited, are loath to leave. The hospital abruptly closed in 1958 under a cloud of mystery. It has remained empty and silent, save for the memories trapped both within its walls and far below the surface of the nearby lake that bears its name. At the bottom of Asylum Lake, the unremembered are growing restless. Brady Tanner is trying to outrun memories of his own. After the sudden death of his wife, Brady retreats to the small town where he spent the summers of his youth. But he soon learns small towns can be stained by memories... and secrets, too. As Brady is drawn into unearthing these secrets, as he discovers a new love in an old friend, he is also drawn into the mystery of Asylum Lake and the evil that lies submerged beneath its sparkling surface. What is the source of this evil - and what does it want with Brady Tanner?

Teacher Beware


Charlotte Raine - 2014
    Two years later, she moves to Murray, Virginia to get a new lease on life. On her first day of substitute teaching, her new life is nearly cut short when she finds herself in the middle of a shooting that leaves a married couple dead. Luckily, she is saved by Sam Meadows, a cardiologist, but the shooter has disappeared by the time the police come around. When the shooter tries to kill Grace again, Sam and Grace realize that the killer won’t stop until she is dead. With a killer who has nothing to lose, the question isn’t if the killer will attack again, but when and who will be in the crosshairs. A romance/murder-mystery wrapped in the aspects of life: love, family, forgiveness, danger, and death.

Katana Shodan: The Scroll of the Five Masters


Ken Warner - 2014
    Master Osaka sends her away to the Hall of the Dragon to learn to use and control her power. Soon after her arrival, a mysterious band of warriors tries to steal the Scroll of the Five Masters, which contains the key to immortality. Katana learns that they are the Arashi, a secret society that preserves the dark art of dim mak. It was believed that knowledge of the art’s highest power, the death touch, was taken to the grave by its ancient master. But now a new dim mak master has risen, commanding a power even more terrifying than the death touch—and he will stop at nothing to obtain the Scroll of the Five Masters. In the end, it’s up to Katana to confront this new enemy and uncover the shocking truth of his identity.Katana Shodan is the first book in a YA martial arts fantasy series. If you like coming of age stories in a modern setting, full of action and adventure, mystery and magic, then Katana will keep you on the edge of your seat wanting more!

The Haunting of Highdown Hall


Shani Struthers - 2014
    Not just a job for Ruby, it's a crusade and one she wants to bring to the High Street. Psychic Surveys is born. Based in Lewes, East Sussex, Ruby and her team of freelance psychics have been kept busy of late. Specialising in domestic cases, their solid reputation is spreading - it's not just the dead that can rest in peace but the living too. All is threatened when Ruby receives a call from the irate new owner of Highdown Hall. Film star Cynthia Hart is still in residence, despite having died in 1958. Winter deepens and so does the mystery surrounding Cynthia. She insists the devil is blocking her path to the light long after Psychic Surveys have 'disproved' it. Investigating her apparently unblemished background, Ruby is pulled further and further into Cynthia's world and the darkness that now inhabits it. For the first time in her career, Ruby's deepest beliefs are challenged. Does evil truly exist? And if so, is it the most relentless force of all?

Famished


Meghan O'Flynn - 2016
    At least, it feels that way until a serial killer starts dicing up women from the shelter where she volunteers. Despite the ever-present tingling at the nape of her neck, Hannah manages to convince herself that the killings have nothing to do with her brutal past—until her boyfriend is murdered in the same ruthless manner as the others. It doesn’t help that the police think she might have done it. But the cops are right about one thing: Hannah is responsible. Because she knows who the killer is. Now she must face the fact that she brought a monster with her to Ash Park—and his appetite for blood is insatiable. Everyone's hungry for something. Some are more famished than others.

Serenity


Craig A. Hart - 2016
     A woman dies in his arms...a drug dealer offers him $10,000...a gunman is determined to kill him. And then everything goes to hell. Shelby Alexander is an aging ex-boxer and retired fixer, whose activities often flirted with the wrong side of the law. Looking for a little peace and a slower pace of life, he moved to Serenity, the small Michigan town where he grew up. But trouble follows men like Shelby, and he finds himself embroiled in an underworld of drugs and violence that may prove to be his undoing. The first book in the new Shelby Alexander Thriller Series, Serenity is an action-packed read with a lovingly rendered cast, witty dialogue, and a main character who doesn't know when to quit.

Shallow Graves


Patrick Logan - 2016
     Robert Watts is having the worst day of his entire life: first he's laid off, then he finds out that his wife is having an affair... with his boss no less. And that's only the beginning. Before the month is out, Robert finds himself alone to raise his daughter with no money, no job, and a house that is minutes from being repossessed. Just when he hits rock bottom, a strange visitor arrives at the doorstep of his soon to be foreclosed house with a letter from an Aunt he didn't know existed. The offer is simple: look after Aunt Ruth during her dying days, and in return Robert will be bequeathed the Harlop Estate in which she currently resides. It's a no brainer and Robert jumps at the opportunity, equally motivated by the prospect of financial security as he is for a fresh start. Problem is, it only takes a few nights in the Harlop Estate before he begins to question Aunt Ruth's claims that they are the home's only inhabitants... It's the scratching he hears during the night, the voices that he can barely make out over the constant rain, and then there's the girl with the rat... With their house foreclosed and their bank accounts liquidated, Robert and his daughter Amy desperately need a place to live. But the question Robert soon finds himself struggling with is whether living in the Harlop Estate is worth it... and if he can survive until Aunt Ruth passes to collect his inheritance. Shallow Graves is the first book in the Haunted Series, chilling, gruesome, and truly haunting tales with a twist that you will never see coming.

Berkley Street


Ron Ripley - 2016
    After a prolonged legal battle with his aunt and uncle, Shane has possession of the family home where his parents disappeared over 20 years ago. The house, a monstrous castle filled with ghosts and secrets, is more alive than its inhabitants.When his aunt and uncle come to town, then vanish, Shane's life takes a turn for the worse. Detective Marie Lafontaine immediately labels Shane as the prime suspect. And in a race against time, Shane desperately searches for clues about his parents.But there's something lurking beyond the walls and beneath the surface. Something sinister that has haunted him ever since he saw its face in the pond behind the house. And it isn’t happy that Shane is back.It isn’t happy at all.

Kiss Of A Vampire


Martha Woods - 2016
    After they died she was put into a foster home where she was abused mentally and physically from the time she was twelve years old. At sixteen, unable to take it anymore, she runs away from home. Now twenty-five, she has lived out of her car and trailer for years, moving from state to state and making her living as a psychic. She reads minds but can’t tell the future. Other than that she has no other extraordinary powers. Her foster parents are still in California. Kristian a two hundred years old Vampire. He has been alone most of that time, and has never gotten over the woman who made him. He killed her to save his own life, but there remains a bond never broken, even though she’s gone now. He is immediately drawn to Tessa, the enigmatic human who can read minds. He’s not sure what the attraction is, but he knows it goes beyond her ability to read minds or the fact that she can help him. When a group of powerful Witches, the Calders, who are seeking to abolish vampires from the face of the Earth, Tessa and Kristian must now fight not only for their own survival but to protect one another.

Either Side of Midnight


Tori de Clare - 2013
    I rate this book as a ten-star and expect to see it as number one on the best selling list for many, many weeks.” Reviewed by Trudi LoPreto for Readers'Favorite.WHAT IF THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE TURNED INTO YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE?When nineteen-year-old Naomi Stone is snatched from her husband at knifepoint on the night of their wedding and taken to a deserted cemetery, she knows her life is finished. Drugged and disorientated, she loses consciousness as she lies in an open grave with a gun to her head. But the following day, she mysteriously awakes to find herself unharmed and secured to a bed. She's in a beautiful bedroom in a secluded cottage in open countryside. Only one person knows she’s there – the man in the balaclava who’s holding her, feeding her, revealing nothing. Naomi senses the unfolding of a plan. She should be on honeymoon in the Caribbean. Instead, she’s trapped with an emotionless psycho with no hope of escape . . . And his voice is chillingly familiar.Who is he? What does he want? What's happened to her husband? Where is she? Will anyone find her before it's too late?

Unreal


Riley Moreno - 2014
    The day before they depart, the girls are given a party by Julie’s mother, Sharon, and her stepfather, Greg. Sharon seems nervous at the prospect of the girls taking off for parts unknown, but Greg sees no harm in the adventure. The girls set off and after driving through the morning, they stop at a small town diner for a bite to eat...and you can never imagine what happens next.

The Sister


Max China - 2013
    Suspenseful, and thrilling, it is a mystery that unravels over time, following the lives of a group of seemingly unconnected people, as they struggle to bring an unusually talented serial killer to justice. CORNWALL, ENGLAND. In the summer of love, 1967, two children witness a murder. One, a seven-year old boy, views it from fifty yards - the other, a young Irish girl, from miles away... LONDON, 2006. With retirement looming, DCI John F Kennedy reopens the only unresolved case in his career, the disappearance of a young nurse, Kathy, twenty-three years earlier. The broadcast appeal for information on the missing teenage runaway, Eilise; is followed by a cold-case reconstruction of Kathy's last known movements. A new witness comes forward, and Kennedy - now set on the trail of a serial killer - unwittingly sparks a sequence of events that lead back to himself, threatening his own, very private existence. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes apparent that the murderer is no ordinary adversary. Resourceful and cunning, he has been operating undetected for over forty years, and it seems that only the original witnesses from 1967 can stop him. But they have yet to meet... The Sister is much more than just an ordinary thriller. It is the story of a lifetime...The book is a two part pilot episode with resolution, but left open to a series of planned spin-off self-contained episodes involving a selection of characters from the original story, the first of which is due for release in late spring.

Colony of the Lost


Derik Cavignano - 2002
    AN ADDICT'S STRUGGLE ... THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF A TOWNWhen the children of Glenwood begin vanishing one by one, baffling local and federal authorities alike, the idyllic New England suburb becomes anything but a utopia. Built upon the ruins of a lost colony, Glenwood is home to a long-forgotten secret, and when three strangers are lured into the midnight woods by the phantom of a Puritan boy, they discover the truth of the town's dark past and must face a vision of its bloody future.Together, this unlikely trio--Jay, an alcoholic school teacher, Tim, a wise-cracking new kid in town, and Sarah, a nine-year-old with a handful of imaginary friends--must find a way to rescue the town from a terrifying supernatural force to prevent history from repeating itself.Silver Falchion Award Finalist for Best Horror (2016)