Book picks similar to
CHIMERAS by E.E. Giorgi


mystery
science-fiction
sci-fi
first-reads

Syndrome


Thomas Hoover - 2003
    Her black-sheep younger brother insists she go to a New Jersey clinic owned by his eccentric boss for stem cell experiments. There she and her long-ago lover, a medical reporter, uncover a bizarre experiment to reverse the aging process.In her mid-thirties, Alexa Hampton runs her own interior design firm in New York’s Soho and has a daily run to keep fit. But now her world is narrowing as a childhood heart mishap increasingly threatens to lethally impact her life. Then out of nowhere her black-sheep younger brother appears and insists she go to a clinic in New Jersey to enter stem-cell clinical trials that are working wonders. The clinic is owned by her brother’s boss, the eccentric millionaire Winston Bartlett.Also interested in the clinic is the medical reporter Stone Aimes, who’s hoping to penetrate Bartlett’s veil of secrecy and find out what’s going on there. He has personal as well as professional reasons for wanting to get closer to Winston Bartlett. He is also a long-ago lover of Alexa’s and still carrying something of a torch for her though they have long been out of touch.As Alexa investigates the clinic, their paths cross and together they slowly uncover the horrifying truth about what can happen when stem-cell technology is taken to its ultimate limit. A bizarre secret experiment to reverse the aging process has gone out of control. Winston Bartlett’s young mistress, the TV personality Kristen Starr, had an anti-aging procedure that went awry and now all her cells are being replaced with new. The side effects are horrific. No one can stop what is happening: she is growing younger, destined to become a child again. Alexa and Stone become prisoners in the clinic and then Bartlett and his Dutch medical researcher Karl van der Vliet begin a bizarre experiment on Alexa, hoping to produce antibodies to save Kristen, and Bartlett. In a stunning, blazing finale, Alexa turns the tables on them all, only to discover that she’s now, suddenly unlike anyone else who has ever lived.TAGS: Medical Thriller, Heart disease, Stem Cells, Aortic Stenosis, Aging, Fountain of Youth,

Fatal Flowers


Enes Smith - 1992
    Ellie wonders why the madman let her escape and tell the police every horrible thing she saw. But he's not finished with Ellie yet. Or her baby daughter.

The Violence


Delilah S. Dawson - 2022
    Now three generations of women must navigate their chilling new reality in this moving exploration of identity, cycles of abuse, and hope. Chelsea Martin appears to be the perfect housewife: married to her high school sweetheart, the mother of two daughters, keeper of an immaculate home. But Chelsea's husband has turned their house into a prison; he has been abusing her for years, cutting off her independence, autonomy, and support. She has nowhere to turn, not even to her narcissistic mother, Patricia, who is more concerned with maintaining the appearance of an ideal family than she is with her daughter's actual well-being. And Chelsea is worried that her daughters will be trapped just as she is--then a mysterious illness sweeps the nation. Known as The Violence, this illness causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bouts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. But for Chelsea, the chaos and confusion the virus causes is an opportunity--and inspires a plan to liberate herself from her abuser.

Alive


Scott Sigler - 2015
    Total darkness. I hear my own breathing, but nothing else. I lift my head…it thumps against something solid and unmoving. There is a board right in front of my face. No, not a board…a lid.A teenage girl awakens to find herself trapped in a coffin. She has no idea who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Fighting her way free brings little relief—she discovers only a room lined with caskets and a handful of equally mystified survivors. Beyond their room lies a corridor filled with bones and dust, but no people…and no answers.She knows only one thing about herself—her name, M. Savage, which was engraved on the foot of her coffin—yet she finds herself in charge. She is not the biggest among them, or the boldest, but for some reason the others trust her. Now, if they’re to have any chance, she must get them to trust one another.Whatever the truth is, she is determined to find it and confront it. If she has to lead, she will make sure they survive. Maybe there's a way out, a rational explanation, and a fighting chance against the dangers to come. Or maybe a reality they cannot comprehend lies just beyond the next turn.

The Man of Legends


Kenneth C. Johnson - 2017
    The bet pays off, resulting in a story that will be popular with book clubs and fun to discuss.” —Associated Press New York City, New Year’s weekend, 2001. Jillian Guthrie, a troubled young journalist, stumbles onto a tantalizing mystery: the same man, unaged, stands alongside Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gandhi in three different photographs spanning eighty-five years of history.In another part of town, Will—an enigmatic thirty-three-year-old of immense charm, wit, and intelligence—looks forward to the new year with hope and trepidation. Haunted by his secret past and shadowed by a dangerous stranger, he finds himself the object of an intense manhunt spearheaded by an ambitious Vatican emissary and an elderly former UN envoy named Hanna.During the next forty-eight hours, a catastrophic event unites Will, Jillian, and Hanna—and puts them in the crosshairs of a centuries-old international conspiracy. Together, the three must unravel an ancient curse that stretches back two millennia and beyond, and face a primal evil that threatens their lives and thousands more.Award-winning science-fiction mastermind Kenneth Johnson blends epic adventure, romance, and evocative drama into an intense supernatural thriller rooted in one of the great untold legends of human history.

Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2


Justin Blaney - 2012
    Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN 9780988251014.

The Light Through the Leaves


Glendy Vanderah - 2021
    But when she returns, Viola is gone. A breaking point in an already fractured marriage, Viola’s abduction causes Ellis to disappear as well—into grief, guilt, and addiction. Convinced she can only do more harm to her family, Ellis leaves her husband and young sons, burying her desperate ache for her children deeper with every step into the mountain wildernesses she treks alone.In a remote area of Washington, a young girl named Raven keeps secrets inside, too. She must never speak to outsiders about how her mother makes miracles spring from the earth, or about her father, whose mysterious presence sometimes frightens her. Raven spends her days learning how to use her rare gifts—and more important, how to hide them. With each lesson comes a warning of what dangers lie in the world beyond her isolated haven. But despite her mother’s cautions, Raven finds herself longing for something more.As Ellis and Raven each confront their powerful longings, their journeys will converge in unexpected and hopeful ways, pulled together by the forces of nature, love, and family.

Death Never Sleeps


E.J. Simon - 2013
    . . A Must Read! E.J. Simon is the real deal VITO COLUCCI, JR. author of the true crime book, Rogue Town, A City Under the Stranglehold of Organized Crime "This reader white-knuckled her way from start to finish. Simon is a master at the game of suspense. A page-turner at its best that left me begging for more" JUDITH MARKS-WHITE, author of Seducing Harry and Bachelor Degree "DEATH NEVER SLEEPS . . . will make you ponder the technology suturing our lives. You will also question where life ends, and where death begins" MARK RUBINSTEIN, author of Mad Dog House and Love Gone Mad DO THE DEAD HAVE SMARTPHONES? The problem with Alex Nicholas is that he won't stay dead. Alex Nicholas was the consummate Queens bookie: fast cars and even faster women, and friends in all the wrong places. As an illegal sports betting and loan shark king in New York City, Alex was fearless-until the night his luck ran out and someone leveled the silver barrel of an automatic on him and pulled the trigger. Michael Nicholas was everything his brother Alex was not: a powerful, married straight-arrow corporate CEO living the American Dream. Their two worlds collide when Michael discovers his brother's secret laptop. As Michael crosses the globe to find his brother's murder, can he avoid his brother's fate? And can the information contained in the laptop help Alex reach out to help Michael-from beyond the grave.

The Cutting


James Hayman - 2009
    He sought to raise his young daughter away from the violence of the big city . . . so he’s unprepared for the horrific killer he discovers, whose bloody trail may lead to Portland’s social elite.Early on a September evening, the mutilated body of a pretty teenaged girl, a high school soccer star, is found dumped in a scrap-metal yard. She had been viciously assaulted, but her heart had been cut out of her chest with surgical precision. The very same day a young businesswoman, also a blonde and an athlete, was abducted as she jogged through the streets of the city’s west end. McCabe suspects both crimes are the work of the same man---a killer who’s targeting the young---who is clearly well-versed in complex surgical procedures, and who may have struck before. Just as the investigation is beginning, McCabe’s ex-wife reemerges, suddenly determined to reclaim the daughter she heedlessly abandoned years earlier.With the help of his straight-talking (and, at times, alluring) partner, Maggie Savage, McCabe begins a race against time to rescue the missing woman and unmask a sadistic killer---before more lives are lost.

Wired


Douglas E. Richards - 2005
    But what if this transcendent level of intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania? David Desh left the special forces after his team was brutally butchered in Iran. Now he has been reactivated for one last mission: find Kira Miller, the enigmatic genius behind a bioterror plot that threatens millions. But when Desh learns that the bioterror plot is just the tip of the iceberg, he is thrust into a byzantine maze of deception and intrigue, and he becomes a key player in a deadly game he can't begin to understand. A game that is certain to have a dramatic impact on the future course of human history. . .

The Fire Seekers


Richard Farr - 2014
    A rash of mysterious disappearances, from Bolivia to Japan. An ancient warning at the ruins of Babel. And a new spiritual leader, who claims that human history as we understand it is about to come to an end.Seventeen-year-old Daniel Calder’s world falls apart when a freak accident brings personal tragedy—and he discovers there’s a link between the accident and a wildly successful new cult, the Seraphim. Catapulted into a violent struggle for humanity’s past and future, he’s not even sure who the enemy is, or if he’s battling a phantom that doesn’t exist. But as Daniel puts his life on the line, he is forced to conclude that our very survival as a species will depend on who, and what, we choose to believe.

The Greatest Good


Craig N. Hooper - 2018
    Which should be easy, given his assignment is a routine protection detail for Stanley Tuchek, the California Governor’s son. But on the first morning of protection an intruder breaks into Chase’s home. When the cops arrive and discover Chase’s unusual collection of weapons, he’s taken to the local police station for questioning. By the time Chase catches up with the governor’s son, Stanley gets shot, and Chase starts to suspect this might all have something to do with his own murky black-ops past. Though he’s pulled off protection, and ordered to stay away from Stanley, Chase won’t let the case go. Desperate to figure out what’s going on, Chase begins an unofficial investigation that takes him from a bullet ridden confrontation with a government hitman to a conspiracy that reaches to the highest level of American intelligence. With no-one to trust, and the line between good and evil becoming increasingly blurred, Garrison Chase must do everything in his power to uncover the truth, stop the conspiracy, and bring down the players involved.

I Choose You


Gayle Curtis - 2020
    Now, grown up and married with a young family, they feel their worst nightmares are behind them. Until the day their daughter is abducted and murdered.Both Elise and Nathaniel lost their mothers to a notorious killer who manipulated innocent victims into taking their own lives. Could it be that ‘the Watcher’ has returned for another round of the same sadistic game? Why now? And why are Elise and Nathaniel being targeted again?When Elise’s family falls under suspicion, her world crashes down around her. Is there anyone she can trust, or is her whole life built on lies?Only one thing is clear: someone left their cruel game unfinished all those years ago. This time the Watcher intends to win – once and for all.

Defenseless


Matt Lenz - 2014
    But in his increasingly desperate search for clues to the killers' identity, Mark himself becomes the hunted one. Under the heat of the Florida sun, once the gun smoke has cleared, who will come out on top?

Golden State


Ben H. Winters - 2019
    This is how Laz must, by law, introduce himself, lest he fail to disclose his true purpose or nature, and by doing so, be guilty of a lie.Laz is a resident of The Golden State, a nation resembling California, where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life, and governance, increasingly impossible. There, surrounded by the high walls of compulsory truth-telling, knowingly contradicting the truth--the Objectively So--is the greatest possible crime. Stopping those crimes, punishing them, is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths--to "speculate" on what might have happened in the commission of a crime.But the Golden State is far less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the Objectively So requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance, recording, and record-keeping. And when those in control of the truth twist it for nefarious means, the Speculators may be the only ones with the power to fight back.