Book picks similar to
Carnival Of Fear by J.G. Faherty
horror
halloween
netgalley
fiction
Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone
Stefan Kiesbye - 2012
This is where four young friends come of age—in an atmosphere thick with fear and suspicion. Their innocent games soon bring them face-to-face with the village's darkest secrets in this eerily dispassionate, astonishingly assured novel, evocative of Stephen King's classic short story "Children of the Corn" and infused with the spirit of the Brothers Grimm.
The Dark
James Herbert - 1980
And somewhere in the night, a small girl smiled as her mother burned. Asylum inmates slaughtered their attendants. In slimy tunnels, once-human creatures gathered. Madness raged as the lights began to fade and humanity was attacked by an ancient, unstoppable evil.
Of Light and Darkness
Shayne Leighton - 2011
Raised among a secret society of Witches, Shifters, and Elves, human-born Charlotte Ruzikova finds that she is the freak in her world of magic and monsters. When she stands before an army of impossible obstacles, the likelihood of survival in this coming-of-age modern fairy tale is slim. After Charlotte captures the attention of the young Elven prince, her scorn results in an all-out war between light and darkness.Charlotte knows no other home than the one nestled deep in the woods of the Czech Republic, where Witches draw spells of enchantment, Shifters throw tea parties, and Elves are the closest in kin. But as genocide and war threatens life as she knows it, Charlotte will fight for what she believes in...truth, bravery, and most importantly...love. Fighting with a coven of rogue monsters is tougher than it seems, but she will stop at nothing to save them...and she'll do it before the sun comes up and light takes over forever.Filled with Slavic folklore, Of Light and Darkness is the first part of an epic series not to be missed!.
The Lantern's Ember
Colleen Houck - 2018
It’s difficult for him to remember much about his mortal days. So, he focuses on fulfilling his sentence as a Lantern—one of the watchmen who guard the portals to the Otherworld, a realm crawling with every nightmarish creature imaginable. Jack has spent centuries jumping from town to town, ensuring that nary a mortal—or not-so-mortal—soul slips past him. That is, until he meets beautiful Ember O’Dare. Seventeen, stubborn, and a natural-born witch, Ember feels a strong pull to the Otherworld. Undeterred by Jack’s warnings, she crosses into the forbidden plane with the help of a mysterious and debonair vampire—and the chase through a dazzling, dangerous world is on. Jack must do everything in his power to get Ember back where she belongs before both the earthly and unearthly worlds descend into chaos.
The Vine Witch
Luanne G. Smith - 2019
Then the skill of divining harvests fell into ruin when sorcière Elena Boureanu was blindsided by a curse. Now, after breaking the spell that confined her to the shallows of a marshland and weakened her magic, Elena is struggling to return to her former life. And the vineyard she was destined to inherit is now in the possession of a handsome stranger.Vigneron Jean-Paul Martel naively favors science over superstition, and he certainly doesn’t endorse the locals’ belief in witches. But Elena knows a hex when she sees one, and the vineyard is covered in them. To stay on and help the vines recover, she’ll have to hide her true identity, along with her plans for revenge against whoever stole seven winters of her life. And she won’t rest until she can defy the evil powers that are still a threat to herself, Jean-Paul, and the ancient vine-witch legacy in the rolling hills of the Chanceaux Valley.
Things Slip Through
Kevin Lucia - 2013
Just another average Adirondack town, and nice enough in its own right.Except after dark, or under the pale light of the moon. Or in a very private doctor's office at Clifton Heights General Hospital, where no one can hear you scream. Or on a road out of town that never ends, or in an old house sitting on the edge of town with a mind - and will - of its own.Maybe you shouldn't have left the interstate, my friend. Maybe you should've driven on to the next town.But you didn't. You saw our sign, turned down our road, figuring on just a short stay. And maybe it will be.Or maybe you'll never leave.Anyway, pay a visit to The Skylark Diner. I'll be there. Pull up a chair and let me tell you about our town. It's nice enough, it really is.Except after dark. Or on cold winter days when no one is around, and you're all alone...
Painted
Kirsten McKenzie - 2017
Every painted eye is watching her, including those of the unfinished portrait on the artist’s easel. A portrait with an eerie familiarity.Kubin’s lawyer didn’t share the detailed instructions regarding the handling of the art, and Anita and her team start work in ignorance of the very instructions designed to keep them safe.Disturbed, a man eases himself out of his portrait and stretches. Free at last from the confines of his canvas, he has no intention of ever returning. He has a painting to finish…
The Ghosts of Miller's Crossing
David Clark - 2019
This move is ironic, since it was the mysterious death of his parents that forced him away. He is looking for a quiet setting for them to start over, but what he finds is anything but. Dark truths and a centuries old family secret await him. With the help of his local minister and a historic religious relic, Edward joins the eternal battle of good versus evil and the devils of his past.
If you enjoy paranormal thrillers doused in the historical legends of the Vatican and Knights Templar, then this book is for you.
Buy David Clark's The Ghosts of Miller's Crossing and take the journey with Edward.
All These Bodies
Kendare Blake - 2021
Two teenagers. One impossible explanation.Summer 1958—a string of murders plagues the Midwest. The victims are found in their cars and in their homes—even in their beds—their bodies drained, but with no blood anywhere. September 19- the Carlson family is slaughtered in their Minnesota farmhouse, and the case gets its first lead: 15-year-old Marie Catherine Hale is found at the scene. She is covered in blood from head to toe, and at first she’s mistaken for a survivor. But not a drop of the blood is hers.Michael Jensen, son of the local sheriff, yearns to become a journalist and escape his small-town. He never imagined that the biggest story in the country would fall into his lap, or that he would be pulled into the investigation, when Marie decides that he is the only one she will confess to. As Marie recounts her version of the story, it falls to Michael to find the truth: What really happened the night that the Carlsons were killed? And how did one girl wind up in the middle of all these bodies?
The Devil in Silver
Victor LaValle - 2012
It also has a very, very old one. Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He’s not mentally ill, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he can’t quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his first night, he’s visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic who’s been on the ward for decades and knows all its secrets; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD, who tries desperately to send alarms to the outside world; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl who acts as the group’s enforcer. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die? The Devil in Silver brilliantly brings together the compelling themes that spark all of Victor LaValle’s radiant fiction: faith, race, class, madness, and our relationship with the unseen and the uncanny. More than that, it’s a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror about friendship, love, and the courage to slay our own demons.
The Suicide Motor Club
Christopher Buehlman - 2016
Did his greedy eyes shine silver like a coyote’s? Did he make you feel like prey? You can’t remember now. You just saw the founder of the Suicide Motor Club. Be grateful his brake lights never flashed. Be grateful his car was already full. They roam America, littering the highways with smashed cars and bled-out bodies, a gruesome reflection of the unsettled sixties. But to anyone unlucky enough to meet them in the lonely hours of the night, they’re just a blurry memory. That is—to all but one... Two years ago, they left a witness in the mangled wreck of her family car, her husband dead, her son taken. She remembers their awful faces, despite their tricks and glamours. And she’s coming for them—her thirst for vengeance even more powerful than their hunger for blood. On the deserted highways of America, the hunters are about to become the hunted...
The Mermaid's Sister
Carrie Anne Noble - 2015
By day, they gather herbs for Auntie’s healing potions; by night, Auntie spins tales of faraway lands and wicked fairies. Clara’s favorite story tells of three orphan infants—Clara, who was brought to Auntie by a stork; Maren, who arrived in a seashell; and their best friend, O’Neill, who was found beneath an apple tree.One day, Clara discovers shimmering scales just beneath her sister’s skin: Maren is becoming a mermaid and must be taken to the sea or she will die. So Clara, O’Neill, and the mermaid-girl set out for the shore. But the trio encounters trouble around every bend. Ensnared by an evil troupe of traveling performers, Clara and O’Neill must find a way to save themselves and the ever-weakening Maren.And always in the back of her mind, Clara wonders, if my sister is a mermaid, then what am I?
Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror
Chris Priestley - 2007
But as the stories unfold, a newer and more surprising narrative emerges, one that is perhaps the most frightening of all.
Midnight in the Graveyard
Kenneth W. CainJohn Everson - 2019
Some call it the witching hour. Others call it the devil’s hour. Here in the graveyard, midnight is a very special time. It is a time when ghostly spirits are at their strongest, when the veil between our world and theirs is at its thinnest. Legend has it, that while most of the world is asleep, the lack of prayers allow the spirits to communicate under the cover of darkness, among the headstones, their whispers rustling in the leaves of the old oak trees. But if you’re here in the graveyard, you can tell yourself it’s just the wind, that the moonlight is playing tricks on your eyes, that it's only the swirling mist you see. But when you hear the graveyard gate clang shut, the dead have something to say. Here are their stories…
The Spookshow
Tim McGregor - 2014
Drab even. That all that changed after an accident left her in a coma for three days. That's when the spookshow really began, when Billie realized that she could see the dead.And the dead could see her. Now, they won't leave her alone. Accompanying two friends through a haunted house, Billie uncovers a terrible secret that brings, not only the police, but the homicide detective responsible for putting her into the hospital in the first place. He's also the one man she sworn to stay away from.