Book picks similar to
The Ardreys by Kay Vernon


gothic
zebra-gothic
m-f-romance
pulp

Benighted


J.B. Priestley - 1927
    They take refuge in an ancient, crumbling mansion inhabited by the strange and sinister Femm family and their brutish servant Morgan. Determined to make the best of the circumstances, the benighted travellers drink, talk, and play games to pass the time while the storm rages outside. But as the night progresses and tensions rise, dangerous and unexpected secrets emerge. On the house's top floor are two locked doors; behind one of them lies the mysterious, unseen Sir Roderick Femm, and behind the other lurks an unspeakable terror. Which is more deadly: the apocalyptic storm outside the house or the unknown horrors that await within? And will any of them survive the night?

Sepulchre


James Herbert - 1987
    In that house there is a psychic called Kline who is part of its secret. The Keeper is guardian of the house, of the psychic, and of the secret. But now an outsider must protect them from a terrible danger. Halloran will combat men who thrive on physical corruptions; he will find love of a perverse nature; he will confront his soul's own darkness. And eventually he will discover the horrific and awesome secret of the Sepulchre.

Bad Ronald


John Holbrook Vance - 1973
    Perhaps that was the trouble--no one really took a good look at Ronald. Except for his devoted mother, who saw only the son she wanted to see. Who, then, is Ronald? Ronald is that faceless unknown who waits - to take, to grab what he needs, to become the ultimate invader.

Lupe


Gene Thompson - 1977
    In San Francisco, Emily Blake and her husband David, a dermatologist, by an old Victorian in Pacific Heights and hope to start a family. Emily's happy plans are threatened when David begins an affair with a beautiful patient named Jennie. A visit to a mysterious young boy in the Mission District named Lupe starts a chain of events in motion that result in Jennie's death -- by spontaneous combustion -- a murder trial, a media circus, and demon possession.

The Color of Evil


David G. HartwellFritz Leiber - 1987
    In addition to nineteen superb stories of dark fantasy and horror, The Color of Evil includes a long, insightful introduction, which delineates the evolution of horror fiction, and, for each writer, notes which say something about the literature and the author's place in it.

Nightshade & Damnations


Gerald Kersh - 1968
    J. Gahagan] · ss Courier Spr ’38 77 · The Ape and the Mystery [“The Mysterious Mona Lisa Smile”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jun 26 ’48 89 · The King Who Collected Clocks [“Royal Impostor”] · nv The Saturday Evening Post May 3 ’47 117 · Bone for Debunkers [“The Karmesin Affair”; Karmesin] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Dec 15 ’62 133 · A Lucky Day for the Boar · ss Playboy Oct ’62 143 · Voices in the Dust of Annan · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 13 ’47 161 · Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo? · nv The Brighton Monster, London: Heinemann, 1953; Star Science Fiction Stories #3, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1954

House of Blood


Bryan Smith - 2004
    They were tired and tense, two guys and three girls arguing over a vacation gone bad. But things were about to get worse for the five young friends. Much, much worse. In fact, most of them would never see the highway again. — The woods were dark and forbidding, filled with unseen dangers and inhuman sounds. The light in the distance promised sanctuary from the grasping terrors. Instead, the light lured the travelers to the very heart of evil, a house at the entrance of Hell, a house that held only torture, depravity and--for the lucky ones--death.When the front door closes, the screaming begins!

The Ninth Configuration


William Peter Blatty - 1966
    A Marine Corps psychiatrist with a crisis of faith encourages his patients to enact their fantasies as part of their therapy. However, he proves himself to be more deeply disturbed than at first appears and finally sacrifices himself to save one of his patients.

Flesh Gothic


Edward Lee - 2004
    On a moonlight night in early spring, twenty-seven people entered the mansion's labyrinthine halls, to partake in an orgy of diabolical debauchery, the likes of which beggared description. And one by one, twenty-six of them were butchered in place. The twenty-seventh body was never recovered. House of Sin The screams have faded, and the blood has dried but the spectral house remains...waiting. House of Hell Welcome to the mansion made in Hell Flesh Gothic Where the temple of evil is your own body...

Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense


Sarah Weinman - 2013
    Few know these characters—and their creators—better than Sarah Weinman. One of today’s preeminent authorities on crime fiction, Weinman asks: Where would bestselling authors like Gillian Flynn, Sue Grafton, or Tana French be without the women writers who came before them? In Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, Weinman brings together fourteen hair-raising tales by women who—from the 1940s through the mid-1970s—took a scalpel to contemporary society and sliced away to reveal its dark essence. Lovers of crime fiction from any era will welcome this deliciously dark tribute to a largely forgotten generation of women writers.

Dark Shadows


Marilyn Ross - 1966
    For some curious reason she feels the secret of her past may be uncovered in the bleak manor high on Widow's Hill.From the moment she arrives, Victoria becomes the target of someone in the house determined to destroy her.As the wind moans and the rain lashes around the isolated Collins House, Victoria, without friends in the manor, feels death close in on her, a choking, frightening death.

The Gift Shop


Charlotte Armstrong - 1966
    But when a fatally wounded private eye staggers off a plane, gasps out a message, and collapses in front of the souvenirs, pretty Jean Cunliffe finds herself at the heart of a dangerous plot beyond anything she ever imagined.At the side of a mysterious playboy millionaire who has asked for her help, Jean is pitched into an international chase as they try to stay one step ahead of the killers. She’s within a hairsbreadth of unraveling the mystery—if only she can do it without giving away the secret to her enemies!

Stone Cold Bastards


Jake Bible - 2017
    They guard the last cathedral-turned-sanctuary atop a bald knoll in the North Carolina mountains.Gargoyle protection grudgingly extends to any human who can make it inside the Sanctuary, but the power of the stonecutter blood magic, which protects the sanctuary, may not be enough when a rogue grotesque and his badly-wounded ward arrive.All the hounds of hell are on their heels. The last Sanctuary is about to fall.

The Translated Man and Other Stories


Chris Braak - 2009
    Only a drug-addicted detective and a young man with a gift for mathematics have the means to solve an enigmatic murder--a murder that may be the key to saving Trowth from certain destruction.A new edition of this book is available! Sure, it's a dollar more, but it also includes three short stories--check out The Translated Man and Other Stories.

Worms


James M. Montague - 1979
    But when the rain came, the creatures left the shadows...WORMSSpectres from the past tortured James Hildebrand's mind. His blackest nightmares were crowded with malevolent, coiling images of decay. Then, suddenly, he knew the threat was real.WORMSThe dead alone could not quench their hunger. And, for the living, the horrors that fed and multiplied in the darkness of the night became more terrible with the dawn...