Book picks similar to
The Lady in Blue: A Grunge Gods and Graveyards Mystery by Kimberly G. Giarratano
young-adult
historical-fiction
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paranormal
Amber House
Kelly Moore - 2012
She's never walked its hedge maze nor found its secret chambers; she's never glimpsed the shades that haunt it, nor hunted for lost diamonds in its walls. But all of that is about to change. After her grandmother passes away, Sarah and her friend Jackson decide to search for the diamonds--and the house comes alive. She discovers that she can see visions of the house's past, like the eighteenth-century sea captain who hid the jewels, or the glamorous great-grandmother driven mad by grief. She grows closer to both Jackson and a young man named Richard Hathaway, whose family histories are each deeply entwined with her own. But when the visions start to threaten the person she holds most dear, Sarah must do everything she can to get to the bottom of the house's secrets, and stop the course of history before it is cemented forever.
Buried Secrets
Emme Rollins - 2010
But Nick is dead, found murdered in their local cemetery, and Dusty simply can’t rest until she finds out who–or what–has killed her brother.Sure the local authorities aren’t being straight with her–or anyone else–about what’s been going on in their little upper Michigan town, Dusty delays going off to college for a semester, defying her father and stepmother and taking a job in the local bar to start doing some digging.Her focus soon fixes on Shane, her brother’s best friend and the town bad boy. The tension and rivalry between Dusty and Shane has always been palpable and sparks fly as the two collide. Dusty finds herself sinking in deeper with Shane and the mystery of what happened to her brother–and a lengthening list of victims–grows even stranger.When everything comes to a head, Dusty focuses on one thing: What happened the night her brother was killed in the cemetery? She’s sure Shane is keeping a secret and she’s determined to find out what it is, one way or another.
Untraceable
Shelli R. Johannes - 2011
When her dad goes missing on a routine patrol, Grace refuses to believe he’s dead and fights the town authorities, tribal officials, and nature to find him.One day, while out tracking clues, Grace is rescued from danger by Mo, a hot guy with an intoxicating accent and a secret. As her feelings between him and her ex-boyfriend get muddled, Grace travels deep into the wilderness to escape and find her father. Along the way, Grace learns terrible secrets that sever relationships and lives. Soon she’s enmeshed in a web of conspiracy, deception, and murder. And it’s going to take a lot more than a compass and a motorcycle (named Lucifer) for this kick-butting heroine to save everything she loves.
Undertow
K.R. Conway - 2013
And yeah, her new town isn't perfect: the cheerleaders are heinous clones, the local rip current can kill you, and apparently her Great Grams was fried by lightning in the harbor square. Still, Eila is hopeful her luckless days are in the past.When Raef O’Reilly becomes her friendly shadow, Eila thinks life is pretty darn perfect. But just as her new hometown starts to feel normal, a beach bonfire party turns into a nightmare when she’s hauled beneath the waves by an undertow WITH ARMS. Raef, no longer able to hide the truth from Eila, must come clean: she’s possibly the last of her kind, a supernatural assassin who should be able to wield the power of human souls as a weapon, just like her murdered Great Grams. Soon Eila finds herself under the protection of Raef and an outrageous crew of allies. Unfortunately, she’s now the hottest Must Have on the supernatural black market, and the teenage gang that is trying to guard her is woefully lacking . . .
The Sleepwalkers
J. Gabriel Gates - 2011
Privileged and popular Caleb Mason is celebrating his high school graduation when he receives a mysterious, disturbing letter from his long-lost childhood playmate, Christine. Caleb and his jokester friend Bean decide to travel to his tiny hometown of Hudsonville, Florida, to find her. Upon arrival, they discover the town has taken a horrifying turn for the worse. Caleb's childhood home is abandoned and his father has disappeared. Children are going missing. The old insane asylum has reopened, and Christine is locked inside. Her mother, a witch, is consumed with madness, and Christine's long-dead twin sister whispers clues to Caleb through the static of an a.m. radio. The terrifying prophesies of the spirits are coming to pass. Sixteen clocks are ticking; sixty-six murdered souls will bring about the end of the world. As Caleb peels back layer after layer of mystery, he uncovers a truth more horrible than anything he had imagined, a truth that could only be uttered by the lips of the dead.
Oxford Whispers
Marion Croslydon - 2012
Her fresh start at Oxford University is a brand new beginning. She finally has a chance to turn the page on her psychic powers and cumbersome voodoo heritage. Snakes, dolls, ghosts, and spirits: Farewell…Not quite.When the tragic lovers in a painting—the subject of her first history class—begin to haunt her, she must accept her gift before life imitates art. The lovers warn her against their own nemesis, a Puritan from the English Civil War. Unfortunately, said nemesis is now going all homicidal on Madison. College becomes more complicated when she falls hard for Rupert Vance, a troubled aristocrat and descendant of one of the characters in the painting. With the spirit of a murderer after her, Madison realizes that her own first love may also be doomed…
Girl Through Glass
Sari Wilson - 2016
Enduring the mess of her parent’s divorce, she finds escape in dance—the rigorous hours of practice, the exquisite beauty, the precision of movement, the obsessive perfectionism. Ballet offers her control, power, and the promise of glory. It also introduces her to forty-seven-year-old Maurice DuPont, a reclusive, charismatic balletomane who becomes her mentor.Over the course of three years, Mira is accepted into the prestigious School of American Ballet run by the legendary George Balanchine, and eventually becomes one of “Mr. B’s girls”—a dancer of rare talent chosen for greatness. As she ascends higher in the ballet world, her relationship with Maurice intensifies, touching dark places within herself and sparking unexpected desires that will upend both their lives.In the present day, Kate, a professor of dance at a Midwestern college, embarks on a risky affair with a student that threatens to obliterate her career and capsizes the new life she has painstakingly created for her reinvented self. When she receives a letter from a man she’s long thought dead, Kate is hurled back into the dramas of a past she thought she had left behind.Told in interweaving narratives that move between past and present, Girl Through Glass illuminates the costs of ambition, secrets, and the desire for beauty, and reveals how the sacrifices we make for an ideal can destroy—or save—us.
The Wicked Deep
Shea Ernshaw - 2018
Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town.Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under.Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into.Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.
The Fall
Bethany Griffin - 2014
Until she woke up in a coffin.Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline’s life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house.In the end, can Madeline keep her own sanity and bring the house down? The Fall is a literary psychological thriller, reimagining Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher.
Veiled Eyes
C.L. Bevill - 2010
Thais. The trees sit on a black lake that resembles a dark Louisiana bayou with an evocative aura. The dream includes the presence of a man who seems to know Anna all too well and a group of people with strange telepathic powers, sometimes called veiled eyes. An orphan from Texas, she is on her way east to help out a friend when she encounters two terrifying things. Psychically, she begins to see and hear things through the eyes of an unknown individual, a man who knows more about her than she ever would have imagined. The second thing is that she has been kidnapped by a sociopathic trucker intent on making her his latest victim. When she is rescued by Gabriel Bergeron, a member of the elusive Lake People in Northwestern Louisiana, Anna doesn’t realize that he is her psychic counterpart and she has been inexplicably pulled to the area. She shares their strange colored gold eyes and their distinctive mental powers. They are a reclusive lot and know that Anna is one of them, but has been isolated by unknown circumstances. She is drawn into their incomparable world, something between that of the Creoles and Cajuns, and much in addition to those. There Anna finds a romantic link with Gabriel and the spine-tingling fear of not knowing who to trust. Her return has disturbed the inner workings of the group and threatens to expose secrets long concealed in the murky Louisiana bayous. There are secrets to be divulged about her past and why she was spirited away as an infant. Anna isn’t safe until she discovers the answers she so desperately requires.
Ghost Hand
Ripley Patton - 2012
Instead of a right hand made of flesh and blood, she was born with a hand made of ethereal energy.How does Olivia handle being the girl with the ghost hand? Well, she's a little bit morbid and a whole lot snarky. Her mother thinks her obsession with death, black clothing, and the local cemetery is a bid for attention. But when Marcus, the new guy in Olivia's calculus class, stares at her like she's a freak, Olivia doesn't like it. And when her hand goes rogue, doing things she never imagined possible, Olivia finds herself running for her life with Marcus from a group of men bent on taking the power of her hand for their own nefarious purposes.NEWLY DESIGNED COVER FOR 2015
Sparrow Hill Road
Seanan McGuire - 2014
Trouble was, he didn’t ask Rose what she thought of the idea.It’s been more than sixty years since that night, and she’s still sixteen, and she’s still running.They have names for her all over the country: the Girl in the Diner. The Phantom Prom Date. The Girl in the Green Silk Gown. Mostly she just goes by “Rose,” a hitchhiking ghost girl with her thumb out and her eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to outrace a man who never sleeps, never stops, and never gives up on the idea of claiming what’s his. She’s the angel of the overpass, she’s the darling of the truck stops, and she’s going to figure out a way to win her freedom. After all, it’s not like it can kill her.You can’t kill what’s already dead.
Thirteen for Dinner
Denise Daisy - 2013
But it’s Averie who needs rescuing when all hell begins to break loose. Averie Cooke has never set foot on the old Faulkner plantation. The macabre history surrounding it is what keeps her away; not to mention everyone says the place is haunted. A hundred and fifty years ago Lunar Wilson was hung there. His lifeless body dangled in the breeze along with the gray Spanish moss. Later that same night, the petite southern belle, Emily Faulkner wrapped a thick rope around her delicate neck and joined her lover in the afterlife. Legend says all hell broke loose after that. Unaware that their only daughter was hanging dead up in the cupola, Emily’s parents continued on with their festivities, gorging themselves on prime rib, and guzzling expensive wine. They were pretty drunk by the time the Wilson boys burst inside the house slinging their hatchets, vindicating their brother’s murder. They decapitated James Faulkner, his socialite wife, Elizabeth and dismembered all eleven dinner guest. The massacre was the bloodiest ever recorded. So why does Averie agree to attend a dinner party in the same mansion where the massacre took place? She needs the money that’s why. But, she gets much more than a paycheck when she and another mysterious guest transports back to the year 1859, exactly one month before the gruesome event. Things go from bad to worse when she discovers the only way back home is to stop the murders. But can she put her fears aside long enough to change the past and find life in the place she fears the most?Thirteen for Dinner is a page turning thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat one minute, laughing out loud the next, and crying while you contemplate the meaning of life. Dealing with issues such as racism, slavery, hatred, and fear you’ll discover the only weapon that has the power to damage them all is love.
Insight
Jamie Magee - 2010
That night, the figure in her nightmare marked her wrist with a star, giving her father no choice but to tell Willow a family secret that would abruptly change life, as she knew it, forever. Before Willow had time to absorb the shock of her father's secret, her soul mate that had shared every stunning dream with her, found her, and darkness captured her closest friends. In order to save them, she must weave through broken myths and the undeniable power of the Zodiac. In the end, Willow discovers that at the moment of our birth we are all given a divine gift.Special note to the reader:The Insight series is part of the “Web of Hearts and Souls Universe,” where several series combine into one large story. All series can be read independently or as one. The reading order for the Insight Series:• Insight• Embody• Image• Vital• Vindicate• Enflame• Imperial (Story of the Sovereigns)• Blakeshire (Drake’s Story)• Emanate Reading Order for the Complete Web of Hearts Universe • Insight• Embody• Image• See• Witness• Vital• Vindicate• Synergy• Enflame• Redefined• Rivulet• Imperial• Blakeshire• Derive• Emanate• Exaltation*• *If you are a fan of Adult Paranormal Edge can be read with the Web of Hearts, before or after Exaltation—the stories share the same characters.
The Letter
Marianne Spitzer - 2012
What could she have in common with the town’s richest man? Curiosity draws her to the will reading where she learns she has inherited a vast sum. The conditions of her inheritance require she change her name and reside in the Malone mansion. Long considered haunted by the residents of Malone Springs, Kellie, her fiancé and four friends move in ignoring the rumors. Strange and frightening events begin to plague Kellie before she moves and grow more frightening once she and her friends settle in. Adopted at birth, her adoptive parents killed in an auto accident leave Kellie to investigate her ancestors on her own. What she discovers leads her into more danger and mystery as she learns the true nature of her biological grandfather. Could his evil deeds hurt her from beyond the grave? Who’s responsible for the strange occurrences? What happened to her biological parents? As one solved mystery leads Kellie into another, she and her friends try to solve them all before tragedy strikes.