Book picks similar to
She Loves Me Not by Matt Shaw
horror
obsession-not-love
short-stories
dark-reads
Baby Teeth
Zoje Stage - 2018
He’s the only person who understands her, and all Hanna wants is to live happily ever after with him. But Mommy stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good.Meet Suzette.She loves her daughter, really, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. As Hanna’s tricks become increasingly sophisticated, and Suzette's husband remains blind to the failing family dynamics, Suzette starts to fear that there’s something seriously wrong, and that maybe home isn’t the best place for their baby girl after all.
Sharp Objects
Gillian Flynn - 2006
For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.Librarian's Note: this is an alternate cover edition - ISBN 10: 0307341550 (ISBN 13: 9780307341556)
Mindgame
Anthony Horowitz - 2001
A thriller that actually manages to thrill, and a very dark comedy that twists and spirals towards a completely unexpected ending. This is one play where seeing isn't quite believing and reading the text is the only way to uncover all the clues.
Never Far
A.A. Dark - 2017
Even amnesia couldn’t erase the fact that deep inside, there was a darkness I couldn’t deny. Flashes of strangers—of blood and torture—heightened a mystery impossible to unravel. The man I called my best friend landed an axe in my head trying to save himself. He says I’m a murderer. He may be right. Until memories return, I don't care. There's only one person familiar to me. His sister, Lucy. She's the only thing that matters now. Where I once kept myself at a distance, this new world I've awoken to revolves solely around her. Lucy is mine. She’s always been mine. No one is standing in the way of that. It is believed, the loss of one’s memory can be a fresh start. What they don’t tell you is not all beginnings are derived from good things. *****WARNING***** This book contains EXTREMELY disturbing situations, explicit sexual content, and very graphic language. This book EXCEEDS the dark genre and has been classified as PITCH BLACK. May contain triggers for some. Read at your own risk!!
Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three
Clive Barker - 1984
For those who already know these tales, the poignant introduction is a window on the creator's mind. Reflecting back after 14 years, Barker writes: I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present. Reading these stories over, I feel a little of both. Some of the simple energies that made these words flow through my pen--that made the phrases felicitous and the ideas sing--have gone. I lost their maker a long time ago. These enthusiastic tales are not ashamed of visceral horror, of blood splashing freely across the page: "The Midnight Meat Train," a grisly subway tale that surprises you with one twist after another; "The Yattering and Jack," about a hilarious demon who possesses a Christmas turkey; "In the Hills, the Cities," an unusual example of an original horror premise; "Dread," a harrowing non-supernatural tale about being forced to realize your worst nightmare; "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament," about a woman who kills men with her mind. Some of the tales are more successful than others, but all are distinguished by strikingly beautiful images of evil and destruction. No horror library is complete without them. --Fiona Webster
Penpal
Dathan Auerbach - 2012
Before long, it was adapted into illustrations, audio recordings, and short films; and that was before it was revised and expanded into a novel!How much do you remember about your childhood?In Penpal, a man investigates the seemingly unrelated bizarre, tragic, and horrific occurrences of his childhood in an attempt to finally understand them. Beginning with only fragments of his earliest years, you'll follow the narrator as he discovers that these strange and horrible events are actually part of a single terrifying story that has shaped the entirety of his life and the lives of those around him. If you've ever stayed in the woods just a little too long after dark, if you've ever had the feeling that someone or something was trying to hurt you, if you remember the first friend you ever made and how strong that bond was, then Penpal is a story that you won't soon forget, despite how you might try.
The Woman in the Dark
Vanessa Savage - 2019
But after her mother's death, Sarah spirals into depression and overdoses on sleeping pills. While Sarah claims it was an accident, her teenage children aren't so sure. Patrick decides they all need a fresh start and he knows just the place, since the idyllic family home where he was raised has recently come up for sale. There's only one catch: for the past fifteen years, it has become infamous as the "Murder House", standing empty after a family was stabbed to death within its walls.Patrick believes they can bring the house back to its former glory, so Sarah, uprooted from everything she knows, pours her energy into painting, gardening, and giving the rotting old structure the warmth of home. But with locals hinting that the house is haunted, the news that the murderer has been paroled, strange writing on the walls, and creepy "gifts" arriving on the doorstep at odd hours, Sarah can't shake the feeling that something just isn't right. Not with the house, not with the town, or even with her own, loving husband--whose stories about his perfect childhood suddenly aren't adding up. Can Sarah uncover the secrets of the Murder House before another family is destroyed?
Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales
H.P. Lovecraft - 2008
P. Lovecraft's astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmology that are as powerful today as they were when first published. This tome presents original versions of many of his most harrowing stories, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, in order of publication.
The Darkest Corners
Kara Thomas - 2016
Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.
The Lost
Natasha Preston - 2019
But when one of Piper and Hazel's classmates disappears, they become determined to find out the truth of what happened to her.While investigating, they meet three handsome and rich grad students...who kidnap them. The girls are taken to a building in the middle of a privately-owned forest. The building isn't just designed to keep them locked away—every room is a test in survival. And Piper and Hazel won't give up without a fight.
The End of Alice
A.M. Homes - 1996
Here is the incredible story of an imprisoned pedophile who is drawn into an erotically charged correspondence with a nineteen-year-old suburban coed. As the two reveal—and revel in—their obsessive desires, Homes creates in The End of Alice a novel that is part romance, part horror story, at once unnerving and seductive.
Pretty Girl-13
Liz Coley - 2013
Angie has no memory of the past three years, years in which she was lost to the authorities, lost to her family and friends, lost even to herself. Where has she been, who has been living her life, and what is hiding behind the terrible blankness? There are secrets you can’t even tell yourself.With a tremendous amount of courage and support from unexpected friends, Angie embarks on a journey into the darkest corners of her mind. As she unearths more and more about her past, she discovers a terrifying secret and must decide: when you remember things you wish you could forget, do you destroy the people responsible, or is there another way to feel whole again?Liz Coley’s alarming and fascinating psychological mystery is a disturbing—and ultimately empowering—page turner about accepting our whole selves, and the healing power of courage, hope, and love.
Ultimate Thriller Box Set
Lee Goldberg - 2012
Konrath, Blake Crouch, J. Carson Black, Lee Goldberg, and Scott Nicholson—were asked to choose their favorite novel to include in a groundbreaking box set, which is bursting with chills, thrills, laughs, scares, and hours of page-turning, thrill-a-minute reading pleasure.If thrillers are your passion, this is a must-have for your Kindle Library.CONTENTS:Origin by J.A. KonrathDesert Places by Blake CrouchDarkness on the Edge of Town by J. Carson BlackWatch Me Die by Lee GoldbergDisintegration by Scott NicholsonTogether, these novels have accrued over 250 5-star reviews and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. We hope you enjoy!
Beside Myself
Ann Morgan - 2016
At first it is just a game, but then Ellie refuses to swap back. Forced into her new identity, Helen develops a host of behavioural problems, delinquency and chronic instability. With their lives diverging sharply, one twin headed for stardom and the other locked in a spiral of addiction and mental illness, how will the deception ever be uncovered? Exploring questions of identity, selfhood, and how other people's expectations affect human behaviour, this novel is as gripping as it is psychologically complex.