Book picks similar to
Forest Underground by Lydian Faust
horror
unique
off-the-wishlist
novella
None Shall Sleep
Ellie Marney - 2020
From the start, Emma and Travis develop a quick friendship, gaining information from juvenile murderers that even the FBI can't crack. But when the team is called in to give advice on an active case—a serial killer who exclusively hunts teenagers—things begin to unravel. Working against the clock, they must turn to one of the country's most notorious incarcerated murderers for help: teenage sociopath Simon Gutmunsson. Despite Travis's objections, Emma becomes the conduit between Simon and the FBI team. But while Simon seems to be giving them the information they need to save lives, he's an expert manipulator playing a very long game...and he has his sights set on Emma.
Skin
Ted Dekker - 2006
Secrets that will destroy far more than one small town.Wendy Davidson is caught in the middle. She's a recovering cult survivor who takes refuge in Summerville on her way to visit her estranged mother. And with her, four strangers, any of whom could be the next victim . . . or the killer.
We'll Never Be Apart
Emiko Jean - 2015
Fire. Revenge. That’s all seventeen-year-old Alice Monroe thinks about. Committed to a mental ward at Savage Isle, Alice is haunted by memories of the fire that killed her boyfriend, Jason. A blaze her twin sister Cellie set. But when Chase, a mysterious, charismatic patient, agrees to help her seek vengeance, Alice begins to rethink everything. Writing out the story of her troubled past in a journal, she must confront hidden truths.Is the one person she trusts only telling her half the story? Nothing is as it seems in this edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller from the debut author Emiko Jean.
The Pilot
Michael R. Cole - 2019
But upon arrival, they discover ravaged military equipment, a mass grave, and a platoon of hostile forces already in retreat. As the team investigates, they uncover the secret that the island has contained for centuries. For the first time, modern man will come face-to-face with a being from beyond the stars. A member of a deadly intergalactic invasive species, the beast is ravenous, cunning, lacking emotion or empathy. With his team dwindling, Seymour must fight to keep the beast from leaving the island, and to save humanity from the terrifying extraterrestrial known as The Pilot.
Dirty Heads: A novella of cosmic coming-of-age horror
Aaron Dries - 2021
Marked. Don’t think about the kid you used to be when you’re homeless and dumpster-diving in the rain. Just eat whatever you find to keep your engine full. Because the shadow with too many teeth wants you tired.You’re easier to catch when you’re tired.It has hunted you since the summer of 1994, back when we confessed who we were through mixtapes. When every movie at the video store had dirty heads. You were thirteen and thought you knew who you were. Only the shadow with too many teeth knew you better. It still does. And it won’t stop. Not until you come home.Back to where it all began.Part cosmic horror, part coming-of-age monster story, DIRTY HEADS is a terrifying read from the author of HOUSE OF SIGHS, THE FALLEN BOYS, and A PLACE FOR SINNERS
The Willows
Algernon Blackwood - 1907
Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment—river, sun, wind—and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character. Most ominous are the masses of dense, desultory, menacing willows, which "moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible.""The Willows" is one of Algernon Blackwood's best known short stories. American horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. "The Willows" is an example of early modern horror and is connected within the literary tradition of weird fiction.
Widow's Point
Richard Chizmar - 2018
I don't think people are meant to live here.”Longtime residents of Harper's Cove believe that something is wrong with the Widow's Point Lighthouse. Some say it's cursed. Others claim it's haunted.Originally built in 1838, three workers were killed during the lighthouse's construction, including one who mysteriously plunged to his death from the catwalk. That tragic accident was never explained, and it was just the beginning of the terror. In the decades that followed, nearly two dozen additional deaths occurred in or around the lighthouse including cold-blooded murder, suicide, unexplained accidents and disappearances, the slaughter of an entire family, and the inexplicable death of a Hollywood starlet who was filming a movie on the grounds.The lighthouse was finally shuttered tight in 1988 and a security fence was erected around the property. No one has been inside since.Until tonight.Thomas Livingston is the acclaimed author of thirteen books about the supernatural and this evening he will enter the Widow's Point Lighthouse, searching for material for his next bestseller. He will be locked inside for the weekend with no way of contacting the outside world. And although no human has stepped foot inside the structure in nearly three decades, Livingston will not be alone.In this remarkable collaboration, father and son writing team, Richard and Billy Chizmar, combine forces to tell a chilling ghost story that will make you think twice about what is waiting for you in the dark. This novella is a much-expanded version of the short story of the same title.
A Five-Minute Life
Emma Scott - 2019
She now has only minutes of experiences, of consciousness, of life…before her memory is wiped clean. The once effervescent artist with a promising future is reduced to scribbling with pens and paper, living an empty, quiet life, three hundred seconds at a time.Jim Whelan is on autopilot.A foster kid shuffled around the system since birth, he’s lived his entire life without knowing love…and it’s taken its toll—until he learned to fight back, carry his armor, and keep his head down.Working as an orderly in the Blue Ridge Sanitarium, deep in Virginia countryside, Jim looked up…and found Thea.When Thea has the chance to break free of her five-minute prison with a risky, experimental surgery, it could lead them both to an epic love they never thought possible… or one that could require the ultimate sacrifice.***50 First Dates meets Awakenings in this emotional love story by international and best selling author, Emma Scott. "It's one of the best books I've ever read."--T.M. Frazier, USA Today Bestselling author of King#standalone #newadultromance #notparanormalContent warnining for sexual assault.
The Reaper's Game
Layton Green - 2016
. . or the final ruse of a twisted serial killer?Three years ago, a deranged murderer dubbed the Halloween Killer butchered half a dozen people in New Orleans. He was caught and sentenced to die. Just before his execution, the Halloween Killer vowed to take revenge on the district attorney who put him behind bars.Less than a week after the lethal injection, Sebastian Gichaud, a wealthy playboy grieving over the death of his mother, threw on a black cloak and hacked the prosecutor to death with a giant scythe. Not only did Sebastian appear to be fulfilling the serial killer’s last wish -- he claimed that he was the Halloween Killer.Now, as the anniversary of the grisly murder approaches, Sebastian is facing trial. No one will touch the case. In a desperate attempt to save his son, Sebastian’s father hires Viktor Radek, professor of religious phenomenology, to investigate.If Sebastian is guilty, Viktor wonders, then why are he and his associate Dominic Grey being warned off the case? And why did the Halloween Killer visit a series of reincarnation experts before his death?None of Professor Radek’s doubts might matter, because he and Grey face the impossible task of convincing an Orleans Parish jury that Sebastian Gichaud is either a prisoner in his own mind – or possessed by the spirit of the Halloween Killer.(Note to fans of the Dominic Grey series: The Reaper’s Game is a standalone novella that takes place earlier in time than The Shadow Cartel.)
Dreaming Darkly
Caitlin Kittredge - 2019
But she isn’t. Myra Bloodgood was confusing mix of protective and abusive, a manipulative personality who never told the truth—about where she came from, who Ivy’s father was, or why they were living their lives on the run.Now that Ivy has been sent to Darkhaven, an island off the New England coast, to live with a rich uncle she didn’t know existed, she is forced to reckon with her mother’s past. Ivy can tell right away there are long-held family secrets buried within these walls, but when she wakes up from one of her nightmares covered in someone else’s blood, Ivy fears that whatever demons her mother battled while she was alive have come to roost in her own mind. Scared that she can no longer trust what she sees, Ivy seeks the help of a boy who thinks her episodes are connected to the sordid history of Darkhaven—but what they don’t know might kill them both.A moody and twisty gothic mystery with an impossible romance, Dreaming Darkly is an atmospheric, fast-paced page-turner written by comics veteran Caitlin Kittredge.
Slithers
W.W. Mortensen - 2017
On a remote country road, heading out to a weekend party, Tobe West and his friends pick up two hitchhikers. It seems like the right thing to do. No-one could have predicted the freak car accident that is about to change their lives. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, Tobe and the others are faced with a landscape suddenly unfamiliar, in a universe that has come loose from its moorings. Strange things slither in the woods, and spectral lights hover just off the road. A petrol station, shining brightly in a world otherwise dark and frightening, promises safe haven, but Tobe learns the biggest threat lies within the very people he’s trying to protect. As reality breaks down and dangers multiply, Tobe must uncover the hidden agenda of one of the survivors... and keep the others safe from something lurking in the darkness. Something that is hunting them all. If they are to survive the night, Tobe must face the horrifying truth—that nothing is as it seems, and that they are all part of a larger plan, part of someone else's unfinished business...
Sweet Damage
Rebecca James - 2013
In my dreams it's as if the house itself has sinister intentions. But in real life it wasn't the house that was responsible for what happened. It was the people who did the damage ...' When Tim Ellison finds a cheap room to rent in the perfect location in Sydney it looks like a huge stroke of luck. In fact the room comes with a condition, and the owner of the house, the mysterious Anna London, is unfriendly and withdrawn. When strange and terrifying things start happening in the house at night, Tim wonders if taking the room is a mistake. But then his feelings for Anna start to change, and when her past comes back with a vengeance, Tim is caught right in the middle of it.A thrilling rollercoaster of a story - read it with the lights on!
The Murmurings
Carly Anne West - 2013
After all, she heard strange voices that drove her to commit suicide. But Sophie doesn’t believe that Nell would take her own life, and she’s convinced that Nell’s doctor knows more than he’s letting on.As Sophie starts to piece together Nell’s last days, every lead ends in a web of lies. And the deeper Sophie digs, the more danger she’s in—because now she’s hearing the same haunting whispers. Sophie’s starting to think she’s going crazy too. Or worse, that maybe she’s not….
All Hallows' Eve
Vivian Vande Velde - 2006
A girl is dragged into a crypt during a field trip to an eighteenth-century cemetery. A group of friends meet their fate after an unsettling visit with a backwoods psychic. And that's just the beginning. Celebrated author Vivian Vande Velde is at her spine-tingling best in this collection of thirteen scary stories, all of which take place on Halloween night. With tales that range from the disturbing to the downright gruesome, this is one collection that teens will want to read with the lights on . . . and the doors locked.
Of Monsters and Madness
Jessica Verday - 2014
She is torn romantically between her father's assistants-one kind and proper, one mysterious and brooding-who share a dark secret and may have more to do with the violent events than they're letting on.