Book picks similar to
Cliche: Episode One by Jeff Menapace
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horror
mystery
You saw something you shouldn't have
Brandon Faircloth - 2018
To be entertained. Then you find yourself in a school where a group of friends have brought something terrible to life. You meet a family whose extraordinary luck comes at a horrific price. You write a letter to yourself and get a reply that leads to death and madness. As you journey through these shrouded lands, you look back and can't make out where you started. Because once you're traveling through the darkness, the only way out is through. Read the collection of novellas and short stories that is being called "genius", "amazing", and "scary AF". But be prepared. You won't be the same when you come out the other side.
Voices in My Head
Mike Evans - 2016
What if the devil on your shoulder could actually come out and play? Voices in my Head is just that. Meet Mikey, the sweetest five-year-old you've ever met, and his psychotic dark side Michael. When his mother changes his life forever Michael comes out to play.
Trance
Adam Southward - 2019
He is in control. This is his revenge—and he’s only just begun.Three university scientists are found dead in a gruesome murder-suicide, and the only suspect in the case, Victor Lazar, is quickly captured. When the spate of violent suicides follows him to prison he is moved to solitary confinement, reserved for the highest-risk inmates. And then his assigned psychologist inexplicably takes his own life.Alex Madison, a former forensic psychologist turned private therapist, is brought in to interview Victor. He suspects that Victor is controlling his victims, somehow coaxing them into a suggestive trance. It seems like science fiction, but as Alex digs deeper he uncovers a frightening reality of secret research and cruel experimentation—and the perpetrators are closer to home than he could ever have imagined.Too late, Alex learns the true extent of what Victor is capable of—and who he’s after. With everything he holds dear at risk, can Alex take control of a dangerous mind—before it takes control of him?
The Heart Ladder
Sibby Spencer - 2021
Leaving behind everything she knew, including the mystery of what happened to the father of her unborn child after he went missing behind enemy lines. Three decades on and her son, thirty-something slacker Dan, knows he's wasting his life in pubs, nightclubs, and his dead-end job. That all changes, though, when a man with storied eyes and an old army jacket introduces himself as the father Dan never had a chance to know.But is Jacob, a battered and broken war veteran, really who he claims to be?As he and Dan kindle their relationship, more and more comes under question; including Jacob's true purpose in seeking Dan out, the unanswered mysteries of his past, and the pivotal role he'll play in Dan's uncertain future. Soon, Dan comes to understand that his life is very far from meaningless - and that the choices he's being forced to make might have deadly and irredeemable consequences.
The StoneCutter
Scott Blade - 2013
He is aserial killer that only kills bad guys--his own clients. Shanehas spent his life hunting one very bad killer called the StoneCutter. The StoneCutter buries his victims alive and leaves them for dead. One year ago, he was captured and charged with murder. Shane defended him and got him acquitted.Then he killed the StoneCutter. Or so he thought, because his murders have started over again. Now, Shane must find this cold, sadistic killer before it'stoo late.
Hanover House
Brenda Novak - 2015
Why do psychopaths act as they do? How do they come to be? Why don’t they feel any remorse for the suffering they cause? And are there better ways of spotting and stopping them?After having been kidnapped, tortured and left for dead when she was just a teenager—by her high school boyfriend—she’s determined to understand how someone she trusted so much could turn on her. So she’s established a revolutionary new medical health center in the remote town of Hilltop, Alaska, where she studies the worst of the worst.But not everyone in Hilltop is excited to have Hanover House and its many serial killers in the area. Alaskan State Trooper, Sergeant Amarok, is one of them. And yet he can’t help feeling bad about what Evelyn has been through. He’s even attracted to her. Which is partly why he worries.He knows what could happen if only one little thing goes wrong...
Panic Pond
Cole Baxter - 2021
The problem is that some of those secrets are very, very dirty...Detective Amber Smith of Liar’s Island PD knows uncovering the resident’s dirty secrets and ensuring those behind them see justice isn’t easy. The insular, secretive inhabitants of the island don’t like spilling what they know. Lucky for Amber, she’s a master of disguise.Her latest undercover job: a night attendant at Kelley’s Gas Station, where her eccentric friend Ray Kelley has suffered a break-in that has cost him several thousand dollars in theft and damages. While evidence points to an inside job, the locals are convinced that one of the island’s troublemakers—or former troublemakers—is to blame.Missing security recordings and a laundry list of suspects—from disgruntled employees, hellraising teens, and even Ray himself— weave a tangled, mysterious web for Amber to unravel.Despite the grand island tradition of constantly hiding or muddling the truth, Amber is intent on getting to the heart of this mystery without getting stuck in island dramatics. If she gets it wrong, an innocent person will have their life ruined. But if she gets it right, she may end up losing one of her best friends on the island.
Darkness Rising
Brian Moreland - 2015
When he drives out to the lake to tell an old friend that he's fallen in love with a girl named Jennifer, Marty encounters three sadistic killers who have some twisted games in store for him. But Marty has dark secrets of his own buried deep inside him. And tonight, when all the pain from the past is triggered, when those secrets are revealed, blood will flow and hell will rise.
A Tortured Soul
L.A. Detwiler - 2020
Detwiler comes a sinister horror with jaw-dropping twists.Everyone has a breaking point.At twenty, an unplanned pregnancy seals Crystal Holt into a marriage to the abusive Richard Connor. After a stillborn birth, Crystal insists they have the baby baptized postmortem. A cynic, a drunk, and a poor man, Richard has other plans. When her monstrous husband tosses the baby into the woods to be forgotten, Crystal instantly spirals. After beating her within an inch of her life, Richard does something else he's done before—he disappears. This time, however, things feel very different…With her husband gone, Crystal battles with the demons of abuse, dark childhood memories, and a declining mental state worsened by horrific nightmare sequences. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that something's not quite right about the way Richard disappeared this time, and Crystal is in more danger than ever. After all, not all of the dark secrets belong to Richard.Will Crystal be able to escape from a lifetime of torture unscathed, or will she succumb to the dark secrets she's fallen prey to before?A twisted page-turner that will shake even the toughest horror and thriller fans…
Followed
Mark Lukens - 2018
Phil thinks he loses their pursuer, but when they reach their remote home the pickup truck is right behind them again. Megan, Phil and Cathy's fourteen-year-old daughter, steps onto the front porch to see what's happening. Phil tells Megan to go back inside, and as he calls the police the truck turns around and leaves. The police arrive, but there isn't much they can do because Phil doesn't have the truck's license plate number or a description of the driver. The stalker knows where Phil, Cathy, and Megan live now, and over the next few days the terror escalates: Phil treats a mysterious patient with violent tendencies who issues a threatening warning; Phil is haunted by nightmares, and Cathy hears him murmuring strange things in his sleep; soon Cathy discovers clues that lead her to believe that Phil may know who their stalker is and why he has chosen them. Dark things are beginning to turn up from Phil's past . . . . . . and their stalker is just getting started.
Feed
Michael Bray - 2017
Sick of his life and plagued by alcoholism, he makes the decision to divorce his wife, sell everything he owns and travel the world to try and find focus and rid himself of his addiction. Eventually arriving on the sun drenched shores of Australia and still plagued by his demons, he has spent all his savings and is facing the prospect of having to return to his old life. It is here that he meets two men with an outlandish story about a horde of sunken drug money in an area known as the Devil’s Triangle – Australia’s answer to its Bermuda namesake and said to be the lair of a terrifying monster of the deep. Offered a share of the fortune if he helps retrieve it, Tyler agrees to go with the men to the location, sceptical and thinking only of prolonging his journey of self discovery. He will learn, however, that this particular urban legend is real, and they encounter a giant of the seas, the previously thought to be extinct Megalodon which makes its home within the area of the Devil’s triangle. Barely escaping with their lives, the three men wash up on an isolated island – no more than a rocky outcrop with no vegetation, fresh water of food sources. As desperation to survive intensifies, horrifying decisions will be made that will illustrate how man is sometimes the most violent predator on earth and when left with no option will do anything, even the unthinkable, in order to survive.
The Bone Keeper
Luca Veste - 2018
Your bones he'll keep. Twenty years ago, four teenagers went exploring in the local woods, trying to find to the supposed home of The Bone Keeper. Only three returned. Now, a woman is found wandering the streets of Liverpool, horrifically injured, claiming to have fled the Bone Keeper. Investigating officer DC Louise Henderson must convince skeptical colleagues that this urban myth might be flesh and blood. But when a body is unearthed in the woodland the woman has fled from, the case takes on a much darker tone. The disappeared have been found. And their killer is watching every move the police make.The brilliant new police procedural from Luca Veste, featuring series characters Murphy and Rossi - a guaranteed page-turner.
In The Blood
Lesley Welsh - 2018
But when a violent spree killing in the neighbourhood sees Grace come to the rescue, she is catapulted into the limelight as a local heroine. However, her fame spreads much further than the local town, bringing her to the attention of someone in Britain who is very keen to meet her. But what does this person want? And can they be trusted? As Grace travels to England to discover her true heritage, she is about to learn the real meaning of danger.Lesley Welsh is the author of The Serial Killer's Daughter and Truth Lies Buried. In The Blood is her final novel and is published posthumously by Bloodhound Books. Her books will appeal to fans of authors like K.L. Slater, Rachel Abbott and Claire Mackintosh
Horror in the Woods
Steph Young - 2017
and the possible answers behind it. The Woods will never be the same again... Steph Young has appeared on National radio shows including "Coast to Coast Am," "Midnight in the Desert," "Where did the road go?" "The Unexplained," & "Darkness Radio." Steph Young is an independent researcher, addicted to researching all Supernatural, Paranormal, Esoteric and enigmatic Mysteries. Each book seems to lead to further questions and searches for answers, as the Mysteries inevitably deepen & develop into ever more complex riddles in the spectrum of the Unknown.... Creepy true tales of strange disappearances in the woods, unexplained vanishings & mysterious Deaths. Creepy Mysteries of the Unexplained. Unexplained Disappearances & Missing people; True Stories. ....Things can get strange when you're alone in the woods....and something in the woods is taking People; something unknown that we cannot define; something that others have had the misfortune to encounter. People snatched soundlessly, never to be seen again. Or returned; dead. A strange and highly unusual predator. Highly intelligent. Very successful. And able to overpower someone in an instant.... This is a puzzle. An often deadly one. People are disappearing in the Woods. Screams heard in the distance; or, just ominous silence... The primal fear of something dangerous lurking, coming closer…..For some people, this can turn into a deadly reality. For those left behind, there is only confusion, fear, panic…..The Woods will never be the same again....
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Willow Rose - 2013
She decides to move there with her family, much to her teenage-daughter's regret. One morning a wealthy old woman in her street is found murdered and soon Emma finds herself wrapped in a mystery uncovering the island's dark secrets that not only runs deep within the history of the island but also within her own family. From the author of the International Bestselling books, the Rebekka Franck-series comes a new Scandinavian Mystery destined to keep you up all night. This is the first book in the Emma Frost-series and is followed by Miss Polly had a dolly.