Book picks similar to
The Seeding by David Shobin


horror
paperbacks-from-hell
american
shobin--david

Shadows


John Saul - 1992
    A secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged Pacific coast. A school for children gifted -- or cursed -- with extraordinary minds. Children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even more brilliant than their own -- and unspeakably evil. For within this mind a dark plan is taking form. A plan so horrifying, no one will believe it. No one but the children. And for them it is already too late. Too late, unless one young student can resist the seductive invitation that will lead... into the Shadows.

Let's Go Play at the Adams'


Mendal W. Johnson - 1974
    In the orderly, pleasant world Barbara inhabited, nice children -- and they were nice children — didn't hold an adult captive.But what Barbara didn't count on was the heady effect their new-found freedom would have on the children. Their wealthy parents were away in Europe, and in this rural area of Maryland, the next house was easily a quarter of a mile away. The power of adults was in their hands, and they were tempted by it. They tasted it and toyed with it -- their only aim was to test its limits. Each child was consumed by his own individual lust and caught up with the others in sadistic manipulation and passion, until finally, step by step, their grim game strips away the layers of childishness to reveal the vicious psyche, conceived in evil and educated in society's sophisticated violence, that lies always within civilized men.More than a terrifying horror story, Let's Go Play at the Adams' is a compelling psychological exercise of brooding insights and deadly implications.

The Stepford Wives


Ira Levin - 1972
    It is. For behind the town's idyllic facade lies a terrible secret—a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same.At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs, The Stepford Wives is a novel so frightening in its final implications that the title itself has earned a place in the American lexicon.

Jericho Falls


Christopher Hyde - 1986
    He careens off the road, smashes his vehicle and is killed instantly. But his van holds no ordinary cargo. And soon the nearby picture-postcard village of Jericho Falls will be plunged into the most terrifying disaster imaginable. A powerful lethal virus has been leaked into the peacefully innocent town. Sheriff Jack Slater and other leading citizens turn to the outside for help that the true nightmare is revealed: Jericho Falls must be wiped off the face of the earth.

Reptilian Odyssey


F. Gardner - 2021
    Eternity Mall. The establishment is supposed to have an upcoming video game on display. A game called “Reptilian Apocalypse.” An advanced virtual reality game, about mankind’s struggle for survival against shapeshifting beings. What starts off as a leisurely trip to the mall for the young men, turns into something they had not anticipated. These individuals, have been targeted. Stalked, by someone or something for a nefarious purpose.

MAYA: Symbiogenesis Book One


Pete Barber - 2016
    The last-resort treatment transforms Maya's genetic fingerprint. While Lauren struggles to disguise the reason for her daughter's miraculous recovery, Maya develops unique abilities that may signal a new, more hope-filled future for humankind, or perhaps sound its death knell.

The Reincarnation of Peter Proud


Max Ehrlich - 1973
    Peter Proud’s ordinary life as a professor in California is threatened by recurrent dreams that all end the same: with his murder in a lake at night by a mysterious woman named Marcia. These dreams—which he comes to believe may be flashbacks from a previous life—become so disturbing that he seeks answers from a sleep researcher, a clairvoyant, and an expert in psychic phenomena in order to recover his past. But he soon discovers a new dimension to his dilemma while watching a television show called “America, Past and Present”—and realizes the show is set in the town in his dreams. He travels to Springfield, Massachusetts, and comes face to face with the woman from his nightmares. The woman, Marcia Curtis, is shocked to see in Peter personality traits and characteristics that precisely recall those of her dead husband, Jeff, including his voice. Peter meets and falls in love with Marcia’s daughter, Ann, just as Marcia realizes that he is a reincarnation of Jeff. Will a second tragedy occur just as Peter is about to unravel the mystery behind his dreams?   In this classic suspense novel first published in 1973, Max Ehrlich expertly interweaves multiple themes of life after death, romance, tragedy, and altered consciousness into an unforgettable tale.

What's Wrong With Valerie?


D.A. Fowler - 1991
    The house belongs to her. She should be happy. But Valerie isn’t quite normal… She’s taking in roommates to make ends meet, but, one by one, they keep ending up dead. Her young niece is crying out for a special kind of discipline that only she can provide. And there’s the voices she hears...voices that want her to do terrible things. Valerie is only trying to survive. If she stops doing what the voices tell her, something grotesquely evil will devour her soul... WHAT’S WRONG WITH VALERIE?

Doing Harm


Kelly Parsons - 2014
    Steve’s nightmare goes from bad to worse when he learns that the mysterious death was no accident but the act of a sociopath.  A sociopath he knows and who has information that could destroy Steve’s career and marriage.  A sociopath for whom killing is more than a means to an end: it’s a game.  Because he is under a cloud of suspicion and has no evidence, he knows that any accusations he makes won’t be believed. So he must struggle to turn the tables, even as the killer skillfully blocks his every move. Detailing the politics of hospitals, the hierarchy among doctors and the life and death decisions that are made by flawed human beings, Doing Harm marks the debut of a major fiction career.

Parasite; The True Story of the Zombie Apocalypse


Doug Ward - 2012
    It has appeared on charts in Australia, Canada, and the UK. The zombies are rising in the sleepy town of Slippery Rock and it's up to Henry Cooper to figure out why. But first he needs to save his wife, Melissa. With the help of his neighbor Dean and some super hero clad, comic book fanboys, he's off to the rescue. Join them as they race across Northwestern Pennsylvania on a quest which involves everything from undead to fire trucks. Along the way you will discover the hard science behind how the dead truly rose from the grave. The second book in the series is called "Symbiote; The True Story of the Zombie Apocalypse." It is also available for purchase. Currently the author is working hard on the 3rd installment of this series. Check for updates on his Facebook page.

The Death House


Sarah Pinborough - 2015
    until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test.Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House: an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They're looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it's time to take them to the sanatorium.No one returns from the sanatorium.Withdrawn from his house-mates and living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear. But then a new arrival in the house shatters the fragile peace, and everything changes.Because everybody dies. It's how you choose to live that counts.

Vespers


Jeff Rovin - 1998
    But a swarm of deadly predators is on the loose in Manhattan and they must be stopped before they strike again. Martin's Press.

Sawfish


Rick Chesler - 2016
    Mason Rayman is experimenting with gigantism in sea creatures when he accidentally creates a monstrously large sawfish. When it grows so big he can no longer keep it in his Miami lab, he is preparing to have it destroyed when he learns he is being terminated from his position. By way of revenge, he dumps the oversized shark relative into the ocean, where it soon roams out of control, slaughtering bathers at nearby trendy South Beach.Dr. Rayman doesn't let on that it's his fish responsible for the killings, but someone knows what he did, and she's blackmailing him. He plays along for a while but then decides she needs to be eliminated. Breaking into a lab at his former workplace, he deliberately creates more monster sawfish and releases them into the local waters.Rayman then attempts to get his job back by stepping forward as the expert on how to stop the scourge of gigantic predators now ravaging swimmers and water sports enthusiasts on South Florida beaches. But his blackmailer will not let up, leading to an ultimate confrontation between woman and beast, and finally, woman and man.

Death Day


Robert Neville - 1986
    The author also wrote "Assassin", "Spawn" and "Slugs".

The Pet


Charles L. Grant - 1986
    When he strikes in Ashford, the town reacts-setting limits on teens' activities, monitoring who goes where-and parents become paranoid.Seventeen-year-old Don Boyd doesn't need the grief. He's already under siege-he's got family trouble, girl trouble, trouble with his high school classes and trouble with the jocks who rule the school. Surely the Howler will kill someone else, somewhere else, and then Don can go back to trying to escape notice.But the Howler likes Ashford. And one frosty autumn night, the Howler chooses Don as his next victim. The attack is swift-but it doesn't go as planned. Suddenly the killer and the boy are surrounded by an unnatural mist, by green fire, by the sound of iron striking iron.And then the real horror begins.