Book picks similar to
Watcher by Alen B. Curtiss


horror
dark-fantasy
mustread
modern-horror

Every Other Day


Jennifer Lynn Barnes - 2011
    She goes to public high school. She argues with her father. She’s human.And then every day in between . . . she’s something else entirely.Though she still looks like herself, every twenty-four hours predatory instincts take over and Kali becomes a feared demon-hunter with the undeniable urge to hunt, trap, and kill zombies, hellhounds, and other supernatural creatures. Kali has no idea why she is the way she is, but she gives in to instinct anyway. Even though the government considers it environmental terrorism.When Kali notices a mark on the lower back of a popular girl at school, she knows instantly that the girl is marked for death by one of these creatures. Kali has twenty-four hours to save her, and unfortunately she’ll have to do it as a human. With the help of a few new friends, Kali takes a risk that her human body might not survive . . . and learns the secrets of her mysterious condition in the process.

The Cuts that Cure


Arthur Herbert - 2021
    A page-turner you don't want to miss!" -NYT Bestselling Author Nick RussellAlex Brantley is a burned-out surgeon whose desperation to start a new life outside of medicine leads him to settle in a sleepy Texas town close to the Mexican border, a town that has a dark side. Its secrets and his own past catch up with him as traits he thought he’d buried in the deserts on the frontiers of the border rise up again to haunt him.To the citizens of Three Rivers, Henry Wallis appears to be a normal Texas teenager: a lean, quiet kid from a good family whose life seems to center around running cross-country, his first girlfriend, and Friday night football. That Henry is a cultivated illusion, however, a disguise he wears to conceal his demons. Both meticulous and brutally cruel, he manages to hide his sadistic indulgences from the world, but with that success, his impulses grow stronger until one day when a vagrant is found murdered.When Alex and Henry’s paths cross, it starts a domino effect which leads to mangled lives and chilling choices made in the shadows along la frontera, where everything is negotiable.

Plague


Max Hawthorne - 2016
     “Holy --- Steve, the Taser’s not stopping him!” “It has to! Nobody can take that. Hit him again!” “Look out! Here he comes!” Ron charged again, powering his way past the jolts of pain. He smashed into the nearest intruder with bone-jarring force, grappling with him, tearing at him. The struggle intensified as the two rolled around on the alley’s blood-soaked cobblestones. The second creature joined in the battle, striking at his head with a hard stick in an effort to aid his comrade. Ron laughed. The intruders were pathetically weak. He could sense it. He snatched the light from the closer one and backhanded him across the face with it, sending him sprawling. Then he turned toward the other one. He was stumbling backward, clawing at his hip, and obviously terrified. Amused, Ron turned away and focused on the one on the ground. He took a deep whiff, smelling the hot blood that ran in rivulets from the downed newcomer’s brow, and listened to the jackhammer beating of his heart. More food. THE DEADLIEST KILLERS ARE THE ONES YOU CAN'T SEE. Three weeks have passed since the monstrous Kronosaurus imperator’s attack on Harcourt Marina stunned the world. The death toll was horrific, but Paradise Cove’s traumatized survivors soon discover they have more to worry about than just burying their dead and rebuilding their shattered lives. Accompanying the pliosaur were hordes of primeval pathogens. With their host destroyed, the Cretaceous-era bacteria are forced to find new homes for themselves. They do: tiny, bipedal life forms whose warm, iron-rich blood provides perfect growing conditions. They begin to multiply and spread, their mutagenic qualities quickly warping their unwitting host’s delicate bodies and minds. Soon, the infected are transformed into mindless beasts, consumed with a burning hunger for flesh. And like all ravening beasts, they must feed . . .

The Devil's Detective


Simon Kurt Unsworth - 2015
    In The Devil's Detective, a sea change is coming to Hell . . . and a man named Thomas Fool is caught in the middle.    Thomas Fool is an Information Man, an investigator tasked with cataloging and filing reports on the endless stream of violence and brutality that flows through Hell. His job holds no reward or satisfaction, because Hell has rules but no justice. Each new crime is stamped "Do Not Investigate" and dutifully filed away in the depths of the Bureaucracy. But when an important political delegation arrives and a human is found murdered in a horrific manner—extravagant even by Hell's standards—everything changes. The murders escalate, and their severity points to the kind of killer not seen for many generations. Something is challenging the rules and order of Hell, so the Bureaucracy sends Fool to identify and track down the killer. . . . But how do you investigate murder in a place where death is common currency? Or when your main suspect pool is a legion of demons? With no memory of his past and only an irresistible need for justice, Fool will piece together clues and follow a trail that leads directly into the heart of a dark and chaotic conspiracy. A revolution is brewing in Hell . . . and nothing is what it seems.The Devil's Detective is an audacious, highly suspenseful thriller set against a nightmarish and wildly vivid world. Simon Kurt Unsworth has created a phantasmagoric thrill ride filled with stunning set pieces and characters that spring from our deepest nightmares. It will have readers of both thrillers and horror hanging on by their fingernails until the final word. In Hell, hope is your worst enemy.

Pishacha


Neil D'Silva - 2016
    Yet, inside, he has a tender heart that still pines for the lover of his previous human birth. More than a century later, when he discovers that his lover has been reborn in a rich Mumbai household, and is now a beautiful woman, his heart begins to beat again with a happy rhythm. There are monumental obstacles in his path though, the least of which is the fact that she loves another man. But, the biggest challenge is that she is human and he is demon. To make her his, he will have to become human again; and to accomplish that, he will have to fight holy men and witch-mothers and giants, and challenge the gods themselves. From the best-selling author of Maya’s New Husband, comes a tragic tale of forbidden love — Pishacha.

The Language of Dying


Sarah Pinborough - 2009
    As she watches over her father, she relives the past week and the events that brought the family together . . . and she recalls all the weeks before that served to pull it apart.There has never been anything normal about the lives raised in this house. It seems to her that sometimes her family is so colorful that the brightness hurts, and as they all join together in this time of impending loss she examines how they came to be the way they are and how it came to just be her, the drifter, that her father came home to die with.But, the middle of five children, the woman has her own secrets . . . particularly the draw that pulled her back to the house when her own life looked set to crumble. And sitting through her lonely vigil, she remembers the thing she saw out in the fields all those years ago . . . the thing that they found her screaming for outside in the mud. As she peers through the familiar glass, she can't help but hope and wonder if it will come again.Because it's one of those nights, isn't it Dad? A special terrible night. A full night. And that's always when it comes. If it comes at all.

Transmission


Ambrose Ibsen - 2016
    It's a woman's voice, uttering a string of seemingly random characters. Upon further inspection, the song appears to have been embedded with a hidden message. Attempting to crack the mysterious code and becoming obsessed with the recording, Kenji and Dylan set off in search of answers. With every turn in the road however, the puzzle only seems to grow more complicated. And sinister. Retired Vietnam vet Reggie Cash is also drawn in by this message, and before long both he and the two college students are on the trail of the mysterious woman featured in the recording. But who is she, and where is she leading them? As things fall into place and strange events unfold, the three of them begin to wish that they'd never heard the recording at all... TRANSMISSION is a full-length novel of supernatural horror and suspense by Ambrose Ibsen.

Secret Faces


Kealan Patrick Burke - 2016
    Everyone is someone else when the world isn't looking. Sometimes that person is good, sometimes that person is not. In Bram Stoker Award-winning author Kealan Patrick Burke's latest terrifying collection of short stories, you'll meet thirteen people who discover the horror of what happens when those secret faces are removed and the true darkness that dwells within us all is unleashed.Table of Contents:HomeStalledThe End of UsThe Red Light is BlinkingMother/NatureI’m Not ThereMemory LaneTerminalForced EntryThe QuietThe One Night of the YearPigHoarder With an introduction and story notes by the author.

Reviver


Seth Patrick - 2013
    Able to wake the recently dead, and let them bear witness to their own demise. Twelve years after the first reviver came to light, they have become accepted by an uneasy public. The testimony of the dead is permitted in courtrooms across the world. Forensic revival is a routine part of police investigation. In the United States, that responsibility falls to the Forensic Revival Service. Despite his troubled past, Jonah Miller is one of their best. But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence. Something is watching. Waiting. His superiors tell him it was only in his mind, a product of stress. Jonah is not so certain. Then Daniel Harker, the first journalist to bring revival to public attention, is murdered, and Jonah finds himself getting dragged into the hunt for answers. Working with Harker's daughter Annabel, he becomes determined to find those responsible and bring them to justice. Soon they uncover long-hidden truths that call into doubt everything Jonah stands for, and reveal a threat that if not stopped in time, will put all of humanity in danger ...

Cliche: Episode One


Jeff Menapace - 2017
    He had no idea... Welcome to The Track. An elite club for members whose depraved desires run to the extreme. A place where you can bet on a pony and see how long he can survive...in a deadly scenario decided by a simple spin of the wheel. Step right up. **Author's note** "Cliche: Episode One" is meant to be enjoyed as a standalone short, and/or a follow-up to the novel Numb.

The Tunnel


Gayne C. Young - 2019
     When the Acuña Cartel tunnels under the Rio Grande and into the United States, they tap into a vast cavern that’s home to a once thought mythical species. The massacre that ensues leaves 12 men dead, brings tunnel construction to a standstill. Losing money by the hour, the Cartel pulls Captain Jarrett Taylor out of retirement to lead a band of mercenaries under the Earth to eliminate an animal more savage than any human force they’ve ever faced. The mission quickly goes bad and plunges the team into a desperate battle of survival. “High caliber. Heavy caliber. Whatever you want to call it, when Gayne C. Young’s The Tunnel hits you, you’ll be blown away. The second you open this book, you’re staring down the barrel of one helluva nightmare. You think you got what it takes to make it to the end? You don’t.” -Jake Bible, author Of MEGA and Roak: Galactic Bounty Hunter. “Gayne C. Young has lived high adventure. His latest blockbuster, THE TUNNEL, excels at art imitating life at its very best! Step inside The Tunnel for gritty characters navigating an exciting plot twisted by a savage creature nightmares are made of!” Dane Hatchell, author of THE DINOSAUR BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS "Hardcore, fast paced, horror action as only Gayne Young can write it." Eric S Brown, author of Bigfoot War

The Girl in the Video


Michael David Wilson - 2020
    More videos follow - each containing information no stranger could possibly know. But who's sending them? And what do they want? The answers may destroy everything and everyone he loves.The Girl in the Video is The Ring meets Fatal Attraction for the iPhone generation.

The God Conspiracy


Derek P. Gilbert - 2009
    Gilbert's "The Armageddon Strain" to expose the plot -- and discovers that he's not contending with flesh and blood.

Gwendy's Button Box


Stephen King - 2017
    until now.There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974 twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong (if time-rusted) iron bolts and zig-zag up the cliffside.At the top of the stairs, Gwendy catches her breath and listens to the shouts of the kids on the playground. From a bit farther away comes the chink of an aluminum bat hitting a baseball as the Senior League kids practice for the Labor Day charity game.One day, a stranger calls to Gwendy: "Hey, girl. Come on over here for a bit. We ought to palaver, you and me."On a bench in the shade sits a man in black jeans, a black coat like for a suit, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat...Journey back to Castle Rock again in this chilling new novella by Stephen King, bestselling author of The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, and Richard Chizmar, award-winning author of A Long December.

Rawr


Eddie Generous - 2019
     Hunters come in droves but the beast proves itself too big and too cunning, using its fearsome teeth and claws to destroy the intruders. Many die and blood is spilled by the gallon, but has the beast met its match when a park ranger, an average joe, and a trail expert come together to predict where the beast will attack next?