Book picks similar to
Rag Doll by Troy McCombs
horror
short-stories
short-story
freebies
What the Dead Fear
Lea Ryan - 2011
However, death isn't the end. In Limbo, she finds a foggy wasteland and strange creatures. She also discovers that during night hours, she can walk among the living. But there are rules. Never influence destiny. Never interfere, because the consequences are dire. Will she sacrifice eternal freedom to save the innocent?
Black Silk
Jan Gordon - 2009
Her future looked set, until one night when she's saved from probable danger by a mysterious stranger. Cole has moved around a lot during his life, never finding a true home, until he buys an old house, and fate steps in to change his future. A light romance with a paranormal twist.
The Kiss: An Anthology of Love and Other Close Encounters
C.A. NewsomeBen Cassidy - 2014
It can also be an exchange, a betrayal, an assault, a promise, a hope...or it could be a goodbye. The intimacy of a kiss cannot be denied. Whether shared, stolen or simply dreamed of, its recipient will be affected. Thirty-one stories by authors from around the world will tease your imagination as you anticipate ‘The Kiss’ in each weird or wonderful tale. This cross-genre anthology contains stories by Kate Aaron, Saxon Andrew, Jacques Antoine, Alison Blake, E. B. Boggs, Shirley Bourget, Ben Cassidy, Jason Deas, Sharon Delarose, Meghan Ciana Doidge, Suzy Stewart Dubot, Corrie Fischer, Brandon Hale, Traci Tyne Hilton, Colleen Hoover, Mona Ingram, J. L. Jarvis, Elizabeth Jasper, Anna J. McIntyre, Jess Mountifield, C. A. Newsome, S. Patrick O'Connell, Suzie O'Connell, Jeanette Raleigh, J. R. C. Salter, Molly Snow, Holli Marie Spaulding, Cleve Sylcox, Robert Thomas, Chris Ward and George Wier. 130,000 words
The Girl In Between
Laekan Zea Kemp - 2012
Afflicted with Klein-Levin Syndrome, she suffers episodes of prolonged sleep that steal weeks, and sometimes even months, from her life. But unlike most KLS patients, she doesn’t spend each episode in a catatonic state or wake up with no recollection of the time she’s missed. Instead, Bryn spends half her life in an alternate reality made up of her memories. For Bryn, the past is a place, until one day a boy she’s never met before washes up on the illusory beach of her dreams with no memory of who he is.But the appearance of this strange boy isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Bryn’s symptoms are worsening, her body weakening as she’s plagued by hallucinations even while awake. Her only hope of finding a cure is to undergo experimental treatment created by a German specialist. But when Dr. Banz reveals that he knows more about her strange symptoms than he originally let on, Bryn learns that the boy in her head might actually be the key to understanding what’s happening to her, and worse, that if she doesn’t find out his identity before it’s too late, they both may not survive.
Seven Sisters
M.L. Bullock - 2014
The handsome and wealthy Ashland Stuart has hired her to uncover the history and the secrets of Seven Sisters, an aging antebellum mansion in sultry downtown Mobile, Alabama. A series of dreams, an untimely death and the betrayal of someone she loves lead her back in time to uncover the truth about a missing young heiress and a web of secrets.Will Carrie Jo slip into the shadows of Seven Sisters, following in the ghostly footsteps of the lost young woman, or can she solve this tragic mystery and find her own happiness?
Always
Carol Rose - 1998
But the beautiful old house is a near-ruin and she can't afford to restore it. Elinor hopes to find a buyer who will cherish the home as she does. But she has one rule - she won't sell to handsome, self-made millionaire Cole Whittier.Cole has the locals upset over his plans to build a factory nearby and Elinor's leading the opposition. He's got a fight on his hands to convince the stubborn beauty of the merits of his plans - and of everything else he discovers he wants to offer her.It's up to Cole to persuade Elinor to see things from his perspective. The sexy industrialist is convinced that Elinor is well worth winning over.
Season Of The Harvest
Michael R. Hicks - 2011
The group’s leader, Naomi Perrault, is a beautiful geneticist who Jack believes conspired to kill his friend, and is claiming that a major international conglomerate developing genetically engineered crops is plotting a sinister transformation of our world that will lead humanity to extinction. As Jack is drawn into a quietly raging war that suddenly explodes onto the front pages of the news, he discovers that her claims may not be so outrageous after all. Together, the two of them must battle a horror Jack could never have imagined, with the fate of all life on Earth hanging in the balance…
Come Closer
Sara Gran - 2003
A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane? Described as “a new kind of psychological thriller” by George Pelecanos and “this year's scariest novel” by Time Out New York, Come Closer has become a modern classic “with a kick that will stay with the reader for days afterward” (The Dallas Morning News).
Nevertheless, She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project
Diana M. PhoCatherynne M. Valente - 2020
She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.Three short lines, fired over social media in response to questions of why Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the floor of the United States Senate, for daring to read aloud the words of Coretta Scott King. As this message was transmitted across the globe, it has become a galvanizing cry for people of all genders in recognition of the struggles that women have faced throughout history.Three short lines, which read as if they are the opening passage to an epic and ageless tale.We have assembled this flash fiction collection featuring several of the best writers in SF/F today, including Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherynne M. Valente, Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kameron Hurley, Nisi Shawl and Carrie Vaughn. Together these authors share unique visions of women inventing, playing, loving, surviving, and – of course – dreaming of themselves beyond their circumstances.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Temporary Arrangement
Karen Erickson - 2013
Who hires a virtual stranger out of a New York City coffee shop to care for their adorable grandson? Apparently Claudia Renaldi does.Widower Matteo Renaldi isn't pleased that his mother found a replacement nanny so soon after he fired the last one. Yet little Matty takes to Paige like no other nanny before. And Matteo can't deny he's quite taken with her as well. She's beautiful, sweet, and far, "far" too young for him.There's something about the gorgeously sexy Matteo that fills Paige with longing to break through his wall of formality and touch his softer side. But no one knows better than she that crushing on her boss is one thing. Acting on those feelings is forbidden. Foolish.InevitableWarning: Sexy, grumpy Italian hero who is determined to keep his walls up. No matter how much his son's sweetly beautiful nanny drives him to distraction
Rolling in the Deep
Mira Grant - 2015
They didn't expect actual mermaids. They certainly didn't expect those mermaids to have teeth. This is the story of the Atargatis, lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the bathypelagic zone in the Mariana Trench…and the depths are very good at keeping secrets.
Ash
Jason Brant - 2013
10:32 AM EST: An entire floor of government agents leap to their death from their office building. 12:57 PM EST: All the police officers inside a station murder each other. And the day has just begun. Lieutenant Asher Benson left Iraq with a traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and a Purple Heart. His doctors warned that the symptoms would be life altering. They had no idea. As his body healed, the thoughts of those around him began to echo through Ash’s mind, stretching the boundaries of his sanity. Five years later, Ash is drowning the voices with copious amounts of booze and self-loathing. When unidentified intelligence agents abduct him in broad daylight, Ash is thrust into a world of espionage and assassinations. A unique terrorist is operating on U.S. soil, and the government needs Ash, and the malady that has plagued him for half a decade, to find the killer. *Ash is the first book in the Asher Benson thriller series, which is full of snarky humor and nonstop action.
The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo
J.R. Rain - 2010
Now armed and dangerous, she sets out to hunt down the very thing that destroyed her life.That is, until she disappears.Spinoza is a private investigator who specializes in finding the missing. He's good at what he does. Damn good. But he's also a recovering alcoholic and a royal mess. Hired to find Veronica, Spinoza won't let his personal demons — or demons of any kind — get in the way of finding the truth about the missing girl.Now following a bizarre set of clues that leads him into stranger and stranger territory, Spinoza is about to come face-to-face with something legendary...and something hungry for blood.(Please Note: The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo is approximately 90 manuscript pages, or 22,000 words.)
Reapers
Marata Eros - 2011
20,000 wordsThe vampires are a dying race, their females sterile. When it's discovered that human females of Druid ancestry can be viable breeders...the harvest begins.Rachel Collins is a young woman living in the frozen north of Alaska in a dead-end job with a circular life. She yearns for something more.When murders begin taking place in the city where she lives, she and her girlfriend try to be more cautious...only to be caught in the middle of a dangerous situation in which an unlikely savior emerges.Can Rachel escape her destiny while two different factions hunt her?
Untamed Magick
Eliza Gayle - 2008
When a Tarot historian shows up with stolen family cards and a theory of balance, all hell breaks loose. But his insatiable lust for the blue-eyed beauty clouds his judgment, making it difficult for him to separate fact from fiction.Determined to understand the secrets that have plagued her for months, Rena Gallagher lands on Graelen’s doorstep in search of answers. When fantasy becomes reality and a remarkable power sparks between them, a deep craving to surrender to his raw sexuality is revealed.Now Graelen and Rena must race to uncover the clues that will break the curse before the seductive magick can consume he and his brothers. And before the darkness drives the woman he needs away for good.Warning: This book contains a hot demanding alpha who enjoys the wild and unexpected and will go to any length to satisfy his woman, including magick water sex and psychic voyeurism.Four male witches. Two Sets of twins. Born with a dark curse. Unlimited power bequeathed to the four when used together. A seductive power that over time will destroy their souls. To fight the prophecy they are forced to live separately to save themselves.**Previously published as The Bonding. This book has now been revised and edited for re-release.**First of a series.