Book picks similar to
Thrall by Mary SanGiovanni
horror
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The Crymost
Dean H. Wild - 2019
They don’t talk much about it, and they don’t discuss the small tokens they bring as offerings to the place known as the Crymost. After all, this is Knoll, where certain things are best left unsaid. The Crymost however, will not remain quiet for much longer. Something ancient has awakened in that remote, sorrowful place, and time is running out for its inhabitants. Long-kept secrets will need to be unearthed before the entire town succumbs to the will of a powerful, dark stranger who works hand in hand with a hungry entity crossing Knoll’s borders, invading its homes and executing a soul-draining grip on its citizens.
The Innsmouth Syndrome
Philip Hemplow - 2011
to investigate a cluster of inexplicable mutations among the young people of Innsmouth, a sickly and destitute town on the Massachusetts coast. Initially skeptical, she rapidly discovers that the true mystery is older and more horrifying than anything for which her training has prepared her. As the danger mounts, a double helix of history and urban folklore draws her inexorably to the door of a sinister, evangelical cult - and beyond the limits of her science and belief.
First Chosen
M. Todd Gallowglas - 2011
In his "gratitude," the god names her his high priest and commands her to lead his people to greatness once again. However, it is now a capital crime for any of Julianna's people to worship one of the five ancient gods - the punishment is the destruction of the offender's soul. And so begins TEARS OF RAGE, a dark, epic fantasy saga about the power of faith and belief, where even though the gods can inspire these qualities in mortals, it is those same mortals that truly control the religions that form from any god's divine inspiration. It is also a swashbuckling tale of political intrigue where men scheme against each other and the gods, and how friendship, loyalty, and faith can help people persevere through the darkest times.
Old Order
Jonathan Janz - 2010
All he has to do is pretend to have been kicked out of an Amish order, get a job on a local farm and when the family is asleep steal their valuables and resell them for a tidy profit. Unfortunately for Yoder, the family has other ideas...and their plans are MUCH more sinister.A horror novella from the author of CHILDREN OF THE DARK, this edition includes a brand-new Afterword by the author.
The Lost Boy
Noel Hynd - 1999
For Ellen Wilder, editor of the local newspaper, the gruesome killing is as disturbing as the irrational fears that have suddenly woven themselves into her mind and left her doubting her own sanity. For state police detective Michael Chandler, whose haunting near-death experience has left him with an uncanny way of sensing things, the murder is only a hint of what is to come.But nothing could have prepared either of them for the return of Franny Corbett. A hulking child of a man and the blackest sheep in a family of black sheep, his eerie presence may have ushered in all of these bizarre and frightening events. Soon the town of Wiltshire will be shaken again. For in a car sunk beneath the surface of a glimmering blue lake, floats another body. And the killing has just begun....
The Manitou
Graham Masterton - 1975
Karen Tandy was a sweet and unassuming girl until she discovers the mysterious lump growing underneath her skin. As the doctors and specialists are puzzling over the growth, Karen's personality is beginning to drastically change. The doctors decide there is only one thing to do, cut out the lump. But then it moved. Now a chain reaction has begun and everyone who comes in contact with Karen Tandy understands the very depths of terror. Her body and soul are being taken over by a black spirit over four centuries old. He is the remembrance of the evils the white man has bestowed on the Indian people and the vengeance that has waited four hundred years to surface. He is the Manitou.
The Exorcism of Sara May
Joe Hart - 2015
The Great Depression is still strangling America. People are out of work. Out of options. And everyone is desperate. But in the small town of Rath, Minnesota, another kind of evil is holding sway.Something terrible has woken, and the little community will never be the same.
Maniac on the Loose
Steve Hudgins - 2018
Fearing that he'll lose his job if word gets out, the head of the hospital, Dr. Franklin Grimm desperately attempts to cover up the escape. Meanwhile, there is a Maniac on the Loose.
Mr. Midnight
Allan Leverone - 2013
Subject to bizarre and inexplicable visions, Cait is desperate to learn whether her biological mother can provide any insight as to the origin of her unusual ability.When a local investigator learns Cait was born in a Boston suburb, the Tampa lawyer wastes no time booking a flight to the East Coast.In Boston, with the city under siege by a killer known as "Mr. Midnight," Cait's visions intensify, morphing from merely annoying to graphic and terrifying. Worse, Cait begins to realize she shares a strange psychic connection with the depraved sociopath. A connection that may just get her killed.As Cait and the murderer are drawn inexorably toward a violent confrontation, unraveling a decades-old mystery might be the only thing that prevents her from becoming the next victim...of Mr. Midnight.
Husk
Matt Hults - 2011
A fast-paced read with a generous body count, ‘Husk’ will make your skin crawl.” —Scott Nicholson, Bestselling author of They Hunger “Remember the first time you read Joe Lansdale’s The Drive-In, or Freezer Burn? Remember how exhilarated you felt as you tore through the pages as Lansdale kept knocking your jaw to the floor with his endless inventiveness, unexpected belly-laughs, and those even more unexpected moments of terror and pathos? Miss that feeling of being completely at the mercy of a writer’s imagination and boundless energy for his subject? Fret no more, friends—you now have Matt Hults’s Husk. This sucker is the real thing, an in-your-face, rollicking, scary, funny, and unexpectedly poignant potpourri of a horror story, an unabashed and unapologetic throwback to the early pulps infused with a vindictive modern-day sensibility that will have your head spinning and your mouth hanging open. It doesn’t get any more fun than this.” —Gary A. Braunbeck, winner of the Bram Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award, author of Coffin County and Destinations Unknown “Suspenseful and gruesome, with just the right leavening of hopefulness and nod-wink humor.” —Dr. Kim Paffenroth, Bram Stoker Award Winner for Dying to Live. “Husk is wild, bloody, scary, action-packed, and entertaining as hell. Matt Hults seems to be having a blast telling his tale, and I had a blast going along for the ride. Great fun!” —Jeff Strand, Bram Stoker Nominated Author of PRESSURE "'Husk' is a chilling and relentless tale that will make you want to check your closets, lock your windows and keep an eye in your review mirror...but don't think that'll save you!" ––Fran Friel, Bram Stoker Nominated Author of Mama's Boy “Husk is violent, intense and terrifying. The characters are as real as you and I, and every triumph is rapturous while every death is harrowing. Matt Hults proves himself as a master of the genre with his striking debut novel. It will leave you feeling skinned alive and dying for more.” —Joel A. Sutherland, Bram Stoker Nominated Author of Frozen Blood “I have come across some pretty mind-blowing demons on paper, on the big screen, and especially in my mind. But the ‘Husk’ Matt Hults created in this his first novel breaks all my thresholds for fear, and believe me I have built some pretty sound barriers in my time.” —Giovanna Lagana, author of With Black & White Comes the Grey About the book: ONE NIGHTMARE ENDS… Serial killer Kale Kane has finally died, having survived five years in a coma after a shootout with police. But is his reign of terror truly over? When he died, Kane took the reasons for his atrocities with him, along with the answer to a question police never got to ask: did he work alone? …AND A NEW HORROR BEGINS. Mallory Wiess is a typical teenage girl… or so it seems. When she moves to rural Minnesota with her father and younger brother, she quickly discovers her new home won’t be as boring as she’d feared. Who is the dark figure watching her from the house across the street? What is the shape hanging in the shadows of the old barn behind the neighborhood? And why has someone begun digging up graves at the ancient cemetery in the forest? Soon Mallory will learn the truth. For she has attracted the attention of a killer, a ruthless predator who believes only her death will finish the work Kale Kane began, and unleash an evil that has faded into legend.
This Book is Full of Bodies
Rick Wood - 2019
At least that’s what you’ll tell yourself. You’ll say I’m a monster. A sicko. A deranged killer. But I am no monster, I am no sicko, and I am not deranged. I am simply a man who happens to enjoy murdering people in the most violent of ways. So don’t bother reading this if you have a weak stomach, get easily offended, or are simply not interested in the best way to dispose of a dead body. (It’s pigs, by the way. They eat ANYTHING.) My name is Gerald Brittle. I am a serial killer. And this is my memoir.
Hive
Tim Curran - 2005
When the ruins of a pre-human civilization are discovered, the real trouble at Kharkhov Station begins...Tim Curran (author of Skin Medicine) presents a stunning sequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.
Hide and Seek
Jack Ketchum - 1980
Reckless, dangerous games. Games you might even want to play yourself if you're with the right people. But shouldn't. Not ever. In a small Maine town, a group of thrill seeking college kids finds a game of hide and seek in an abandoned house turning into a reality of stark terror.
Until the Sun
Chandler Morrison - 2019
Authority. Mortality. If you could liberate yourself of these burdens, would any cost be too great? On a hot August night, a troubled fifteen-year-old boy with a tragic past wakes to find his tyrannical foster parents murdered by a trio of nocturnal, blood-drinking heathens. The killers give him the opportunity for a new life, one where he can be relieved of traditional hardships, vanquish his enemies, and attain a sense of true belonging…at the cost of what little remains of his humanity. The life he is offered is one of eternal darkness, but the promise of undying acceptance, freedom, and power gives it an appeal that his current dreaded existence is lacking. Fraught with resentment over his catastrophic adolescence and confronted by ambiguous notions of good and evil, he is forced to explore a dark world on the fringe between bliss and oblivion. As he edges ever closer to a climactic encounter with the demons that plague his soul, he discovers just how dangerous it is to be young and alienated in modern society.
Level Zero: A Nightmare in Riverton Novel
Dan McDowell - 2021
A sinister character lurks in an abandoned tunnel just beneath, manipulating Chris as he struggles to walk a fine line between his love for the dark and the macabre and a collapsing marriage.Todd Adams, a manic depressive financial advisor, awakens from a coma along with 53 others, fighting to understand unexplained phantom memories that plague them. As each work to unravel their meaning, they begin to disappear into a labyrinth beneath the hotel at the torment of a bizarre captor. Discovering mutual commonality in an unresolved past, Todd works to lead them out.Will they find the key to freedom?