The Strings of Murder


Oscar de Muriel - 2015
    A virtuoso violinist is brutally killed in his home. Black magic symbols cover the walls. The dead man's maid swears she heard three musicians playing before the murder.But with no way in or out of the locked practice room, the puzzle makes no sense...Fearing a national panic over a copycat Ripper, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Frey to investigate under the cover of a fake department specializing in the occult. However, Frey's new boss - Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray - actually believes in such nonsense.McGray's tragic past has driven him to superstition, but even Frey must admit that this case seems beyond reason. And once someone loses all reason, who knows what they will lose next...

The Lies We Told


Diane Chamberlain - 2010
    As teenagers, they witnessed their parents' murder, but it was Rebecca who saved Maya from becoming another of the gunman's victims. The tragedy left Maya cautious and timid, settling for a sedate medical practice with her husband, Adam, while Rebecca became the risk taker.After a devastating hurricane hits the coast of North Carolina, Rebecca and Adam urge Maya to join them in the relief effort. To please her husband, Maya finally agrees. She loses herself in the care and transport of victims, but when her helicopter crashes into raging floodwaters, there appear to be no survivors.Forced to accept Maya is gone, Rebecca and Adam turn to one another—first for comfort, then in passion—unaware that, miles from civilization, Maya is injured and trapped with strangers she's not certain she can trust. Away from the sister who has always been there to save her, now Maya must find the courage to save herself—unaware that the life she knew has changed forever.

A Stranger on the Beach


Michele Campbell - 2019
    But her husband is lying to her and everything in her life is upside down, so when the stranger, Aiden, shows up as a bartender at the same party where Caroline and her husband have a very public fight, it doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.As her marriage collapses around her and the lavish lifestyle she's built for herself starts to crumble, Caroline turns to Aiden for comfort...and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aiden's obsession with Caroline, her family, and her house grows more and more disturbing. And when Caroline's husband goes missing, her life descends into a nightmare that leaves her accused of her own husband's murder.

The Uninvited


Liz Jensen - 2012
    An isolated incident, say the experts. The experts are wrong. Across the world, children are killing their families. Is violence contagious? As chilling murders by children grip the country, anthropologist Hesketh Lock has his own mystery to solve: a bizarre scandal in the Taiwan timber industry.Hesketh has never been good at relationships: Asperger's Syndrome has seen to that. But he does have a talent for spotting behavioral patterns and an outsider's fascination with group dynamics. Nothing obvious connects Hesketh's Asian case with the atrocities back home. Or with the increasingly odd behavior of his beloved stepson, Freddy. But when Hesketh's Taiwan contact dies shockingly and more acts of sabotage and child violence sweep the globe, he is forced to acknowledge possibilities that defy the rational principles on which he has staked his life, his career, and, most devastatingly of all, his role as a father.Part psychological thriller, part dystopian nightmare, The Uninvited is a powerful and viscerally unsettling portrait of apocalypse in embryo.

Heart-Shaped Box


Joe Hill - 2007
    -- so when his assistant tells him about a ghost for sale on an online auction site, he immediately puts in a bid and purchases it. The black, heart-shaped box that Coyne receives in the mail not only contains the suit of a dead man but also his vengeance-obsessed spirit. The ghost, it turns out, is the stepfather of a young groupie who committed suicide after the 54-year-old Coyne callously used her up and threw her away. Now, determined to kill Coyne and anyone who aids him, the merciless ghost of Craddock McDermott begins his assault on the rocker's sanity.

Never Never


Colleen Hoover - 2015
    They've been in love since the age of fourteen. But as of this morning... they are complete strangers. Their first kiss, their first fight, the moment they fell in love... every memory has vanished.Charlie and Silas must work together to uncover the truth about what happened to them and why. But the more they learn about the couple they used to be, the more they question why they were ever together to begin with.#1 New York Times bestselling author of Hopeless joins forces with the New York Times bestselling author of Mud Vein. Together, they have created a gripping, romantic tale unlike any other.

The Wrong Girl


C.J. Archer - 2013
    Hannah Smith just wishes she wasn't that girl. As a narcoleptic and the companion to an earl's daughter with a strange affliction of her own, Hannah knows she's lucky to have a roof over her head and food in her belly when so many orphans starve on the streets. Yet freedom is something Hannah longs for. She did not, however, want her freedom to arrive in the form of kidnapping.Taken by handsome Jack Langley to a place known as Freak House, she finds herself under the same roof as a mad scientist, his niece, a mute servant and Jack, a fire starter with a mysterious past. They assure Hannah she is not a prisoner and that they want to help her. The problem is, they think she's the earl's daughter. What will they do when they discover they took the wrong girl?

Seed


Ania Ahlborn - 2011
    His childhood is his darkest secret, but after a near fatal accident along a deserted road, the darkness he was sure he’d escaped rears its ugly head… and smiles.But this time, he isn’t the only one who sees the soulless eyes of his past. This time, his six-year-old daughter Charlie leans into his ear and whispers: Daddy, I saw it too.And then she begins to change.Faced with reliving the nightmares of his childhood, Jack watches his daughter spiral into the shadows that had nearly consumed him twenty years before. But Charlie isn’t the only one who’s changing. Jack never outran the darkness. It’s been with him all along. And it’s hungrier than ever. A new breed of dark fiction: the subtlety of Seed will haunt you, and the end will wickedly satisfy.

After the Ending


Lindsey Sparks (Fairleigh) - 2013
     They may have survived the apocalypse, but the Virus changed them... Grad student Dani O'Connor won't let a cross-country move end her closest friendship. But when a mysterious virus consumes the world and Dani, herself, falls violently ill, she fears she'll never see her loved ones again. After her fever finally breaks, she barely recognizes the devastated world around her. Everyone is dead. Dani is all alone. Or so she thinks... As a bartender, Zoe is used to dealing with hotheads and dirtbags, but nothing could have prepared her for the twisted thoughts of her fellow survivors. Her family is gone, and anyone left alive in the world is either sick, crazy, or changed...like her. As her newfound super senses gain strength, Zoe must learn to control them before she loses herself to madness completely. Perilous terrain spans the distance between them, and deranged survivors lurk in dark corners everywhere. Can Dani and Zoe overcome deadly attacks and unseen dangers in order to find each other? Or will they lose their way--and their lives--along the journey? After The Ending is the first book in the evocative, superpowered post-apocalyptic adventure, The Ending Series. If you like unbreakable friendships, gritty dystopian settings, and a touch of romance, then you'll love Lindsey Pogue and Lindsey Fairleigh's heart-wrenching tale. Buy After The Ending to embark on a supernatural survival story today! THE ENDING SERIES After The Ending Into The Fire Out Of The Ashes Before The Dawn The Ending Beginnings: A Collection of Stories World Before: A Collection of Stories

The Twisted Ones


T. Kingfisher - 2019
    After all, how bad could it be? Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants…until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself. Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors—because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale. From Hugo Award–winning author Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher.

The Jekyll Revelation


Robert Masello - 2016
    Inside the peculiar case, he discovers a journal, written by the renowned Robert Louis Stevenson, which divulges ominous particulars about his creation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It also promises to reveal a terrible secret—the identity of Jack the Ripper.Unfortunately, the journal—whose macabre tale unfolds in an alternating narrative with Rafe’s—isn’t the only relic in the trunk, and Rafe isn’t the only one to purloin a souvenir. A mysterious flask containing the last drops of the grisly potion that inspired Jekyll and Hyde and spawned London’s most infamous killer has gone missing. And it has definitely fallen into the wrong hands.

Deadly Sanctuary


Sylvia Nobel - 1998
    Her assignment: Find out why her predecessor mysteriously vanished while working on a story concerning the unsolved deaths of two teenage girls. Why is the sheriff so hostile to her inquiries? Why is the woman operating the local shelter for homeless girls so secretive? And how is attractive rancher Bradley Talverson involved?When the body of a third girl is discovered in the desert not far from a private mental institution, Kendall's life hangs in the balance as she strives to uncover the horrifying secret.Deadly Sanctuary is the first title in Sylvia Nobel's popular mystery series, featuring spirited, flame-haired reporter Kendall O'Dell. The author's trademark style is to produce exciting, well-written, edge-of-your-seat, adventures with "knock your socks off" surprise endings. Her judicious use of language and lack of graphic sex and violence make her novels suitable from teens to seniors.Author Biography: Sylvia Nobel is the award-winning author of the Kendall O'Dell mystery series and two romance novels, all set in Arizona. She is an accomplished public speaker and a member of Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Phoenix, AZ with her husband and seven cats.

Phantom Evil


Heather Graham - 2011
    and a murder no one else can crack.Though haunted by the recent deaths of two teammates, Jackson Crow knows that the living commit the most heinous crimes.A police officer utilizing her paranormal intuition, Angela Hawkins already has her hands full of mystery and bloodshed.But one assignment calls to them too strongly to resist. In a historic mansion in New Orleans's French Quarter, a senator's wife falls to her death. Most think she jumped; some say she was pushed. And yet others believe she was beckoned by the ghostly spirits inhabiting the house — once the site of a serial killer's grisly work.In this seemingly unsolvable case, only one thing is certain: whether supernatural or all too human, crimes of passion will cast Jackson and Angela into danger of losing their lives... and their immortal souls.

The Blackstone Chronicles


John Saul - 1997
    John Saul, the master of supernatural suspense, John Saul, brings to chilling life the small New England town of Blackstone--and the secrets and sins that lay buried there. . . . — From atop Blackstone's highest hill, the old Asylum casts its shadow over the village. Built in the 1890s to house the insane, the Asylum has stood vacant for decades. But now, the wrecker's ball is about to strike--and unleash an ominous evil. Strange gifts begin to appear on the doorsteps of Blackstone's finest citizens.Each bears a mysterious history.Each brings a horrifying power to harm.Each reveals another thread in the suspensefully woven web of . . .THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLESPart I--An Eye for an Eye: The DollPart II--Twist of Fate: The LocketPart III--Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon's FlamePart IV--In the Shadow of Evil: The HandkerchiefPart V--Day of Reckoning: The StereoscopePart VI--Asylum

The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum


Kirsten Weiss - 2016
    Railroaded into managing the local paranormal museum, she’s certain the rumors of its haunting are greatly exaggerated. But a new ghost may be on the loose. A fresh corpse in the museum embroils Maddie in murders past and present.With her high school bully as one of the officers in charge, Maddie doubts justice will be served. When one of her best friends is arrested, she’s certain it won’t be.Maddie grapples with ghost hunters, obsessed taxidermists, and the sexy motorcyclist next door as outside forces threaten. And as she juggles spectral shenanigans with the hunt for a killer, she discovers there truly is no place like home.