Book picks similar to
Severed by Warren Barns
extreme-horror
horror
anthology
oscuros
Cicada Spring
Christian Galacar - 2015
. .On a warm May evening in the spring of 1979, the people of Heartsridge, Massachusetts, are living the American dream. Families are gathered for barbecues. Kids are playing in front yards. Gardens are being kept. Meanwhile, Kara Price stumbles home through the woods, raped and beaten, her life shattered by a wicked act of violence, perpetrated by one of the town’s most beloved and public figures. Surrounding Kara is a cast of compelling and nefarious characters—a violent-tempered mayor who can do no wrong in the eyes of the town, a sheriff bound by the rules and plagued by a guilty conscience, a father bent on revenge, a serial killer in the midst of an identity crisis. And at the center of it all there's Kara, who just wants to move on with her life and forget everything that happened to her. But how can she do that when everyone thinks she is a liar who is only out for attention? With plot and emotion braided together by a careful hand, this haunted group of people all acting on behalf of their own interests begs the question: How far would you go to protect your own?
Gristle
Mark Allen - 2015
The tiny mountain town of Vesper Falls knows it, but more importantly, his son Kevin knows it. Haunted by soul-ripping guilt and fiercely despised by his son, Jack turns to the bottle while Kevin turns to crime. But three years behind bars does nothing to dull the hate he feels toward his father. Desperate to reconnect, Jack takes Kevin on a hunting trip to Scar Lake, arranged by a preacher with his own emotional scars. But there is something wicked in the woods that doesn’t care about emotions—it only cares about death and torment. The hunters become the hunted as small town secrets are dragged from the darkness and Jack finds himself facing an impossible choice as his son’s life hangs in the balance. Gristle is a brutal, bloody, briskly-paced novel of redemption, sacrifice, and backwoods horror in the classic tradition of The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn.
She Has a Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be
J.D. Barker - 2020
After the loss of his parents, young Jack Thatch first met Stella as a child—this cryptic little girl of eight with dark hair and darker eyes, sitting alone on a bench in the cemetery clutching her favorite book. Gone moments later, the brief encounter would spark an obsession. She'd creep into his thoughts, his every waking moment, until he finally finds her again exactly one year later, sitting upon the same bench, only to disappear again soon after. The body of a man found in an alley, every inch of his flesh horribly burned, yet his clothing completely untouched. For Detective Faustino Brier, this wasn't the first, and he knew it wouldn't be the last. It was no different from the others. He'd find another just like it one year from today. August 9, to be exact. Isolated and locked away from the world in a shadowy lab, a little boy known only as Subject "D" waits, grows, learns. He's permitted to speak to no one. He has never known the touch of another. Harboring a power so horrific, those in control will never allow him beyond their walls. All of them linked in ways unimaginable.
Taste of Fear (John Montclair #1)
Jadran Hawke - 2014
French banker Liliane Genet has been looking for a man just like him for a long time. Smart, witty, well-built and successful, her new lover looks too good to be true. Maybe because he actually is... When detective John Montclair is called to investigate on her death, he quickly realizes that the killer knows what he's doing. He's a maniac but he's a pro. The victim was brutally murdered in the middle of sexual games yet the crime scene is perfectly clean. How did he manage to do that? Because there is one thing for sure: Liliane Genet was not the first one to fall for the dangerous sexual predator. And she won't be the last...
Don't Need No Water
Evans Light - 2013
After he and his brothers learn the harsh truth about what really happened, what the Sheriff and his friends did to her, they set out to make the whole town pay for their sins - and nothing but the truth can stop the flames of hell that burn in the wake of their brutal vengeance."Brutal...vicious...unapologetic...twisted. Five Stars - highly recommended."-Jason Parent, author of SEEING EVIL and WHAT HIDES WITHIN""...Lean, mean-spirited, gruesome, fast-paced, and quite tense."-Gregor Xane, author of THE HANOVER BLOCK and SIX DEAD SPOTS
The Compound
Ben Follows - 2017
In the small town of Crescent Point, Jake will come face to face with an enemy unlike any he's ever faced before, and with the sins he's tried to ignore. He will discover that sometimes when you dig too deep into the darkness, you find something dragging you further down, and the only escape from the darkness is a desperate scramble toward the light.
One Night Only
Lauren Blakely - 2020
His job is to protect me. It’s not to fulfill all my nighttime wishes. And so I resist him, fighting the enticing pull of the powerful man who watches over me. Until the night we combust in my penthouse suite. It won’t happen again, we say the next day.Besides, my mission is singular — pull off the event of a lifetime — a one-night only concert with one of the world’s biggest rock stars.A man my bodyguard happens to know. And a good bodyguard knows all sorts of things about his client. Turns out he knows my secret wishes, and he wants to make them come true. Including a VIP engagement so I can experience both men at the same time…I want to say yes, but what if I fall even more in love with the man whose mission is to keep me safe?One Night Only is a romance novel in The Extravagant Series. Other standalones in this series are One Exquisite Touch, and One Alluring Chance. The book One Time Only is a standalone MM spinoff in The Extravagant world.
Liliana's Letter
Alina K. Field - 2015
If only the young lady’s starchy hired companion would move out of the way. The MatchbreakerHired to launch an heiress’s society debut, seemingly straitlaced spinster Liliana Ashford’s future as a professional chaperone depends on the girl’s successful marriage. But Liliana had her own close encounter with a scoundrel years ago, and she won’t let her charge be forced into marriage to the same kind of rogue, no matter how hard the man’s widowed uncle tries to woo Liliana around to the match.Secrets and a Scandalous Murder A shadow from Liliana’s past appears bearing an unfortunate letter she wrote long ago, and then the earl is murdered, evoking the scandal of the season. While she scrambles to make a respectable match for her charge before her own past can be exposed, Grigsby sets about finding his nephew’s killer—and Liliana’s secrets.
The Gate: 13 Dark and Odd Tales
Robert J. Duperre - 2010
Duperre, author of The Fall: The Rift Book I. Also contributing to this collection are the talented Mercedes M. Yardley, David Dalglish, David McAfee, and Daniel Pyle.
The Woman in the Car Trunk
John Meany - 2019
Now imagine that after your highly televised divorce you end up with one of your husband’s mansions and expensive cars, you think he has moved on. But no, your ex-husband breaks into your house one night wearing a mask; he tries to strangle you. The next thing you know you wake up in the trunk of his car with a murdered police officer’s body laying on top of you. What would you do? Well, you would probably do exactly what Scarlett Nacke does at first is panic. Then you’d realize that if you couldn’t figure out a way to get out of the trunk soon, you’d end up like the murdered cop, dead. Does Scarlett survive? Read 'The Woman in the Car Trunk' and find out.
What Once Was Perfect
Zoe York - 2013
Heading home always stirs up mixed emotions for Laney Calhoun. Twelve years ago she left for graduate school, broken-hearted. She's found professional success, but positive personal relationships have proved elusive. Running into her ex-boyfriend fans flames she thought long extinguished, and causes a renewed interest in love. Not with Kyle, of course. Never again. But as sparks fly and items of clothing disappear, she scrambles to keep her emotions in check. ...Now he has a second chance to get it right. Kyle Nixon let Laney slip away once. Their chemistry together is undeniable, but steamy sex is not enough to convince her to let him back into her heart. Even if she did trust him again, her career as a paediatric surgeon is five hundred kilometers away from the hometown that he loves, and the life he once chose over her. Come home to Wardham. Come home to love.
The House of Twelve
Sean Davies - 2016
They quickly learn that there is no way out, scarcely enough food and water to go around, and eerie music plays constantly in the background of every room. There is nothing to explain their mysterious incarceration except for a few scattered clues, a strange clock with twenty-four numbers and one single hour hand, and a leather-bound sheet of rules that makes their situation all the more fatal. The House Rules: Rule one: No escape. You can’t leave, plain and simple. Try to escape and you won’t like what you find on the other side. Rule two: Make what you have last. Whatever food and water you currently find in the house is all that you will be provided with during your stay. No more will be given to you under any circumstance. Rule three: When the music stops, someone must die. The music you can all hear in the background will cease between the hour of twenty-three and twenty-four; when this happens someone must die. Failure to comply with this rule will result in everyone’s death. Rule four: Only one, and only when the music stops! One death, and only one death, must occur in the allotted time between the hour of twenty-three and twenty-four. Again, failure to comply with this rule will result in everyone’s death. We hope you have a pleasant stay, and don’t forget: Redemption is the key to escape.
Wild Raspberries
Connie Chappell - 2015
She simply wants to fulfill her promise to Jack to visit their cabin in the West Virginia mountains, where their long love affair was safely hidden. Instead, her emotionally reminiscent trip becomes crowded with the two Sebring women, a grief counselor, and the massive role Callie assumes. She must speak for Jack in order to protect his four-year old grandson Chad from his stubbornly manipulative and blame-passing grandmother and his recently widowed and power-usurping mother. Callie understands both women grieve the loss of Chad’s father. He died when a raging storm split the tree that crushed him. Grief isn’t the only common thread running between the four women. One by one, their secrets are revealed on the West Virginia mountaintop.
Turbulence
David Szalay - 2018
He returns home to tragic news that has also impacted another stranger, a shaken pilot on his way to another continent who seeks comfort from a journalist he meets that night. Her life shifts subtly as well, before she heads to the airport on an assignment that will shift more lives in turn.In this wondrous, profoundly moving novel, Szalay's diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet in twelve flights, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren, or nobody at all. Along the way, they experience the full range of human emotions from loneliness to love and, knowingly or otherwise, change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next.Written with magic and economy and beautifully exploring the delicate, crisscrossed nature of relationships today, Turbulence is a dazzling portrait of the interconnectedness of the modern world.
Darkness Falls
Erin Kellison - 2014
He finds the undeniably gifted Jordan Lane, but she’s wary of mysterious Rook and resists his pursuit as long as she can. When the dreamwaters they enter are too exhilarating to resist, their attraction explodes into passion. But delving too deep stirs a nightmare—one they must defeat together, or be forever lost to darkness. Fans of paranormal romance and bad boys, get ready for a dark, sexy plunge into fantasy and desire. The Reveler Series is set in a contemporary world in which people can indulge in Rêve, or shared dreaming—a pop culture phenomenon sweeping the world. Imagine being able to fall asleep at night, only to wake in a dream world, one in which you are lucid and in control—where you can be anything you want to be and do anything you like. But you must be careful…dreaming can be as dangerous as it is seductive.