Book picks similar to
Seance for Susan by Lydia Benson Clark


gothic
horror
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Cannibals


Guy N. Smith - 1976
    This is the dark secret of a remote Highland village - a secret kept safe until a local fisherman builds some holiday chalets to attract tourists. Then the shameful conspiracy of silence is shattered at last - as the horrendous creatures shamble from their lair to mutilate and kill the unsuspecting visitors.

The Evil in Pemberley House


Philip José Farmer - 2009
    First described in the fictional biographies Tarzan Alive: The Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Farmer expanded his Wold Newton mythos in novels such as The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, Time s Last Gift, Hadon of Ancient Opar, Flight to Opar, The Dark Heart of Time: A Tarzan Novel, and Escape from Loki: Doc Savage's First Adventure.The Evil in Pemberley House, an addition to the Wold Newton cycle, plays with the Gothic horror tradition. Patricia Wildman, the daughter of the world-renowned adventurer and crimefighter of the 1930s and '40s, Dr. James Clarke "Doc" Wildman, is all alone in the world when she inherits the family estate in Derbyshire, England old, dark, and supposedly haunted.But Farmer, characteristically, turns convention on its ear. Is the ghost real, or a clever sham? In Patricia Wildman, Farmer creates an introspective character who struggles to reconcile the supernatural with her rational scientific upbringing, while also attempting to work through unresolved feelings about her late parents. He sets the action at Pemberley from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and ingrains the various mysteries in the Canon of the Sherlock Holmes stories.The Evil in Pemberley House is a darkly erotic novel with broad appeal to readers of pulp and popular literature, particularly followers of Doc Savage, Sherlockians, and fans of Farmer's own celebrated Wold Newton Family.

Blood Heritage


Sheri S. Tepper - 1986
    Until a shrieking, freezing horror escapes its ancient prison. Badger Ettison does not believe in magic. But the old blood-rituals are the only way to stop the voracious evil that pursues his wife and son. Badger Ettison does not believe in terror. Now he is living it.

The Witches


Peter Curtis - 1960
    But dreams can change into nightmares...When one of her students accuses his friend Ethel's grandmother of abusing her, Miss Mayfield cannot let it go. But Ethel won't say anything, despite the evidence of Miss Mayfield's own eyes. But as she attempts to get to the truth of the matter, she stumbles on something far more sinister. Walwyk seems to be in the grip of a centuries-old evil, and anybody who questions events in the village does not last long.Death stalks more than one victim, and Miss Mayfield begins to realise that if she's not careful, she will be the next to die...

The Hell Candidate


Thomas Luke - 1980
    "Thomas Luke" is a pen name of Graham Masterton, prolific author of such books as "The Manitou." "They said Hunter Peale didn't have a hope in hell of getting elected. They were wrong... He was a kindly, moderate man - with a less than moderate chance of winning. Then it all began to change... What power did Peale now have that brought men to their knees in abnormal pain - and made women writhe with unholy pleasure? The answer froze the spirit like a chill, rancid breath from the foul grave-stench mouth of Hell - for Peale had entered into a monstrous pact with none other than the Prince of Darkness himself..."

The Woodwitch


Stephen Gregory - 1988
    But he also has a dark side. When his girlfriend Jennifer laughs at his impotence, he lashes out in a violent rage, knocking her unconscious. At the suggestion of his employer, Andrew heads to an isolated cottage in the dark Welsh countryside to take a break and get a grip on himself. In the woods, he discovers the grotesque stinkhorn mushroom, whose phallic shape seems to rise in obscene mockery of his own shortcomings. But the stinkhorn gives him an idea, a way to win Jennifer back. As the seeds of obsession take root in Andrew’s mind, he embarks on a nightmarish quest, with unexpected and horrifying results. Stephen Gregory earned worldwide acclaim with his first novel, The Cormorant (1986), which won the Somerset Maugham Award and was adapted for a BBC film. In The Woodwitch (1988), his second novel, Gregory once again proves himself a master of disturbing and unsettling horror.

The Haunting of Hathaway House


Amy Cross - 2020
    When Craig and Becky Westcott died, their son Michael was left all alone in the house for several days until he was discovered by his uncle. But was he really alone?Today, determined to bury the past, Michael Westcott moves back to Hathaway House with his pregnant wife. They set about renovating the building, even though Jennifer has reservations about the project. Soon, however, she begins to worry that there might be a presence lingering in the house, one that still remembers Michael. One that seems linked somehow to a mysterious old crib.Michael and Jennifer soon discover that the past can't be forgotten so easily. Who built a hidden room beneath the house? What really happened to Michael's parents all those years ago? And whose faded, ghostly hand can sometimes still be seen resting on the crib's side?The Haunting of Hathaway House is a ghost story about family, about the dangers of not learning from the past, and about an evil that has survived for centuries.

Blood and Water and Other Tales


Patrick McGrath - 1988
    A failed writer meets an ageing gin-queen who claims he was once visited by an angel; a little girl finds a delirious, dying explorer from the Congo at the bottom of her back garden; a night-club is terrorized by a strange libidinous hand; and a young Victorian lady sails to India to find her fiance Cecil horribly transformed...

Familiar Spirit


Lisa Tuttle - 1983
    until Brian fell in love with someone else. Sarah's life was shattered. Sarah was shattered.Miraculously, Sarah soon had a new lover -- one who came to her in dreams, who promised her anything she wanted, in return for a small favor, an innocent sacrifice...Anything she wanted -- even Brian. For her own, forever.In exchange, all Jade wanted was Sarah's soul...

Elizabeth


Jessica Hamilton - 1976
    Her family wouldn't have believed it even if she had told them - which she had no intention of doing. Elizabeth had far different plans for them - and only God could help them. He didn't - and Elizabeth set out to prove how hellishly far she could go...

The Orchard


Charles L. Grant - 1986
    The first death seems to be an accident.But there's no doubt about the suicide, or the mutilation murder, or the horror that seizes the movie theater, or the terror that inhabits the hospital...All are the fruits of that night in the orchard.

Lost


Gary Devon - 1986
    Taken From:http://www.alibris.com/search/books/q...

Vampire Junction


S.P. Somtow - 1984
    . . It's about rock music, about mass hysteria, about vampires, about horror . . . one comes out knowing, and caring, about a panoply of new friends and acquaintances, living and dead, and unalive".--Theodore Sturgeon, The Washington Post.

The Leper House


Andrew Taylor - 2014
    They built it outside the Suffolk town so it would not infect the healthy with its horrors. But the town itself is long gone, washed away by the North Sea. Only the Leper House remains, a shelter for the unwanted. A bereaved man strays there on a stormy night when the bell tolls once again beneath the waves. In a nearby house, a woman waits for history to repeat itself. When time isn’t what it seems, nor is love and nor are ghosts. And nor are we. The Leper House is a 19,000-word novella, written for Kindle Singles and available here for the first time. Andrew Taylor is a British crime and historical novelist whose books include the international bestseller, The American Boy (a Richard-and-Judy selection), and the Roth Trilogy (filmed for TV as Fallen Angel). Among his many awards are the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Excellence in crime writing. His latest novel is The Scent of Death, winner of the 2013 Historical Dagger.

Strange Eons


Robert Bloch - 1978
    But both are real.... — In the world of today and the near future, three people inexorably linked by a common interest in the work of H. P. Lovecraft, discover: — that the legendary creatures he created in his fantasies have hideous counterparts in reality... that his fiction is incredible fact... that his message is a warning...Bloch was a protège of H. P. Lovecraft, and, at the age of fifteen, the youngest member of the "Lovecraft Circle." This book, based on Lovecraftian themes, is his homage to the man.Of all the Lovecraft pastiches, Strange Eons most emphatically takes the bleak implications of his mythos to their logical conclusion.Cover Art by David Hada