Book picks similar to
Rotten Apple by Natasha A. Salnikova


psychological-thriller
psychological-thrillers
sample
stand-alone

His Dark Imagination: A Collection Of Twisted Short Stories And Novellas


Matt Shaw - 2020
    18 - A girl's 18th birthday party ends in disaster. Mum - How does a mother handle her son spying on her in the shower? Fast Forward - A simple app which helps you skip the mundane parts of your life... Novellas Road Rage - On his 18th birthday, Zach was excited to get his own car... Until he realised it had a mind of its own.

New Year's Eve


J.G. Murray - 2020
    No more run-down flats in dodgy areas. But behind the exterior of this beautiful Victorian house, things are less than picture-perfect, and the tight-knit community is unwelcoming.When Hayley befriends the woman next door, no-one is pleased. Least of all the man from upstairs. The one who watches them all from behind his window. Then they receive an invite for a New Year's Eve party. But what seems like a friendly gesture, proves to be anything but...

Strategy


Anita Waller - 2017
    But it’s not only the letters that Jenny has in her sights… Strategy is the follow up to the international best-seller 34 Days, it can be read as a sequel or an unmissable stand-alone.Anita Waller is the best-selling author of Beautiful, Angel, 34 Days & Winterscroft

The Game You Played


Anni Taylor - 2016
    International visitors surge into Sydney's Darling Harbour. Two-year-old Tommy is sailing his toy boat in the park when he vanishes. Six months later, taunting notes written as nursery rhymes begin arriving at his parents' home.Little Boy Blue, where did you go? Who led you away? Only I know . . . . The police believe the messages are just a cruel prank. But Tommy's mother Phoebe becomes obsessed with tracking down the writer of the rhymes. Her life and marriage shatters.When the shocking identity of the message-writer is discovered, Phoebe's desperate race for the truth has only just begun."I love love love this author! This is the sort of book I love but never find very often!" - reviewer

Trinity


Luke Romyn - 2016
    Prepare to have your nerves shredded in this pulse-pounding race for answers. "If you love suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat, can't-put-it-down-action-packed-thrillers ... the type of book where you can't wait to get up in the morning and read more as soon as you wake up, this is the book for you!" -- Tony Kaup A young man wakes up knowing nothing other than the fact that three killers are stalking the country, and they have now set their sights on him. Chance Ripley is not ordinary. He sees things others can’t see and knows things he cannot possibly know. As time goes on, and the tangled threads of his memory begin to unravel, the brutal truth of his past slowly seeps through, and Chance learns that to remain still is to face certain death. For the visions tormenting him are no mere fantasies, no flits of his imagination sent to plague his waking hours. They are real, just as the horrors they show him are real, and if he refuses to act, more people will die, himself among them. The problem is, he can't escape; he's locked in an asylum. "As usual, Romyn doesn't give the reader much chance to breathe once the action starts... If you're still thinking about a book several weeks later, it's done its job. I absolutely recommend this one!" -- Adina

The Perfect Child


Lucinda Berry - 2019
    All that’s missing is a child. When Janie, an abandoned six-year-old, turns up at their hospital, Christopher forms an instant connection with her, and he convinces Hannah they should take her home as their own.But Janie is no ordinary child, and her damaged psyche proves to be more than her new parents were expecting. Janie is fiercely devoted to Christopher, but she acts out in increasingly disturbing ways, directing all her rage at Hannah. Unable to bond with Janie, Hannah is drowning under the pressure, and Christopher refuses to see Janie’s true nature.Hannah knows that Janie is manipulating Christopher and isolating him from her, despite Hannah’s attempts to bring them all together. But as Janie’s behavior threatens to tear Christopher and Hannah apart, the truth behind Janie’s past may be enough to push them all over the edge.

The Stillwater Girls


Minka Kent - 2019
    When the youngest grows gravely ill, their mother leaves with the child to get help from a nearby town. And they never return.As months pass, hope vanishes. Supplies are low. Livestock are dying. A brutal winter is bearing down. Then comes the stranger. He claims to be looking for the girls’ mother, and he’s not leaving without them.To escape, Wren and her sister must break the rule they’ve grown up with: never go beyond the forest.Past the thicket of dread, they come upon a house on the other side of the pines. This is where Wren and Sage must confront something more chilling than the unknowable. They’ll discover what’s been hidden from them, what they’re running from, and the secrets that have left them in the dark their entire lives.

Baby Dear


Linda Huber - 2017
    Caro married Jeff because her biggest wish was to be a mother, and he had the means to give their children a better life than she’d had. Jeff, who is besotted with Caro, is terrified he will lose her now they can’t have a baby.Across town, Sharon is eight months pregnant and unsure if she really wants to be a mother. Soon her world will collide with Jeff’s. He wants to keep Caro happy and decides that getting a baby is the only way.   Then Caro is accidently drawn into an underworld of drugs…Meanwhile, Jeff is increasingly desperate to find a baby – but what lengths is he prepared to go to? Is Sharon in danger, and will Caro ever have the family she’s always dreamed of?

The Grave Tender


Eliza Maxwell - 2015
    People said her mother, Winnie, was never quite right, but with one single, irreparable act, life as Hadley knew it was shattered. The aftershocks of that moonlit night left her reeling, but the secrets and lies had started long before.When a widowed and pregnant Hadley returns years later, it’s not the safe harbor she expects. The mysteries surrounding a local boy’s disappearance remain, and the townspeople still whisper about Hadley’s strange and reclusive Uncle Eli—whispers about a monster in their midst.But Hadley’s father and grandmother, the cornerstones of everything safe in her world, avoid her questions. If Hadley stays here, will she be giving her children the family they need or putting their lives in danger?The hunt for answers takes a determined Hadley deep into the pine forests, in search of sunlight that will break through the canopy of lies long enough to reveal the truth.

Someone Else's House


Jessica Vallance - 2019
    Stay in a 'home away from home'. But if it's someone else's house, then you're not the only one with the key.Lauren has finally dumped her dead-weight boyfriend, and what better way to celebrate a break-up than by going on holiday with your best friend?Except the holiday isn't turning out as planned - their cosy twosome has become a three and while Barcelona might be heaven, their rented apartment is anything but. It's small, shabby but, more than that, Lauren can't help but feel hunted.As the strange incidents escalate, Lauren and her friends decide to make their escape. But it's when they leave that the real danger begins.

The Camera Man


Amy Cross - 2017
    Everything you do, everywhere you go, everyone you meet. Even if you can't see him, he'll be somewhere around. Always filming you.” When she was a little girl, Jess once saw a man filming her during a family holiday. Years later, she saw the same man filming her in the park. Now, as she approaches her mid-twenties, Jess sees the same man again. And this time, her best friend just happens to have gone missing. Soon, Jess is plunged into a nightmare that nobody else believes could be real. Haunted by the sight of the camera man, but never able to get to him, she begins to lose her mind. But is Jess suffering from paranoia, or is the man really following her? And if he's real, then why will he go to any lengths to capture her entire life on film? The Camera Man is a horror novel about a woman haunted by a mysterious figure, about a man driven to insanity by a voice in his mind, and about a dark force that is finally ready to break through to this world.

The Wicked Ones: Children of the Lost


J.Z. Foster - 2018
    FosterYou know, the best thing about nightmares is that they're not real. It's all just in your head, and as soon as you wake up, pop! It's all gone. You're safe. It's not like they could crawl out, creeping from your mind with long, slender fingers and milky yellow eyes sunken into heads with pointed horns bursting out. That'd just be insane. Daniel Tanner's life is insane. A mysterious disease came to claim his son, seemingly pulling him into the grave with cold fingers named misery and hopelessness.Now a stranger has come calling with an even stranger tale of monsters—horrible things that take children in the middle of the night and leave their own, things that crawled out of the fairy tales our barbarous ancestors used to tell, things that they tried to warn us about. We didn't listen. Because monsters aren't real, are they? There's no reason to fear the dark, no reason at all to believe the old tales about creatures with a taste for human meat. That would be insane... wouldn't it?

The Watcher


Sam Croft - 2012
    When John falls in love, unspoken bonds are tested, unwittingly exposing secrets guarded since his childhood.Horrified by links to the London underground, and appalled by the extent of his brother's jealousy, John soon realises that these secrets not only affect his past, but also threaten to affect this future.The Watcher is constructed around facts of the Jack the Ripper case, incorporating popular myths and theories. Through fiction, it examines the Whitechapel murders in a way that has never before been explored.Why did the murderer have committed such terrible crimes? What might have made him into such a monster? Why did the murders start then just as swiftly end?

You Are Mine


Diana Wilkinson - 2020
    When he returns a happy ending appears within their grasp but there is no escape from the past. And Arthur, Rebecca’s friend who has formed an unhealthy obsession with her, has no intention of letting her go.When Arthur realises that Mitch is the only person standing in the way of his happiness, his thoughts turn to murder…When love and obsession collide, the results are deadly.

The Family Friend


C.C. MacDonald - 2021
    IT ONLY TAKES ONE TO DESTROY YOU.Erin lives an idyllic life by the seaside with her baby boy and Australian fiancé. She's upbeat and happy - a natural mum.At least that's what her thousands of followers on Instagram think.In reality, Erin is struggling with anxiety and finding it difficult to connect with her screaming son. So, when an agent offers to make her the biggest Instamum out there, she can't refuse.And when Amanda, a family friend who's visiting from Australia, says she'll move in and babysit to help make it happen, it seems like the stars have finally aligned for Erin's exciting new career.But there's something Amanda isn't telling her.Something that will destroy Erin's carefully curated persona online.___________________________ Praise for HAPPY EVER AFTER: 'Kept me gripped and kept me guessing' Erin Kelly, author of He Said/She Said'Excellent domestic noir, chillingly plausible... I loved the ending' Jo Spain, author of The Confession'An absorbing story, a bunch of unexpected twists, great writing. I totally lost myself in this book' John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas