Book picks similar to
Witch Water by Edward Lee
horror
edward-lee
fiction
paranormal
Shallow Graves
Patrick Logan - 2016
Robert Watts is having the worst day of his entire life: first he's laid off, then he finds out that his wife is having an affair... with his boss no less. And that's only the beginning. Before the month is out, Robert finds himself alone to raise his daughter with no money, no job, and a house that is minutes from being repossessed. Just when he hits rock bottom, a strange visitor arrives at the doorstep of his soon to be foreclosed house with a letter from an Aunt he didn't know existed. The offer is simple: look after Aunt Ruth during her dying days, and in return Robert will be bequeathed the Harlop Estate in which she currently resides. It's a no brainer and Robert jumps at the opportunity, equally motivated by the prospect of financial security as he is for a fresh start. Problem is, it only takes a few nights in the Harlop Estate before he begins to question Aunt Ruth's claims that they are the home's only inhabitants... It's the scratching he hears during the night, the voices that he can barely make out over the constant rain, and then there's the girl with the rat... With their house foreclosed and their bank accounts liquidated, Robert and his daughter Amy desperately need a place to live. But the question Robert soon finds himself struggling with is whether living in the Harlop Estate is worth it... and if he can survive until Aunt Ruth passes to collect his inheritance. Shallow Graves is the first book in the Haunted Series, chilling, gruesome, and truly haunting tales with a twist that you will never see coming.
Penpal
Dathan Auerbach - 2012
Before long, it was adapted into illustrations, audio recordings, and short films; and that was before it was revised and expanded into a novel!How much do you remember about your childhood?In Penpal, a man investigates the seemingly unrelated bizarre, tragic, and horrific occurrences of his childhood in an attempt to finally understand them. Beginning with only fragments of his earliest years, you'll follow the narrator as he discovers that these strange and horrible events are actually part of a single terrifying story that has shaped the entirety of his life and the lives of those around him. If you've ever stayed in the woods just a little too long after dark, if you've ever had the feeling that someone or something was trying to hurt you, if you remember the first friend you ever made and how strong that bond was, then Penpal is a story that you won't soon forget, despite how you might try.
A Taste of Magic
Tracy Madison - 2009
If there’s a bitter taste in her mouth, no one can blame her.But today, Liz is about to receive a gift. Her Grandma Verda isn’t just wacky; she’s a little witchy. An ancient gypsy magic has been passed through her family bloodline for generations, and it’s Liz’s turn to be empowered. Henceforth, everything she bakes will have a dash of delight and a pinch of wishes-can-come-true. From her hunky policeman neighbor, to her gorgeous personal trainer, to her bum of an ex-husband, everyone Liz knows is going to taste her power. Revenge is sweet…and it’s only the first dish to be served.
77 Shadow Street
Dean R. Koontz - 2011
I live in the Pendleton as surely as I live everywhere. I am the Pendleton’s history and its destiny. The building is my place of conception, my monument, my killing ground. . . .The Pendleton stands on the summit of Shadow Hill at the highest point of an old heartland city, a Gilded Age palace built in the late 1800s as a tycoon’s dream home. Almost from the beginning, its grandeur has been scarred by episodes of madness, suicide, mass murder, and whispers of things far worse. But since its rechristening in the 1970s as a luxury apartment building, the Pendleton has been at peace. For its fortunate residents—among them a successful songwriter and her young son, a disgraced ex-senator, a widowed attorney, and a driven money manager—the Pendleton’s magnificent quarters are a sanctuary, its dark past all but forgotten.But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay impossible images, phantom voices mutter in strange tongues, not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into unknown depths. With each passing hour, a terrifying certainty grows: Whatever drove the Pendleton’s past occupants to their unspeakable fates is at work again. Soon, all those within its boundaries will be engulfed by a dark tide from which few have escaped.Dean Koontz transcends all expectations as he takes readers on a gripping journey to a place where nightmare visions become real—and where a group of singular individuals hold the key to humanity’s destiny. Welcome to 77 Shadow Street.
The Witch's Trinity
Erika Mailman - 2007
The village has been suffering a famine, and the villagers are desperately hungry. The friar’s arrival is a miracle, and when he claims he can restore the town to prosperity, the men and women gathered to hear him rejoice. The friar has a book called the Malleus Maleficarum—“The Witch’s Hammer”—a guide to gaining confessions of witchcraft. The friar promises he will identify the guilty woman who has brought God’s anger upon the town; she will be burned, and bounty will be restored. Tierkinddorf is filled with hope. Neighbors wonder aloud who has cursed them and how quickly can she be found? They begin sharing secrets with the friar. Güde Müller, an elderly woman, has stark and frightening visions—recently she has seen things that defy explanation. None in the village know this, and Güde herself worries that perhaps her mind has begun to wander—certainly she has outlived all but one of her peers in Tierkinddorf. Yet of one thing she is absolutely certain: She has become an object of scorn and a burden to her son’s wife. In these desperate times her daughter-in-law would prefer one less hungry mouth at the family table. As the friar turns his eye on each member of the tiny community, Güde dreads what her daughter-in-law might say to win his favor.Then one terrible night Güde follows an unearthly voice and the scent of charred meat into the snow-filled woods. Come morning, she no longer knows if the horror she witnessed was real or imagined. She only knows that if the friar hears of it, she may be damned in this life as well as the next.The Witch’s Trinity beautifully illuminates a dark period of history; it is vividly imagined, elegantly written, haunting, and unforgettable.From the Hardcover edition.
The Haunted
Bentley Little - 2012
Pity no one warned the family about the house. Now it's too late. Because the darkness at the bottom of the basement stairs is rising.
While the Savage Sleeps
Andrew E. Kaufman - 2010
He's moved back home to Faith, New Mexico and taken a job as assistant sheriff. What he doesn't realize is that his newest nightmare's about to begin. Strange things are happening. People are disappearing, and for others, it's far worse …DISTANCE SEPARATES THEM Miles away in Albuquerque, Kyle Bancroft's life is spinning out of control. She's seeing, hearing, and dreaming things she can't explain: Flashbacks to World War II and an eerie hospital ward with locked doors, empty gurneys, and guttural screams. To make matters worse, a ghostly green-eyed girl is complicating her visions with an urgent message: Time is running out. A DARK SECRET CONNECTS THEMKyle's otherworldly encounters are driving her straight toward Faith … and right into Cameron's life. The body count is rising, the pressure is mounting, and the clock is ticking as they rush to uncover a dangerous secret hiding just below the surface of this all-American town—one that's threatening to destroy Faith and everyone in it. A secret they must hunt down quickly … even if it costs them their own lives.A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE WILL DRAW THEM TOGETHER
Visions of Magic
Regan Hastings - 2011
For weeks Shea Jameson has been haunted by visions of fire. When she unintentionally performs a spell in public, she becomes one of the hunted. Her only hope is Torin, a dangerously sensual man who claims to be her eternal mate.
Loss
Glen R. Krisch - 2012
Though her soul mate is gone, her memories of Paul linger as she tries to recover at their secluded wooded estate. Ostracized from Paul's family--the only family she has really known--Angie's life spirals down a dark path of alcohol and pills. In the blur of constant self-medication, Angie is in no position to know what is happening to her. Is Paul haunting her? Has she gone mad? Or is there another possibility, something far worse?
Eternity
Maggie Shayne - 1998
James was accused of witchcraft...Only one man tried to free her from the hangman's noose--Duncan, the town minister, who died trying to save her. Three hundred years later, the accused witch still lives and longs for her love...At last, after centuries of loneliness, Raven has found her precious Duncan. But as he awakens to the passion of his past life, so too does the evil that tore them apart. Now Raven and Duncan must prove their love for all eternity...
The Croning
Laird Barron - 2012
Black magic, weird cults, and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us....Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly 80 years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge. Donald will discover the dark secrets along the edges, unearthing savage truths about his wife Michelle, their adult twins, and all he knows and trusts. For Donald is about to stumble on the secret... of The Croning.From Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation, comes The Croning, a debut novel of cosmic horror.
The Faceless
Simon Bestwick - 2012
As local townsfolk in a northern city disappear masked men with sinister links to the past haunt the streets. Unconnected events begin to align as Detective Chief Inspector Renwick realises these mysterious figures have chosen targets and an even bigger plan.In the Lancashire town of Kempforth, people are vanishing. Mist hangs heavy in the streets, and in those mists move the masked figures the local kids call the Spindly Men. When two year old Roseanne Trevor disappears, Detective Chief Inspector Renwick vows to stop at nothing until she finds her. In Manchester, terrifying visions summon TV psychic Allen Cowell and his sister Vera back to the town they swore they’d left forever. And local historian Anna Mason pieces together a history of cruelty and exploitation almost beyond belief, born out of the horrors of war – while in the decaying corridors and lightless rooms of a long-abandoned hospital, something terrible is waiting for them all.
The Amulet Thief
Luanne Bennett - 2015
When she comes home to New York City, she wants just two things: a little peace, and answers about the unsolved murder and why she was abandoned in the middle of America at the age of eight.Greer Sinclair, an enigmatic stranger who knows a little bit more than he should, just might give her both–and more if she’ll let him.What is she?What is he? Who is this beguiling satyr who keeps coming between them? She attracts the otherworldly like moths to a flame. And why does every stranger on the streets of Manhattan want a piece of her and that pendant hanging around her pretty little neck?Maybe the answers are in a peculiar shop in the heart of Greenwich Village where ghosts, memories, and secrets are bursting from the walls and the books and the one person who knows her best. The line between the mundane and supernatural worlds is starting to blur. Which side will she choose? Which would you?
Malice
Griffin Hayes - 2011
5000... 4997... 4993...The sheriff has convinced himself and others that the recent rash of deaths in the town are just suicides. Lysander Shore knows different. He knows the townsfolk are being hunted. He knows they face an evil as old as the town itself. He knows it's something that can't be killed, can't be reasoned with.And he knows that the evil knows about him, too. It's waited centuries for Lysander to come home. Now it wants to make him pay.
Brain Child
John Saul - 1985
once home to a proud Spanish heritage... now a thriving modern community high in the California hills... where a boy named Alex is about to become the instrument of a terrible, undying vengeance.Alex needs a miracle... Alex Lonsdale was one of the most popular kids in La Paloma. Until the horrifying car accident. Until a brilliant doctor's medical miracle brought him back from the brink of death.Now Alex has come back... He seems the same. But in his eyes there is a terrible blankness. In his heart there is a coldness. And if his parents, his friends, his girlfriend could see inside his brain, if they could see his dreams, they would be terrified.Now the people must die... One hundred years ago in La Paloma a terrible deed was done; a cry for vengeance pierced the night. In dark and secret places in La Paloma that evil lives still, that vengeance waits.Waits for Alex Lonsdale.Waits for the... Brainchild.