Book picks similar to
Trinity Grove by David Vanmeter Smith


horror
folk-horror
paperbacks-from-hell
pulp

The Seeding


David Shobin - 1982
    Sandra Fischer relaxes in bed. Moments later, when her husband enters the room — she is dead. One by one, the women are dying. The leading medical experts are baffled. There is only one clue: the rich, sweet scent of the tropics — the scent of life, seconds after each woman's shocking death.One dedicated doctor. One beautiful woman. Together they will enter an awesome new realm of medical knowledge beyond both life and death. For he will discover a terrifying secret. And she has been chosen for … THE SEEDING.

Evil Whispers


Owl Goingback - 2001
    They found it in a backwoods Florida town. Far away from civilization. Quiet and peaceful. And terribly isolated.Robert and Janet should have listened to the local legends. They should have heeded the warnings about the black water lagoons. And they should have listened to their daughter when she told them about the whispers in the woods. Because now, it's too late. Krissy's disappeared, and whatever took their little girl is coming back for more....

The Beast House / After Midnight


Richard Laymon - 2005
    

Soulstorm


Chet Williamson - 1986
    There they will confront madness, murder, and the ultimate evil so that their billionaire host might find the key to life beyond the grave. But as they learn, dead souls dwell in The Pines. And death is just the beginning...

...Walkers


Gary Brandner - 1980
    But she was brought back to life!That's when people began trying to kill her...nice people...the last people in the world anyone would suspect of being capable of murder--people who were already dead......Walkers: The most terrifying novel you've ever read!

Darkly the Thunder


William W. Johnstone - 1990
    A good man, that Sand, and when he died, the forces of darkness had taken root in Willowdale, Colorado. Now the isolated little town, nestled in the Rockies, was about to give birth to an evil beyond comprehension, beyond imagining... a reign of terror so insatiable that Al Watt could do nothing to stop it.CHILD PRODIGYSomething bad was going to happen. Eleven-year-old Howie Ingram could feel it in his bones. Of course no one ever listened to Howie Ingram, the twerp. All they did was make fun of him for being so smart he was already taking high school and college courses. Howie tried not to care. Except now he really needed someone to listen to him when he told them about the townspeople turning into zombies and the strange noises coming in over the air waves. And the distant sound of thunder. He and his computer didn't stand much of a chance, alone, against a force as powerful and primitive as Satan himself...

Button Bright


Michael Kurland - 1990
    But Button was only dimly aware of the sounds. Her consciousness had shrunk down to focus on the body that was blocking her hole— —and the warm, thick liquid that was dripping onto her hand.” Button is an 11 year old, bubbly and intelligent girl who is haunted in her dreams by a tapping sound… Living with her mother and father in Cottsborough, Vermont, Button had been trained to hide and not ever answer to her secret name, ‘Rachel’. One day, two men arrive at Button’s family home searching for her by this secret name. Refusing to give Button up, things turn violent and the men shoot her father dead. Through a narrow crack in the floor boards, Button bears witness to the murder. Eluding the two men who tried to catch her, Button uses her wits to navigate herself from Vermont to Boston and then to New York. Button has a plan to find her uncle Dromkin. When her search seems hopeless, Button is taken in by a resident of her uncle’s apartment building, Phil, who claims he can help. But when they find Dromkin sprawled on the floor with his throat cut, Button is convinced she is somehow the cause of these family murders... Will Phil be able to keep her identity hidden long enough for her to find out the truth? Praise for Michael Kurland: "A perfect tale of childhood terror." - Tom Kasey Michael Kurland grew up in New York City, attended Columbia University, spent four years in the Army, much of it in Europe, and now lives in California with his partner, novelist Linda Robertson, a dog, a cat, and an occasional visiting family of raccoons. He has been a teacher of obscure subjects to disinterested children, the editor of a magazine even more idiosyncratic than himself, a seeker of absent persons, a magical explainer, and guest lecturer at numerous unrelated events. Kurland has written a dozen or so science fiction novels, a brace of mysteries, and several books that fit into that tenuous genre known as “mainstream.” He has been nominated for an Edgar (twice) and for the American Book Award. His books have been translated into eleven other languages. His other novel with Venture Press is Psi Hunt.

Satan's Snowdrop


Guy N. Smith - 1980
    Human skeletons lay deep in the grounds, and evil plagued the air in every room.Then a wealthy antiques dealer moved his family in, to bloodcurdling shrieks in the night, and visions of terror and madness.For nothing could make the tortured victims rest. And no one was safe in the devil's house, where is foul mark -- a single blood-soaked snowdrop -- ruled supreme.

The Uninvited


John Farris - 1982
    Barry Brennan meets an accident victim who strangely resembles her dead fiance, Ned Kramer, and her obsession with the young man, Mark Draven, leads to a growing terror for her family

In This Skin


Simon Clark - 2004
    From Vaudeville, through the big bands and up to the hottest rock acts, the Luxor had them all. It's closed now, a boarded-up relic, standing alone in a run down industrial part of town. But the old dance hall isn't empty. A hideous presence lives there, a monstrous evil that has the ability to invade people's fantasies and nightmares . . . and bring them to life. Three strangers will soon learn the extent of the dance hall's power. As their lives become more and more entangled in its inescapable web, they will come to see that what haunts the Luxor is far worse than any ghost.

Bonegrinder


John Lutz - 1977
    He's bleeding heavily and near death, but he still has strength to tell them of the monster that attacked him: a dark, massive creature that emerged from the bottom of the lake. The child dies before he can say more. Sheriff Billy Wintone has seen too much superstition, drunkenness, and rage in this small Ozarks town to believe the delirious boy's tale of a monster lurking under the lake's dark waters. Like it or not, however, Wintone must scour the woods for the man or beast who killed the child before the start of fishing season. When another body is found chewed to pieces, the Sheriff begins to wonder what evil lies at the bottom of Big Water Lake. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Lutz, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collection.

Winter Wake


Rick Hautala - 1989
    Then John realizes Audrey is the high school girlfriend he murdered many years before--the girlfriend who has returned for blood!

The Basement


Bari Wood - 1995
    She's content with pretty much everything in her life--except with her basement. Even after a renovation, Myra can't go down there without a sense of dread. Her fear deepens when she learns that a body was buried there--the body of Goody Redman, a woman hanged for witchcraft 300 years before.

The Strangers


Mort Castle - 1984
    He’s everybody’s buddy, has a great sense of humor, works hard at his typical boring job to provide for the wife and kids. And he is a Stranger. Michael seethes with furious impatience for the coming of the Time of the Strangers, when he and millions like him will be able at last to reveal their true selves to a horrified, helpless world.

The Gore


Joseph A. Citro - 1990
    But there he discovers a terrifying secret that turns his life upside-down. Newton's adventure begins when Claude Lavigne, a power company employee, sees something monumentally strange in the forests of the gore -- a tiny swatch of unclaimed land created by a surveyor's mistake. The uncanny sight so upsets him, so rattles his sense of what's real, that it leads to his suicide. Lavigne's son, his best friend, and an ancient black man risk an expedition into the gore to discover what Mr. Lavigne saw. In his attempt to stop them, Newton upsets a centuries- old balance that threatens to loose a long-buried nightmare upon the people of Vermont.