Book picks similar to
The Rotting Within by Matt Kurtz
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horror-thriller
Mary: The Summoning
Hillary Monahan - 2014
Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them--Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna--must link hands, follow the rules . . . and never let go. A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY." A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror. Once is not enough, though--at least not for Jess. Mary is called again. And again. But when their summoning circle is broken, Bloody Mary slips through the glass with a taste for revenge on her lips. As the girls struggle to escape Mary's wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are forever altered.A haunting trail of clues leads Shauna on a desperate search to uncover the legacy of Mary Worth. What she finds will change everything, but will it be enough to stop Mary--and Jess--before it's too late?
Grad Night
Carver Pike - 2019
The teachers at DS High know something’s not right. It’s the reason they don’t stay late to grade papers, they leave school in packs so nobody’s alone, and they stay away from the one boy with the cult-like following. Evil walks the high school hallways and everyone knows its name: James Bender. They’ve made it through the school year unscathed. Well, almost. Now, the graduating class is planning something special for their favorite teachers. It’s by personal invite only. Teachers are dying for an invitation. Here’s yours. Join us at this year’s Grad Night party. It’ll be one you’ll never forget. Carver Pike takes ordinary circumstances, cinches them tight with razor wire, and then saws back and forth. Gasp for air, holler for help, and pray for an end to the madness.
The Dead Girls Club
Damien Angelica Walters - 2019
Obsessed with the macabre, the girls exchanged stories about serial killers and imaginary monsters, like the Red Lady, the spirit of a vengeful witch killed centuries before. Heather knew the stories were just that, until her best friend Becca began insisting the Red Lady was real--and she could prove it.That belief got Becca killed.It's been nearly thirty years, but Heather has never told anyone what really happened that night--that Becca was right and the Red Lady was real. She's done her best to put that fateful summer, Becca, and the Red Lady, behind her. Until a familiar necklace arrives in the mail, a necklace Heather hasn't seen since the night Becca died.The night Heather killed her.Now, someone else knows what she did...and they're determined to make Heather pay.
White Crow
Marcus Sedgwick - 2010
Rebecca is an unwilling visitor to Winterfold - taken from the buzz of London and her friends and what she thinks is the start of a promising romance. Ferelith already lives in Winterfold - it's a place that doesn't like to let you go, and she knows it inside out.
Nana
Mark Towse - 2021
Some say the title is derived from the Italian word for Grandmother, Nonna. Another theory is that it stems from the word Nanny; i.e., someone who takes care of children.Meet Olly’s nana, Ivy. It takes more than clean dentures, brandy, and bingo night to keep this one happy! Nana Ivy lives in Newhaven Crescent, where most of the other residents are past their expiry date and all kinds of batshit crazy, the kind of place where you hang your sanity up at the door.Being the matriarchal type, Ivy cares for the other residents as though they were kin, so of course, it’s of enormous concern when their veins begin to blacken and they start shedding skin, not to mention the glistening things crawling out of their hair. They’re pushing their luck, and Nana Ivy knows it.Did I mention she has a dark secret?Young Olly doesn’t know what to make of it when he comes to visit, but he’s about to find out there’s more to his nana than cough drops and slippers. Oh yes, he’s in for a long night.
Resisting Madness
Wesley Southard - 2019
You’ll discover how far a prisoner will go to be with his dying wife, and what lurks between the walls of that Louisiana jailhouse to keep him there. You’ll find out how deep a man can cut himself to dig out the past. You’ll meet a college professor whose fear of flying might be the least of his worries. And you’ll learn how a sister’s love for sweet treats can reunite a broken family…whether they want it or not. Aliens and lot lizards…disembodied lips…the voice of God Himself… Thirteen stories and a brand new novella from horror author Wesley Southard. Within these pages, we all go a little mad…
The Grownup
Gillian Flynn - 2014
On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan's terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susan's teenage stepson, doesn't help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it.“The Grownup,” originally appeared as “What Do You Do?” in George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology.
Come Forth in Thaw: A Dark Fantasy Horror Novella about Trauma and Mental Illness
Jayson Robert Ducharme - 2021
It is a popular destination for tourists, painters, hikers and even weddings.Yet the forest is also a place of great pain and torment, and is an equally popular destination to end your own life.The only thing young mother Eleanor Jackson has left in her life is her son Alan-a troubled teenager who has gone to the forest to commit the unthinkable.As Eleanor goes to find him in the forest, she witnesses bizarre and fantastical happenings that try to manipulate and distract her from rescuing her child.When the sun goes down, the specters of the tormented emerge.She will come to discover so much more than just her son.
The House of Long Shadows
Ambrose Ibsen - 2018
Maybe it should have stayed that way. Kevin Taylor is an internet-famous handyman on a mission: Find a house and renovate it in thirty days. By flipping a derelict house in a month's time and chronicling the entire thing on video for his online subscribers, he seeks to impress a handful of network TV producers and become a star. The problems that plague this property will require more than elbow grease to fix, however. Shadows throughout the home are distorted, and an enigmatic trespasser keeps showing up in his footage. Worse still are the hideous voices that issue from otherwise empty rooms in the dead of night. Amid mounting dangers, Kevin is forced to meet the house's shadowed past head-on—a past, he begins to suspect, he wants nothing to do with. Armed only with the hearsay of locals and the frightening clues he's uncovered within the home, he attempts to find out what led to the house's abandonment while juggling his strenuous renovation projects. What he uncovers is horrible beyond imagination. All signs seem to be pointing to one thing: Something in the house is awakening.
We Are All Completely Fine
Daryl Gregory - 2014
Now he’s in his mid-thirties and spends most of his time not sleeping. Stan became a minor celebrity after being partially eaten by cannibals. Barbara is haunted by the messages carved upon her bones. Greta may or may not be a mass-murdering arsonist. And for some reason, Martin never takes off his sunglasses. Unsurprisingly, no one believes their horrific tales until they are sought out by psychotherapist Dr. Jan Sayer. What happens when these likely-insane outcasts join a support group? Together they must discover which monsters they face are within and which are lurking in plain sight.