Book picks similar to
The 8th by Matt Shaw
horror
young-adult
short-stories
matt-shaw
Catching Lucy
Terri Anne Browning - 2015
I’m no different. I’ve had some really amazing ups, but I’ve also had some crap-tastic downs.When I was four, my biological mother died. I don’t remember crying for her. She’d never been the type to cuddle me, tuck me in, and read bedtime stories. That job was pushed off onto my sister Lana. She did her best to take care of me until Mom died. After the funeral we went to live with our older sister, Layla and I got to see what a real mother was supposed to be like.When I was six we moved to Malibu for Layla’s new job as the housekeeper to one of the worlds most popular rock bands and their manager. When my sisters told me that we were going to live with Demons I was definitely not looking forward to it. Then I met Nik, Drake, Shane, Emmie and the man that would one day become one of my favorite people in the world. Jesse Thornton.By Christmas my oldest sister was married to the Demon’s Wings drummer. Six months later they made me theirs and adopted me. The day I became Jesse’s daughter was one of the best days of my life. I felt like I belonged to someone for the first time in my life.But you know the rules of fate, or at least the rules it feels like those bitches have specifically for me. Something truly amazing always seems to be followed by something really, really shitty. When I was nine, my real dad was released from prison and tried to take me. I still have nightmares about that night.I got through it, though. My parents sent me to a good therapist, but it was my best friend Harris who really got me through that time in my life. When I couldn’t sleep I would call him and no matter how tired he was he would stay up and talk to me until I would finally fall into an exhausted sleep. He was the kind of friend that one text and he would drop everything for me.To bad my hormones got in the way of our friendship. At twelve, puberty hit me hard, and the love I felt for my best friend got complicated with a crush. They’re called crushes for a reason, something I’d learned real quick that year. I pushed him away to avoid the agonizing pain that my crush made me feel.Now it’s been years since I’ve seen him. He’s graduated from college and moved forward with his dream by opening his first club. First Bass is the most popular nightclub in not just Los Angeles, but all of California. I’m so proud of him, but I’ve avoided going to check it out. After an email that twisted my heart into knots I’m finally going to head over there.Maybe I won’t still be crushing on him. Maybe we can go back to being best friends.Maybe…The series will have 3 novellas and end with a full length book in 2016.
Flee
Miranda Kavi - 2012
I have to keep it a secret. Everything was fine, until I met him. I can't stay away...Aurora Lockette has a supernatural ability she hides from the world. Gavyn Dhaval is a newly famous actor that shies away from the spotlight. When Aurora and Gavyn literally collide in a fender bender on her first day of law school, they are irresistibly drawn to each other.When Aurora's secret is revealed, she has no choice but to abandon Gavyn to go into hiding to escape the media frenzy. A secret society of gifted humans contacts her to warn of dark forces that seek to destroy her and everyone she loves. Aurora must try to understand who and what she is while she fights to protect herself and her loved ones from a hidden, sinister force.This is an alternate-cover edition for ASIN B00AFNO4ZE.
The Death Series; Boxed Set
Tamara Rose Blodgett - 2012
When teens receive a government-sanctioned pharmaceutical cocktail during school, paranormal abilities begin manifesting... making the teens more powerful than the adults.After Caleb discovers he has the rare, Affinity for the Dead, he must do whatever it takes to hide it from a super-secret government agency whose goal is exploitation. Caleb seeks refuge in his new girlfriend, Jade, until he realizes that she needs as much protection from her family, as he does from the government.Suddenly, Caleb finds that hiding his ability while protecting Jade and his friends is a full time job; can he escape the government, protect Jade and lose the bullies that are making him miserable? (App. 119,000 word count.)DEATH SPEAKS:Caleb's in high school now and thinks the chaos of last year is behind him. Unfortunately, a serial killer is on the loose and children are his victims. Caleb agrees to help the police apprehend the murderer...until the killer takes notice of Caleb and his paranormal friends.Carson and Brett remain the bullies they always were and their posse continues to grow. How long can the two groups stay out of each others' way before there's a firestorm of retribution...The Government Graysheets continue to keep tabs on Caleb's every move while Jade's family threatens their relationship. Can they still be together even when events threaten to tear them apart? (App. 92,000 word count.)DEATH INCEPTION:Kyle Ulysses Hart and his team of scientists mapped the human genome in the year 2010. As Brain Impulse Technology came online... so did the long arm of the United States government. A covert, military-driven regime was born with genetic manipulation the key to future widespread control. When pharmaceutical laboratories, funded by the Graysheets, discover a way to unlock paranormal potential through compulsive inoculation, their exploitative dream is realized.Clyde and Caleb's lives are predestined to intertwine as they cross paths, his history becoming Caleb's future.A lone teenager named Jeffrey Parker, falls prey when he manifests the rare, Affinity for the Dead. The Graysheets abandon all pretense of stewardship, ripping him from his family for their nefarious purposes. Can Jeffrey remain who he was destined to be in an environment exclusively built for mass control? (App. 24,000 word count._
Among Monsters
Jamie McGuire - 2014
Jenna had promised her mother that if the worst happened during her dad’s weekend, they would meet at Red Hill Ranch. When she finds seven words spray-painted on her dad’s wall the morning after a deadly outbreak, she makes a promise to herself: to get to the ranch with her seven-year-old sister, Halle, and to get them both there alive. Among Monsters is the companion novella to Red Hill, both exploring from different perspectives what many broken families experience every other weekend: What if your children aren't with you when the world ends? What would you do to get to them? What would they go through to get to you? For Jenna, seeing her mother again is worth everything. Determined to keep her promise, she is faced with experiences and decisions that force her to leave her childhood behind.
Bloodline
Jess Lourey - 2021
Perfect homes. Perfect families. It’s enough to drive some women mad…In a tale inspired by real events, pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a childhood on the move and chasing the screams and swirls of news-rich city life, she’s eager to settle down. Lilydale’s motto, “Come Home Forever,” couldn’t be more inviting.And yet, something is off in the picture-perfect village.The friendliness borders on intrusive. Joan can’t shake the feeling that every move she makes is being tracked. An archaic organization still seems to hold the town in thrall. So does the sinister secret of a little boy who vanished decades ago. And unless Joan is imagining things, a frighteningly familiar figure from her past is on watch in the shadows.Her fiancé tells her she’s being paranoid. He might be right. Then again, she might have moved to the deadliest small town on earth.
They're Watching
Gregg Andrew Hurwitz - 2009
They're Watching reminded me what it's like to be in the thrall of a great story: helpless until the end, loving every minute of it."--Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Die for You
Patrick Davis is a man with troubles. First his Hollywood dreams crumble and then his storybook marriage hits a snag. Now, DVDs start being delivered to his house--DVDs which show that someone is watching him and his wife, that the two of them are being stalked and recorded by cameras hidden in their house. Then the e-mails start, and someone offers to fix everything, to take the mess his life has become and make it all right. Patrick figures it's the offer of a lifetime. But Patrick couldn't be more wrong. With every step he falls deeper into a web of intrigue that threatens everything he values in this world. Before he knows it, he's in and in deep--and his only escape is to outwit and outplay his unseen opponents at their own game.
No Time Left
David Baldacci - 2010
When Becker takes a mysterious job, he has no idea that it will force him to delve deeply into his own past. Undeterred by obstacles he is determined to complete his assignment. But he may realize too late that his success will permanently alter his future.
The Doll
J.C. Martin - 2011
On a trip to the island, Joyce Parker's daughter falls in love with a beautiful but sinister doll. Soon after, she starts developing strange mannerisms that concerns Joyce. Her research into the doll's past reveals a dark history, and the curse of a lonely child spirit.
Hunting Annabelle
Wendy Heard - 2018
After serving three years in a psychiatric prison, he’s determined to stay away from temptation. But he can't resist Annabelle--beautiful, confident, incandescent Annabelle--who alone can see past the monster to the man inside. The man he's desperately trying to be.Then Annabelle disappears.Sean is sure she’s been kidnapped—he witnessed her being taken first hand—but the police are convinced that Sean himself is at the centre of this crime. And he must admit, his illness has caused him to “lose time” before. What if there’s more to what happened then he’s able to remember?Though haunted by the fear that it might be better for Annabelle if he never finds her, Sean can’t bring himself to let go of her without a fight. To save her, he’ll have to do more than confront his own demons… He'll have to let them loose.
Crooked Little Lies
Barbara Taylor Sissel - 2015
A young man well known in their small town of Hardys Walk, Texas, Bo seems fine, even if Lauren’s intuition says otherwise. Since the accident two years ago that left her brain in a fragile state, she can’t trust her own instincts—and neither can her family. Then Bo vanishes, and as the search for him ensues, the police question whether she’s responsible. Lauren is terrified, not of what she remembers but of what she doesn’t.Unable to trust herself and unwilling to trust anyone else, Lauren begins her own investigation into the mystery of Bo’s disappearance. But the truth can prove to be as shocking as any lie, and as Lauren exposes each one, from her family, from her friends, she isn’t the only one who will face heart-stopping repercussions.
Night Games
Richard Laymon - 1985
Just spend a night alone in an empty, deserted house. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's only another one of Lyle's silly night games.Or is it?
Arcadia Falls
Carol Goodman - 2010
. . . Meg Rosenthal is driving toward the next chapter in her life. Winding along a wooded roadway, her car moves through a dense forest setting not unlike one in the bedtime stories Meg used to read to her daughter, Sally. But the girl riding beside Meg is a teenager now, and has exchanged the land of make-believe for an iPod and some personal space. Too much space, it seems, as the chasm between them has grown since the sudden, unexpected death of Meg’s husband. Dire financial straits and a desire for a fresh start take Meg and Sally from a comfortable life on Long Island to a tucked-away hamlet in upstate New York: Arcadia Falls, where Meg has accepted a teaching position at a boarding school. The creaky, neglected cottage Meg and Sally are to call home feels like an ill portent of things to come, but Meg is determined to make the best of it and to make a good impression on the school’s dean, the diminutive, elegant Ivy St. Clare.St. Claire, however, is distracted by a shocking crisis: During Arcadia’s First Night bonfire, one of Meg’s folklore students, Isabel Cheney, plunges to her death in a campus gorge. Sheriff Callum Reade finds Isabel’s death suspicious, but then, he is a man with secrets and a dark past himself. Meg is unnerved by Reade’s interest in the girl’s death, and as long-buried secrets emerge, she must face down her own demons and the danger threatening to envelop Sally. As the past clings tight to the present, the shadows, as if in a terrifying fairy tale, grow longer and deadlier. In Arcadia Falls, award-winning author Carol Goodman deftly weaves a mesmerizing narrative of passion: for revenge, for art, for love.
Copycat
Alex Lake - 2017
The other, she has never seen. But everything in it is accurate. Recent photos of her and her friends, her and her husband, her and her kids. Even of her new kitchen. A photo taken inside her house.She is bemused, angry, and worried. Who was able to do this? Any why?But this, it soon turns out, is just the beginning. It is only now–almost as though someone has been watching, waiting for her to find the profile–that her problems really start…
The Safe Man: A Ghost Story
Michael Connelly - 2012
That is, his specialty is opening safes. Every job is a little mystery, and he has yet to encounter a lock he can't break or a box he can't crack. But the day Holloway gets called in to open a rare, antique safe in a famous author's library, his skills open a door that should have remained closed.In this haunting and singular story, previously published anonymously, Michael Connelly proves once again that he is "superb at building suspense.... the reader can never be sure what sudden turns the plot may take" (Wall Street Journal).
The Gateway
Glenn G. Thater - 2008
Thater transports us to an age of high adventure where knights battle supernatural horrors, magic is real but hidden, and the line between good and evil is all too thin.The Harbinger of Doom saga centers around one Lord Angle Theta, an enigmatic warrior of unknown origins and mystical power. No mortal man is his match in battle. No sorcery can contain or confound him. No scholar or sage can outwit him. But for all his skills, he is but one of us; a man, a human, who shares our faults, our dreams, and our ambitions. He boldly strides across the land, fearless, peerless, and cloaked in mystery; all his will bent on righting such wrongs as he deems fit.Until the day the Gateway opened and turned the world on its head. On that fateful day, Korrgonn came and washed away our dreams. And his outre' realm of Nifleheim set its unholy mark upon our world and claimed it for their own. Only Theta and his companions see the enemies aligning against us. Only they foresee our end coming- the end of civilization, the end of the world of man. Only they can hope to turn the tide of madness and preserve all that we hold dear. But no man, not even our greatest hero, can stand against the Lords of Nifleheim and the dark armies at their command. Fiends that infiltrate unseen within our ranks, that tear down our temples and our traditions; that devour us from within, unseen, unknown, unheralded, and unopposed until the hour grows far too late. Through the murk and mist that hangs before our eyes, one man only sees true. One man pierces the veil of magic that blinds us all and marks the world as it truly is, revealing secrets, secrets of Angle Theta, so horrifying as to shatter a man's mind and call into question the very nature of good and evil.When mad sorcerers open a gateway to the very pits of hell, releasing outre demons of darkest nightmare upon the world, only the intrepid knights of House Eotrus stand in their way. Claradon Eotrus takes up the mantle of his noble house to avenge his father and hold back the tide of chaos that threatens to engulf the world and destroy mankind. Claradon recruits Angle Theta and Gabriel Garn, mysterious knights of mystical power to stand with him. Theta and Garn take up their swords one last time against the coming darkness -- a darkness from which only one will emerge.BOOKS BY GLENN G. THATERTHE HARBINGER OF DOOM SAGAGATEWAY TO NIFLEHEIMTHE FALLEN ANGLEKNIGHT ETERNALDWELLERS OF THE DEEPVOLUME 5+ forthcomingHARBINGER OF DOOM(Combines The Gateway and The Fallen Angle into a single volume)THE HERO AND THE FIEND(A novelette set in the Harbinger of Doom universe)THE GATEWAY (A novella length version of Gateway to Nifleheim)