Book picks similar to
The Businessman by Thomas M. Disch
horror
fantasy
fiction
supernatural
Teeth in the Mist
Dawn Kurtagich - 2019
The repercussions will be felt for generations...Sixteen-year-old photography enthusiast Zoey has been fascinated by the haunted, burnt-out ruins of Medwyn Mill House for as long as she can remember--so she and her best friend, Poulton, run away from home to explore them. But are they really alone in the house? And who will know if something goes wrong?In 1851, seventeen-year-old Roan arrives at the Mill House as a ward--one of three, all with something to hide from their new guardian. When Roan learns that she is connected to an ancient secret, she must escape the house before she is trapped forever.1583. Hermione, a new young bride, accompanies her husband to the wilds of North Wales where he plans to build the largest water mill and mansion in the area. But rumors of unholy rituals lead to a tragic occurrence and she will need all her strength to defeat it.Three women, centuries apart, drawn together by one Unholy Pact. A pact made by a man who, more than a thousand years later, may still be watching...
Envy of Angels
Matt Wallace - 2015
It's like I dropped a heroic dose of acid and turned on the Food Network for eight hours. It's funny and demented and sticks in you like a pinbone. Matt Wallace writes like someone just jammed a needle full of adrenaline in his heart - and then, in yours. From this point forward, I'll read anything this guy writes."-Chuck Wendig, author of BLACKBIRDS and ZER0ES"No one makes me think, 'Dammit, I should have thought of that!' like Matt Wallace. The Sin du Jour series is something I read with equal amounts of envy and delight." - Mur Lafferty, Campbell Award winning author of THE SHAMBLING GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY
Witch Is When It All Began
Adele Abbott - 2015
Private investigator, Jill Gooder, has been hired to find a serial killer because, as usual, the police can't buy a clue. Jill, the not so proud owner of a crazy, one-eyed cat, probably can't expect too much help from her PA/Secretary, Mrs V, who spends all day knitting. And just in case all of that wasn't bad enough, Jill's just about to discover she's a witch. ...break out the custard creams.
Tales from the Gas Station, Vol. 1
Jack Townsend - 2018
The long hours. The helpless customers. The enormous eldritch horror living deep below the building… As the only full-time employee at the twenty-four hour gas station at the edge of town, Jack has pretty much seen it all. But when he decides to start an online journal documenting the bizarre day-to-day occurrences, he unwittingly attracts the attention of much more than just a few conspiracy theorists. With the body count steadily on the rise and a dark, ancient force infecting the dreams of everyone around him, Jack will do everything in his power to stay out of the way and mind his own business. After all, he’s just a gas station clerk. It’s not like he’s getting paid enough to wage battle against the nightmarish aberrations plaguing his community. Besides, he already has his hands full attempting to manage all those mysterious lawn gnomes, the mutant raccoons, and the charming phantom cowboy who lives in the bathroom. Based on the award-winning creepypasta by GasStationJack, Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One is a love letter to the pioneers of classic horror tailored to a generation that grew up in the era of smartphones and WiFi.
The Good Fairies of New York
Martin Millar - 1992
Heather and Morag just want to start the first radical fairy punk rock band, but first they’ll have make a match between two highly unlikely sweethearts, start a street brawl between rival gangs of Italian, Chinese, and African fairies, help the ghost of a dead rocker track down his lost guitar, reclaim a rare triple-bloomed Welsh poppy from a bag lady with delusions of grandeur, disrupt a local community performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and somehow manage to stay sober enough to save all of New York from an invasion of evil Cornish fairies.If they can stop feuding with each other, that is.
SEVEN-X
Mike Wech - 2012
With the opportunity to break this story, Eddie voluntarily commits himself into the asylum. His journals, video diary and recordings leave a trail of breadcrumbs into a series of radical experimental procedures conducted on patients without their consent. With proof that this vicious serial killer is alive, records of her forced exorcism and the impending birth of the child the world believes is dead, Eddie has the big story that will redeem his life and career.But as Eddie dives deeper into his investigation, he is forced to confront his own demons, becoming an unwilling participant in the asylum's paranormal rehabilitation experiment.__________________________________Please Note: A revised edition of SEVEN-X was released on February 4, 2016 edited by Rachel Kirsch. The previous edition was edited by Robert Scott.SEVEN-X is Amazon Kindle's INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLING NOVEL reaching #1 in Dark Horror and Religious Mystery; as well as a Best Seller in Psychic Suspense, YA Paranormal and Horror in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Australia. This is the first novel in the SEVEN-X Trilogy.For more information visit: www.seven-x.com
Chosen Ones
Veronica Roth - 2020
. . by destiny or by choice.A decade ago near Chicago, five teenagers defeated the otherworldly enemy known as the Dark One, whose reign of terror brought widespread destruction and death. The seemingly un-extraordinary teens—Sloane, Matt, Ines, Albie, and Esther—had been brought together by a clandestine government agency because one of them was fated to be the “Chosen One,” prophesized to save the world. With the goal achieved, humankind celebrated the victors and began to mourn their lost loved ones. Ten years later, though the champions remain celebrities, the world has moved forward and a whole, younger generation doesn’t seem to recall the days of endless fear. But Sloane remembers. It’s impossible for her to forget when the paparazzi haunt her every step just as the Dark One still haunts her dreams. Unlike everyone else, she hasn’t moved on; she’s adrift—no direction, no goals, no purpose. On the eve of the Ten Year Celebration of Peace, a new trauma hits the Chosen: the death of one of their own. And when they gather for the funeral at the enshrined site of their triumph, they discover to their horror that the Dark One’s reign never really ended.
The Ouroboros Cycle, Book Three: A Long-Awaited Treachery
G.D. Falksen - 2015
And while Doctor Varanus has never found tranquility much to her taste, even she cannot deny that the peace and quiet make for a pleasant diversion following the chaos of her recent adventures in London. Having left the horrors of bloodshed and wellness behind her, Varanus has thrown herself headlong into the study of the Shashavani condition, determined to learn the secrets of their undying power.But all is not as it seems in the House of Shashava. As winter snow covers the Shashavani valley and chokes the mountain passes, sinister events are unfolding in the shadows. Whispers of conspiracy echo through the halls. Soon loyalties will be tested and friendships betrayed. Blood will flow. For upon the frozen steppe, an ancient evil stirs and turns its gaze toward the House of Shashava, hungering for power and revenge.As darkness descends, one question remains:Do you serve the Winter King?
Hello, Gorgeous!
MaryJanice Davidson - 2005
As If. One minute I'm out with my sorority sisters; the next there's a terrible accident (beyond my friend Stacey's outfit) and I'm waking up in some weird clinic transformed into a human cyborg--with a mission: to stop evil and stuff. Uh, hello? I've got a beauty salon to run. Granted, it is cool to run faster than a Ford Mustang when I need to, even if it's totally hard on my shoes. But then I have to bring in another human cyborg on the run? One who happens to be male, totally gorgeous, smart, funny--and, um, his "enhancements"?--as if! "Davidson's over-the-top humor and raunchily funny sex scenes will delight her fast-growing cadre of fans, while Janet Evanovich fans will also enjoy Davidson's rough-talking heroine." --Booklist
Kim Reaper Vol. 1: Grim Beginnings
Sarah Graley - 2018
Full-Time Cutie!Like most university students, Kim works a part-time job to make ends meet. Unlike most university students, Kim's job is pretty cool: she's a grim reaper, tasked with guiding souls into the afterlife.Like most university students, Becka has a super intense crush. Unlike most university students, Becka's crush is on a beautiful gothic angel that frequents the underworld. Of course, she doesn't know that.Unaware of the ghoulish drama she's about to step into, Becka finally gathers up the courage to ask Kim on a date! But when she falls into a ghostly portal and interrupts Kim at her job, she sets off a chain of events that will pit the two of them against angry cat-dads, vengeful zombies, and perhaps even the underworld itself. But if they work together, they just might make it... and maybe even get a smooch in the bargain.
One Bloody Thing After Another
Joey Comeau - 2010
She has a first-kiss tree and a broken-arm tree. She has a car-accident tree. There is a tree at the hospital where Jackie’s mother passed away into the long good night. When one of them gets cut down, Jackie doesn’t know what to do but she doesn’t let that stop her. She picks up the biggest rock she can carry and puts it through the window of a car. Smash. She intends to leave before the police arrive, but they’re early. Ann is Jackie’s best friend, but she’s got problems of her own. Her mother is chained up in the basement. How do you bring that up in casual conversation? “Oh, sorry I’ve been so distant, Jackie. My mother has more teeth than she’s supposed to, and she won’t eat anything that’s already dead.” Ann and her sister Margaret don’t have much of a choice here. Their mother needs to be fed. It isn’t easy but this is family. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’ll be okay as long as Margaret and Ann still have each other. Add in a cantankerous old man, his powerfully stupid dog, a headless ghost, a lesbian crush and a few unsettling visits from Jackie’s own dead mother, and you’ll find that One Bloody Thing After Another is a different sort of horror novel from the ones you’re used to. It’s as sad and funny as it is frightening, and it is as much about the way families rely on each other as it is about blood being drooled on the carpet. Though, to be honest, there is a lot of blood being drooled on the carpet.
American Elsewhere
Robert Jackson Bennett - 2013
Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different ...From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew.
Red Moon
Benjamin Percy - 2013
They are our neighbors, our mothers, our lovers.They change.When government agents kick down Claire Forrester's front door and murder her parents, Claire realizes just how different she is.Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and hours later stepped off it, the only passenger left alive, a hero.Chase Williams has sworn to protect the people of the United States from the menace in their midst, but he is becoming the very thing he has promised to destroy. So far, the threat has been controlled by laws and violence and drugs. But the night of the red moon is coming, when an unrecognizable world will emerge...and the battle for humanity will begin.
The Vines
Christopher Rice - 2014
But something sinister lurks beneath the soil of the old estate.After heiress and current owner Caitlin Chaisson is witness to her husband’s stunning betrayal at her birthday party, she tries to take her own life in the mansion’s cherished gazebo. Instead, the blood she spills awakens dark forces in the ground below. Chaos ensues and by morning her husband has vanished without a trace and his mistress has gone mad.Nova, daughter to Spring House’s groundskeeper, has always suspected that something malevolent haunts the old place, and in the aftermath of the birthday party she enlists Caitlin’s estranged best friend, Blake, to help her get to the bottom of it. The pair soon realizes that the vengeance enacted by this sinister and otherworldly force comes at a terrible price.