Book picks similar to
The Devil's Bastard by Charlsie Russell
mystery
secrets
crazy-as-balls
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Echo
A. Zavarelli - 2015
He says he owns me. And it’s true. I’ve signed over complete control of my body and life for six months to a man I don’t know. Five years he’s been planning this. They say revenge is a dish best served cold. But my blackmailer serves it up white hot. He’s addicted to my innocence, and I’m addicted to him. He likes to hurt me. I love to let him. He brings me to life. He sets me free. He makes my heart feel things it shouldn’t. But he also scares me. He holds the fate of my brother’s life in his hands. A life behind bars for crimes I know he didn’t commit. My blackmailer can’t give up his revenge on my family, and I can’t be with him if he doesn’t. But I’m nothing more than a butterfly caught in his net. Do I really have a choice?
The Girl in the Picture
Melissa Wiesner - 2021
And as she reads the words in the article, Tegan almost stops breathing. Was coming here a terrible mistake?When Tegan’s family is torn apart by a terrible tragedy, she runs away in search of somewhere to keep safe from the past that haunts her, and the painful secrets she’s never told anyone. Arriving in Copper Canyon, Colorado, where wooden storefronts line the quiet streets and no-one knows her name, Tegan breathes easy for the first time in years. And when she grows close with Jack, another lost soul who won’t talk about his home, it seems she’s found the perfect companion to explore the mountain landscapes with.But just as Tegan starts to think maybe safety isn’t a place, it’s a person, she notices the box of photos and newspaper clippings that Jack takes everywhere in the trunk of his car. Who is the woman in every frame? And why does she look so familiar…?Tegan knows the only way to protect herself, and keep her dark family history locked away, is to discover more about the woman in Jack’s photos. But when she does, will the truth help her build a new life, or will it send her running once more?An absolutely unforgettable and breathtaking novel about love, loss, and the secrets we’re all hiding. Perfect for fans of Kerry Fisher, Diane Chamberlain, and Kerry Lonsdale.
Broken Voices
Andrew Taylor - 2012
Two lonely schoolboys at the end of childhood are forced into an unwanted companionship. One of them is terrified of what the future holds.Does music have its ghosts? Its victims? Something is stirring in the cathedral that both echoes an ancient tragedy and seems to offer a chance of future happiness. One thing is certain. Broken voices make false promises. And their lies may prove fatal.
Insanity
Susan Vaught - 2014
It is a crossways, a place where the dead and the living can find no peace. Not that Forest, an 18-year-old foster kid who works the graveyard shift at Lincoln Hospital, knew this when she applied for the job. Lincoln is a huge state mental institution, a good place for Forest to make some money to pay for college. But along with hundreds of very unstable patients, it also has underground tunnels, bell towers that ring unexpectedly, and a closet that holds more than just donated clothing....When the dead husband of one of Forest's patients makes an appearance late one night, seemingly accompanied by an agent of the Devil, Forest loses all sense of reality and all sense of time. Terrified, she knows she has a part to play, and when she does so, she finds a heritage that she never expected. With her deep knowledge of mental illness and mental institutions, Susan Vaught brings readers a fascinating and completely creepy new book intertwining the stories of three young people who find themselves haunted beyond imagining in the depths of Lincoln Hospital.
The Reverse of Everything
Tara Brown - 2019
One day the world is a delicate balance. The next day the balance is tipped. And there is no bringing it back. When everyone over a certain age dies, a group of young adults make a perilous journey across the US, in hopes of finding something beautiful or amazing. Something to cherish as their last memory. Because maybe they’re dying too. And in the end, all we want is something to be grateful for. And maybe for someone to remember us when we’re gone. From the author of The Born Trilogy, The Last City of Men, and The Blood Trail Chronicles comes a story of friendship and love, even as the world is ending. This is a standalone novel
When We Were Sisters
Cynthia Ellingsen - 2021
One summer to bring a family back together.Jayne Winters hasn’t seen her sister Charlotte since that last childhood holiday at their grandmother’s North Carolina beach house. Separated after that summer by their parents in a bitter divorce, Charlotte has never forgiven Jayne for not fighting to stay together.So when Jayne discovers that they have both inherited the beach house, and that their grandmother’s last wish was for them to renovate it together, it feels like a miracle: one last chance to win her sister back.At first Charlotte will barely speak to her. But slowly the memories of swimming races and storytelling in their attic bedroom looking over the sea start to break down the wall between them. With the help of photographs and letters left by their grandmother for them to find, the two women begin to restore not just the creaking mahogany staircase and the faded antique wallpaper, but their own relationship.But then Jayne discovers that Charlotte has kept a heart-stopping secret from their past from her. Can she find it in her heart to forgive her sister and keep their grandmother’s dream of reuniting them alive—or are some wounds too big to heal?An emotional and uplifting read about sisters, secrets and the family bonds that hold us together no matter how complicated they are, from the bestselling author of The Lighthouse Keeper. Fans of Mary Ellen Taylor, Elin Hilderbrand and Mary Alice Monroe will love this.
Louise Erdrich: Tracks, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, The Plague of Doves
Louise Erdrich - 2011
Angel From Hell
Christopher Nicole - 2006
When in March 1938 Germany invades Austria, all anti-Nazis are immediately rounded up and imprisoned. Prominent amongst these is liberal editor Johann Fehrbach, his Anglo-Irish wife, and his two daughters. But the elder of the girls, seventeen-year-old Annaliese, is separated from her parents and taken into Gestapo custody. The officer arresting her has immediately recognized that she is an exceptional personality: extraordinarily good-looking, she has an IQ of 173, is a superb athlete, head girl of her convent, and, because of her mother, speaks English fluently. Annaliese is taken off to an SS training camp and after an exacting and often terrifying learning process, is inducted into the SD, the most secret of German secret services. She must serve the Reich – or her family dies... Born in the West Indies, British author Christopher Nicole’s historical fiction has won international acclaim. Christopher Nicole lives with his wife, Diana, also a novelist, in the Channel Islands, where he also writes under the name Alan Savage. Recent titles from this author include Ransom Island, Poor Darling, The Pursuit, The Voyage, Demon, The Followers, The Falls of Death, A Fearful Thing and, most recently, Cold Country, Hot Sun.
Making Waves at Penvennan Cove: Escape to Cornwall with gorgeous feel-good and uplifing romance (The Penvennan Cove series Book 2)
Linn B. Halton - 2021
She has a fulfilling job helping small businesses in the local community, she is within a few minutes' walk of all the people she loves best, and most importantly, she has finally got together with her childhood sweetheart, Ross.It's not all plain sailing, though, because they have to keep their relationship a secret. The feud between their families still rages on, and Kerra doesn't want to pour fuel on its flame and risk losing everything.But Kerra should know better than anyone that secrets don't stay hidden for long in a community like Penvennan Cove...An uplifting and feel-good romance novel for fans of Lucy Coleman, Jessica Redland and Lisa Hobman.Book 2 in the series. Book 1: Coming Home to Penvennan Cove.
The Last Academy
Anne Applegate - 2013
But the manicured grounds of Lethe Academy are like nothing Cam has ever known. There are gorgeous, preppy boys wielding tennis rackets, and circles of girls with secrets to spare. Only . . . something is not quite right. One of Cam's new friends mysteriously disappears, but the teachers don't seem too concerned. Cam wakes up to strangers in her room, who then melt into the night. She is suddenly plagued by odd memories, and senses there might be something dark and terrible brewing. But what? The answer will leave Cam—and readers—stunned and breathless, in this thrilling debut novel.
The Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror and Goliath
Ishbelle Bee - 2015
A little girl called Mirror and her shape-shifting guardian Goliath Honeyflower are washed up on the shores of Victorian England. Something has been wrong with Mirror since the day her grandfather locked her inside a mysterious clock that was painted all over with ladybirds. Mirror does not know what she is, but she knows she is no longer human. John Loveheart, meanwhile, was not born wicked. But after the sinister death of his parents, he was taken by Mr. Fingers, the demon lord of the underworld. Some say he is mad. John would be inclined to agree. Now Mr Fingers is determined to find the little girl called Mirror, whose flesh he intends to eat, and whose soul is the key to his eternal reign. And John Loveheart has been called by his otherworldly father to help him track Mirror down...
Dark Metropolis
Jaclyn Dolamore - 2014
Her mother is cursed with a spell that's driving her mad, and whenever they touch, Thea is chilled by the magic, too. Thea must make a living for both of them in a sinister city, where danger lurks and greed rules.Thea spends her nights waitressing at the decadent Telephone Club, attending to the glitzy clientele. But when her best friend, Nan, vanishes, Thea is compelled to find her. She meets Freddy, a young, magnetic patron at the club, who agrees to help her uncover the city's secrets - even while he hides secrets of his own.Together, they discover a whole new side of the city. Unrest is brewing behind closed doors as whispers of a gruesome magic spread. Soon, Thea and Freddy begin to realize nightmarish truths about the city's dark underbelly, and that time is running out for Nan. And if they're not careful, the masterminds behind the disappearances will be after them, too.Jaclyn Dolamore weaves a chilling tale with a touch of magic in this lyrical thriller, where the dead don't always seem to stay that way.
Psycho USA: Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of
Harold Schechter - 2012
But for every celebrity psychopath who’s gotten ink for spilling blood, there’s a bevy of all-but-forgotten homicidal fiends studding the bloody margins of U.S. history. The law gave them their just desserts, but now the hugely acclaimed author of The Serial Killer Files and The Whole Death Catalog gives them their dark due in this absolutely riveting true-crime treasury. Among America’s most cold-blooded you’ll meet • Robert Irwin, “The Mad Sculptor”: He longed to use his carving skills on the woman he loved—but had to settle for making short work of her mother and sister instead. • Peter Robinson, “The Tell-Tale Heart Killer”: It took two days and four tries for him to finish off his victim, but no time at all for keen-eyed cops to spot the fatal flaw in his floor plan. • Anton Probst, “The Monster in the Shape of a Man”: The ax-murdering immigrant’s systematic slaughter of all eight members of a Pennsylvania farm family matched the savagery of the Manson murders a century later. • Edward H. Ruloff, “The Man of Two Lives”: A genuine Jekyll and Hyde, his brilliant scholarship disguised his bloodthirsty brutality, and his oversized brain gave new meaning to “mastermind.” Spurred by profit, passion, paranoia, or perverse pleasure, these killers—the Witch of Staten Island, the Smutty Nose Butcher, the Bluebeard of Quiet Dell, and many others—span three centuries and a host of harrowing murder methods. Dramatized in the pages of penny dreadfuls, sensationalized in tabloid headlines, and immortalized in “murder ballads” and classic fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and Theodore Dreiser, the demonic denizens of Psycho USA may be long gone to the gallows—but this insidiously irresistible slice of gothic Americana will ensure that they’ll no longer be forgotten.
Angel's Rest
Charles Davis - 2006
In 1967 his town was a poor boy's paradise...untila shotgun blast killed Charlie's father and put his mother on trialfor murder.For mysterious reasons, his mother entrusts his care to an oldblack man named Lacy Albert Coe. Lacy tells simple stories aboutthe good and the bad that compose life's sweetest music. But whena reclusive Korean War veteran is linked to his father's death andLacy is victimized by hate crimes, Charlie hears only silence. It'snot until Charlie embarks on a dangerous midnight journey pittinghim against his darkest fears that he finally hears his own songplaying out.
Made for You
Melissa Marr - 2014
A killer is obsessed with Eva Tilling. Can she stop him, or will he claim her?When Eva Tilling wakes up in the hospital, she’s confused—who in her sleepy little North Carolina town could have hit her with their car? And why? But before she can consider the question, she finds that she’s awoken with a strange new skill: the ability to foresee people’s deaths when they touch her. While she is recovering from the hit-and-run, Nate, an old flame, reappears, and the two must traverse their rocky past as they figure out how to use Eva’s power to keep her friends—and themselves—alive. But while Eva and Nate grow closer, the killer grows increasingly frantic in his attempt to get to Eva.For the first time, New York Times bestselling author Melissa Marr has applied her extraordinary talent to contemporary realism. Chilling twists, unrequited obsession, and high-stakes romance drive this Gothic, racy thriller—a story of small-town oppression and salvation. Melissa’s fans, and every YA reader, will find its wild ride enthralling.