Book picks similar to
Bone Quarry by K.D. McNiven
horror
science-fiction
sci-fi
creature-features
Skyward Inn
Aliya Whiteley - 2021
But safety from what?Qita surrendered without complaint when Earth invaded; Innkeepers Jem and Isley, veterans from either side, have regrets but few scars. Their peace is disturbed when a visitor known to Isley comes to the Inn asking for help, bringing reminders of an unnerving past and triggering an uncertain future.Did humanity really win the war?A thoughtful, literary novel about conflict, identity and community; a fresh new perspective in speculative fiction from critically-acclaimed writer Aliya Whiteley. Jamaica Inn by way of Jeff Vandermeer, Ursula Le Guin, Angela Carter and Michel Faber, Skyward Inn is a beautiful story of belonging, identity and regret.
The Last
Hanna Jameson - 2019
I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of the L’Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland after an academic conference, still mulling over how to respond to his wife, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, then New York, then London, and finally Berlin. That’s all he knows before news outlets and social media goes black—and before the clouds on the horizon turn orange.Now, two months later, there are twenty survivors holed up at the hotel, a place already tainted by its strange history of suicides and murders. Those who can’t bear to stay commit suicide or wander off into the woods. Jon and the others try to maintain some semblance of civilization. But when the water pressure disappears, and Jon and a crew of survivors investigate the hotel’s water tanks, they are shocked to discover the body of a young girl.As supplies dwindle and tensions rise, Jon becomes obsessed with investigating the death of the little girl as a way to cling to his own humanity. Yet the real question remains: can he afford to lose his mind in this hotel, or should he take his chances in the outside world?
No Gods, No Monsters
Cadwell Turnbull - 2021
But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?The world will soon find out.
Burntcoat
Sarah Hall - 2021
Before we all closed our doors...In an unnamed British city, the virus is spreading, and like everyone else, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness retreats inside. She isolates herself in her immense studio, Burntcoat, with Halit, the lover she barely knows. As life outside changes irreparably, inside Burntcoat Edith and Halit find themselves changed as well: by the histories and responsibilities each carries and bears, by the fears and dangers of the world outside, and by the progressions of their new relationship. And Burntcoat will be transformed too, into a new and feverish world, a place in which Edith comes to an understanding of how we survive the impossible--and what is left after we have.A sharp and stunning novel of art and ambition, mortality and connection, Burntcoat is a major work from "one of our most influential short story writers" (Guardian). It is an intimate and vital examination of how and why we create--make art, form relationships, build a life--and an urgent exploration of an unprecedented crisis, the repercussions of which are still years in the learning.
Dawn of the Spiders
Brian O'Gorman - 2015
A large horde of the spiders take over the small village of Newtown, killing all but two of its residents. Laurence Johnson and Chloe Jones have only been together one night after Laurence parted ways with his wife. They find themselves trapped in the house with no way of escaping. Their only hope is to try and stay alive long enough for the army to intervene. Lorna Johnson is on the outskirts of town with nowhere to go and the spider invasion taking control. Her only hope of survival lies with a team headed up by Doctor Michael Briggs. He has a plan to stop the invasion before it gets out of hand. But he is running out of time and he is running out of allies. If he doesn't move quickly then mankind will face the darkest day it has ever known.
Lost and Wanted
Nell Freudenberger - 2019
She doesn't believe in pseudo-science, or time travel and especially not in ghosts. So when she gets a missed call from Charlie, her closest friend from university with whom she hasn't spoken in over a year, Helen thinks there must be some mistake. Because Charlie died two days ago.Then when her young son, Jack, claims to have seen Charlie in their house just the other day, Helen begins to have doubts.Through the grief of the husband and daughter Charlie left behind, Helen is drawn into the orbit of Charlie's world, slotting in the missing pieces of her friend's past. And, as she delves into the web of their shared history, Helen finds herself entangled in the forgotten threads of her own life.Lost and Wanted is a searing novel from one of America's most exciting writers about the knottiness of female friendship, the forces which fuse us together and those which drive us apart.
The Ancestor
Danielle Trussoni - 2020
It feels like a fairy tale when Alberta ”Bert” Monte receives a letter addressed to “Countess Alberta Montebianco” at her Hudson Valley, New York, home that claims she’s inherited a noble title, money, and a castle in Italy. While Bert is more than a little skeptical, the mystery of her aristocratic family’s past, and the chance to escape her stressful life for a luxury holiday in Italy, is too good to pass up.At first, her inheritance seems like a dream come true: a champagne-drenched trip on a private jet to Turin, Italy; lawyers with lists of artwork and jewels bequeathed to Bert; a helicopter ride to an ancestral castle nestled in the Italian Alps below Mont Blanc; a portrait gallery of ancestors Bert never knew existed; and a cellar of expensive vintage wine for Bert to drink.But her ancestry has a dark side, and Bert soon learns that her family history is particularly complicated. As Bert begins to unravel the Montebianco secrets, she begins to realize her true inheritance lies not in a legacy of ancestral treasures, but in her very genes.
Dracula vs. Hitler
Patrick Sheane Duncan - 2016
To fight these monstrous forces, Van Helsing raises a legendary monster from centuries of slumber... Prince Dracula himself.Once he was the ruler of Transylvania. Prince Vlad Dracul, is, above all else, a patriot. He proves more than willing to once again drive out his country’s invaders. Upshot: No one minds if he drinks all the German blood he desires.In Berlin, when Hitler hears about the many defeats his forces are suffering at the hands of an apparent true vampire, he is seduced by the possibility of becoming immortal. Thus two forces are set upon a collision course, the ultimate confrontation: Superpower against superpower.
Dunes Over Danvar Omnibus
Michael Bunker - 2014
The word is out that the legendary city of Danvar has been found, and every diver, brigand, and pirate with a sarfer is racing to find it. But out in the dunes there's only one inarguable fact... The sand don't care, and it never did. Can people change? Two men who meet in the dunes over the lost city of Danvar have to find out if there can ever be such a thing as friendship, honor, and sacrifice in a world full of sand divers, pirates, brigands, and thieves.
Subterrestrial
Michael McBride - 2015
Led by DARPA technologist Reinhard Thyssen, a team of experts from around the globe is dispatched into the subterranean maze to discover all they can before the caves completely flood.Something lurks in the darkness, though…a creature that has evolved into a predator unlike any the world has ever known, and it’s up to the scientists to make sure that it never reaches the surface. If they can survive that long.
Natural Selection
Dave Freedman - 2006
. . Are they? Well, aren't dinosaurs, sharks, and crocodiles all really monsters? Yes. In fact, evolution made every single one of them. So could evolution make another monster? Today? A monster that is smarter, more deadly, and unlike any other to have evolved in the history of this planet? Weaving together science and thriller in a way notseen since Jurassic Park, Natural Selection introduces a phenomenally dangerous new species of predator that is forced out of its world and intoman's for a violent first encounter.
Monsters in Our Wake
J.H. Moncrieff - 2017
Thousands of miles from the nearest human settlement, deep on the ocean floor, the creatures have lived for millennia. But when an oil drill bursts through their lair, Nøkken attacks, damaging the drilling ship’s engine, trapping the desperate crew. The longer the humans remain in Nøkken’s territory, struggling to repair their ailing ship, the more confrontations occur between the two species. When the death toll rises, the crew turns on each other, and marine geologist Flora Duchovney realizes the scariest monsters aren’t below the surface.
The Breaking Light
Heather Hansen - 2017
Arden—beautiful, street-smart, and cynical—is one of the citizens of the lowest Level, known as Undercity, of an off-world colony. A blackout band traps Arden in her district, but as sister to the leader of the most powerful gang in Undercity, she has access to Above.There she meets Dade, one of the few lucky enough to be born into the sun-kissed families who reside in the Towers soaring above the rest of the city. But life isn’t perfect in the sky. Dade, desperate to escape his upcoming arranged marriage, has a secret of his own, and he’s willing to risk everything for it.An unlikely romance develops between the two teens—but their love faces opposition from above and below. When her gang pressures Arden to help break the grip of the elite and end Dade’s interference with their drug trade, she is forced to make a deadly choice between love and family loyalty. But will the brewing class war destroy the world around them first?
The Commune
Charlie Dalton - 2019
You’re still alive. Will you be tomorrow? Ten years ago, the world ended. A virus swept the planet clean, wiping out 97% of the world’s population. Only the wary survived. We gather our resources in communes clinging to the harshest environments on Earth. Food is scarce and the well’s running dry. Our days are numbered. Then a girl staggers from the desert, her brains fried by the sun. She rambles about technology, a place of safety the Rages never reached. Only the elders recognize what she describes. A place we call the City Then the Reavers attack. They destroy our home and everything we’ve built. We wander the desert, lost, and without hope. And still the girl remembers that place. Does the City really exist? Can she lead us to it? Can we rebuild what we lost? Our journey begins, but we’re not the only ones making it. You will love The Commune, the first pulse-pounding post-apocalyptic thriller in the After the Fall series. Get it now!
The Pandora Chronicle:s Book 1
Ryan Attard - 2014
And they were here just long enough to leave a legacy behind – buried in our DNA. 1713 - Captain Jack Finnegan’s remarkable success as a privateer gets him the attention of the Order, a secret society with only one mission: finding an ancient alien artifact and hiding it away. Finnegan will need all of his wits, resources, and newfound mysterious abilities, to survive his quest. 2012 - Famous archaeologist Nick Solomon find himself caught in an NSA Black Ops investigation to locate an ancient and powerful relic that could potentially change the world as we know it. Blackmailing Nick into working with them, he has to face off against Astrid, a Spanish crime lord who will stop at nothing to get the artifact first. Also helping Nick is the beautiful and deadly Agent Excalibur, a lethal secret agent from Nick's past... a past he is trying so hard to forget. Join Nick Solomon in his biggest adventure yet, as he explores ancient conspiracies, people with strange abilities, and mysterious alien technology.