Book picks similar to
Smog City by Rebecca McNutt
fiction
contemporary
novels
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Undercurrent
Paul Blackwell - 2013
AN INTENSE ROAR. THE SENSATION OF FALLING - FAST.That's all Callum Harris remembers from his tumble over the waterfall. But when he wakes up in a hospital bed and finds his best friend trying to kill him, Callum knows something is seriously wrong. Unfortunately for him, the mysteries are just getting started.Why are his parents acting like he's some big sports star all of a sudden? And why are all the buildings in town more run-down than Callum remembers? Worst of all... what happened to Callum's brother? Either Callum has gone seriously crazy or something happened when he went over the edge of the falls. Something impossible. Callum needs answers, and now. Because in this twisted new version of the life Callum knew, his former best friend isn't the only one who wants to see him dead.
Zeroes
Scott Westerfeld - 2015
They can do stuff ordinary people can’t.Take Ethan, a.k.a. Scam. He’s got a voice inside him that’ll say whatever you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. Which is handy, except when it isn’t—like when the voice starts gabbing in the middle of a bank robbery. The only people who can help are the other Zeroes, who aren’t exactly best friends these days.Enter Nate, a.k.a. Bellwether, the group’s “glorious leader.” After Scam’s SOS, he pulls the scattered Zeroes back together. But when the rescue blows up in their faces, the Zeroes find themselves propelled into whirlwind encounters with ever more dangerous criminals. And at the heart of the chaos they find Kelsie, who can take a crowd in the palm of her hand and tame it or let it loose as she pleases.Filled with high-stakes action and drama, Zeroes unites three powerhouse authors for the opening installment of a thrilling new series.
NOS4A2
Joe Hill - 2013
On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.” Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.
The Summoning
Mark Lukens - 2014
a supernatural mystery.Edrington, Oregon - a town with a horrifying past. A town with dark secrets. A town where a woman has summoned something terrifying.Three hundred and fifty miles south, Ryan wakes up in a motel room with a bag of stolen money, bullet hole scars on his chest, and no memory of his past - his only clue is a scrap of paper in his wallet with an Edrington address scrawled on it.Plagued by nightmares of a tortured man who seems to be forcing his way from the dream world into our world, Ryan journeys north to the small Oregon town where the answers are waiting for him.
Honor at Stake
Declan Finn - 2015
The other is a vampire.College freshman, Amanda Colt knows few people and wants to know fewer still. She enjoys fencing and prefers facing a challenge every once in a while. She is beautiful, smart, and possibly the most interesting person on campus.Then she finds tall, intense Marco Catalano in her fencing class. With a mind like a computer and manners of a medieval knight, he scares most people - but not Amanda.They both have secrets, for they are both monsters.As they draw closer, they must find the line between how much they can trust each other, and how much they can care for each other. Each carries a secret that can destroy the other. But they must come to grips with their personal drama soon, because a darkness rises around them. Bodies keep turning up all over New York, and an army of vampires closes in on all sides. They have only one hope - each other. The Love at First Bite Series
Honor at Stake (ASIN B07CS11F97) - 2016 Dragon Award nominee for Best Horror Novel!
Demons are Forever (ASIN B07D2DF4TM)
Live and Let Bite (Coming July 10th!) - 2017 Dragon Award nominee for Best Horror Novel!
Good to the Last Drop (Coming August 14th!)
Low Town
Daniel Polansky - 2011
. . and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town.In the forgotten back alleys and flophouses that lie in the shadows of Rigus, the finest city of the Thirteen Lands, you will find Low Town. It is an ugly place, and its champion is an ugly man. Disgraced intelligence agent. Forgotten war hero. Independent drug dealer. After a fall from grace five years ago, a man known as the Warden leads a life of crime, addicted to cheap violence and expensive drugs. Every day is a constant hustle to find new customers and protect his turf from low-life competition like Tancred the Harelip and Ling Chi, the enigmatic crime lord of the heathens.The Warden’s life of drugged iniquity is shaken by his discovery of a murdered child down a dead-end street . . . setting him on a collision course with the life he left behind. As a former agent with Black House—the secret police—he knows better than anyone that murder in Low Town is an everyday thing, the kind of crime that doesn’t get investigated. To protect his home, he will take part in a dangerous game of deception between underworld bosses and the psychotic head of Black House, but the truth is far darker than he imagines. In Low Town, no one can be trusted.Daniel Polansky has crafted a thrilling novel steeped in noir sensibilities and relentless action, and set in an original world of stunning imagination, leading to a gut-wrenching, unforeseeable conclusion. Low Town is an attention-grabbing debut that will leave readers riveted . . . and hungry for more.
Ninth House
Leigh Bardugo - 2019
Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
A Diamond In My Pocket
Lorena Angell - 2011
Rowling meets Stephen King in this fresh, thrilling take on superpowers. Currently being optioned for film. After breaking the 100m world record, sixteen-year-old Calli is whisked away to a secret facility where she's placed with other teens who possess superhuman speed. She soon finds herself in a deadly situation involving other superpowers, a mystical diamond, and a centuries-old clan vying for world domination. Calli will have to rely on her quick wit and gut instinct to navigate her new world which includes secretly carrying a power-infusing diamond, all the while steering clear of the young man who mistakenly believes she's his soulmate. Book one of The Unaltered series introduces a secret universe existing within our own. In this world, cosmic energy grants superhuman abilities, and people of like ability band together in clans for both safety and community. Flesh-ripping demons prowl at night, drawn to the cosmic energy. Governments spy on clans, clans spy on governments, and trusting the wrong person may carry a terrible price.A #1 bestseller in eleven countries, with over 225,000 downloads. A Diamond in My Pocket is a book readers have shown their love to with over 1,200 5-star reviews. The tale woven is one that feels ensconced in today's world alongside a huge dose of superpowers. Currently being optioned for film and television, so don't miss your chance to read this exciting book before it hits the screen.
The Grave Artist
Paula Lynn Johnson - 2012
Her psychiatrist assumes the compulsive drawings are just expressions of Clare's grief over her father abandoning her. But then Clare discovers that her Sammies are exact matches for the Death's Head on the grave of Samantha Forsythe, a teen who reportedly fell to her death over two centuries ago.Before long, Clare's drawings morph into cryptic writings that urge her to uncover the truth behind Samantha's death. Together with Neil -- the friend she might be falling for -- Clare scours the local history for clues. She finds that, although Samantha was engaged to a wealthy landowner, there were whispered rumors of her involvement with a younger, biracial man.Soon, Clare is haunted by disturbing dream images -- a mysterious eye, a broken chain -- that point to someone Samantha called her "Dearest". But who is Dearest? And why does Samantha need Clare to find him so badly?Isolated and carrying hidden scars of her own, Clare fears her obsession with Samantha will threaten her sanity and safety. But it seems she has no choice in the matter . . . The Grave Artist is a compelling paranormal murder mystery and a poignant story about loss and what it means thrive in a less-than-perfect reality.
The Reincarnationist
M.J. Rose - 1999
Equal parts modern-day thriller, historical fiction, and love story, with one foot in present-day Rome and New York City, and the other in Rome some 1600 years ago.Photojournalist Josh Ryder survives a terrorist's bomb, only to be haunted by near-hallucinatory memories of a past life in Rome as a pagan priest whose dangerous congress with Sabina, one of the Vestal Virgins, poses a transgression so serious the lovers will face a certain death if exposed. Scents of jasmine and sandalwood and images of furtive liaisons and violence descend on Josh at will, pulling him to an ancient yet strangely familiar Roman burial chamber harboring the remains of a woman clutching a wooden box.A trail of present-day murders takes the reader deeper into a labyrinth at whose heart lies the enigma of a collection of ancient gems, or memory stones, whose origins trace back to both ancient Egypt and India. The stones' promise to "assist the wearer in reaching his next incarnation" sets the ancient and modern worlds on a collision course.The question of who we are cannot be asked without first asking who we were, according to the author. Rose attempts to answer that question based on her own reincarnation research and on the writings of others, spanning thousands of years.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Stuart Turton - 2018
again.It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot. The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath...
The Emperor of Any Place
Tim Wynne-Jones - 2015
The book is the diary of a Japanese soldier stranded on a small Pacific island in WWII. Why was his father reading it? What is in this account that Evan's grandfather, whom Evan has never met before, fears so much that he will do anything to prevent its being seen? And what could this possibly mean for Evan? In a pulse-quickening mystery evoking the elusiveness of truth and the endurance of wars passed from father to son, this engrossing novel is a suspenseful, at times terrifying read from award-winning author Tim Wynne-Jones.
Hammers on Bone
Cassandra Khaw - 2016
He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable. He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Other Normals
Ned Vizzini - 2012
The world of C&C is where he feels most comfortable in his own skin. But that isn't happening--not if his parents have anything to do with it. Concerned their son lacks social skills, they ship him off to summer camp to become a man. They want him to be outdoors playing with kids his own age and meeting girls--rather than indoors alone, with only his gaming alter ego for company. Perry knows he's in for the worst summer of his life.Everything changes, however, when Perry gets to camp and stumbles into the World of the Other Normals. There he meets Mortin Enaw, one of the creators of C&C, and other mythical creatures from the game, including the alluring Ada Ember, whom Perry finds more beautiful than any human girl he's ever met. Perry's new otherworldly friends need his help to save their princess and prevent mass violence. As they embark on their quest, Perry realizes that his nerdy childhood has uniquely prepared him to be a great warrior in this world, and maybe even a hero. But to save the princess, Perry will have to learn how to make real connections in the human world as well.Bestselling author Ned Vizzini delivers a compulsively readable and wildly original story about the winding and often hilarious path to manhood.
When the Lights Go Out
Tanith Lee - 1994
When Hesta discovers that her mother and her mother's lover have had rampant sex in Hesta's bed, she absconds with her friend Janey to the seaside.It is the last day of the season, sun bright and sea sparkling. The bars and shops are open, the funfair spins round with shrieks and shouts. As night falls, the illuminations go on. But when Janey catches the last train to London, Hesta stays behind. She falls in with the gothic-looking, unpleasantly attractive Skilt and his subject colony of junkies and beggars. In a rotting hotel on the front, among the broken marble balustrades, the mouse-eaten rooms and the bonfire in the ballroom, Hesta takes up her new life. She hears drugged legends told beside the fire, the rumours of ghosts and the strangeness of the sea.For now the season has ended, the seaside is deserted, the illuminations are switched off, this place is very strange. Does Skilt know its secret? Should Hesta be wary of the blond man who watches her from the pier? And what happens when the lights go out?It's dark.