Book picks similar to
The Woodwitch by Stephen Gregory


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The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires


Grady Hendrix - 2020
    The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.

Alex


Adam J. Nicolai - 2011
    A bereaved father. Alone with his loss, Ian Colmes has driven away everyone he loves. But when he begins to see his dead son again, is it because the boy is reaching out from beyond? Or has Ian's anguish finally given way to dementia?With a masterful hand, suspense newcomer Adam J Nicolai paints a picture of grief, madness, and the furious strength of a father's love for his son.

Pine


Francine Toon - 2020
    The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men. Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she's gone. In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren's mother a decade ago. Lauren looks for answers in her tarot cards, hoping she might one day be able to read her father's turbulent mind. Neighbours know more than they let on, but when local teenager Ann-Marie goes missing it's no longer clear who she can trust. In spare, haunting prose, Francine Toon creates an unshakeable atmosphere of desolation and dread. In a place that feels like the end of the world, she unites the gloom of the modern gothic with the pulse of a thriller. It is the perfect novel for our haunted times.

First Blood


David Morrell - 1972
    Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of First Blood to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with—or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky. Millions saw the Rambo movies, but those who haven't read the book that started it all are in for a surprise—a critically acclaimed story of character, action, and compassion.

The Bone Keeper


Luca Veste - 2018
    Your bones he'll keep. Twenty years ago, four teenagers went exploring in the local woods, trying to find to the supposed home of The Bone Keeper. Only three returned. Now, a woman is found wandering the streets of Liverpool, horrifically injured, claiming to have fled the Bone Keeper. Investigating officer DC Louise Henderson must convince skeptical colleagues that this urban myth might be flesh and blood. But when a body is unearthed in the woodland the woman has fled from, the case takes on a much darker tone. The disappeared have been found. And their killer is watching every move the police make.The brilliant new police procedural from Luca Veste, featuring series characters Murphy and Rossi - a guaranteed page-turner.

Red Hill


Jamie McGuire - 2013
    Nathan has a wife, but can’t remember what it’s like to be in love; only his young daughter Zoe makes coming home worthwhile. Miranda’s biggest concern is whether her new VW Bug is big enough to carry her sister and their boyfriends on a weekend escape from college finals.When reports of a widespread, deadly “outbreak” begin to surface, these ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances and suddenly their fates are intertwined. Recognizing they can’t outrun the danger, Scarlet, Nathan, and Miranda desperately seek shelter at the same secluded ranch, Red Hill. Emotions run high while old and new relationships are tested in the face of a terrifying enemy—an enemy who no longer remembers what it’s like to be human.Set against the backdrop of a brilliantly realized apocalyptic world, love somehow finds a way to survive. But what happens when the one you’d die for becomes the one who could destroy you?Red Hill grabs you from page one and doesn’t let go until its stunning conclusion. This is #1 New York Times bestselling author Jamie McGuire at her unforgettable best.

The Wasp Factory


Iain Banks - 1984
    Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return - an event that explodes the mysteries of the past and changes Frank utterly.The Wasp Factory is a work of horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all. A novel of extraordinary originality, imagination and comic ferocity.

Elizabeth


Jessica Hamilton - 1976
    Her family wouldn't have believed it even if she had told them - which she had no intention of doing. Elizabeth had far different plans for them - and only God could help them. He didn't - and Elizabeth set out to prove how hellishly far she could go...

The Room


Hubert Selby Jr. - 1971
    Selby's second novel is a claustrophobic descent into the tormented soul of a man trapped in a loveless society.

Zombie


Joyce Carol Oates - 1995
    The author deftly puts you inside the mind of a serial killer--succeeding not in writing about madness, but in writing with the logic of madness.

The Girl in 6E


A.R. Torre - 2013
    That seems like it would be a difficult task, but it's not. Not anymore, thanks to the internet.I am, quite possibly, the most popular recluse ever. Not many shut-ins have a 200-member fan club, a bank account in the seven-figure range, and hundreds of men lining up to pay for undivided attention.They get satisfaction, I get a distraction. Their secret desires are nothing compared to why I hide... my lust for blood, my love of death.Taking their money is easy. Keeping all these secrets... one is bound to escape.What if you hid yourself away because all you could think of was killing? And what if one girl's life was depending on you venturing into society?Enter a world of lies, thrills, fears, and all desires, in this original thriller from A. R. Torre.

Prime Evil: New Stories by the Masters of Modern Horror


Douglas E. WinterClive Barker - 1988
    Prime Evil: New Stories by the Masters of Modern Horror

Dark Time


Dakota Banks - 2009
    Now she wants it back.For centuries, the woman calling herself Maliha Crayne has lived a second life - as an assassin for the malevolent creature who owns her soul. A haunted killer with the blood of countless victims on her hands, she has finally discovered a way to nullify the demonic pact that chains her: If she saves a life for every one she has taken, she will be free.But if she fails, her punishments will be unspeakable, unendurable . . . and neverending.

October Skies


Alex Scarrow - 2008
    He's discovered what's left of the Preston Group, a convoy of settlers that vanished in the winter of 1856. It's clear that something horrific happened here all those years ago, but Cooke can only find a few tantalising clues. 1856: as early snows descend, the eclectic group of settlers that form the Preston wagon train are forced to dig in. Miles from any kind of civilisation, they see the group of Native Americans also trapped nearby as their greatest threat. But they soon realise what true danger is. When a woman is found murdered, appallingly mutilated, one of the Indian party struggles wounded back to camp, whispering of unspeakable evil as he dies. United by fear, the settlers and the Indians must protect themselves against whatever is lurking in the woods. But as suspicion and panic grow, perhaps their own terror will be just as dangerous. Or maybe, whatever's out there is worse than anything they can imagine. Back in the present day, as Cooke unravels the mystery, he must question if the horror he is uncovering was in fact only the start of something much worse... A gruesome thriller of suspense and a chilling look at the breeding grounds of evil, Alex Scarrow's new novel will fascainte and terrify you in equal measure.

The Woman in the Dark


Vanessa Savage - 2019
    But after her mother's death, Sarah spirals into depression and overdoses on sleeping pills. While Sarah claims it was an accident, her teenage children aren't so sure. Patrick decides they all need a fresh start and he knows just the place, since the idyllic family home where he was raised has recently come up for sale. There's only one catch: for the past fifteen years, it has become infamous as the "Murder House", standing empty after a family was stabbed to death within its walls.Patrick believes they can bring the house back to its former glory, so Sarah, uprooted from everything she knows, pours her energy into painting, gardening, and giving the rotting old structure the warmth of home. But with locals hinting that the house is haunted, the news that the murderer has been paroled, strange writing on the walls, and creepy "gifts" arriving on the doorstep at odd hours, Sarah can't shake the feeling that something just isn't right. Not with the house, not with the town, or even with her own, loving husband--whose stories about his perfect childhood suddenly aren't adding up. Can Sarah uncover the secrets of the Murder House before another family is destroyed?