Book picks similar to
Scapegoat by Adam Howe
horror
dark-fiction
humor
fiction
When Darkness Loves Us
Elizabeth Engstrom - 1985
When a careless exploration leaves her trapped underground, she learns to live again in the absence of everything she once knew. Even driven by love and light, Sally Ann finds the deepest darkness within herself in When Darkness Loves Us.Beauty Is... - Old Martha Mannes has been a part of Morgan, Illinois since her birth. The whole town knows her as the dim-witted woman who was born without a nose, but Martha's mind wasn't always a blank slate. Unlocking the monster buried deep in her memories may bring back the sparkling child she once was... or it may send those around her crashing down into the nightmares of a little girl gone wrong.
Revelator
Daryl Gregory - 2021
These remote hills of the Smoky Mountains are home to dangerous secrets, and soon after she arrives, Stella wanders into a dark cavern where she encounters the family's personal god, an entity known as the Ghostdaddy.Years later, after a tragic incident that caused her to flee, Stella--now a professional bootlegger--returns for Motty's funeral, and to check on the mysterious ten-year-old girl named Sunny that Motty adopted. Sunny appears innocent enough, but she is more powerful than Stella could imagine--and she's a direct link to Stella's buried past and her family's destructive faith.Haunting and wholly engrossing, summoning mesmerizing voices and giving shape to the dark, Revelator is a southern gothic tale for the ages.
How to Survive a Horror Movie
Seth Grahame-Smith - 2007
Be Very Afraid.From ghosts, vampires, and zombies to serial killers, cannibalistic hillbillies, and haunted Japanese videocassettes, How to Survive a Horror Movie shows how to defeat every obstacle found in scary films. Readers will discover:- How to Perform an Exorcism - What to Do If You Did Something Last Summer - How to Persuade the Skeptical Local Sheriff - How to Vanquish a Murderous Doll - How to Survive an Alien Invasion - How to Tell If You've Been Dead Since the Beginning of the Movieand much, much more. Complete with useful instructions, insane illustrations, and a list of 100 important films to study, How to Survive a Horror Movie is essential reading for prom queens, jocks, teenage babysitters, and anyone employed by a summer camp.
A Touch of Jen
Beth Morgan - 2021
In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and New Age mantra they know by heart.Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beach-side paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, Remy and Alicia tumble into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.
The Rising
Brian Keene - 2003
The dead are returning to life, intelligent, determined…and very hungry. Escape seems impossible for Jim Thurmond, one of the few left alive in this nightmare world. But Jim’s young son is also alive and in grave danger hundreds of miles away. Despite astronomical odds, Jim vows to find him—or die trying.Joined by an elderly preacher, a guilt-ridden scientist and an ex-prostitute, Jim sets out on a cross-country rescue mission. Together they must battle both the living and the living dead…and the even greater evil that awaits them at the end of their journey.
Cannibal Creek
Jon Athan - 2017
After ditching the hitchhiker, the families set up camp and begin their vacation. However, they soon find themselves stalked by a group of feral, cannibalistic people lurking in the woods... The author of Butcher Road and Camp Blaze invites you to experience another brutal slasher inspired by classic horror movies. Can you handle a visit to Cannibal Creek? WARNING: This book contains scenes of graphic violence, including some sexualized violence. This book is not intended for those easily offended or appalled. Please enjoy at your own discretion.
Books of Blood, Volume One
Clive Barker - 1984
Weaving tales of the everyday world transformed into an unrecognizable place, where reason no longer exists and logic ceases to explain the workings of the universe, Clive Barker provides the stuff of nightmares in packages too tantalizing to resist.Never one to shy away from the unimaginable or the unspeakable, Clive Barker breathes life into our deepest, darkest nightmares, creating visions that are at once terrifying, tender, and witty.The Books of Blood confirm what horror fans everywhere have known for a long time: We will be hearing from Clive Barker for many years to come. This first volume contains the short stories : "The Book of Blood," "The Midnight Meat Train," "The Yattering and Jack," "Sex, Death, and Starshine," and "In the Hills, the Cities."
Into the Dread Void: A Cosmic Horror Thriller (The Dread Void Book 1)
Abe Moss - 2021
The promise of a new start. A new life. A better life.But nothing will prepare Nell for the nightmare that awaits them there, or the many haunting revelations following fast on its heels. Everything Nell thinks she knows—about our world, our reality, and herself—is wrong, and one night of unspeakable terror will prove it.In the dead of night, a killer carves a trail of bloodshed across the quiet mountain landscape. Merciless. Unstoppable. Supernatural. Every victim is left in a similar state: on their knees, their flesh in tatters, with expressions of rapture upon their dying faces. Whatever is doing this, it's clearly not of this world, and only something—or someone—equally otherworldly can possibly stop it.Whatever—or whomever—that may be, they’d better hurry.Because Nell is running out of time.
The Girl Who Hid in the Trees
Steve Stred - 2019
He left with his friends to ‘debunk’ the urban legend and never came back.Now Jason and his group of friends are fed up and want to discover what is happening, what is the real cause of the terror holding their small town hostage.But something is waiting for them. She may look sweet and innocent, but the friends are about to find out that pure evil can exist in the smallest of packages.She's out there. And while you may not know her name or what she looks like, the local kids will tell you if you ask, that you should fear for your life from the girl who hid in the trees.From the dark mind of Steve Stred, the author of Wagon Buddy, YURI and Invisible comes this fast-paced, seat of your pants coming-of-age tale. A quick, violent, bleak read,The Girl Who Hid in the Trees will make you think twice about those sounds you hear far off in the woods.
The Bones of Others
Vickie McKeehan - 2013
Not this one.Brutalized as a young girl by a vile sexual predator, Skye Cree is a survivor. Guided by the visions of her mystical spirit guide to the whereabouts of abducted girls, she uses her unique abilities to turn her horrifying past into a positive force for justice. Fighting the demons that have haunted her for years, she trusts only in herself—until she falls hard for a man for the first time in her life. Now, discovering her abductor is back with a vengeance, she becomes locked in a deadly race against time to stop the horrors of an evil human-trafficking ring that threatens to tear her world, and her newfound love apart.
The Bird Eater
Ania Ahlborn - 2014
He abandoned his rural Arkansas hometown vowing never to return, until his seven-year-old son died in an accident, plunging Aaron into a nightmare of addiction and grief. Desperate to reclaim a piece of himself, he returns to the hills of his childhood, to Holbrook House, where he hopes to find peace among the memories of his youth. But solace doesn’t come easy. Someone—or something—has other plans. Like Aaron, Holbrook House is but a shell of what it once was, a target for vandals and ghost hunters who have nicknamed it “the devil’s den.” Aaron doesn’t believe in the paranormal—at least, not until a strange boy begins following him wherever he goes. Plagued by violent dreams and disturbing visions, Aaron begins to wonder if he’s losing his mind. But a festering darkness lurks at the heart of Holbrook House… a darkness that grins from within the shadows, delighting in Aaron’s sorrow, biding its time.
The Devil and the Deep
Ellen DatlowAlyssa Wong - 2018
Whether its tales of murderous pirates who stalk the waters in search of treasure and blood, creatures that haunt the depths below―ones we’ve only seen in our nightmares, or storms that can swallow you whole, the open water can be a dangerous and terrifying place.With new stories from New York Times-bestsellers and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Christopher Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, and more, Devil and the Deep guarantees you’ll think twice before going back into the water.
Daughter of Hounds
Caitlín R. Kiernan - 2007
Stolen from their cribs and concealed in shadows to be raised by ghouls, they are now changelings in service to the creatures who rule the world Below and despise the world Above. Any human contact is strictly forbidden and punishment is swift and severe for those who disobey. Raised by her widower father, Emmie Silvey has a precocious personality and striking yellow eyes that have left her a solitary child. But that changes when two women enter her life-one who stalks her, one who haunts her dreams- both insisting that her entire life is a lie and warning her of an encroaching darkness.
The House on Abigail Lane
Kealan Patrick Burke - 2020
The animals gathering in the yard as if summoned. The people who speak in reverse. The lights and sounds. The music. The grass dying overnight...and the ten-foot clown on the second floor.And as long as there are mysteries, people will be compelled to solve them.Here, then, is the most comprehensive account of the Abigail House phenomenon, the result of sixty years of eyewitness accounts, news reports, scientific research, and parapsychological investigations, all in an attempt to decode the enduring mystery that is......THE HOUSE ON ABIGAIL LANE.
The Fisherman
John Langan - 2016
Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.