Book picks similar to
Blood Paternal by Janet Joyce Holden
vampires
must-have
novels
contemporary
Second String Savior: From the Tome of Bill Universe
Rick Gualtieri - 2019
Imagine going to bed with mousy brown locks and waking up with a headful of supernova scarlet. It’s a hot new look for me – literally, because it bursts into flames whenever I’m threatened.My magical makeover is all Gary’s fault. I knew there was something off from the moment he transferred to my school. Go figure. He’s a wizard with a trust fund and an inferiority complex.Now, thanks to him, I’ve graduated from high school bullies to supernatural terrors and that’s not all. Fate has chosen me to face the legendary vampire destined to destroy the world.If I want to survive, I’ll have to dig deep and discover whether I’m truly worthy of this new power. Because if not, everything I hold dear will soon burn even hotter than my hair.----------From Rick Gualtieri – author of Bill The Vampire – and R.E. Carr – creator of the Rules Undying series – comes a new kick-ass heroine for the twenty-first century.Scroll up and click BUY NOW to dive into this snarky new fantasy adventure today.
Fiendish
Brenna Yovanoff - 2014
Now she’s out and determined to uncover who put her in that cellar and why. When Clementine was a child, dangerous and inexplicable things started happening in New South Bend. The townsfolk blamed the fiendish people out in the Willows and burned their homes to the ground. But magic kept Clementine alive, walled up in the cellar for ten years, until a boy named Fisher sets her free. Back in the world, Clementine sets out to discover what happened all those years ago. But the truth gets muddled in her dangerous attraction to Fisher, the politics of New South Bend, and the Hollow, a fickle and terrifying place that seems increasingly temperamental ever since Clementine reemerged.
The Radleys
Matt Haig - 2010
Except, as Peter and Helen Radley know but their children have yet to find out, the Radleys happen to be a family of abstaining vampires. When one night Clara finds herself driven to commit a bloodthirsty act, her parents decide to explain a few things.
Died on a Rainy Sunday
Joan Aiken - 1972
& Mrs. McGregor, a couple who come to help while Jane takes a temporary job in London. And there are, of course, the children -- Jane's two and the McGregor child -- around whom explosive jealousy and hate swiftly begin to condense. During the long, wet summer, the failing architect and his career wife, the television personality, Jane's girlfriend and the baleful McGregors slowly build their relationship into... murder.
Ghost Wall
Sarah Moss - 2018
They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie's father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the "primitive minds" of our ancestors.
Porky
Deborah Moggach - 1983
But she felt no different – not until she realised she was losing her innocence in a way that none of her friends could possibly imagine. Only a child robbed of her childhood can know too late what it means to be loved too little and loved too much…
The Withering
Joshua Jacobs - 2015
Unlike the millions before her, she survives. Afraid she is a carrier of the disease, Alice abandons her family and disappears into what remains of the world. Bodies litter the streets. Cities lie in waste. The government ceases to exist. What the Withering doesn't destroy, the Clan kills, cleansing the world of those they hold responsible. Those like Alice.Then one night Alice meets Brandon. He brings word of a rural town untouched by the sickness. He promises a future. He reminds her of what it means to feel... of what it means to love.Yet the Clan is watching. They're always watching.
A Prayer for the Dying
Stewart O'Nan - 1999
Torn between his loyalty to his family, his faith in God, and his terror of this vicious disease, Jacob Hansen struggles to preserve his sanity amid the chaos and violence around him.
The Taker
Alma Katsu - 2011
. . but immortality comes at a price. . . .
On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural St. Andrew, Maine, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting a quiet evening--until a mysterious woman, Lanore McIlvrae, arrives in his ER, escorted by police. Lanore is a murder suspect, and Luke is inexplicably drawn to her. As Lanny tells him her story, an impassioned account of love and betrayal that transcends time and mortality, she changes his life forever. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Lanny was consumed as a child by her love for the son of St. Andrew’s founder, and she will do anything to be with him forever, but the price she pays is steep--an immortal bond that chains her to a terrible fate.
The Vampyre
John William Polidori - 1819
A young English gentleman of means, Aubrey is immediately intrigued by Lord Ruthven, the mysterious newcomer among society’s elite. His unknown origin and curious behavior tantalizes Aubrey’s imagination. But the young man soon discovers a sinister character hidden behind his new friend’s glamorous facade. When the two are set upon by bandits while traveling together in Europe, Ruthven is fatally injured. Before drawing his last breath, he makes the odd request that Aubrey keep his death and crimes secret for a year and a day. But when Ruthven resurfaces in London—making overtures toward Aubrey’s sister—Aubrey realizes this immortal fiend is a vampyre. John William Polidori’s The Vampyre is both a classic tale of gothic horror and the progenitor of the modern romantic vampire myth that has been fodder for artists ranging from Anne Rice to Alan Ball to Francis Ford Coppola. Originally published in 1819, many decades before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and misattributed to Polidori’s friend Lord Byron, The Vampyre has kept readers up at night for nearly two hundred years.
Dead Man
Domino Finn - 2015
Sounds kinda cool, doesn't it? It was, right until I woke up half dead in a dumpster.Did I say half dead? Because I meant 100% dead. Full on. I don't do things halfway.So here I am, alive for some reason, just another sunny day in Miami. It's a perfect paradise, except I'm into something bad. Wanted by police, drenched in the stink of dark magic, nether creatures coming out of the woodwork, and don't get me started on the Haitian voodoo gang. Trust me, it's all fun and games until there's a zombie pit bull on your tail.I'm Cisco Suarez: necromancer, shadow charmer, black magic outlaw, and totally screwed.
Child of God
Cormac McCarthy - 1973
In this taut, chilling novel, Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail. While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.
Accidental Witch
Lydia Sherrer - 2017
But when someone you love dies, logic and reason die with them." Sebastian Blackwell is your typical high school popular kid: attractive, charming, and a little rebellious. At least he used to be. But when his parents are killed in a freak accident, he goes from cool kid to orphan outcast before the dirt even settles over their graves. Now a shell of his former self, Sebastian realizes what really matters in life and is determined to get it back, no matter the cost. To do it, he'll have to delve into his family's darkest secrets, secrets his parents tried to protect him from his whole life. With a ghost as his only friend, a goth girl his only ally, and a demon prince his only chance, Sebastian sets out on a desperate path of redemption that seems more likely to damn him than to save him. For all power has a price, and Sebastian must decide what he is willing to pay to defy death itself. For fans of paranormal series like Supernatural and Odd Thomas, this tale of loss and the struggle for redemption will keep you on the edge of your seat. Grab it today and discover what you would give to save those you love most. (Suggested age range 15+ for mild language and violence. The Dark Roads Trilogy is a spinoff series of Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus - The Lily Singer Adventures. Either series can be read first.)